The Hump of All Hump Days

Our demo was completed last weekend, and the shower is currently sitting on our back lawn in 3 jagged fiberglass pieces. We also removed that patch in the floor, so there is a 4′ wide hole in the bathroom floor – large enough, in fact, that our whole shop vac actually fell into it when dragged across the room by an unobservant user (me) and nearly damaged our dining room ceiling, which is what is at the bottom of the hole. But it didn’t, so crisis averted.

I promise I will add pictures of our demolition, but right now it’s my time to vent about the stress of renovations. This whole day has been one bad piece of news after another, and I’m about ready for a drink. I assure you this will be entirely uninteresting to everyone reading, but I have to vent for a bit.

First, I called Lowe’s this morning to find out why the heck they haven’t called to say our shower pans are in. Directly on my online receipt, it says both colors of the shower pans we ordered (since we aren’t sure what would match our tub) would be in by 5/29. Two days ago. The lady at the store said the order now says arriving 6/21. 6/21!!!!! Nearly a month after the promised delivery date! We ordered the shower door in the same order, and when we ordered that item it did say 6/21 for the door, which is fine because it won’t be needed until much further into our renovation. But the pans? We need them NOW. The pan is what will start everything – it will go in first, followed by cement board around the shower. Then we can start tiling the floor – which we can’t do until we know where the shower will sit on the floor. And we can’t put in the vanity until the tile floor is done. Turns out the way we have planned this, the pan is the crux of this renovation.

So, I talked to the Lowe’s manager to find out what was going on, to see if maybe they were just trying to lump the order together and deliver the pans with the door at that later date, but he said that’s not the case. Apparently the manufacturer has the pans on back order. Upon looking into it further, he said the pans should be into the manufacturer on 6/6, then they won’t ship out until 6/9, with an estimated actual delivery date of 6/14. So not as bad as the original 6/21 estimation, but still 3 weeks later than promised. He said when they ‘promise’ a date, that date doesn’t take into account for the possibility of being back ordered. It’s not his fault, but I told him I was annoyed that no one called to tell me this after the order was placed. Lowe’s says it isn’t their policy to follow up on an order until the customer calls to ask about it. Really great customer service (I hope my sarcasm is palpable).

This will really hold us up, but we’ll have to deal with it. So then I started looking into the Schluter DITRA floor substrate I purchased, since we may just start on the floor tile and start from the other side of the room and leave a row out as we approach where the shower pan will go. The DITRA is a lightweight product that can be used in place of cement board, and we were planning to use it under our floor tile. When we pulled up the floor patch, we found out we have 24″ joist spacing and one layer of 3/4″ plywood subfloor. Apparently you can’t use regular DITRA on this – you can if it is only 16″ joist spacing, or if it is 24″ spacing you have to add an additional layer of subfloor (aka the underlayment under the linoleum I just spent an ENTIRE day ripping out and pulling nails out of). You can use a product called DITRA-XL in the subfloor situation we have, but it’s $300 a roll, it wouldn’t be here for a couple weeks because no one local carries it, and it’s much thicker for added stability, so our tile would be towering over the carpet height in the bedroom, which is not ideal.

I even emailed Schluter to ask what the worst case scenerio would be if I just used the regular DITRA with our single layer subfloor and 24″ joist spacing, and she highly recommended against that, unless we add back 3/8″ underlayment. We could do this…but it would be a pain, and most likely not very level since we are not experienced with installing underlayment. Also, in case I haven’t ranted about Lowe’s enough yet, NOWHERE on their product information for the DITRA does it mention joist spacing and how critical it is for this product. I had to download the DITRA installation pamphlet and read it, and that’s when I discovered the conundrum we are in. I’m lucky I can return the rolls I bought to the store.

So what to do? Well, we may just go with the heavy cement board like what we did in the downstairs bathroom and forgo the DITRA. The tile seems to be holding up well down there, and I believe we can use the 1/4″ thick cement board which is thinner and lighter than the 3/8″ thick cement board we used downstairs (we used the thicker board downstairs on purpose to increase the tile height to more closely match the thicker engineered wood floors we installed). The thought of returning to the store and lugging 6 more pieces of cement board upstairs that then needs to be cut to size and installed is not particularly appealing. But, we want to do things right and if the DITRA isn’t right, we have to find something that will work and last.

We did end up buying the pre-fab vanity I wrote about in the last post, since the Cary Lowe’s had several actually in stock so I got to compare a few and pick one out that looked decent. I looked it over pretty thoroughly in the store before purchasing, but haven’t removed the full packaging yet. I’m thinking I won’t do that in the next few days, because with the luck I’ve had today, there’s surely a cracked edge or something hiding in that packaging that I couldn’t see in the store. Nope, I’m going to wait until things start going right again before I dive into that box.

On top of this, and on a completely unrelated note, I found out that the car rental prices for our trip out west later this summer have skyrocketed from $550 to about $1300. And of course I didn’t book when they were low (the rental lady actually thinks the $550 was a system glitch, which I wouldn’t be surprised at, since every other company I searched was about $1300 when I was first looking, and that $550 sounded too good to be true…but we didn’t have our trip figured out at that time so I didn’t book it. Grr.). So that’s more fantastic news to top off this day.

Well, if you’ve read this far, I hope you’re not commiserating with me because you’re also having a bad day. Sometimes I wonder if renovations are worth the stress. I’d like to say they are, but right now I’m too far from the end of that tunnel to see the light. It will come.

Ok, one fun picture to leave you with that reminds us of the joy of renovation – Nik happily ripping out the piece of the shower with the awful bench (and finding absolutely no mold behind any of it!):

 

Demo Day!

To be more honest, a better title for this is demo week, based on our timeline, but demo day is so much catchier. We started ripping apart our bathroom on Saturday, and I’m pleased to say we’re close to being done with this phase of our renovation. The last couple things to resolve are removing the shower insert, and figuring out a weird subfloor situation.

So here are the before pictures (messier than usual, because my standard low level of motivation for cleaning the bathroom has dropped to an almost non-existent level since we decided it was getting ripped out).

Our strategy for demo was to move the toilet, mirror, and vanity top, then remove the floor trim, weird towel bar/toilet paper holder pieces, linoleum/underlayment, vanity cabinet, and finally the shower insert.

Here’s the toilet and vanity gone (the tub seemed like an ideal temporary storage spot for the toilet, since we’re not messing with the tub):

And here’s Nik removing trim, and the little panel that held the toilet paper roll. Apparently someone was enjoying the nail gun while attaching this lightweight 3″x8″ piece of wood to the wall…

Then came the linoleum. It was only glued/stapled around the edges, so we started cutting it in the middle to reveal the underlayment. For those who aren’t familiar with linoleum, first there is the plywood subfloor, then a 1/4″ layer of smooth wood called underlayment comes next, and this provides a very smooth substrate for the linoleum to be laid out on. Unfortunately for anyone who has ever had to remove linoleum, this underlayment is tacked down with long staple nails every 4 inches across the entire sheet, plus extra around the edges (you can see the guide marks for the staples on the underlayment sheets below – those little X’s show how many there should be!). When you pull up the underlayment, the nails rip through it and stay lodged in the subfloor, and (very tediously) have to be pulled out one by one, which was all done by yours truly. This brought terrible flashbacks to our kitchen renovation…which had many times as much linoleum in it!

Next out came the vanity. When our plumbing was installed, they put the vanity in first then attached the cumbersome pipes, so the only way to detach the vanity is to cut out squares in the back of it because the pipes (once installed) don’t fit back out the holes. Nik used the multitool to do this, then we dragged the vanity down the stairs to it’s temporary resting place in our living room.

The shower insert is one HUGE piece with no seams. And, as inserts are supposed to be installed, the edges are under the drywall, so it is wider than the actual drywall opening. We’re thinking we’ll have to use the circular saw to cut it into smaller pieces to get it out, but this is a job for next weekend. We did remove the doors at least:

So that’s about where we are right now with the demo. You probably also noticed the one weird piece of subfloor in the room…we were aware there was a previous leak in the home that was fixed (obviously not by us, or we would’ve done a better patch job). The thing we can’t figure out is why on earth they replaced a patch of the subfloor with that new piece, but left an extremely thin border of the existing subfloor around the patch? (If someone has a logical explanation, please share before we put much effort into fixing this!).

Those teeny pieces of subfloor around the patch are now very unstable, which is a problem for tile. We’re thinking of ripping up that patch piece, double checking that an absolute moron didn’t fix whatever leak issue was under the floor previously, and re-patching it with a piece of subfloor that actually reaches to the edge of that original piece. Then we’d belt sand it to ensure it is level before moving on with our tile install. Minor set back but, fingers crossed, hopefully an easy fix.

One other conundrum is about the vanity top. I spent some time getting quotes for remnant granite from the place we got our kitchen counters from, and that came to about $775, sinks and install included (but not faucets or plumbing hookup). It was a bit higher than I was thinking…so I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home to see what price I could get from them. I hope you’re sitting down…because their quote was upwards of $1600!!!! For a stupid vanity top! I was blown away. But the sales guy was really nice, and encouraged me to at least consider their pre-fabricated vanity tops. I smiled and nodded and thanked him, thinking that would be a complete waste of time, but wandered down that aisle anyway and was pleasantly surprised at one option they had. It is $399, a “natural marble veneer”, and it has white undermount sinks included in one piece, in the size we need.

The reviews online are somewhat conflicting – some people say it looks great without breaking the bank, and some that say it has poorly patched cracks, the one they got had weird colors mixed in, bad veneer seams, etc. I’m thinking I’ll order 2 (to hedge my bets, knowing I can return 1 or both), or maybe find a store that has some in stock and fully examine them in the store. If we can find one we like, we’re happy to save almost $400. And if they really do look cheap, we’ll know that the extra expense for the granite top is worth it. During a renovation, its important to keep reminding ourselves that our house might not be worth every upgrade we want, and if we might sell in the next few years, mainly picking upgrades that we can expect to pay us back is important.

While I was at Lowes, I also peeked at tile samples, and found a bunch that I really like. I’m excited to go back to the store with Nik so we can make our final selections and move on with this reno!

The Master Bath Renovation: The Starting Point

Nik’s parents were supposed to be visiting for the next two weekends, but their plans got pushed off until early July, so we no longer have an excuse for not starting our master bathroom renovation! I’ve been itching to start this project (is it normal to feel antsy if I haven’t demo-ed something ugly in our house within the last 6 months?), so I’m ready to go! Plus, this time around we have a whole week’s notice (since the change of visit plans) before deciding to rip a bathroom down to the sub floor….last time this happened, it was approximately 10 minutes from decision to demo!

We haven’t actually started anything yet…in fact we haven’t even gone to the store to look at color schemes and tile options, but I have some vague ideas in mind. Here is a picture of our bathroom layout:

We wanted to move things around (move shower to tub area, relocate toilet to shower area) but we decided it wasn’t worth the investment for the price range of our home. So this project will hopefully be all cosmetic, unless we find issues when things are removed.

Overall, we’ll be refurbishing our current vanity and adding a new top, sinks, and faucets in addition to raising it off the ground on feet to make it adult height (these are old pictures, but you get the idea).

We’ll be tiling the floor, and painting the walls. And finally we’ll be ripping out our full shower insert and replacing it with a shower pan, tiled walls, a new glass door, and new hardware.

Do you notice everything is so blah and neutral its hard to even tell the floor from the wall from the tub from the shower in that picture? Our awful garden tub will stay since removing and replacing that will be an expensive pain, but to dress it up, we may built an encasement around it (something like this) and update the faucet and tile above it. It is currently off white, meaning our new shower pan might also have to be off white to match, which I think I’m ok with. Stark white in a bathroom means more need to clean all the time!

So here is the actual planned order of events. We wanted to get this down on paper so we could make a very rough timeline and budget, so I’ll add those details to each bullet point.

Demo (planning to do this over the next couple weekends; cost: free!)

• Remove toilet, vanity, mirror, and quarter round floor trim
• Remove linoleum and underlayment, shower doors, and shower insert

Installing the “underparts” of the shower: we assume we will replace whatever is under the shower insert with cement backer board, followed by some sort of waterproofing application (there are actual membranes like Schluter membrane or paint-on options). Then the shower base pan will be added and fitted to the drain. Hopefully no replacement of subfloor will be required, but if there is any water leakage or moldy spots we may need to do some replacing. We’d like to have this done by the first weekend in June.

• Cut and install cement board ($60 for boards and cement screws)
• Install shower pan and fit to base plumbing (~$200 for pan)
• Seal all seams and waterproof the walls/seams (not sure what product we’re using yet, I’ll assume it won’t be cheap! $150)

Next up will be tiling the floor. We’ll be using Schluter Ditra underlayment which is pricey, but it’s a lightweight foam alternative to using heavy cement board. Since our bathroom previously had lightweight linoleum, we don’t want to stress our floors out too much by adding a new, heavy, weight to the second floor. Then tile, then grout. We’re thinking some sort of gray tile, since we generate a lot of dust and hair, which I never clean in a timely manner. We’d love to have this done by mid June.

• Coat floor with thin-set mortar and lay out underlayment ($200)
• Apply mortar and lay tiles ($300)
• Grout tiles ($30)
• Reattach quarter round trim around floor ($30)

Install toilet and vanity. The installation is easy, but we need to find time to refurbish the vanity as well. Hopefully on weekday evenings we’ll be making progress on the vanity, which will include sanding/painting, and adding a new base with legs. We’ll need to identify a company to install a new counter and sinks, and after that Nik will probably attempt the faucet install himself.  If we could get this done by early July, that would be awesome, but you know how things go…

• Sand, prime, paint vanity
• Mount on a new base ($15)
• Attach legs ($40)
• Relocate to bathroom; counter/sink/faucet installation ($500)
• Vanity backsplash ($100)
• Vanity mirror and light (eventually, we’ll estimate a cost of $200)
• Reinstall old toilet (free!)

And the final major project is finishing the shower. This will include applying mortar, tiling, grouting, installing hardware, and installing new glass doors. We’re thinking some sort of light gray/cream tone tile for the shower – something that matches the gray floor, but lighter. Our goal is to have this done by the end of July (plus anything else that’s not done yet – I’m sure we’ll be behind schedule!).

• Apply mortar then tiles to waterproofed cement board ($200)
• Grout tiles
• Add new hardware ($120)
• Install glass door ($500 – turns out these are really expensive!!) We’re still deciding between a pivot glass door or a sliding one. I was thinking pivot, but they all have pretty abysmal reviews and are slightly more expensive, but the sliding doors like this one and this one have fantastic reviews…so this may sway my decision.
• Paint walls ($30)
• Someday install crown molding? We have extra left over in the garage…(free!)

If we do the tub, a very rough cost for tiles, a new faucet, and if we build a encasement would be about $250.

So that brings our very rough total, if we include the tub to a little under $3000. Then there will be expenses like new towel racks, rugs, etc. to make the space look nice. I was generous on some of the amounts since we have no idea what tiles, counters, fixtures or anything that we’re picking yet, but I feel like that is a reasonable budget. If we can find ways to save money along the way, even better!

This was a long post, and not many pictures. But once this project is underway there will be plenty of progress pictures to share!

A New (Old) Light Fixture

We got a lot done this weekend…not particularly things on my list, but progress nonetheless. The garage side deck is officially finished, with new handrails. I got a coat of primer on our friend’s furniture piece that we’re refinishing, we stained the top of the weird dining table project we’ve had stashed in the garage for ages, and we refinished a light fixture for our dining room.

When we moved, my parents gave me an old chandelier from the foyer of our house in NJ – it had sconces, and was kind of a brushed nickel finish. Originally, the pointy flame-shaped light bulbs were in it, with glass sconces around each light.

It was very traditional looking, so we were having a hard time deciding where it would fit in our house. Originally we were thinking kitchen, but the light location over the kitchen table is not quite centered on the table and a dangling chandelier would emphasize this even more than a flush mount light. So then we thought dining room…but that room is decidedly mid-century themed, and the silver seemed out of place. But, the table is centered on the light:

I’ve hated that light since the day we moved in. It’s too small, and too close to the ceiling, and too bright. It has made us not want to have meals in this room, so we knew it had to change. Nik had the idea of using the chandelier from my parents, but using Edison light bulbs to give it some vintage character, and spray painting it a new color, since the nickel finish was dingy and dirty and didn’t fit with the room.

We choose oil-rubbed bronze, and hung the light on the bird feeder hook to do the spray painting, which went pretty well.

Then Nik removed the old light and mounted the new one, which did require a trip to Lowes for a mounting kit since it was incompatible with what was there.

The wires were all hooked up, and then we started thinking about the bulbs. I kind of liked them by themselves, but we put one sconce on just to see. It’s ok, but in person it looks like too much glass since the bulbs are glassy, and almost touch the sconce edges. Also, the sconces will show dust over time , so we’re thinking of just doing the bulbs:

Here’s another closeup, and a picture from the living room for perspective. I love how it looks – a huge upgrade from what was there previously (please don’t mind our mess, this is the reality of DIY work. Also, the light is still hanging a little crooked since that one heavier sconce is still on one side of it, which we’re still debating).

The light that comes from the squirrel cage Edison bulbs is also so pretty, and looks like delicate bursts on the ceiling (camera didn’t do it justice). We got them on Amazon,  $20 for 6.

So that chandelier was  big accomplishment, this little project that has been on the list for a while. I’m going to save pics of the other furniture projects until they’re done, but I did promise to show some pictures of the little guest bedroom side tables so here they are. To sum up this project, these tables were $30 for both on Craigslist, and we stripped the top, added little back boards with pieces of red oak that we rounded by sanding, stained/sealed the tops, then gave the sides a good sanding followed by primer and a warm light gray paint (we reused the extra sample paint from an ex-kitchen cabinet color).

Before:

During:

And after:

Cheers to a productive weekend!

 

Gardens and Goats

Almost a month since my last post…I’m sensing a theme of reluctance to finish up some of our spring projects. That, or we’ve just been too busy lately. We had a wedding to go to up in PA a few weekends ago, then a camping adventure at Falls Lake, NC last weekend. But this weekend? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING PLANNED. I’m telling the rest of the world, so we can be held accountable for actually getting some things done at the house!

In the last 3 weeks, we haven’t been 100% unproductive…we did finally finish up our little guest bedroom side tables, which are now happily sitting beside the guest bed that I totally forgot to take pictures of this morning.

Our veggie and flower gardens are all planted (including some new perennial flowers stolen from various family members of Nik’s while we were up in PA). Things are growing like crazy thanks to the intense rains we’ve been getting – and we even have some baby cucumbers and striped zucchini squash growing already!

For the next month, we have assorted lists of little things to finish up and bathroom finishes to pick out before our bathroom demo. We’ll have Nik’s parents in town the last 2 weekends in May, so we want to wait until they’re gone to begin demo, since 4 adults sharing one tiny guest bathroom will surely make our time together less pleasant!

Hopefully I’ll have some updated photos to show next week – we have at least a few furniture pieces we’ll be finishing up this weekend. It’s nice to do a few furniture projects from time to time, like the good old days before we had tons of house projects to tackle!

After camping last weekend we visited a goat farm in Bahama, NC for their baby goat festival, so I’ll leave you with some cute goat pics for the weekend (I think you can click to get bigger pics).