Grouting

Just a few photos of the finished tile.

The picture rail has been removed and the walls are being re plastered, ceilings painted and the original woodwork is having a face lift.

 The holes in the tile are the heater vent and a wall plug.

The floor makes you dizzy if you look too hard, love the 1890's look of the tile.

Tedious Tile

Lesson learned: Subway tiles are hard to install, even for the most talented contractor. It has taken a week to get to this point, and still no grout. Though it seems a flushing toilet is just around the corner, I'm afraid the wall repairs, door jams, paint and clean-up will take us to Thanksgiving and still no flush. We will see.

Wall tiles go up, seat stills needs a fill.

Seat is filled and look at that straight line under the window sill. Seems like a little luck and a lot of magic.

What is wrong with this photo? Does the wall seem to be bigger on the right? 

Picture rail lower? What the heck?

 Turns out the tile is level, picture rail higher on right to make up for the ceiling being much higher on the right. What to do with this mess? Now that the tile is in, the irregularities pop!

Guest bedroom gets a new coat of paint. Love the new color.

The closet door on opposite wall is gone, drywall, primer and paint is going up. Still needs baseboards. So many details.

Colors, Curtains, Cubicles

The walls are getting their final coats of paint. Curtains and rugs have been ordered, and the tile is started. Our goal is to have a comfortable living room by Thanksgiving.

We went from 100 degree days to 36 degree nights in a matter of a week and now our "no heat" situation has become rather uncomfortable. We are gathering space heaters, blankets and searching the storage unit for our winter clothing. (no luck yet) There is snow on the mountains and frost in the air. We only live in two rooms, so it is pretty easy to keep those warm with the oven and one space heater. We have started baking cinnamon rolls in the morning and drinking hot toddies in the evening, to keep us warm.

We hope to be looking at our final 3 weeks for this phase. Progress photos....

Wool rug has interesting texture using loops and cut edges. This one will go in office, away from spills and blueberry stains.

The coordinated gray version will go in the living room, where we don't want to fuss too much over spills.

Cubicles: Our two tiny bathrooms are finally getting finished up. Tile is going in, slowly and methodically. Subway tile certainly has turned out to be challenging. Our contractor measures, checks horizontal and vertical position, preps and secures each tile individually with great care. They worked from the opposite sides of the bathroom and had to meet in the middle and hope that everything lined up perfectly. Here is a series of photos starting at the right side and working around to the left. You can see that one row of tiles touches to make the connection. They are hopeful that the process will go faster once they have a full horizontal row to build on.

Toilet side hugging the door.

moving around to the bath/shower.

Behind the bath, the tiles meet up with the one row coming from the other side.

The tiled "bathtub seat" is  giving them problems. They will build the seat up with more cement to allow for a clean corner from side to top.

The tiles continue under the future console sink and end back at the door opening. You can see how many levels, measures, cutters and tools this takes. It will last forever and be our bomb shelter if we ever need one. 

The other cubicle is 4 feet by 5 feet with 10 foot ceilings and has nothing in it except a beautiful coat of paint. The cabinets should be ready soon, the old re purposed door has been reframed, and the toilet is "at the ready" in our kitchen. It makes a nice conversation piece.

Picture rails and paint

The original picture rails must have been removed when the ceilings were dropped back in the 60's. Getting replicas of the originals has been a bit of a challenge, but they arrived and were installed today. Without any paint, they seem rather small and irrelevant circling the room, but with the white "cap" and the taupe walls, they will stand out, I hope.  You may wonder, why picture rails? The idea is that plaster walls are fragile and easily marred with nails, so the rail is placed so pictures can be hung without ever placing a nail in the walls. Art galleries use rails so they can move pictures frequently without having to remove and patch lots of holes.  We hope to preserve our new walls by suspending our pictures.

I am taking on the job of painting, since painters seem to be hard to employ and we are getting anxious to move ahead.

The color selections are nearly final and I am so tired of looking at colors I am moving ahead anyway. If we hate them, we will repaint. I promised the contractor that I would not attempt to do the final prep on the new rails. He is skeptical about my ability to fill holes and caulk. Fine with me, those are not my favorite chores.

Tomorrow we start working on getting one of the double-hung bedroom windows opened. It has been painted shut for years so we may have a struggle. The last attempt we made to fix a window, ended with a window that will open, but is now broken.

The tile sits in the back yard, the tile guy went AWOL on us.  As things get closer to being finished, it gets harder to wait for these specialists to get their act together.

Final October notes

We have finally arrived at some of the fun stuff. I met with our interior decorator and we are selecting paint colors, area rugs, drapes and kitchen tile. Here are a few of the front runners. I like the way this tile has already been aged. Each tile is different and they have been pre-scratched. It would be nice to have something that looks as irregular as our old wood floors. The main thing I am "looking" for in the area rug is a soft texture. Nothing like a dense Persian rug under my toes on a cold morning. Nothing like a cold morning for that matter, haven't seen one of those for nearly 6 months.

Wall color samples, still looking for the right tone.

Tiny drapery swatch doesn't really give us much to work with.

The lighter tile for the kitchen is getting the most votes.

When the floors were being refinished, our front porch became another hasty storage unit. We thought it would be 3 days, turns out it will be more like 3 months. We really missed sitting out there so I finally dragged it all to the back yard where it is still sitting under a tarp. The final floor treatment won't be done for another month. Someday we will look back and find this entertaining.

The short windows were removed and the original window openings re-opened. It won't even be noticeable once the windows are in and painted.

Windows in, framing on, awaiting exterior paint.

Stage 2 is about to begin, the plans are almost final and will go to the City soon.

Latest version of the plan.

Powder room update

It is small and simple, but required the same care and attention as the bigger, full bath. Back to back, the powder room will be open to the main house, while the guest bath will open to the guest bedroom. I was originally against this plan, seemed to create two tiny bathrooms when we could have one big bath, but in the the end, I am pleased with the concept and will be glad when G keeps the extra bath clean for guests (that was our compromise when we decided to expand to three baths). The interesting items regarding the powder room are:

1. it occupies the space that was previously the attic stairway. I'm thinking this was a good trade-off.
2. It is twice as high as it is wide.
3. We are re-purposing an original solid wood closet door to serve as the bathroom door and creating a lock using skeleton keys from my mother's house.
4. Since this bath opens into the "new" side of the house. The floor won't be completed until we are ready to do the kitchen/dining room floor. This way the flow of the tile will terminate in the bathroom rather than originate in the bathroom.
5. The cabinet style for the rest of the house is being set in this bathroom. Once this little cabinet is made, I hope to follow the inset door, Shaker style cabinet throughout the rest of the house.

So, even though it is just 20 square feet, it is setting the tone for the rest of the addition. The future ceiling height, door framing and pattern, 8-inch baseboards, floor tile and cabinets will all mirror this little room. Almost all of the wood pieces are being salvaged from the demolition pile. It is an exciting step to take.

View looking up where the stairway used to terminate in the attic. Bathroom light and fan sits with tankless water heater on the left.

View of powder room framing from kitchen. The guest bedroom can be seen through the other side.The pile of salvaged wooden rosettes is on left. 

You can really see the lath pattern in this photo. The lath has been left with drywall covering it.

Drywall day, plastic sheeting on the right is helping keep the dust away from our living area.

Drywall in, light fixtures and plumbing is peaking through.

Mudding process is underway. Good to have the walls closed and the finishing is moving ahead. That toilet better fit.

This is the guest light, but the ladder gives an idea of how high these ceilings are.

With the drywall finished, we are just waiting for paint, cabinets and the door.

Guest bath update

 It is amazing how many pounds of stuff goes into building a 5' by 6' bathroom. A 350 pound tub, 450 pounds of cement, 350 pounds of tile, 500 pounds of people working in the space.  That is 1,650 pounds of extra weight on our 120 year old footings. Yikes.

Now I know why the prior owners put in a fiberglass shower, 30 inch tall pedestal sink and the smallest toilet they could find. They didn't want to challenge the footings and potentially find themselves sitting in the cellar.

This is the best "pre" photo I have. This room was down to the studs in a matter of hours. With the new plumbing going in, there was no way to save much of the existing walls. Not to mention the mold and rot that was found under the old shower.

With the tub on the left, the very cute corner toilet won't fit, 

The tub was set in place, across the back wall. It was bigger than expected and completely changed our plans for this room.

With the tub in view on the right, we discover the cabinet we planned won't fit. We found a beautiful replacement, but it required a delicate reworking of the plumbing down the middle of the original support beam.

Our contractor, "M",  loses sleep over the ability of our foundation to hold up this monster tub. And every couple of days I hear the guys adding additional support under the bathroom. I never realized the complexity of the bathroom space. Much more challenging then any other room so far.

Weight aside, the process of water proofing, sealing, supporting and protecting the various porcelain and cast iron elements of our little bathroom amazes me. Since the 350 pound cast iron tub went in first, it's perfect surface has been aggressively protected each day. Plastic liner, cardboard, blankets, whatever we can find to ensure that a rogue hammer doesn't damage the surface. Not that a cast iron tub is easily chipped. It is just that hammers, tiles, heavy plumbing items are just the sort of thing that can ding a tub forever. We will all be very glad when it is safely through this passage.

 Tub on the right, wood framing for the tile "seat" is in the corner and the mock-up of all of the lights, mirrors, towel bars, train rack and electrical is drawn on the cardboard.

It turns out that two small bathrooms, back to back, sharing a wall with the main heater venting is a logistical nightmare. With only 5 feet of wall, the tub, 2 sinks, 2 toilets and heater exhaust was more then that little wall could hold. In the end, every screw or nail that is going to be placed in this wall will have to be per-determined to ensure we don't hit a water line, electrical line or vent. You can see the drawings taped to the wall to help workers measure out the exact dimensions.  The delicate balance of opposing elements like water and electricity, weight pushing down, support pushing up, old 2x4 (actually are 2" by 4") and new "2x4s" (actually 1 3/4" by 3 1/2"). Every day we are glad we have an experienced, slightly OCD contractor who calculates, configures, contemplates and capitulates before making a move. (And I thought medicine was a complicated business.)

This is the view through the wall from the powder room into the guest bath with tub on the right. The tape shows future mirror and cabinet installation locations for the powder room. The shiny vertical tube is the potential heater exhaust pipe that will exhaust through the roof.

We have waited literally weeks to "close" this wall. Not only because the plumbing has been moved three time, but also because "M" is afraid he will cut through the floor, support beams and out through the roof to install the 30 foot exhaust vent for our 25 year old heater and in the end, the heater won't be powerful enough to pass inspection for our new addition. Yikes. We called in an HVAC expert and, using his recommendation,  opted to add a new heating system.  It will vent out to the side, protect the internal integrity of the house and provide the correct amount of tonnage for the full house. He was also willing to put the  intake vent in the floor (rather than the ceiling) saving my broom closet.  That is great news! The broom closet always gets targeted when we need an extra couple of square feet.  I never realized how under appreciated the broom closet is.  I have digressed, back to the bathroom.

The black tar-like stuff will make the wood water proof. Insulated walls should keep this little room more comfortable for our guests and now it is easy to see where the white subway tile will run around the entire room. That is the tub on the right, covered with plywood. 

We get a glimpse of the tub as they add another water proof layer and the wire mesh that will support the tile. The heater vent  will come out of the tile seat on the left.

This is the right side of the bathroom with the wire layer and the tub. The white drywall area is behind the toilet. The wall is closed up and now we just have to make sure we don't hang anything on this wall that hasn't been pre-determined. We took lots of photos of the exposed wall with measuring tapes to ensure we don't hit a water line when hanging the towel bar.

 The  450 pounds of cement goes up as a foundation for the tile. All is being scraped and evened out to get a near perfect sub straight. We have ordered the tile and the "tile guy" is being scheduled. This stage takes a few days to dry, so we just enjoy the reality of our little bathroom getting close to being finished. The wall and floor tiles will really transform it and we just have to hope the toilet and sink will fit after all of these layers of stuff have been put on the walls.

We can now see Kylie's little seat. She can't wait to have her new bathtub and seat finished.

I hope to have final photos by next week.

Kitchen photo progress update

A gimps of the "pre-disaster" kitchen.

 The demolition phase came by surprise. I was on a business trip and suddenly it was time to remove all of the cupboards in this photo and relocate everything to the other side of the kitchen. G did his best to manage the mess, but I arrived home to quite a surprise.

 Pantry on the left is gone.  The stove and cupboards were out and bathroom framing was in so fast, we have no transition photos.

The living room floor needs matching wood to patch the holes left by the prior heater vents.

The freshly framed powder room floor is sacrificed, quick and painless. Now we can see the new electrical and plumbing go in underneath us.

Next to go is the kitchen floor. As you can see, this kitchen went from okay to disaster in a matter of hours. We decided it was time to move out. It is about a 10 foot drop to the cellar floor. But the ducting and plumbing work is  much easier in the light of day.

Some random plywood and stray planks gave me enough solid floor to traverse over to the sink and clean up the dishes and put away the food. Prior to this photo, it looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of a meal. Dishes, food, pots and pans everywhere. Amazing how the fridge, microwave, lights and eventually gas lines are all in tack and continue to work despite the missing floor.

 Today we function pretty well in our temporary kitchen. Everything works, the plywood floor is bolted in, The random rugs keep splinters out of our toes and we basically eat every meal out. Nothing wrong with this scenario.

In this photo you can see our current living space.  Bath to the right, bedroom in the back and kitchen. It will do for now.