Not Burying the Headline

Let's start with first things first: I started putting flooring down this week:

This is the first flooring we've put down in this house. I am so excited about it.

Part of why I could get to it is because Troy finished the subfloor:

I didn't know he had more plywood in the shop. Much like the person who hides a puzzle piece and gleeful puts in the last piece, Troy filled in the last two gaps in our subfloor. Not that I minded.

He also framed the linen closet:

Can you make that out? Here it is from the back:

Easier to see?

Deciding there was nothing in the way of doing the flooring in the bathroom, I cleared the room and vacuumed on Friday night:

Saturday I rewatched the youtube video about putting down flooring and got to it:

As I told Troy before he left for the day--anything I did wrong couldn't take more than a week to undo!

Floors and Doors

Work continues...

After ripping out the rows of shims that were wrong, I did manage to finish all the shims in the hallway. Then I threw down some plywood:

Last Saturday, the plan was to finish the rest of the subfloor, which included the "seasonal" closet and the small section in front of the linen closet. (Both on the right in the picture above.)

Part of the reason that hadn't been done already is that the drywall for the bathroom was in the closet and I couldn't move it on my own. (I could barely get it from the trailer to upstairs with Troy pulling more than half the weight.) Or could I?

It turns out, when I need to, I can move around a full sheet of 5/8" drywall. Troy and I had planned to do it together, of course, but with me being sick and then Troy not feeling well, we didn't get it done. But I was determined now was the time because that floor was getting done!

So I got them into the bedroom, moving the last sheet of plywood and putting the drywall where it was. (The organization needed for a small work space!) The last sheet of drywall, of course, got cut up to go on the floor.

Most of the time was spent measuring and cutting the larger piece (lighter in the picture because its upside down) to fit around door posts and other irregularities. I was happy to have a scrap long enough and wide enough to install beside it (to the left) and managed to make them line up groove to tongue.

But then none of my scraps were big enough for the section in front of the linen closet or the last strip that was left at the far end of the seasonal closet. :(

Then I also started having trouble with the drill bits. Apparently I was replacing the worn/broken ones from the "cheap" supply and that's why. But I didn't know that until Troy go home. So I put in enough screws to hold everything in place and quit that for the day.

Let me tell, it is so nice to walk on a sturdy, solid, flat floor!! Even though it will take a while for my feet to learn the new floor. Meanwhile, it is still surprising my feet, which are walking the pattern of the old floor's ups and downs!

I still had time in my day, so I also cut off the bottom of the bedroom door so it would clear the new floor height and rehung it.

It's solid wood so cutting of the bottom didn't affect anything except the length. Even though we're the only ones in the house, it still feels better to have a door on the bedroom. :)

If I am remembering correctly, Troy finished the wiring of the vanity wall (lights, outlets, switches) and added an outlet to the closet side on that same wall. His new drill was a dream to work with.

He also figured a path for the antenna cable to get from the attic to the TV in the living room. It turned out to be simpler than he thought, which is nice for a change!

I have the bathroom area cleared of everything so I hope this week really is the week I start putting down flooring. Wish me luck!

Building Walls

We have continued our work and shopping sprees. We made a decision on the flooring - bamboo with a light finish. They didn't have enough in stock so it is on order.

The next week we went in to look at counter tops and ended up ordering one. It came with only one option of sink so there was no decision to be made there. (Very disappointingly, it did not have the option of a square sink, which I adore.)

But miraculously, we did manage to choose lights for above the vanity mirrors. That went a lot easier than I thought it was going to. (And can I say, there are some crazy lights available right now. Like I think they might be too shiny and tacky for a night club. Seriously.)

The counter had to be ordered and they didn't have two lights in stock so we had to order the second one. Those items are scheduled to be in tomorrow. The flooring isn't estimated to be done until the end of the month.

Meanwhile Troy picked up the vanity, linen closet and mirrors and we wrestled them into the house. we unpacked them right away to check for damage and found this:

The front top corner had quite a ding on it. It is going to be under the counter top but it's the corner that you see right when you walk into the room. :(

We decided it wasn't worth packing up the vanity and trying to bring it back so the following day when we were in the store, we showed the pictures to the customer service people and asked if they could give a credit for the damage. They did and we were happy! And of course we turned around and spent it at the store right away!

Troy has been adding the walls which will define the bathroom space. First the third side of the tub/shower:

The green drywall is treated to prevent mildew from developing.

Troy has an additional trick of coating the dry wall with varnish. That will keep the moisture out!

And just this week, he added the main wall dividing the bathroom from the closet. This is the view from the closet side:

and here is a view from the bathroom side:

That is the wall where the plumbing for the sinks will go as the vanity will be up against it.

The big hole in the middle that looks like it's going to be a pass-through window is not. That is the space for the medicine cabinets. Troy will be building the boxes in the wall and then hinging the mirrors on the front.

Meanwhile, I have kept busy in the bedroom. I finished the ribs to level the floor (yay!) and have put in piece 3 and 4 of the subfloor.

I couldn't get piece 5 (on the left) to go in so Troy worked on it and it is now ready to be screwed down. The rest of the pieces will have to be cut to fit so they will take a little more care. Nothing complicated though.

Now that the bedroom is empty I have had a chance to get a better look at the drywall. Sadly, it doesn't look like much of the sanding has been done at all--certainly a lot less than I had thought. I am not looking forward to that.

Shopping and Subfloors

I'm on a roll now...posting two weeks in a row!

Let's see what 16 hours can get us. Well, really 15 because I have an hour still to do for this week. Don't look at me like that--I still have time!

First, we did a lot of shopping last week. I told you we were going to look for a faucet for the shower and tub and we found one. No, it didn't knock my socks off but good enough is good enough.

Delta-Dawson model

I did get the "waterfall" tub faucet which I like and didn't think we would ever get. (Don't ask me why. I think I just assumed Troy wouldn't like it or there would be some plumbing reason it wouldn't be as good.) Anyway, one decision down.

Since we were there we thought we should look at the matching sink faucets. They had a couple styles in the same series which we didn't like, but we found another one from the same company. We bought three--two for the master bath which will have a double vanity and one for the bathroom downstairs where the sink faucet's drip had become a solid stream of water.

Delta Porter model

One handle control was a must for me and I think the styles are simple enough that there aren't a lot of ridges or valleys to make it hard to clean. #fingerscrossed

While Troy was picking out plumbing parts to fix the downstairs sink (he knew it was bad enough that the shut off valve was going to break when he started working on it...and it did!), I wandered over to vanities and sinks to amuse myself.

When Troy joined me, I had this one to show him:

Avanity Brentwood collection

We both liked it a lot but we didn't want something with legs (and yes, we did talk about ways we could alter that) and it wasn't in the store to see and touch. That was a big drawback.

Long story short, we ordered this one:

Magick Woods Wallace collection

(We still have to pick out a countertop and sinks.)

We both really liked this linen cabinet:

Magick Woods Bellemont collection

and bought it. It had a very nice matching vanity with the same rounded front but it didn't come in the larger sizes. I know the finish colours of the two pieces don't look like they match in the pictures, but they were right beside each other in the store and Troy and I both thought they looked good together.

Fortunately I liked the mirrors that matched the linen closet:

because I really did not like the ones that matched the vanity.

So that was a bit more than we went in for but what a relief to have those decisions made. (Tomorrow we're going to look at flooring options. Who knows how much stuff we'll end up buying!)

Meanwhile in the rest of the week, Troy installed the first of the plumbing to the tub (the drain and overflow pipe), framed the wall that needs to be installed at the end of the tub and started to plan for how he was going to frame the linen closet.

I continued on the ribs for leveling the floor.

We are making our way to the other side of the room, slowly hemming in the tools and whatnots. Between doing the floor and Troy framing walls inside the bathroom,

it feels like we do a lot of shuffling stuff around!

Today I had the satisfaction of installing the second piece of subfloor in the bedroom.

It is cut, fitted and all screwed down. It is a marvel how much nicer it is to walk on! Level, flat, and solid.

8 hours. For What?

Oh tell me what I got?

If you're a child of the 80s, you now have a song running through your head. #sorrynotsorry

What does this have to do with our house? Having noticed that we didn't made any progress on the house in the last year, we determined to make lots of progress now. One thing we are doing is making sure we each work 8 hours on the house each week.

What has been done recently?

Troy is working on putting in the tub. Here he is dry fitting the parts.

Tomorrow we are shopping for faucets. I have tried to find one I like and have not been able to. This week I found one online that I liked well enough but it is a little pricey and has to use an expensive valve that doesn't come in an option for PVC pipe. We'll see what we find tomorrow. If I still don't like anything, then I will apply my theory that if we're doing all the work ourselves, we can afford to spend more on materials if that's what it takes or what we like.

Troy has gotten the bedroom set up for leveling the floor and I have been working on installing the ribs.

This afternoon I finished all the ones needed for the first course of plywood and I couldn't resist throwing down the first piece of subflooring. It's not fastened yet (or even cut to shape) but it made me feel like progress was being made and it's so much nicer to walk on than those ribs.

Troy has also hooked up power to all the lights and installed temperary fixtures so we can now see what we're doing in the evenings. That will help keep progress moving too. :)

I added an outlet in the seasonal closet (you can actually see it in the bottom left of the picture above). It was missed in the original plan. Fortunately the walls were open long enough that I realized the oversight. (Silver linings.)

While the bathroom needs a lot of work (all new plumbing, a couple more walls built, etc), it struck me how little there is to finishing the bedroom--finish subfloor, put up a few more bits of drywall and finish mudding/sanding, paint, put in flooring. We could then trim the windows, but that's about it, right? It's amazing to think that I could do all of that while Troy is plumbing and building the bathroom.

Writing blog posts doesn't count for my 8 hours :( but I'll try to keep you updated on how things are going now that I have things to write about.

Is Remodeling Your House the Key to Not Developing Alzheimer's?

So now that we have cleared the kitchen floor, it's time to build on top of it again. When he's not melting lead, Isaac has been learning how to make sure your floor is level.

The first thing to do is to tie a piece of string tight across the floor at one side, making it the height you want the subfloor to sit on. In our case, this is the same height as the floor joists Troy put in on the newly poured concrete on the west side.

Here is the string on the south end of the kitchen:

Barely above the floorboards.

Here it is on the north end:

About 1.5" above the floor. This is right in front of the bathroom door. I only had to trip on it twice before it was mapped in my brain and I started automatically stepping over it. It's occurred to me that having your house in constantly new arrangements of disarray is very good for your brain. You're repeatedly being presented with new challenges and having to relearn things you thought you knew. I think this is even better than crossword puzzles (or dare I say, even knitting?!) for staving off Alzheimer's. Troy and I should do well in old age...

Anyway, back to the kitchen. After you have the master string in place, you put up new pieces of string perpendicular to the first over each floor joist in turn and fill in the gap with an appropriately sized shim.

Make sure you have a lot of shims in various heights.

Isaac made many shims from 1/16" to 1-1/4" by 1/16" increments.

They are then glued into place on top of the floor joists (which are under the floor boards, of course).

When the subfloor goes in, it will sit on the shims, still be supported by the floor joists, but be level.

Isaac has been getting quite a number of them done during the days and Troy does one or two in the evening.

It will be so exciting to have the subfloor down and have one continuous floor surface. It almost boggles my mind that that may happen soon. Small steps and milestones...I relish them all!