Stairs, the Over-Kill Way

Yesterday the A/C service guy came out for a spring tune up of the A/C. He's familiar with the house, he came out a few months ago when the heat pump decided to give up the ghost during a snow storm. It ended up being not the heat pump but the circuit breaker. (just an aside, if something keeps tripping a breaker, don't just keep resetting it, eventually it will melt and the whole panel will need to be replaced). The breaker panels (yes, plural) are in the basement and unfortunately, I was in the process of finishing the basement when all this happened. The half flight of stairs to the basement were scary. The only saving grace was with only 6 steps, you could jump to the bottom easily were a step to give way. I knew this was a problem when, just weeks after buying the house we had the chimney sweep come out. The helper was a big boy and I saw one of the steps flex about two inches as he came down to prep the stove insert in the basement. That's just not right. He kept going up and down the stairs and I was sure I was going to be pulling him out of the staircase with a broken leg (really, I would have just been tugging at him, he was so big there was no way his boss and I could have lifted him, even in a Lou Ferrigno moment) Suffice to say, I knew the stairs were a problem. After finishing the walls and floors of the basement, I procrastinated as usual about the steps. I had only built steps for decks, specifically the house in CA and the steps were such a pain, I was not looking forward to fixing these. Finally, while trying to avoid a different project, I demo'd the steps. I'm not sure what the codes are for steps but I'm pretty sure having two finish nails holding each end of the board horizontally with no under-structure might not make the grade. The half wall of the steps was also pulling away so there were gaps between the tread and the walls of about 1/2" on each side. You could see the nails but I didn't think that was the only thing holding the stair tread up! The weight of the board, person stepping and the force of that step were held up by just those two nails. I still can't believe it when I write it again. It took about 20 minutes with the sawsall and the steps were out. I left the risers, they seemed fine and I faced them with the laminate matching the floor.

I wasn't sure how to proceed with the structure to hold the tread so I just built it like decking. I made boxes out of 2 x 4 and secured them level with the top of the risers using 3" screws.

It was a bit of a pain to position the boxes (which were heavy) and try to screw them in and keep it level side to side and front to back. Clamping them to the risers and drawing guide lines helped. Once that was done, I could at least climb the stairs, being careful. The cats thought it was great, they could get underneath the stairs, which at some point harbored critters (like any basement in a cold climate), and that was worthy entertainment.

Since the basement floor is 'oak' laminate, I used oak stair treads. HD and Lowes both have them for about the same price. I took a sample of the laminate and matched the stain color so I could stain the boards to match. Before installing anything though, I painted the side trim on the steps so I wouldn't have to do it after the steps were installed. This saved time in the end. I also stained and sealed the treads before installing them, letting them dry for a good four days. Using a nail gun with 2" finish nails, the treads went in fast (I numbered them on the back when I cut them since they had to be fitted), filled the nail holes with putty and eventually put a final thin coat of urethane over the existing 3 coats. They are solid. The dogs will even use the steps now, before they were too freaked out by the shakiness of them.

The A/C guy, making small talk, says "I see you finished the basement,

it looks nice. The steps are much better". I laughed since ANYTHING would be better than what was there. He said he had just rebuilt the basement steps in his house too so we compared notes on what we each did. After explaining how I did ours, he said "wow, that's kinda over-kill, don't cha think?" Hmm. Maybe.

Bathroom, Floor (with heat!)

As much as one may procrastinate, eventually the piper must be paid and unsavory tasks accomplished. This is how I feel about the floor. It's not that I really don't like tiling, I think what was stumping me was the radiant floor heat. I had never installed it before and needed to wrap my head around it before diving in. There came a point, two fridays ago I think, when it became apparent I really could put off the bath floor indefinitely so that prompted me to suck it up. First thing I did was the shower floor, no mat there so it was relatively easy, aside from the drain. Now I could feel like I've started the floor without tackling the part intimidating me. After a few days of basking in the shower floor glow of accomplishment, I was ready for the radiant floor heat. In the mat installation instructions, first thing to do is test the "resistance" of the mat (and then two more times during installation). Um, ok. So off to HD to get an ohmmeter or multimeter. I found a multimeter. Followed the directions and took the reading. The display was kind of all over and I hope this is normal but it did pause on 53.6, so I'm hoping that means that's the reading. There's also a "loud mouth" tool that you clamp the wires for the mat to and if there's a break in the line during installation, it buzzes. Good thing since the mat is embedded in mortar and a bit hard to get to once installed. Next it says to lay out the mat, being careful of the purple wire (that's what heats the floor) and staple or tape it down. Taping sounded like a bad idea so I tried to staple it. Apparently stapling into cement board is not possible, no matter how much you swear. Ok, tape it is! The mat came with some hard-core-we-hold-the-space-shuttle-together-with-this double sided tape. (during installation, my sock stuck to it and I almost fell over trying to leave the room, fun) Once I laid the mat out and cut the mesh where needed, I realized it was going to be one row short, which sucks because that means a cold spot. So I was creative with the purple wire and hot glue, the result can be seen in the photo. I also ended up putting down one layer of the pepto on the floor as an anti-fracture membrane underneath the mat. I know that cracking is probably not an issue with the small tiles that we used but I had it and it only took 20 minutes (and allowed me to put off laying the mat for another day) and who knows with the heating and cooling of the floor? The vanity is along the same wall as the toilet and you don't want the mats under those so that's the unheated space along the inside wall.

The tile we chose was an HD stock item. I can be a little impatient when it comes to buying supplies, and prefer things carried in stock (this also makes dealing with miscalculations easier). We narrowed it down to two choices, all white octagonal with squares or white octagonal with black squares. I wasn't thrilled with either but compromised with a "peppered" floor. I cannibalized the black square tiles and artistically scattered them into the all white tiles. I prepped out the 1'x1' sheets beforehand by cutting out the tiles I wanted to replace so once it was down it would be easy to place the black tiles. I reused the loose octagonal tiles for the edges and odd spots and ended up with only 10 superfluous octo tiles, but a good number of white square tiles left over. The full sheets were to returned to HD.

I'm ready. Tiles are prepped, warming mat is taped down, floor is vacuumed, I'm ready. I mixed an obscene amount of mortar, determined to slap down half the floor in one sitting. Come to discover, filling in the areas between the wires on the mat takes a lot of material and I only got one and a half rows done. 4 1/2 full sheets. Only 29 sheets to go. Depressing. After 3 days and yet another trip to HD for yet another bag of mortar, it's down. The floor is tiled. I'm going to let the mortar set for about 6 days before grouting due to the thickness of it, plus, that puts it on a weekend and Wino is really good at grouting. It looks a little odd right now with the red and grey peeking between the tiles, but I think I'll like it once the white grout is in. I hope.

Never Attempt Crown Moulding on an Empty Stomach

As the title states, I made this dire mistake about 2 weeks ago when starting the crown moulding in the bathroom. I figured I'd finish everything I could before laying the floor tile (still procrastinating) since that's the last big thing and I'd have to avoid walking on it for at least a few days to let the mortar set. It was a Sunday. Wino and I ran errands in the morning, which really is early afternoon for us. I had bought the moulding a few days before and painted the pieces so it would only need touch up once it's in. We started work on the bathroom around 4pm. Wino was continuing with the grout and I started the CM. I have installed CM before but it's been a really long time. I'm more prone to install quickie crown moulding which is just window or shallow base moulding turned upside down (see basement CM). So wanting to get it done, I jumped right in. I made a simple jig to help place the CM to cut it with the compound miter saw. I cut one long piece for the longest wall (it was not the full length though) and a scrap piece for the marrying corner, just to see how it would look. Without going into details, that session ended with me throwing down the little piece, dropping the long piece, and falling backwards off the 3-step ladder while emitting a guttural yell that embodied frustration to it's core. Then I realized my patience was worn thin by my lack of feeding it, I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Wino is sadly used to these outbursts, his usual comment being "have you eaten lately?". He's almost always on the money and off I go to the kitchen to forage. So while feeding my patience, I took the opportunity to research installing CM on the internet. I should have led with this move but, I was in a bit of a hurry to see it done. There are some really good videos out there and a few different methods for cutting the compound angles. I chose the easiest, I think. This video was good save for the cardboard host, and he gets a little crazy with the left-flip-right-flip-left. I just visualize where its going and draw a light pencil mark showing the angle to cut. One useful tip when installing crown moulding, don't expect it to be perfect or you will make yourself crazy. That's what caulking is for. So I used some scrap wood to make another, more useful jig (see pic) and it really worked better. I also held a smaller piece of moulding in place on the wall and traced the bottom edge, matching the corners so I'd have something to follow once ready to nail them in. Since walls are never straight or perfectly square, I had to re-cut some of the ends when installing, adjusting the angle on the saw. I always cut the first time a little big, exactly for this reason. If the angle is right, the overlap or gap will be uniform. If not, it's an easy indication of where to cut. Being winter and very dry in the house (25% rel. humidity), I let the moulding acclimate for a few days before the install, and I didn't worry about little gaps at the corners. I caulked the corners because come summer, the wood will swell and the caulk will adjust, whereas, with wood fill, it'd end up pushing the fill and then when the humidity comes back down, you'll see cracks in the corners again.

It took less than two hours once the jig was made and the lines drawn to have all of the moulding up. Then came patching the nail holes, caulking the top and bottom edge and corners. Taking a break to eat then painting the CM, but I still need to touch up the wall paint.

I used a pneumatic nail gun which really makes things move quick, no matter what the project. And using that, I could install all of the pieces without assistance, since Wino was at work. It would have taken forever if nailing up the boards the old fashioned way!

One last thing, as prep for the CM, I used expanding foam to seal the wall to ceiling corners, then cut off any that was in the way. I did this because I could feel a cold draft coming from the gap at the ceiling to wall. I don't know why or where it was coming from (attic, wall?) but sealing it took care of it.

Bathroom, Peptoing the Shower & Tiling the Walls

Is that a word? Peptoing? I've just finished the third coat of pepto on the shower floor and as I wait for it to dry (1 1/2 to 12 hours, ugh) I figure I'll make use of my time. After the shower base went in and the walls went up, the shower walls were ready to go in. Here's something very important when creating a waterproof shower stall- behind the durarock cement board, 6 mil poly should be hung, overlapping the flange at the bottom where the wall and shower pan meet. I did not know that water will migrate through grout lines, then cement board, to then soak the studs and insulation behind it. I think this is an extreme example but a little cheap poly sheeting is a good insurance policy. We had some left over from using it as a vapor barrier behind the drywall in the basement so up it went. I had read online that hardibacker shouldn't be used for shower walls so we used the 1/2" durarock. Since it's only available in 3' x 5' sheets now, we had a few seams, which I sealed with the same high quality 100% silicone caulk. Same for the corners and where the wall meets the base. Because of my water paranoia, probably caused by the sight of the disintegrating studs in the shower, I decided to see if I could waterproof the shower base more. The website that sells the base had a paintable product called "ShowerSeal" which seemed perfect but really expensive so I searched for an alternate product. I came upon a product called "Pro-Red", which is a water-based (easy cleanup) paint on membrane that at one layer, provides a surface for mortar to grip to and prevents tile cracking and at thicker applications, creates an elastomeric waterproof membrane. The importance of being "elastomeric" is so any shifting or settling that always happens in houses causing small cracks in corners will not crack this membrane (within reason). Sold in 2 or 5 gallons, it was expensive, then shipping added $40!! I found a product called "Red Guard" sold at the HD in the flooring department that I think is the same stuff, just packaged for non-professionals. All of the instructions and descriptions are exactly the same as the Pro-Red, but it's packaged in 1 and 3 gallon sizes. Plus, no shipping! When you open the bucket, it's a lovely pepto-pink with a strange pasty consistency. I applied one layer to the drywall outside the shower that was going to be tiled for the wainscoting. I applied it thicker (three layers) on the shower walls. This took a few days because of the dry time between coats. The instructions say for waterproofing the wet layers should not be more than 125 mils thick. Huh? More searching on the internet and I figured 125 mils = 1/8" thick. Ok, now I have an idea of how this goes on. As it dries, it turns a lovely, dark red color, hence the name. Juxtaposed with the green drywall, and the bathroom was holiday festive!

The Red Guard label said it it could also be used to waterproof around the closet ring on a toilet and I took that to heart. The original toilet closet ring ended up almost level with the completed sub floor, so tiling the floor would put it 1/4" or more below the surface. Hmm. Wino found an adapter closet ring just for this problem (at HD, of course), that has a gasket and slips into the old closet ring, with the new closet ring resting on the subfloor.

In the picture, Wino used mortar to fill in around the old ring, making it level with the subfloor and I've waterproofed it so the new ring can go in and get screwed down. The Red Guard states it will stick to drywall, metal, PVC, and cement/mortar. The point of this, in theory, is to give any water that might be leaking (which happens when wax rings get old) no place to go except out from under the toilet, alerting any observant person to the problem. Usually, the leak just soaks the sub floor around the ring, slowly rotting it away until it starts to drip from below. This can go unnoticed for a long time, meaning much more major repairs. (Also note the "baseboard" tile along the wall in this photo)

As to tiling the walls, I used greenboard drywall (the stuff made now has mold treatment in the plaster, not just wax on the paper surface, I asked) and with the Red Guard, was able to tile directly on it using modified thin-set (not the pre-mix stuff!). This saved us serious time and some money in not having to use hardibacker for the wainscoting and drywall above it. It's not in a wet area so there shouldn't be any problems, but behind where the sink will be, I did used scraps of hardibacker we had from the floor. This also got three layers of the Red Guard, since it will be seeing some water in the future. I did not tile behind the sink vanity, since it'll be hidden. I stole an idea from TOH magazine in which this couple used subway tile turned on end to mimic a base board. Clever! I then ran a strip of glass tile, then the subway tile in a brick pattern, then the glass, then bull nose. I'm quite happy with the result.

I think when I do this again, since there will always be other bathrooms, when laying the tile, instead of starting from one corner with full and half tiles, I'll start in the center so the ends of the walls have even partial tiles. That would look better. Oh, and I'd tile the floor first, then work on the walls. I'm sure there's a reason we did the walls first but I'm not clear on why. The shower base has gotten a little beat up with all the work done in that area. It's fine, but if it had been tiled, it would've been better. And when tiling, I always back-butter every tile. This means applying a thin layer of mortar to the back of the tile in addition to the mortar on the wall or floor. It makes the job longer and takes more attention but I've never had a tile pop off or crack.

Bathroom, Shower Drama

Once everything was stripped out of the bathroom and I had decided to expand the footprint of the shower stall, I was left with the challenge of figuring out the best, most cost effective way of getting the perfect shower (for that space). There were a few problems with finding a shower pan. First, because we removed one wall, and the 2" thick cement on the other walls, the drain was no longer centered to anything. Previously, the inside of the shower measured 36"x 44". The new measurement (maxing out the space) is 45" x 46". My choices for a shower pan were as follows: prefab fiberglass/resin, custom crafted mud shower pan, or custom fabricated marble or corian. Wino thought we should just do a custom mud/cement pan and tile it. I know my limitations, mostly, my lack of patience, and was wary of this project. I found a really good video online explaining how to build one of these shower pans. After watching the video, Wino suggested we find an alternative. Smart boy. I found a few websites offering preformed shower bases in a material that could be tiled, to give it a custom look, but the size was not exact and the drains were centered and that meant we would have to move the drain and make the shower smaller by building in the walls, ruining the line of the bath and adding a lot more work. Apparently, standard sizes run 42"x 42", then jump to 48" x 48". I stumbled across a website that offered custom sized bases in a material that would take tile. Actually I found two different products, made two different ways. I chose the one with the simple installation, since the material was basically the same. I was surprised at the quote because it wasn't much more than a prefab tile-ready base, but it was twice the cost of a prefab fiberglass base (once you slap "custom" on anything, it seems to skyrocket the price). If we wanted to keep the size and drain location, this was the best choice. Basically, the base is made of extruded industrial hard foam, formed to specifications, then skinned with a thick waterproof fiberglass mesh/plastic/resin surface that mortar will stick to. The base comes with a 4" threshold, but can also be made ADA compliant. There's also a 5" flange that goes up the wall to help with waterproofing. Check out the details here. So we order it, I'm excited because the shower is going to be big and this seems like a relatively simple solution. It comes in a huge box, but is very light weight. On the order form, it suggests you minus 1/2" from the dimensions for wiggle room. Well, our space is not quite square, with one end being 1/4" smaller than the other, so I only minus 1/4" off the smallest dimension. When we dry fitted it, it didn't fit in the back corner and I had to remove some furring strips to make room. No big deal, I reinstalled them after the shower base was in. So take the 1/2" wiggle room to heart. The base basically gets glued down using the same modified thin-set used to adhere the tiles. The drain was replaced first, we ordered a new one with the pan. It's three pieces, quite clever. Lots of thin-set, gobs of 100% silicone around the rim of the drain flange, and try to place the pan level without dropping it. Ugh. Once it was in, I stepped into the base to force it down, squishing out any excess mortar. It was pretty level when I checked it so we didn't have to do anything there. My paranoia about the drain led to a 20# weight being positioned over it for 3 days, until I was sure it was set. The modified thin-set is designed to stick to plywood but we chose the extra protection of using cement backerboard over the plywood on the entire floor. We put in some screws about 1/2" from the top of the flange to secure the base to the wall studs.

So the base was in and we continued to install the walls. Heres where the drama happened.

My feeling on this shower base is that it's a little delicate until the tile is installed. I was concerned with something puncturing the surface, negating it's waterproofing. I'm always dropping tools, screws, tape measures, and I thought something might happen. Well, when we were putting the walls in the shower stall up, we needed a step ladder for the top piece. I told Wino, "get the rug pads and some wood to spread out the weight of the ladder feet so they don't puncture the base" (see picture).

Guess what happened. He didn't want to go look in the garage for scrap wood and thought I was over-reacting so he just used the bunched up rug pads and ended up puncturing the base, not once but twice! Now I'm picturing water

penetrating the grout, running down the base towards the weep holes in the drain but being diverted into these potholes, seeping into the foam and collapsing the whole base. I have an active imagination. Wino was banished from the bathroom and I finished the walls myself (we were mostly done). To fix the pothole problem, I filled them with high grade silicone caulk, and decided to look for a waterproofing product to apply to the whole base as a precaution. More on that in the "shower wall and waterproofing" post.

To sum up, I would use this base again, at this point. I'm procrastinating tiling it but so far, it's performed as advertised. Installation was straight forward, and if you can mix mortar (but no lumps!) it's really easy. In the future, if I used this product again, I would be more cautious about the surface until the tile is in. Stepping on it with shoes or bare feet is fine, but ladder feet, not so much.

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)