Simple Redecorating

Since I don't have any big projects going on (the bathroom is still in early planning stages and the kitchen is only an idea), it wasn't hard for Danielle to talk me into doing a little something to make the living room a bit nicer.

So now the living room has new curtains. Thank you, Bed Bath and Beyond. Curtain rods from Lowes.





It's easy to focus on what we haven't figured out and forget about what we've done. What we know:

- Travertine in place of the existing ceramic tile around the fireplace - coming this spring.
- Stone in the bathroom... more travertine? Either on the floor or the shower surround? Some of the distributors online have great prices.
- Walls will may be some kind of plaster finish, either tan or blue?
- New bathroom countertop, but not sure what material...
- Still not sure about the cabinets but would like to get new doors for the hamper to match.
- Luckily we won't need to move utilities which is great news to us.

2010 is shaping up to be a huge year for us once we figure out the details behind all of these changes.

Bathroom Planning...

Since I'm away from home right now I don't have any fresh pics of what the main bathroom looks like right now. That's probably a good thing since it's still the same as the last pictures. How could I take down the awesomeness that is the wallpaper that's up right now anyway???




Ok seriously now I can hardly wait to change this room up, but I've never done a whole lot to remodel a bathroom before so this will be a totally new experience. We do have a few ideas though. For one, whatever color scheme we go with will need to play nicely with the main bedroom which will probably become some shade of light blue next year. I have no idea why it's a slightly darker shade of green from the rest of the downstairs right now, but whatever. The other big constraint is that it'll have to work out with the existing tub. It turns out that it's a color that works out really nicely with a lot of readily available shades of natural stone, it's also staying. Cabinets will come out, hamper will stay.

Anyway here are some ideas we're considering. This sort of color scheme for the shower with the tan and blue. We would also tile to the ceiling:


Perhaps this color for the cabinets? The trouble is, the hamper is painted white and removing the paint, staining and finishing it to match any wood-colored cabinets may be difficult if possible at all. So far I haven't found a good paint remover that will handle the original oil-based off-white that hides underneath a couple of coats of white latex. Existing cabinets will probably not be reused in order to add storage space in the space where a vanity seat would go now.


Maybe this sort of tile for the backsplash behind the sinks, but with a bit less yellow or green?


At this point everything is just ideas anyway. Comments or thoughts are welcome!

Before and After pics

Since this project is more or less done with the exception of cleaning up a few things here and there I decided that it's time for some before and after pictures. Enjoy!

Entry and dining room before:


After:



Dining room before:


After:



Hallway into the living room before:


After:



Living room before:


After:



Kitchen looking into the dining room before:


After:



I'm not exactly sure what we'll start working on next. We'll do some redecorating with those floral window... things sometime soon, and we're also thinking about what to replace the tile surrounding the fireplace with (slate?). Also starting to think about the main bathroom because there's a lot to be done there too. At this point we're searching for ideas, especially about the bathroom because it's coming up soon. About all I know at this point is that I think I would like to tile to the ceiling in the shower, and that the green tiles in there will probably have to go. Also need to do some work with the cabinets. It's a pretty wide area so there are a lot of possibilities there. Anyway it's now a time for planning...

Carpet Transition

Every hardwood install will run into another type of flooring at one point. In this house there are two rooms with a carpet / wood border and four areas that border with tile, plus one transition with the front door. This weekend I'm working on the carpet / wood borders.

I have one where it's a simple doorway, and another more difficult area about 10 feet long between the entry way and living room. For reasons unknown I decided to try the harder one first. Anyway the first step is to nail in the tack strip that will hold the carpet down, about a half inch from the wood. On a wood subfloor this is easy, but on concrete... not so much. I recommend removing the all-purpose nails the tack strip will have preinstalled because they will just bend and chip the concrete. Then get a pack of plastic concrete screw anchors and some aluminum nails. Drill a hole the appropriate size for the plastic screw anchor and the tack strip, then drive in the aluminum nail. The aluminum nail will conform to fit the hole, locking it all in place. But before you do this, make sure the tack strip is facing the right direction! Go ahead, ask me how I know about that one...

So now that the tack strip is installed go ahead and cut back the foam padding so that it's about half to a quarter inch from the tack strip. Next get the carpet stretcher (you can rent these from pretty much any tool rental place and stretch the carpet. Attach it to the tack strip by folding it over from the carpeted area so that it engages the tacks. In other words, fold the end of the carpet back away from the wood and sort of roll it towards the tack strip. Rub the area over the tacks with a clean hammer to set them in the carpet. Repeat as necessary to work the width of the transition area. Cut the carpet so that it extends about 1/4 inch over the wood.

Lastly, run a bead of adhesive along the base of the wood and use a putty knife to tuck in the edge of the carpet. Don't walk on the area for a while to give the glue a chance to dry.

When you're done it will look a lot like this:





This weekend I got all the carpet / wood transitions done and worked some more on the baseboards. We're caulking on both the top and bottom. It's easy, just time consuming. The last things left to do are find, stain and cut the reducer pieces, clean up and take pictures for a before / after post.

Catching Up

I didn't realize just how many pictures I've taken without posting any of them. Here's a few of the better ones.

This is from when we were still setting the chalkine. Snowy is probably wondering what in the world we're doing and why we took away the carpet that he liked to run around on.



Ever wonder where all the furniture was hiding? I want to go back to when I took this picture and tell myself "Backfill NOW! This will be a lot harder than you think 2 weeks from today when the glue is dry!" The hardwood went through two rooms and a hall. Had I known what I do now, I would have only glued the first room and dry fit the rest of the first row through the hall and family room so that I could tell that everything was straight. Then built backwards from the first row that was glued down before it could dry. With the woodloc system Kahrs uses it's a nightmare to build backwards after the glue dries because of this foot that fits under the board in front of it and holds everything together tight. No way to get a board in from behind without slightly raising the board in front of it. Lots of luck with that if the glue holding it to the floor is dry.



Snowy sneaking into another picture. The dining room is dry-fitted and my camera is dirty.



Me nearly caught in a corner spreading glue in the dining room.

Still hard at work

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm ok. I had a big test in Finance class last Monday, and now I have a test in Accounting in two days so I've been a bit busy doing things other than working on the house.

Danielle and I still found time to get a lot done this weekend. All the wood is installed except for two tiny pieces, measuring maybe a square inch or two each. Furniture is making its way back and finally the place is starting to look a bit more like where someone would live.

The big project this week after my test is to get the baseboards back in by Thursday and the place cleaned up because a bunch of people are coming over in the evening. Might be able to do it...

As of right now we're lacking:
-Baseboards: some in, some painted and ready to go back in, others untouched.
-Clean clean clean clean. And put up the tools.
-Reducer at all the wood / tile interfaces.
-Trim up and reattach the carpet (will farm this one out, hopefully it'll get done on Tuesday...?)
-Figure out how in the world to work a transition from the front door threshhold to the wood. Maybe t-molding?

One room done...

I've been out of town a couple of days this week, and have a finance test tomorrow evening to study for but I still found the time to get a lot of work done this weekend. The dining room is complete, the hallway almost done, and the family room is getting there.

This week I spent a lot of time dry fitting wood. When there was more than enough for a whole bucket of glue to cover Danielle and I carefully numbered each row and piece and pulled all of it back up. That way we knew that everything was cut to fit. That worked out MUCH better than trying to measure and cut as you go. We did a couple hundred square feet in about 2-1/2 or 3 hours, some of which was the last row in the hallway going forward (see: really hard to do because you pretty much have to lay a whole row of this stuff at a time because of the interlocking system that holds it together). There really weren't any problems this time around.

I was also able to get the baseboards back on and all the trim done in the dining room. There really isn't a whole lot to getting the baseboards to look good. Sand them with coarse sandpaper and then medium, and it'll hold paint pretty well. There's no need to sand through all of the old layers of paint unless you're trying to remove dings. Then fill the old nail holes with painter's putty, take care of any dings and then paint. It's pretty straightforward, and loads easier to do while they're not attached to the wall. Don't forget to remove all old caulk from the baseboards as well as the wall before nailing them back on. If all your cuts were accurate (and your baseboard is thick) you won't need shoe molding.

The only part that isn't more or less obvious is the caulking. I recommend caulking along the top and any left or right corners on the baseboards, but not the bottom. The best way I found to do it is to make a small cut at the tip of the caulk tube at about a 20-3o degree angle, about 1/16 inch in size. Load it up in the caulk gun and start at a corner and work your way backwards. At the end of each piece of baseboard run along the thin bead of caulk with a finger to feather it in and the results will come out just like the pros.

Anyway here are some pictures from the dining room now that it's all put back together. My apologies for the picture quality - I took them on my mobile because the memory card on the camera was full.





I'm hoping that during this week I'll be able to find the time to cut all remaining flooring so that next weekend we'll be ready to glue down the last of it.

Saturday / Sunday - Still working...

Tons of lessons learned so far. To keep it short (because I'm tired), Sunday was a great day. Really productive. I did a lot of test-fitting and didn't glue anything at all. But I'll be ready when it's time to open the second can of glue.

Saturday... not so much. We got the wood installed in a straight line running through the hallway but made a couple of mistakes but nothing we couldn't recover from. Some of it was unavoidable. The locking system Kahrs uses (called woodloc) is wonderful on a small to medium sized room. It lets you install wood the entire width of the room one plank at a time because it snaps together on the front, back and both sides. However, if you're trying to install along a hall without getting in the glue that's on the floor it doesn't work so well because you have to pull up some of the last plank you put down in order to snap in the two sides of the next one. And then you wind up with glue everywhere. Not fun.

So lessons learned... if you're gluing down the wood make sure you have a big bucket-worth of wood ready to go. If you keep having to stop, measure and cut more you'll get in trouble because the glue will start to harden in the bucket. Not good.

It's next to impossible to work backwards with woodloc if the glue holding down the piece in front of the one you want to install is dry. This board will want to come up just a bit for the interlocking parts to engage, but it can't do that if the glue is dry now... On a related note, make sure you build all the way to both walls because with this system you can only stop and then work forward without having to do a lot of trimming to the interlocking pieces.

Another problem with woodloc is that if you have any sideways obstructions (example - casing from a door that enters the room on the side) you WILL have to remove the casing to install the wood. Unlike traditional tongue and groove that you can just slide in, this rotates downward as it snaps together. In other words, even if you trimmed the casing it'll still need more room to rotate in.

So I guess my thoughts on woodloc are the good:
Installs TIGHT. Seamless, and looks really great. Perfect for a small to medium sized room without obstructions. I think it's saved me some time, and the results look great so far.

The bad:
Instructions fail to mention that you'd better build an *entire* row at a time before the glue dries or else there will be difficulties. You also can't slide in pieces of wood under casings and door frames. I'll have to repaint a couple of door frames after this is all done because I had to cut out a couple of blocks along the bottom to get the wood to rotate into place.

So that's why today I just laid out wood in one room and cut it all to fit. I'll have to remove it to glue everything down but the pieces are numbered and organized, and I can work the entire width of the room at a time (rather than going down a hallway) so this will be much easier. No running back and forth to the saw while the glue dries.

Anyway, pictures to come when something worth taking a picture of happens!

Friday update

I'm getting closer to being able to install wood. Really I am. There is one small high spot to grind down this morning, and a little more self-leveler to do and once it's dry I can start building. FINALLY!!!

Ok fine. I have to take care of three door frames and the other side of the mantle first, but still. Almost there! I have no idea what kind of wood the mantle is made of but it's the hardest stuff I've ever had to cut through. I'm seriously tempted to use the cutoff wheel on the dremel to try and slice through this (it works on steel, so why not?). I thought it would be pine since it's always been painted anyway and I thought most mantles were made from pieces of molding for the most part but this one is something real.

So today's shopping list is short today. A couple of cans of expandable foam to run along the wall with because energy efficiency is a good thing, and one 10-inch saw blade for the miter saw.

Many thanks go out to the person who lives across the street for answering my endless questions about how to do this! The internet is full of advice, some of it is even good. But you can't beat asking someone who has already done the job.

Pictures to come this evening when I'm done!

A quick distraction (leaks and building codes)

I'd planned on writing a quick how-to about how to remove baseboard a couple of days ago, but before getting on the computer to write it Danielle and I went ahead and removed the carpet in the last room we're working on. We got a little surprise - moisture along one wall. That's not good.

A quick look outside revealed that the concrete patio and the foundation were originally sort of... attached. Some mortar was used to make a sort of filler between the bottom row of brick on the house and the patio concrete, but there was a hairline crack running along the bottom. I don't know what they were thinking when the built it that way because of course a thin strip of mortar will crack, especially when exposed to rain, cold, and heat over the years.

There are two steps to resolve the problem and make sure it doesn't come back. The first is to eliminate the crack with some masonry sealant. The second part is to cut back on the amount of water in the area when it rains so I installed rain gutters along the roofline. It rained hard again the next day with zero leaks!

But I noticed a second problem, this time in the dining room. Rain was seeping in from somewhere. This leak was a lot harder to find and was coming from a chip in the mortar below a window in a bedroom one floor above. I fixed this one with more masonry sealant. Now we don't have to worry about any water penetration ruining the wood floor! I think both were quite recent - the framing looks perfect and nothing is damaged.

Our other little discovery came this evening when I had earplugs and safety glasses on, chisel and hammer in hand and was getting ready to remove the tiles that make up the hearth extension in front of the fireplace. Our plans were to run the wood flooring all the way to the wall, but at the last second I decided to go make sure if it's required. I found out San Antonio adopted the 2006 International Residential Code not long ago. The code states that for fireplaces 6 square feet or larger (ours is 6.25) a hearth extension of 20 inches is required. So the tile stays for now, until we can find something better to build it out of that both Danielle and I can agree upon. Sometimes that little voice in the back of your mind telling you to check something one last time can really get you out of a lot of trouble!

I've made a bit more progress on the wood flooring prep work. The dining room and entry way lack me trimming some tile that extends past the front door threshold. I plan on doing that with a diamond tipped cutting blade for my angle grinder. Low spots have been identified in both that room and the hallway, along with one small high spot. I still need to scrape old drywall texture off the floor in the living room and check for level tomorrow. We'll be able to do that pretty easily, and I hope to be able to spread some of the leveling compound then as well.

So despite a few setbacks things are still coming along pretty well. More updates coming soon!

Tuesday Update - Hardwood Install

I used a vacation day from work because the wood was supposed to arrive today. That gave me plenty of time at home to focus on the tile mortar around the entry way and front closet. It took me a good 6 hours or so to do maybe 15 square feet. This stuff was really on there! By the end of the day the chisel that came with the air hammer was worn down nearly all the way so it looks like I'll be stopping by Harbor Freight on the way home from work tomorrow. Somehow they're able to sell a set of air chisels for $3 according to their website. As long as I can get the thing to last for about another 8 square feet of tile in front of the fireplace they're fine by me.

I also was able to scrape a lot of drywall texture and carpet padding glue off the floor today. The hallway is clear except for underneath the baseboards (still to come off). Most of the dining room is done too. That means I was able to start testing for moisture this evening. I've got my fingers crossed that it comes out well!

It turns out it was a really good idea to pull the baseboards. They were almost an almond color when they were put in (before carpet was installed probably) and someone repainted them white at some point. They didn't get the white paint all the way down though and the baseboards were two colors. With them off the wall I'll be able to clean them up, repaint and install them on top of the wood so I won't need a shoe molding.

My plans tomorrow are to pull the baseboards in the hall and carpet / tack strip in the living room. The wood did come in today - all 1,210 lbs of it. The delivery guy and I moved it piece by piece (22 boxes at 24kg each) into the garage, and then I brought it inside the house later. I'm going to sleep pretty well tonight...

I think it's going to rain tonight. We discovered that the flashing around the chimney wasn't installed right after sunday morning's downpour. The roofing company came back out and made some repairs, and I'm looking forward to getting the chance to test how well they came out before the new flooring gets installed.

So a few things that I learned:
Broken pieces of ceramic tile are SHARP. Like glass sharp. It's easiest by far in my opinion to try and remove the tile whole. Hitting the top of a tile to try and break it up doesn't work. It just sends pointy tile shards everywhere while the big pieces don't move. Maybe this works better where they weren't put down that well to begin with. No matter how you do it, be sure to have safety glasses on.

On removing tile cement:
This is the worst job you can do aside from digging in the summertime Texas sun. That's the one good part about this - you're indoors. But I came across a couple of things that make the job slightly less horrible. First off, use an air hammer. Buy one, rent one, find one. Get one somehow. You will get nowhere fast if you try using a hammer and chisel if the tiles were put down well. You NEED an air hammer. And some safety glasses and earplugs to go with, because bits of cement will go flying everywhere and it's also loud.

Another tip is to wet the tile cement before chipping away at it. A lot less dust will fly around and it's somewhat easier to remove the stuff that way. You don't need to drown the area, just get it damp.

On floor scrapers, my advice is to go ahead and just buy one. They're not expensive and you'll probably need it for more days than you thought anyway. But don't get the biggest one (14 in?). The corners of these things work better than the middle section.

To remove baseboards, take a blade and score the corner between the top of the board and the drywall. This is to keep the paint from pulling off the wall. Then carefully hammer in a putty knife and start sliding it around to feel for where the nails are. When you find one, slide in a small prying tool (NOT a screwdriver!) between the putty knife and baseboard. Now you can start rocking the knife back and forth some to slowly loosen the baseboard from the wall. Don't pull too hard or you'll risk splitting the wood. It'll get loose before long and you can move on to find the next nail. Keep going until the whole baseboard is loose and then you can carefully work it off the wall. Remember to always have a putty knife between the tool and wall to keep from damaging the sheetrock.

Now for a few pictures:

I had second thoughts about pulling up the carpet until I got to see what the back side looks like. For what it's worth, the carpet is 7 years old and I think people only lived in the house while it was down for 4 or 5 years. This stain is by the kitchen. I guess somebody's icemaker leaked a little.


Nearly all the tile is removed. It's kind of a neutral color but showed a lot of scratches and wear. This is before I knew how horrible it was going to be to remove the gray tile cement...


Danielle (Elle) helping remove tack strip. She's really good at it. Snowy is just watching the humans do all the work.


This is what it looks like this evening. Plastic taped down, floor almost clean. I still need to check for high / low spots.

Flooring Demo - Update

Late Saturday Elle and I started removing the old carpet in the dining room. We started there first because the tv and entertainment center are too big for the two of us to move and help wasn't coming until Sunday. Not a whole lot of surprises under there. The concrete looks good and there's nothing exciting down there. Underneath carpet on a house this new isn't exactly the place you go to find stuff.

So removing the carpet was easy and tack strips aren't exactly hard. All carpet will be donated to a (Tibetan?) refugee center, by the way. Tile is a little more trouble. I don't have any spares for the tile in the kitchen area, and these are exactly the same so I wanted to pull up as many as possible in one piece. We got about half - the tile was installed really well and didn't want to come up. The hard part with removing tile is getting the cement they're installed in off the concrete. MUCH more on that tomorrow.

I have a bunch of pictures to post tomorrow. As of right now:
The dining room: carpet and tack strip is out, baseboards are out
Entry way: tile removed, some tile mortar removed, baseboards out
Hallway: carpet and tack strip out

I'm taking the day off from work because the wood flooring is coming in... sometime. 1,210 lbs of it delivered to the curb. Guess who gets to take it inside? Anyway, much more coherent post coming tomorrow. With pictures. Check back soon!

Getting there (yes, another wood floor post)

A quick progress update on the wood floor thing I've mentioned once or twice on this site"

Now that we've got the flooring figured out an order has been placed to 1A Flooring for about 650 square feet of the stuff. How long it'll take to get here from Massachusetts is anybody's guess. Maybe next week. Anyway they had the best price and came out ahead in shipping. They also deliver it to the curb which will help out a lot (as opposed to picking it up at a terminal in my Celica and testing the car's load limits like I used to do in college at the end of the semester when it was time to move out).

The other big material item we'll need is the glue. While searching for who actually sells the stuff Kahrs recommends google pointed me towards a Craigslist posting. This was no ordinary posting - it was from here in San Antonio and made two days earlier. Long story short, I got a killer deal on the exact amount of glue I'll need from someone who ordered too much when they did their own place. Sometimes you get lucky.

So this weekend if there's time between football and group projects we might be able to start demolition - removing the furniture, carpet, padding, and tack strip from the two rooms the wood is going in. I'd like to scratch up the concrete so the glue will hold better and get to work on the low spots, while waiting for a couple of moisture tests to run. To test for moisture in the concrete slab I plan on duct taping some plastic to the concrete and checking for discoloration and moisture in a couple of days. We should also be able to remove the baseboards and number them so it's clear which one goes where.

I'm also hoping the original owners can make it over this weekend - they said they wanted to see the place again and bring along some pictures of what it used to look like. They'd probably have a better time having a look around before or after all this work begins.

There will be plenty of details and pictures when we get to work. It should be any day now!

Research is sometimes harder than the actual job

The entire time since my last post (ok... and for many months before it) I've spent countless hours searching and learning about wood flooring. The installation and preparation process isn't that hard to understand. But actually finding the right flooring, that's the hard part!

One resource I've used heavily is http://www.ifloor.com - their prices aren't the best around but they are one of the few sites out there who understand that for something tangible like wood flooring that they're asking you to spend thousands of dollars on, having a way to get samples to hold and look at in person is important! We're looking for a wood that varies between chocolate and blonde. In other words, no red / orange color. So that means we're basically looking for American Walnut (the Brazilian kind has too much green). Anyway we ordered a couple of samples, which came back in just a few days and were a bit disappointed. The Kahrs flooring which looked so great and varied online was a bit on the uniform side when you hold a 6x4in sample in your hand.

So this morning we went to Lumber Liquidators to see a large selection of flooring in person. The Bellawood 3/4in thick solid walnut looked great in the 6x6 foot square they installed in the store and comes with a 50 year warranty. So we're close to a decision but in the back of my mind I'm thinking "solid wood can't be installed on a concrete subfloor... can it?" After 2 minutes of research on their website after coming home I find out that it can only be installed on a wood subfloor (in other words, we would have an inch between every room downstairs and the places I am replacing the flooring), and that glue-down installations void the warranty. That's not an option, but all is not lost...

When I put today's samples next to the other one that looked a bit plain Elle and I noticed that they look completely identical. I pop back on the Kahrs site and the picture of the room they had looks exactly the same as the one I took of the nice-looking 6x6 foot section in the store that we liked!

Looks like I'll be ordering about 640 square feet of Kahrs Walnut Montreal / 3-strip flooring within the next few days! I'm glad the search is over!

BIG Update - 1 of 4

Finally an update that doesn't involve me working on something for hours at a time! The front door is refinished and the new glass is here. I'm glad this is finally done! Austin Cut Glass is the company that designed and installed the new windows, and refinished the door.








Coming up soon - getting ready to finally do the wood floor... check back soon for the next update.

BIG Update - 2 of 4

I heard from the glass guy a couple of weeks ago - the last of the parts needed to build the new windows would be arriving soon! So soon I'll have a refreshed front door and new glass but a nasty, corroded porch light. Time to do something about it.

I took a magnet to the corroded, dirty fixture to try and figure out what it's made of. A lot of brass fixtures are really just brass-coated steel. Nearly all of them made these days - all cheap junk. This one is made out of solid brass so it's worth renewing instead of replacing. Here's what I'm up against:


It probably got this way for the same reason the leaded glass in the front door is corroded - wasp and hornet killer. Keep that stuff away from anything made of metal!


After I removed the fixture I had to take it apart, remove the corrosion and relacquer it. It's not a bad job. Just time consuming and you have to pay attention to any details the original finish had. In this case it was brushed brass, not polished. To recreate the finish all you have to do is sand the clean brass in the same direction it was sanded in originally. Simple. Clean all oils and fingerprints off the brass and apply lacquer.



Reassemble everything, add a new chain and some energy-saving light bulbs and you're done!



Installation is the reverse of removal. Now the porch light won't take away from the appearance of the refinished door and new windows.

BIG Update - 3 of 4

The original owners of the house worked with the builder to have an upstairs bedroom closet fit a desk from the 1800s they had. That means one of the bedroom closets has no doors, door stop or even holes mortised in for hinges. I don't have a 100 year old desk so this doesn't really help me out any. Neither did the last two owners, but it must not have bothered them as much as it did me.

To hang a set of double doors you need all of the obvious stuff, and a few things that turn out to be not so obvious. Of course you need doors, hinges, handles, door stop, and something to keep them closed. To install all of this you'll need a router, drill, air-powered finish nailer (to do the door stop the quick way), 45 degree angle, hammer, chisel and skill saw.

The easiest way to get started is to measure the location of all the other door hinges in your house because odds are they're all the same height. You also have to measure how far into the door frame they're installed or the door will sit too far in or out when it's closed. Mark this on your door frame, set the router to the thickness of the hinges and make a cut. You'll have to use a hammer and chisel on the corners. Now carefully measure the same door you looked at earlier to get the location the hinge will be on the door and make a cut. Now you're ready to hang the door (or doors in my case) where you discover... these things don't fit!

Trimming the door is a lot easier than it sounds. Measure how much you need to remove and get at it. To trim hollow core doors you have to take material off the bottom, and since these just have dummy handles you remove wood from the side opposite the hinges. The best tool to use for this job is a planer. Bosch sells a good one for around $100, and as an added bonus it's not made in China! Now that the doors are the correct size and installed, cut sections of door stop and use the air nailer to install them. Then add the hardware.

The end result:



So why make a whole post about this? Because it's about 10 hours worth of work if you've never done it before. But if you're careful the end result will be just as good as if the doors were always there. Now this bedroom has a real closet!

BIG update - 4 of 4

The water line. Fixed it in an afternoon! I think it leaked 8-10,000 gallons so the water bill was... high. But I posted a video on youtube of the leak, sent a link to the video + a copy of my receipts to the city and the bill was adjusted to be about my normal summer average bill. Thanks, San Antonio Water System! Here's how to track down and fix an underground water line leak.

First you need to figure out where the leak is coming from. Water flows downhill, so you have to find the highest wet spot in the ground and start digging. In my case I followed it up, towards the house and into the landscaping. You should also know what you're looking for. If you draw a straight line from your water meter and go towards the water spigot at the front corner of your house you now have a pretty good idea where the main water line runs. My leak was in that line so the water main was the culprit.

So now you've dug down and found a pipe (6 inches down in my case). Continue digging (carefully) uphill and you will locate the actual leak. My leak was a hairline crack about an inch and a half long, probably caused by roots growing around the water line. It shot a spray of water 3 or 4 feet into the air and looked like this:



The next step now that you've found the leak is to shut the water off at the street and remove the damaged section of water line.


Now you get to dig again - about 3 or 4 feet on both sides of your cut because you will have to bend both sections of the PVC line to splice in a new piece. To build the new piece of water line just measure the length of what you cut out and subtract about 1/2 inch. Attach an adapter to both ends by using pipe dope and cement and you're ready to install it.


Make sure you can install it by test-fitting it first. Dig and expose more pipe if you need to. Attach your new section of water line with the pipe dope and cement, and hold it all together for 30 seconds (so neither end of the repair section pulls out while the glue sets) and you're done.


Remove all roots within 6 inches in all directions and fill the trench with sand and the repair will last for decades.

Broken Water Line

This weekend I wanted to relax and only add that vent line from the upstairs bathroom. Little did I know that other things were planned for me.

The water main broke between the meter and the house - more or less directly under some bushes in front of the place. It wasn't a huge break, but it was enough to turn the surrounding area into mud and shoot mist a couple of feet in the air. I took loads of pics and even got a video of it. The more I have to convince San Antonio Water System there was a leak, the better.

Writeup coming tomorrow. For now, Danielle managed to scratch her retina and I'm in charge of taking care of her.

Never a dull moment...

New Roof is Done

Finally a project that I didn't have to do. The new roof is on, and it only took a day from start to finish. The roofers showed up early and wrapped up close to 8 in the evening, so it was one very long day.

I did manage to grab a few pictures while the action was still going on.

This one shows the color of the new roof. Similar to what the old one probably was once upon a time, but just a bit lighter. The ridge vents weren't in yet when I took this - that was done towards the end of the job.



While I was up there I realized... that's not a bad view!



Looks like somebody still has the frame for an old satellite dish up on their roof. It must've gone up not long after the house was built because they haven't made them this big in a long time!



They're starting the ridge vents here. Cool old truck - the gauge clusters from these go for a pretty good price because they fit the '67-'72 regular-sized Ford trucks.



Here's the finished product!



Actual data showing how much the ridge vents are doing will come within the next few days. The radiant barrier dropped the temperature from the mid-140s to about 117-118. I'm really curious to see what more this will do!

At this point I'm laying low for a bit because I'm still waiting on Allstate to realize they got the wrong roofing material on their paperwork (adjustment check #1). Now they need to release the rest of the original claim money (check #2), and then whatever more the adjustment would've added to the rest of the original claim money (check #3). In other words, ramen may be on the menu this week. And by 'may' I mean 'boil 2 cups of water, add noodles and come back 3 minutes later.'

The roof work came out really well and they were the only roofing company to actually answer the phone, make an appointment show up and give an estimate on time, as promised, so I'm going to take a few minutes to plug the company that did it. They're A-Tex Roofing and Remodeling. http://www.a-texroofing.com or (210)-857-4151 or 1150 N. Loop 1604 W, San Antonio, TX 78248. Ask for Nicholas, and mention you saw their info on a blog and they'll probably cut you a better deal. This one's an easy decision since they're the only roofing company I dealt with to actually deliver what they say they would. After bouncing back and forth with the glass guy for the last two months I can say this is the hugest thing over the competition.



Now the door... I was told earlier this week that the last glass bits that are needed were arriving on Wednesday, window being assembled this weekend (now) and that it'll get done sometime this week. *fingers crossed*

The only thing I have remaining to do this weekend is to properly vent a bathroom shower/tub to the outside with a new pipe that was added yesterday. Either the previous owner or the one before them changed the light/heater/fan unit that was in an upstairs bathroom. This is the one they didn't wire up correctly that I fixed last month. The problem is, the exhaust fan unit has a square-shaped outlet and somewhere in the box it came in was an adapter to make it 3 inches / round so you could connect it to your vent. They or whoever installed it didn't know what it was for and just tossed it. Brilliant move. Check back here late Sunday or Monday for a post showing how to fab up your own adapter and vent a bathroom.

Project Updates

A few updates on the projects going on...

The Roof:
Insurance is covering it!!! This is the most awesome thing that could have happened. I've chosen a roofing company and they're starting the work on Wednesday. The one little snag is that the insurance company got the wrong roofing material type on their paperwork - 20 year / 3-tab vs. the 30 year / dimensional stuff that I have. It should be a simple fix because they're hugely different in appearance. While they're doing the work they're going to be installing a ridge vent, covering up the existing turbines (too close to the ridge vent) and adding an exhaust outlet for the shower/tub combo on the second floor. Also fixing the bad flashing around the chimney and doing tons of other small things. This couldn't have turned out any better.

The front door:
Glass guy was here a couple of weeks ago. Left his samples behind so I could show the different materials to Danielle. The guy does good work and had a stack of work orders an inch thick. I'm waiting to get to the top of the list. This is taking forever. NOT happy with the slow progress here.

The flooring project:
I've decided to go ahead with the flooring work ahead of changing out the fireplace surround and all that other work. It's still taking me a while to figure the design for that out, but I know I want to do the flooring. Might as well go ahead and do that while I figure out the fireplace surround. The plan right now is to raise the fireplace up 6in or so and I have a concept for what this should look like, but am not sure how to build the structure supporting the new mantle. Also unsure of the color, so maybe by doing the flooring first that'll help push me through the rest of this. I can just undercut the bottom 3/4 inch of the existing mantle and some of the grout from below the bottom row of tiles to install the wood. That's no big deal.

The big question about the flooring is where the material comes from. I can't remember if my aunt said something about being able to acquire the stuff at a discount or if that was something else. She's on vacation somewhere right now so I'm waiting for her to get back home and get onto her email account...

So right now I have one thing that's moving forward and two more that I want nothing more than to finish. Hopefully they'll come along in the next two weeks or so.

Everything done earlier is still holding up well - the trees are handling the drought pretty well (drop irrigation line) and I'll probably have to put another coat of stain on the pergola because the sun is intense. But surprisingly, the trees seem to be growing a bit or at least looking healthier now.

Side note - the reason why I didn't do anything last weekend is right here:


This is what the front of a Volvo looks like when you take it apart to overhaul and convert the air conditioning. It blows cold - 25 degrees at the vent :)

Progress... but it's slow

I should have somebody working on the window in the front door right now. He's also designing a new window to go above the door that will match it to a degree, but I'm waiting on what he comes up with so I can say which one to go with. I'm really looking forward to this being done... I hope this is the last 'pre-window' post!

The insurance company is coming on Monday to have a look at the roof. The first thing both roofers said when they got up there was 'look at all the hail damage!' It did hail on February 10th and I owned the house at that time so why not phone it in. I've got my fingers crossed, hoping for the best. I wound up going with a roofing company owned by somebody else in this neighborhood. He was the only one to get the estimate in on time, and I've already been dealing with delays and the front door... The other quote arrived four days after it was promised, and I'd already called up the company I went with to let them know I was going with them at that point. It was a tough call though - the person behind me was about $1,300 higher but I noticed that the late quote was lacking some of the other things that would cost extra. The ridge venting and lots of flashing, for instance. Not sure if the area was quoted differently - that could affect things too.

So for right now I'm just hurrying up to wait. Insurance helping with the roof would really be great because it would free me up to do more around the house. I do have a concept for what I'd like the fireplace to look like but no clue who builds such a thing. I would really like to get the floor and fireplace done soon. Maybe if insurance will cover the roof I could use the savings to pay for someone else to install the flooring... I'll be able to do it this fall though; my long trip back to Seattle has been delayed a few months. Just love being here in limbo for now though.

Wobble Wobble...

One of the items from the inspection report was that a toilet upstairs wobbled. The inspector said it needed a new wax ring, the sellers had some home warranty policy and would get it repaired through that. All seemed well with the world.

Until closing when I was still in Seattle and nobody checked the toilet during the final walkthrough and when I got there the thing was still loose. Moral of the story - twice now sellers haven't followed up with fixing what they said they'd do. Try not to let it happen a third time...

Anyway one short year later I get around to fixing this toilet. Hey, what can I say... I never use that bathroom and it wasn't leaking. I pull the toilet off and scrape off the remains of the wax seal and take a look.



Awesome, the builder cut the hole for the closet flange just a little too big so it couldn't be attached correctly. And the screws they did use were rusted out. The toilet was attached only by the drain which thankfully hasn't leaked yet and one lonely screw that'd somehow survived. The repair is really simple - something that anybody can do for about $20 in parts (or a couple hundred for a plumber... take your pick).

Once you get done wondering why somebody would want to use metal parts around a toilet where they'll rust out, you'll only need to buy a couple of things. Get a repair flange from Lowes, Ace, McCoys (wherever), mount it and drill a few holes through the floor where the screws holding it to the floor will go. Screw it in, and now drill through the holes where the existing flange used to attach to the floor. Once you install the new screws it's all held together, stronger than it was when it was new.



Now use a new wax ring and install the toilet back where it was and use rubber shims as needed. In my case the floor is depressed a bit behind the toilet, maybe from the weight of the water tank after all these years. The floor was dry with no signs of water damage... maybe a really heavy person sat there. Who knows. Anway, good as new. When I get around to redoing the floor in that bathroom I'll cut out a section of the subfloor and reinforce as needed, along with putting a new PVC flange in with stainless steel screws. That'll take care of everything.

Got a couple of people to have a look at the roof. The first quote is amazing, especially considering all the flashing and whatnot he's including. The owner of that company lives behind my house and over one and I really hope he comes out as the best deal. The first thing both people said when they saw the roof was something about all the hail damage. There was a hailstorm in February (the 10th?) but I didn't think it was that bad. I've already emailed my agent... maybe I can get a discount here. That'd be great.

I've had to rethink some of the plans about the flooring and everything in the living room. Since I'll probably be going back to the PNW for a long while this fall it would be a really terrible time to start a major project. Even if I wound up contracting out the floor I'd still have to get the fireplace work, mantle and surround done before then or else I'll have a gap later. There's just not enough time for that. So in the meantime I'll just take care of refinishing the door and getting a new window put in before I go. With the new roof it's also the perfect opportunity to add an exhaust fan to the shower in the jack and jill bathrooms upstairs. Right now there's only a fan in each room with the sink and toilet. Dunno why there wasn't one since day one...

STILL Waiting

Still waiting on the glass guy (Austin Cut Glass) to get back to me. I've called back, set up numerous times for him to come over or get back to me but they've all been broken. There's nothing more annoying than someone not following through. So unless they get back to me before the end of the week, I've had a change of plans.

This afternoon I'm going to measure the size of the window. Accurate measurements that I can take somewhere else. I know what kind of design I'm looking for, so I can take the measurements around and get a new window made on my own. Dunno about installing it... if bad comes to worse I can always take the door off the pins and install the glass horizontally. Unless there's a way to install it while the door is installed (maybe they give it to you in a box because you have to get the glass from their place to where you live somehow.

And refinishing the door... shouldn't be as hard as I thought according to one of my coworkers who's done it before. He described it as taking only a few hours. I might do it myself even though it's also a pretty intimidating job. I could do that when I change out the door hardware, or at least refinish it with the hardware off so in theory there wouldn't be any marks whenever I get around to deciding what I want to change it to.

That would save a few hundred $$ which would go immediately towards replacing the roof. I don't need to worry about contractors, because one of the three I called about a quote (and the only one who actually gave me a firm date which is in about an hour) is actually the owner of the company and I'm pretty sure he lives in the house behind me and over 1. I'm looking forward to getting that taken care of, and I'm sure it will. Even if the other two companies don't call back. They were supposed to by the end of this weekend so I guess we'll figure that part out pretty soon.

I have a pretty good idea of the cost. Reroofing isn't exactly cheap but if you do it right it's not something that'll have to be done again for a LONG time.

Change of plans

Still waiting on the door and window guy to make the new window and get back to me. He's on vacation this week. In the meantime, I've done some more work on what it'll take to install the new flooring downstairs.

If I want to go with a solid wood I have to put down a plywood subfloor to attach it to. That's no big deal - I've looked into what it'll take to do it. What I didn't do was measure whether or not everything would fit under the actual doors. It turns out I'm about 3/8 inch short on most of them. So this idea won't work, and now I'm trying to figure out whether engineered wood will work better because I may have to go with a glue down installation. At least I found this out now, rather than later.

Also discovered that it's time to get a new roof. Definately not a DIY project, and I'll spare all the details around it. It's not leaking, but the end is near. I'm holding out until it cools down some - in my strange line of reasoning maybe you get better workmanship from people when they're not up on the roof constantly thinking about how hot it is. Idunno.

That's about enough depressing news for now. Some weeks it's good, some weeks the news isn't so great.

Don't things ever get fixed?

I really wanted to get the front door fixed before the wedding. REALLY, really wanted to. But the stained glass guy was busy and the window was in much worse shape than I thought, so it makes a lot more sense to just replace it. It won't cost a whole lot more than fixing it anyway, and it'll look a lot newer. Now that we're back from the honeymoon of course now it's time for him to go on vacation. Oh well, it'll get done when it gets done... at least it'll be fixed the right way.

We've also trained Snowy to be more calm when the doorbell rings. This isn't going to happen again.

I got a lot of advice from my aunt who knows a lot about decorating and design while she was here. Apparently the shade of green that the entire downstairs is painted in has a lot more life left on it than I thought. She also said that a dark wood would go well downstairs in the living room and dining room, and that it'd be a good idea to think about doing something with the mantle. The floor will be easy because I've been looking into that for months now, but the fireplace... much more difficult. I'm hoping to break ground on this project sometime in late July. Until then I'll be busy planning and trying to integrate all the stuff Elle and I got for our wedding with everything.

Stupid breaks the door (May 26, 2009)

Stupid the dog (formerly known as Snowy) had a rough day today. Someone rang the doorbell today and he took off to go see what's going on but this time he's extra excited and decides it's a good idea to jump on the window. One of the glass panels breaks. No, the dog wasn't hurt.



Thanks, Snowy! The estimate:
$125 to fix the glass
$25 to repair the solder
$300-ish? to refinish the door. But they're taking it off to take somewhere and refinish and I'm really not that great at staining and finishing stuff with funny edges to it. I would've had to farm that out at some point anyway because I don't have the time and space to do a good job of it myself.

For the time being there's a band aid of tape covering the hole, and obedience training in store for the dog.