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.

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.

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!

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...

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.