Bathroom, Post-destruction

After a few days of destruction, and cleaning up, of course, the walls were out and it was just a raw space. Now I could really think about what I wanted it to be. One thing was for sure- heated floors!!!! I've always wanted them and now that we're living in the arctic circle (ok, but it feels like it sometimes) warm floors on my bare feet is a no-brainer. I asked Wino what would be on his wish list and he really wanted two sinks. Boy wants to brush his teeth without having to move for me to spit. There's love. Two sinks would be a challenge for this space but I was willing to negotiate. I wanted a larger shower than the solitary prison cell that passed for a shower stall before. Basically, I needed the bathroom to be twice as big. My inability to bump out the exterior wall (the electric meter is on the other side, can of worms) forced me to think creatively.

Here's the plan we came up with. Instead of two sinks, we compromised and I found a trough sink with two faucets that would just fit in the space between the wall and the toilet. This then lead to needing two medicine cabinets to balance the sink, and two light fixtures to balance the medicine cabinets. The picture shows the framing for the medicine cabinets, the boxes for the lights and a recessed cabinet over the toilet. What's a little more framing?

I bumped out the shower stall by 8 inches by using the space previously occupied by the shower wall, now replaced by glass. (This created it's own challenges, more on that later). I reclaimed some storage space inside the walls by recessing cabinets where I could. The interior wall has a bump-in next to the toilet which looked weird so we added more recessed cabinets to make the bump-in look less awkward. This photo shows the framing for those cabinets. These will have to be custom made, of course. The plumbing for the shower was left as-is until a decision was made on what exactly was going to happen there. It did look funny having the shower head sticking out of the open wall. On the exterior wall, the only change I made was replacing the insulation with R-19 (it was R-11). I had to add some studs so the shower door would have good purchase when it finally gets installed. I researched radiant floor heat (electric) and found a very good deal at Costco online, including a programmable thermostat. In the photos, the sub floor has been installed- 3/4" plywood over the 1/2" original sub floor, then 1/4" cement backer board over that to take the tile. I've always wanted a bathroom with tile wainscoting too so I intend to do it here. Did I mention our budget for the entire bath is a mere $5k?

Basement Floor

Just a quick post about our basement floor. (I'm avoiding the bathroom floor, have been for days). After mulling the choices, we ended up using laminate floor for the basement. Wall to wall carpet just sounded like a bad idea with 3 dogs and 2 cats. I wanted something that could be cleaned and area rugs are perfect for that. So hard surface floor it was. Now at some point in the basement's shady past there was a mini flood. There were water stains on the studs inside the walls, but only on the east side of the house. This is the side that sits into the slope so it made sense, water migrating through the ground down the hill would eventually run into that wall. Always hoping for the best but planning for the worst, I wanted to make sure the floor would not be completely ruined by a little dampness or water. Here's what I did. I collected samples of the different flooring I liked, different brands, colors, materials, prices. I marked them with a sharpie "wet" on one end and "dry" on the other. Then I put them in bowls of water with the dry end sticking out and left it for a few days. It's amazing to see what happens to some of the flooring. The winner was an Ikea laminate (can't remember the name but I tested a few Ikea samples), as luck would have it, the cheapest of the whole bunch ($1.15/sqft). I was glad I labeled the ends because you could not see a difference between the wet and dry ends on this sample. So I'm pretty confident if we have biblical flooding come spring, my floor will eventually dry out and look good (though, admittedly, it might not smell so good)

Master Bathroom, Part 1, Destruction

When we bought this house, I knew I would want to update the master bath. It looked fine to a quick eye, like when touring a house for sale. But a little more than a glance and it was obvious it had been hastily updated. The layout was good though, meaning no need to move plumbing, and the size reasonable, not so small that sacrifices would have to be made but small enough that the cost would be in our budget. That said, people can go crazy and spend way too much on a place where you spend maybe one hour total a day? In reading remodel magazines, I've come across $8K as a starting point for a small bath. Wow. No wonder people want to do it themselves. If you are not moving plumbing, and are careful about fixtures and tile selection, it should be less than that! At the house in Houston, I remodeled both bathrooms. The first hall bath costing $2,300. We ripped out a wall, unearthed a beautiful original tub and wood floor, and recycled a trash-picked TV cabinet into a sink vanity. The master bath cost a little more, $3500. It was a small bath so it needed special care in design and everything was replaced. More on those in another post.

So as I'm standing in the ugly master bath, just looking and thinking, I notice the wall for the shower is, OMG, the crap that was on the walls in the basement! Rough wood paneling, painted peachy beige. WTF? So I look closely at one of the corners and, yep, all of the walls were this paneling. In the lousy remodel that was done, they slapped 1/4" drywall over the wood and painted it all the same color. There was an attempt made at design when they glued trim over the horizontal drywall seam, like a chair rail. Pretty! So I realized that not only would the sink, toilet and mirror need to go, we were going to have to strip the walls down to studs. Can you pass me that big can of worms, please? I'd just love to open it now. Hell, if we're tearing out the walls, why not remove the shower wall and open it up? Sure! And rip out all the painted tile in the shower stall (yes, painted tile). Wino loves the tearing out of walls and fixtures so this was a good day for him, well, until he pulled off one wall panel and the funk from a dead critter previously trapped in said wall filled the tiny room. Open window, please. I diligently removed trash from the bathroom, taking pictures of things I was going to give away, like the vanity, mirror, cabinet, light fixture and toilet. Posted on craig's list, it was all gone by the next morning. I love recycling!

We found a few scary/interesting things in the destruction phase of this remodel. When the mirror was removed, we discovered some creative wiring behind it. One side used brown duct tape to make the electrical connections, 'cause that's not a fire hazard. And the old medicine cabinet body and electrical boxes were left in the wall (see picture). Ripping out the shower was a learning experience. The tile was adhered with yellow glue to plain drywall from about 4' and up. From 4' and below, there was 2" think cement, then the drywall, then glued tiles. No plastic sheeting water barrier. The wall opposite the shower head was trashed inside. The bottom 4' of the studs were crumbling away from water damage. We ended up sistering 4 studs with new ones. (sistering them was easier than tearing out the old studs since it's an outside wall and the siding was attached on the back side). The drain was a lost cause too. The shower pan was a mud style one, basically hand shaped cement to shed water towards the drain. If you want a tiled shower pan, this is the traditional method. It's tough though and if the weep holes at the drain get clogged, water problems will result. I think this is what happened with age to this shower. Around the drain, the wood subfloor was also damaged. When Wino scraped the stick-em-down tiles off the rest of the floor, we realized the bathroom had been carpeted (yuck!) over particle subfloor and it had raised swell spots from water penetration in front of the sink and near the toilet. So out came the subfloor. Now there was a sub-subfloor of 1/2" regular plywood so at least we weren't teetering from one joist to another. There was also a drop ceiling in the shower stall that we removed and it left a gaping 4'x4' hole up to the attic. It got a little cold in that part of the house. The shower plumbing looked good, and we were able to check the plumbing for the hall bath too since they share the wall and supply lines. That was a relief after the rotted walls and floor. So after a full day's work deconstructing this 12'x5' space, I looked in the doorway and thought "We have lost our minds! What were we thinking????". Truly, I was glad we were able to discover and remedy the hidden damage, although the added cost and labor were something I know now to expect, even in a house that's not so old.

Basements, Part 2, Walls

We got lucky with this basement in that a lot of the structure work was done, and actually done properly. After we pulled out the nasty carpet, I took a good look at the walls. They had been painted beige, and one wall had dark stripes. The stripes were the unpainted rough wood paneling. Ugh! As I appreciated that the previous owner had taken the time to paint the walls a lighter color, I shuddered at the thought of all dark brown walls in a basement with only a few tiny windows. But it was still panelling. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. Since there was mold on the carpet, I did myself no favors by researching "moldy basement" on the internet. I ended up getting so wound up about toxic mold behind the walls etc, we pulled off some of the panelling to look behind it. Thankfully, it was all good behind the panels but with one wall in the "office" pulled out, I made the gallant remark "we may as well rip the rest of the walls out, honey". Given the chance for destruction, Wino obliged and out came the walls. We did end up finding some mold on a few panels so the choice was a good one. The walls had been properly studded out and insulated so that was fortunate. I chose to use the "greenboard" drywall. It's supposed to be mildew and mold resistant and is only a dollar or two more. I treated inside the walls with a mold preventative, same one used on the floor. I replaced the bottom foot of insulation due to past water and critter damage. Wino found dried red beans in one wall. That was weird. The drywall was installed after the flooring was finished, mostly so we'd have something to walk on. I did leave the panelling inside the window wells and smoothed it over with joint compound. Removing it seemed like a can of worms best left alone. A few sections of the inside walls were also left up and smoothed with JC, there was too much going on with switches and doorways. It took 26 panels of drywall, purchased at 84 Lumber for a few pennies more than Lowes or HD. 84 is so much closer to the house and it was brought home in bundles of 5 or 6 tied to the top of my Matrix. Good times.

After taping the seams with mold resistant seam tape (yup, they make that, but I wouldn't bother with it again) and finishing them off, we added new baseboard in the main room and recycled the old baseboard as much as we could in the "office". It was stained dark green so a little work went into making that paintable. I added a quickie crown moulding, basically using a smaller base moulding turned upside down. Much easier to install than proper crown and gives the room a finished look.

Where did I go wrong? Well, I would have replaced the insulation with R-19 if it had been really cold out when we started this, but I really didn't think too much about it and there's R-11 in the walls now. I would have been more diligent about keeping the new floor protected because it now has a haze from the drywall sanding and requires some elbow grease to clean. Other than that, it was pretty straight forward. Oh, the studs were not evenly spaced so a full 4' drywall board didn't always line up on studs so there was much measuring and moving seams etc to reduce cutting. I don't think I've ever worked on a house with evenly spaced studs. Maybe they eyeballed a lot more in the past. Maybe.

Basements, Part 1, Subflooring

This is the first house I've lived in with a basement in 20 years. Having both grown up in the North East, my honey Wino and I both know the benefit of having that living space available for things you might not want in a spare bedroom, like a "rec room" (that's what we had growing up) or a wine/beer lab, or a music studio. So Wino was thrilled that there was a basement and that it seemed already finished. Ha! Not so! Due to some serious carpet abuse by the previous tenants' pets, it just had to come out. That's when we realized it was merrily glued to the concrete floor, with no subfloor or anything. The carpet had damp spots and I wondered if those were to be blamed on untrained pups or moisture wicking up from the concrete. So the search for suitable subfloor commenced. Normally, one would lay a plywood subfloor but it would need to be raised, commonly with 2x4 joists. The ceiling is a bit low (7') so I didn't want to lose even more headroom. The Home Depot sells a basement subflooring system that is 2'x2' tiles of OSB plywood with plastic spacers on the back to raise the floor slightly and give it "vapor room". The theory of "vapor room", which is a term I made up to try to explain it to Wino, is that the concrete gives off and absorbs moisture but if you can create a space where the vapor equalizes above the concrete, it won't continue into the room in the form of humidity and condensation, thereby making the concrete happy (less cracking?) and the basement happy (less damp, more stable temps). I wanted to use a laminate for the finished floor so whatever I used needed to be compatible with installing that flooring type. The Home Depot product seemed like a winner but the cost per sqft was a bit much, upwards of $1.70. And I envisioned a good deal of waste due to the size. So I continued the search and found a subflooring system that we ended up using called Cosella Dorken (oh, the Germans, we love them). For about $.65 sqft, it seemed like a good choice but I was skeptical. It rolls out in a sheet so install is relatively quick, you can walk on it right away and we put a 1/8" foam underlayment then installed the laminate right on top. This reduced our headroom by only 5/8". I was happy with the product but you need two people to install it unless you have weights handy, it wants to roll back on you, making it hard to measure and place. Now here's where I went wrong. The seams need to be taped with their special vapor-sealing tape. I bought one roll, doing the math and figuring it was more than I needed. As so many thing turn out, I ran out of tape and ended up using heavy duty packing tape to finish some smaller seams. I also failed in making the flooring snug to all walls like it says in the install guide. I'm not sure how much this will affect the "vapor room" but I guess time will tell. If you want to install carpet with this product, you must lay a wood subfloor over it first, but using OSB is fine and a little cheaper. Then you can lay ceramic tile or carpet, I bet you could even put electric radiant floor heat if you were really motivated. Having the subfloor under the laminate definitely keeps the flooring from getting super cold and the basement stays about 56 degrees without any heat on. Not bad when it's 15 degrees outside.

Here's some tips on installing this subfloor: make sure the floor is clean and as free of dust and schmutz as possible. We washed the floor with a mold preventative before putting down the subfloor since we found mold on the carpet. This was just a precaution but it made me feel better. I also sealed the cracks in the concrete with concrete caulk, forcing it into the crack with a paint tool. There was a good deal of glue residue and foam crap adhered to the concrete and I scraped up as much as possible without losing my mind. The flooring is relatively forgiving so just get the big bumps (anything over say, 1/16"). Lay it out along the longest wall, weight the ends and cut it a row or two longer than what you think. let this curl up the wall, you'll trim it later when the laminate starts to go in. Our first row was 32' long and when the flooring went on top flattening it, there was a little space at the cut end where it didn't snug up to the wall.

I would recommend this subfloor since it was a good price and installed quickly, about 4 hours for 625 sqft. It was thin and the height difference is unnoticeable. It's definitely a good solution to subflooring a basement.

-Some Background-

First, I should say that my tool belt was a gift from a very dear friend who was my housemate in my first fixer-upper. Brave girl.

Our current house is a split level built in 1975. It's the youngest house I've owned and the house is in good shape but things need to be updated. Our last house was built in 1920 and needed some real updating, we did many, many projects there. My first house in California won the prize for fixer-upper, in all categories. It was a good price, I was single and it was LA, not a cheap market but two good friends lived two doors down and I knew it would be a challenge worth undertaking. The kitchen was scary, the base cabinets weren't even attached to the wall or floor and the counter top was held down only by the sink plumbing. I hired a contractor to put in new cabinets and a tile counter top. I wanted a mosaic red tile in a swirl pattern. I was told that would take too much time and my budget didn't allow for it so I decided to try it myself. That was the first really big project. I rented a tile cutter wet saw from the Home Depot and had it for a short 24 hours. The neighbors were less than thrilled that I was cutting tile on the back stoop at 2am. That counter top came out beautiful and it's been "I'll try it myself first" ever since. My theory of Home Remodeling is if you are fearless and a little handy, and have a clear-ish picture of what you want to accomplish- there are so many resources out there- you may as well try to do it yourself first and if you get overwhelmed, then call in the big guns. There are limits to this, specifically, anything that can kill you if mishandled (certain electrical projects) and anything that affects the safety of your home, and of course, anything that crosses the line to uncomfortable or scared shitless. I will admit, that line has steadily drifted as I tackle new projects, but one should always be safe, especially when playing with power tools while home alone. The dogs just can't dial 911 yet.

So I'm willing to throw my brain at almost anything I want to fix or change in the house, figure out how to do it, the best and most frugal way to do it and then, DO IT!