Holy bathroom, Batman!

That wonderful, wonderful tile.

Because the tile was down, grouted, and sealed, we got to actually put stuff back IN to the house these last few days! It started with a toilet (for the sake of necessity, we decided that would be nice to have), then we worked on the bathtub, and finally set the vanity in place. 

This was a big milestone for me. Don't laugh.

Everything went smoothly with the toilet. The vanity is interesting because we used an old work table I bought at a flea market, retrofitted it with the vessel sink and faucet, and set about the business of hooking up water lines and drain pipes through the wall.

Vanity, assembled, waiting for installation in the dining room.

The real job yesterday was the bathtub. It still had an old faucet and drain attached; the faucet came quietly.. the drain needed more persuasion (read: a saw). Once those were taken care of, I scrubbed the porcelain with a light scour pad and some diluted CLR to cut through a few rust stains. To my surprise, this method also took care of a few scuffs, staining, and other discolorations.  I’ve read, though, that you don’t want to get too carried away with this type of chemical – or even bleach, for that matter – as it eats away at the finish glaze. Once I had everything more or less cleaned, we could rubber mallet the feet into a secure place. We found that if you just slid them in by hand, the feet fall out…usually while you’re standing in the tub.

The tub, hanging out waiting for us.

The faucet wasn’t horribly difficult to affix to the tub. No doubt installation was made easier by the fact that the tub was out in the middle of the room and not right up next to the wall. If you don’t have the ability to move the tub, find a friend with skinny forearms and a working knowledge of pipe fitting. J We then lugged the tub over near the drain pipe sticking out of the floor so that we could get an idea about how long to cut the drain kit; because I had to buy a claw foot tub, there is a special drain kit that goes along with it. One drain serves as the primary, the other as an overflow. Once this was cut and we were fairly sure it would fit into place, we maneuvered the tub into position and dropped it down into place. Considering we were unintentionally dropping everything else all day, the tub moving went really smoothly.

After tightening all the connections and making a few adjustments…

Now if only my water heater had been lit..

There were only two small drips, but they were fixable without undoing everything and moving the tub out again. We then took a little break from tub work to set the vanity.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Goddamn Genius and I mocked up where the faucet and sink would go on the worktable/vanity. With those measurements, he was able to cut holes for both the faucet and its workings and the drain. A bead of silicone adhesive keeps the sink in place, and the faucet attached easily with a few screws to anchor it to the underside of the wood top. After letting that setup for a few hours, it was moved into position and the wall holes were drilled for the water lines and drain.

After having our vanity fun, we decided to get greedy and check one more thing off the list: the shower attachment!

I knew going into it that this had pain-in-the-ass potential, but in the end it really wasn’t that bad. It is absolutely not a job for one person. Two is probably also a stretch. We had four sets of hands on deck, and we had it knocked out in about 10 minutes, not including assembly. For added stability, we’re working on finding (or making) more anchors for the side wall. I can see myself whipping the shower curtain open some morning when I’m awake too early and ripping the whole thing out of the ceiling. Not good.


Ta-Dah! I am hot water and a shower curtain away from using this old gal :)

So, I have a bathroom now! It’s weird seeing all this stuff I’ve bought and collected come together. Between that and the painted walls in the bathroom, this place is starting to feel like someone could live here soon! It’s been a long haul, but there is definite light at the end of the tunnel – a lot of people have helped me get to this point, so I should probably start getting my ducks in a row for the “Thanks-for-your-help” party (read: parties) to come!

It's getting hot in here..

With a heat wave sweeping the Midwest and much of the East coast, I think today might be a good time to concentrate on the blog! “Fun” fact: Knoxville, Iowa was noted as the hottest part of the country yesterday – yay?

Anyway, the house continues to buzz with activity. We’ve nearly finished drywalling the front half of the house, which means all the new electrical lines have been run, new insulation hung, and structural issues dealt with – I’ll show more detail on these items soon. I have the pictures, but not the TIME!
The next phase will include work on the back half of the house. We’ll be demo-ing down to the studs to deal with electrical concerns here as well, but the truer reason for the gut job is because the roofline will be undergoing some pretty drastic changes. Part of said changes will include a new ATTACHED two-car garage!

As we’ve talked about in previous posts, the original garage was in a bad way…crooked, cock-eyed, lop-sided, and Wizard-of-Oz-esque would all be equally fitting descriptors.

The original intent was always to tear down the garage and rebuild a new, squarer version on the property. Well, one beer lead to another and before you knew it we started thinking “If we’re going to the trouble of pouring footings and building a whole new structure, why not put it where I might actually want it as opposed to where they put it 80 years ago?” The initial rationale included saying things like, “It really won’t cost that much more,” and, “Well, while we’re at it…”

Dangerous.

A couple hours and one truck later.

While the total cost of the garage project will probably be slightly higher in the end, it’s going to be infinitely better to be able to walk to and from my truck without getting drenched in a rainstorm, my pants soaked up to my knee in a snowstorm, or just generally inconvenienced by the outdoors.

After all, a gentleman can't be bothered with the out of doors, Lovey.

Not to mention, I really don’t know how long I’ll live here: it could be five years, it could be 30 years. Bottom line, I want it this way as will most potential buyers somewhere down the road.

I did have to go through the proper channels in order to rebuild in a new location. Upon applying for a building permit with the City, I was notified that I would also need to be granted a variance because the new structure would sit too close to the alleyway and the neighboring property. I walked around, meeting my neighbors and asking for their support. I found that many of them will be building new garages soon, so it helps to have empathy on your side! After that, I had to wait for the Board of Adjustment to hand down their verdict before I could begin any work in earnest.

Once that was completed…

To meet with City code, the footings must be dug to a certain depth and poured a certain width. Once these dimensions are inspected, the cement contractor can back his truck up and begin the pour. In my (very positive) experience, the cement contractor started digging around 9:45am and was driving on the hardened concrete by 5 o’clock the next day. Small town service at its finest J

Once the footings had ample time to cure without totally drying, my contractor returned to set a few rows of concrete block on top. This way, he can fill that area with gravel, steel, and cement and we’ll have a slab in no time! The other benefit is that there will be a small gap between the floor of the garage and any wall material I may want to hang in the future, cutting down on moisture issues.

But now we’re back to the heat wave. It’s too hot to make the final pour, so we’ll wait it out. Once the slab has been finished, we’ll start framing the walls of the garage and relocate the electrical meter to be closer to the pole in the alley – loves me some buried power lines!

See the neighbors house?

One cool thing to note: since we've been busy at my place, the neighbors have decided to spruce up their house with new insulation and siding - it's contagious! (You can see their house, sans siding, in the second to last picture)

There are literally hundreds more pictures to come, so stay tuned! J  

Progress!

It’s official! I have a new key on my key ring and a dumpster in my driveway – all the issues pertaining to the easement have been cleared up, and demolition has begun. Hardcore.

The first order of business was showing the place off. In my excitement, I didn’t actually take interior pictures of the house before we started…duh. In my defense, we started tearing wallpaper off the wall during a tour (enthusiastic participants) – it left very little time to grab my phone and start recording.

Dining Room

Master Bedroom

Since removing all the wallpaper (From all the walls. In all the rooms.), the next most pressing interior issue was the bathroom. The walls were covered in a minty green paneling fastened to the wall with metal nail strips. I’ve never really seen anything like it..so I knew it had to go. Along with the paneling were an older vanity, and a tub/shower unit that had been custom-made into a handicap accessible shower stall. I really should have taken pictures of that – they did a great job on the retrofit. Alas, it’s all gone and the smell of new lumber now permeates the space.

New lumber, you say? Why yes! Because the bathroom – like the rest of the house – is small, the fact that there were two doors to the space left very little room for traffic flow of any other kind. My solution: pocket doors. We removed the existing door jambs, beefed up the wall structure as needed, and installed two pocket door kits. Not including the doors, the kits cost $55 each. Considering the space these new door systems will buy me, I consider that time and money well spent.

Ta-da!

The real story in the bathroom was the floor. Not only were there two layers of linoleum and a layer of  small hexagonal green tile, there was also a 5 inch layer of solid concrete.  …sorry, what?

After the main portion of the house was built in the late 1860’s, there were several smaller additions: the kitchen first, bathroom second, what is now the master bedroom, and the laundry area which was originally a porch. It is thought that the bathroom space was originally used as a porch as well – then possibly a pantry for the adjoining kitchen. Which would partially explain the concrete. They may have also done it to thumb their nose at future owners of the house..who knows?

In any event, we removed the layers of flooring, broke up the concrete, and decided that it would actually be way easier to re-plumb and wire the room if the entire floor system was gone. Because the “new additions” are all over a crawl space and I don’t get along with spiders, the subfloor was removed and most all of the work was done from above rather than in the dark, scary recesses of the unknown. Once the subfloor had been removed, we were able to cut out the old copper pipes for scrap and replace them with PEX tubing.

Concrete taken from the bathroom floor. Newspaper: Des Moines Register - May 4, 1930

Results of the bathroom demolition.

For those of you not familiar with PEX, it is glorious. Think PVC, but flexible. It takes a lot of the time, effort, and frustration out of plumbing. While the material itself may be more expensive, people love it because it takes no time at all to install. We had my old pipes cut out and replaced in an afternoon. Throughout the entire house. Crawlspace be damned. You will have to buy a couple special tools: one to cut the pipe and another to crimp the little rings that seal any joints you have in your lines. Otherwise, with a couple dollars worth of T’s, elbows, couplings and the like, you’ve got yourself some fancy new plumbing without burrowing through a crawlspace with a torch.

OK, I guess sometimes you still have to burrow through a crawlspace. No torch necessary, though!

Once the major work below the floor was done, we sistered new boards to the existing floor joists to bring them up to grade with where the adjoining floors will be once tiled/refinished. Had the floor joists been in poor shape, this would have been impossible, so that was a lucky break! With the new joist system in place, we laid a sturdy layer of ¾” plywood down to stiffen things up, followed by a half inch layer of Durock cement board which will eventually receive the travertine tile I picked up on sale.

There are other projects in the works, but to list them all here would be overwhelming. We’re finding –as everyone does – that once we tear into one thing it leads to tearing into something else, and something else, and round and round we go. I’ll update again very soon as there are a lot of exciting changes happening!

Have a great weekend!