About Grout

Just a quick update to show the progress we made the day after Christmas.

The tile had been down for a week or more waiting for the right time to grout. With family in town for Christmas, I knew it would be difficult to find a time to make any progress on the house. My uncle, being the damn decent man he is, volunteered to help us grout seeing as he has had some recent experience in that department.

Coming into the laundry from the garage. Kitchen and dining room, beyond.

The grout was pretty self explanatory, but I had the added bonus of talking it over with the salespeople at the Tile Shop. I really appreciated the guidance and actual customer service I received there – I recommend them!

The grout I bought was a modified sanded grout – this means, in addition to the sand and cement-ish mixture standard in this type of grout, this one had a polymer component that would help stabilize the floor and help keep the grout from becoming brittle and cracking over time. In addition to this, I bought a liquid latex additive that further stabilizes and adds flexibility..though flexibility isn’t the right word..

View from "the bathub" looking out into the kitchen.

Directions call for mixing the grout to the consistency of toothpaste, though I’ve heard pudding, peanut butter, etc. all work well. We went a little wetter because we felt it would seep into the cracks better than a stiffer mix. Actually, the bathroom is a little stiffer than the laundry, which is stiffer than the kitchen. I’ll let you know if I have trouble and where.

After filling the voids and smoothing out the cracks (with our fingers..no fancy tools, there), we wiped down the floor several times making sure to clean and refill our buckets frequently to avoid leaving a streaky haze over the tile. I’ve been told that the additives in the grout could make that haze a pain to remove if you don’t get it while it’s fresh, so be diligent.

Kitchen floor grouted! Bathroom, beyond.

48-72 hours from grouting, we'll be able to wipe the stone/grout sealer over the entire area. This will darken everything slightly, but, more importantly, it will help protect both the tile and the grout from staining as they're both pretty porous. Any time after that dries, we can set the fixtures in the bathroom!

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season..wherever you are!

Long time, no see!

Since the last post, drywall man has finished everything up and everyone who has seen the house has been very impressed with his work. I would recommend him a hundred times over..very nice, professional guy and he does amazing work.

The initial thought with the drywall was that I’d like to have a smooth finish. With a smooth finish, it would look like plaster and feel like an old house. From the beginning, I got a bunch of crap about smooth walls, “Oh, it’s going to be hard to paint,” “Oy, it’s going to show everything.” Yadda, yadda, yadda. “Oh, and it’s going to be more expensive.” Now you’re speaking my language. I decided we should do a very, very light orange peel texture over the walls and ceiling, and I think that worked well.

The longer the project has lasted, the more we have done. The more we do, the more the budget gets pinched. Now – between you and me – I went over the planned $50,000 budget quite a while ago. When you’ve got a debit card and there’s money in your account, it’s just easier than going to the bank and making a transfer or withdrawing the cash. I’m not horribly over budget, I just wanted to get that off my chest…full disclosure. By the time it’s all said and done, I think $60,000 would be a reasonable number. (Think about it, though…I’ll basically have a new house! For $60K!)

Anyway, drywall man has finished up, and the roommates have done the bulk of the priming throughout the house. We’re doing two coats of primer on all the ceilings (because I won’t be buying flat white ceiling paint to go over top of the flat white primer) and one coat on all of the walls which will be painted later, anyway. It looks really good. I’d show pictures, but all you see is a bright white glow J

We cleaned the hardwood floors with mineral spirits (on the advice of a neighbor) but haven’t gotten past that. I think a nice little Saturday project will be sanding floors. Maybe this Saturday?

The big development the last few nights has been the tile. We have finished tiling the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room with some tile I bought last week. I had the other tile all picked out, bought, and unloaded in the house. Did that six months ago. Since then, the tile has been in the way everywhere we’ve put it, and everyone has moved it 19 times. To tell people I was returning the tile they’ve moved 19 times was difficult, but doable. When they saw the new tile, they liked it better, too J

This was the best of both worlds for me.. New shape, old look.

The new tile is, again, travertine, but it’s a little rougher around the edges and has the pitting where the other had been filled with a resin and super polished to perfection. Every time I moved the super polished perfect tile, I thought “This isn’t going to look right in this house. This is Donald Trump’s tile, not mine.” I wanted something that would look OK if the floor wasn’t perfectly level or the rooms weren’t square. That would look great even if I got a grout line a little crooked. Bottom line, I wanted a tile that would look perfectly fine even though I’m not perfect and neither is my little house. And I got it J

My boss (the Jack of all trades…and master of most, actually) came over and got us started. The first night was all preparation: vacuuming the floor, finding square in an unsquare old house, and chalking out a grid that would be our guide throughout the project. Because there may have been a beer involved, our measurements didn’t come out as perfectly the first time (or second, or third) as they could have. But they came out eventually, and that’s what matters. We did a little dry fitting in the bathroom that night, but night one was mostly prep.

Lines and lines and lines. And tile.

Dry fit tile in the bathroom.

More dry fit. The threshold I write about later is to the left, here.

Night two, Bossman came back to show me some of the basics of thinset, using a trowel, and laying out the tiles in a way that won’t make you dizzy as you’re going to the bathroom. Within about an hour, he was gone, my mom/roommate was there, and I was in charge. Yikes! His best tip: take your time. The prep work (read: hard work) was done..as long as we stuck fairly close to the lines, we should be fine. Take a step back every few tiles and check your work. If a line looks off, fix it while you can and make sure everything looks good as you go.

Bathroom tile: stuck!

With that, we tiled most of the bathroom and about 2/3 of the kitchen. Not bad for a couple amateurs!

Kitchen and Bathroom tile mostly down!

Night three was mom and I again. We finished up the bulk of the kitchen and a majority of the laundry room before I had myself nearly tiled into a corner.

Night four. Ugh, night four. Dad was off work that day and had spent a majority of his time off at my place finishing up a few projects, and priming here and there. By the time I got off work, it was decided we were going to finish the freaking tile. Dad hunkered down in the garage with the wet saw and grinder, and I crawled around on the floor laying random bits of tile that had been neglected. Lots of measuring, lots of cutting..a few broken tiles, but nothing horrible. We got everything but the bathroom/closet threshold done before deciding to call it a night.

And then I looked at my clock.

11:45p.. and I still have to make something to take to the office Christmas party tomorrow. For someone who got awfully used to going to bed at 9p in the middle of being sick, staying up until 12:30a on a Monday was not my favorite thing. But I got everything put together, and people even seemed to like it. Mission Accomplished.

We went back over last night to look at this threshold. There was an area between the bathroom and the closet that leads to the second bedroom/office that needed cut out otherwise there would be a 2” chunk of wood floor in the bathroom sticking out from under the closet door. When we cut the little bit of wood floor out, the subfloor came with it. Remember, the bathroom was an addition, and I guess that part never got totally tied together. Anyway, we worked it out, set some Durock in place for the tile, and mixed a small batch of thinset for the area. (At that point we only needed to put down three tiles) Once this project was finished, I called it a night for both of us and we made our way across town to grab dinner and go to bed early.

In the next day or two, we could grout the tile and see what that looks like.. and truck along to the next project. Stay tuned!

Drywall pictures!



We'll start in the front of the house - the living room! The bay window is looking nice.

The fireplace area has been touched up. This also shows both arches, which has been difficult to capture. The arch on the left leads to the office/second bedroom; the arch on the right leads to the dining room.

Looking through the arch to the progress in the dining room. Kitchen and laundry beyond.

This guy is good. I probably shouldn't, but I was rubbing everything...it's all so smooth :)



The office/second bedroom is coming together. The bookshelf looks awesome!

I can't believe I thought about taking these out. What an idiot I can be..

The north wall of the kitchen after all our updates! Master bedroom door, fridge hole, and laundry room.

A picture of the big, tall ceilings in the master bedroom now. Looking very smooth and nearly finished. I'll tell ya', once I've got this running water thing figured out, I'm moving in!

I'm so happy, I'm sick.

My personal definition of sickness is not eating on Thanksgiving. It’s my holiday. One I still get legitimately excited about. And this year – like last year – I spent it curled up on the living room floor, sleeping the day away. Not that I’m complaining about sleeping all day…that was nice. The food thing still irks me a little though.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a version of the same thing everyone has lately. Cough, sore throat, running nose, achy, hot/cold, sweaty/clammy, tired, dehydrated, no appetite..Basically worthless. There for a while, I legitimately thought it was the Mesothelioma catching up with me from ripping out the old insulation. I stopped short of calling the Law Offices of So-and-So for my free consultation because my dad ripped out way more than I did and he seems Meso-symptom free.

So, I’ve been drinking plenty of water, eating lots of oranges (thank you FFA fundraiser!), and sleeping almost constantly. This includes while riding in cars with friends. In addition to my newfound narcolepsy, I seem to have also found a drywaller! My local guy came through! Disclaimer: he was a little slower getting started than he let on…but I also called him last minute after he had sworn off new jobs for the year and persuaded him to take me back.

The last two days have been mostly prep-work – fixing screw heads, putting the corner strips on (including the cool flexible ones for the arches), and getting set for the real deal. In our conversation last night, he thought he might be done a day before he initially planned, and that he would have the entire house taped by tonight! That fancy equipment makes things easy!

Pictures to follow – I’ll sneak in after he’s gone tonight and check progress. It’s coming together, gang!

Just when you think you're past it..

..you get to rip out more plaster.

When my (original) drywall contractor came to give an estimate, he recommended tearing out some of the plaster around the window in the living room. As I’ve mentioned, I wasn’t wild about tearing anything out there because I didn’t want it to mess with the window or the trim work around it.

He explained that he can patch the plaster that’s there…but it was essentially rotten and would flake off in a short time anyway. The best thing for me to do would be to determine what plaster was loose (tap the wall…does it wiggle? Yes. Grab a hammer.) and remove it. Dad/roommate and I tried to be selective at first, but it became pretty apparent that once we started, it was really better to keep going. Hopefully now I won’t have *major* issues with cracking or chipping now.

Ugh..dust. We actually ended up ripping out more than this...just for kicks.

When I say “original” drywall contractor, that’s a little misleading. My original bid was a local guy, has a great reputation for doing great work..$2,700..little expensive. Enter: guy from Des Moines. “Oh, yeah, sure..I can do it for $2,000..and start Friday!” Long story short: too good to be true. He inexplicably called my mom the Monday after he should have been there and indicated that he was “just swamped, and wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Mom’s stock rose in my book that day: she hung up on him.

So, in addition to prepping for finished drywall, we’ve been prepping for finished hardwood! I went to a local home store and rented a walk-behind floor sander. I had heard horror stories about the old belt sander models that you had to run behind to keep from gauging the floor, and even then you’ll probably start a fire. The model I got has three sandpaper discs stuck to the underside of – what looks like – something you might use to buff a gym floor with. And it has a nice little vacuum attached so there isn’t dust billowing out like the old models.

So I rented my machine, bought some sandpaper, put on my glasses and mask and got to work. I found out really quickly that I didn’t need the glasses or mask – there was virtually no dust. I also found out really quickly that I was done sanding. Not in the “I-finished-sanding” way, but in the “this-sandpaper-is-so-full-of-crap-it-can’t-function-anymore” sort of way. So, I peeled the pads off and stuck new ones on. Same story. I’d sand for about two feet with no problem – down to the bare wood! And then, kabluey..no sand for you. We tried a couple different techniques before deciding that, at $3 per disc x 3 discs per 2 square feet of floor, this was going to be the most expensive project ever undertaken by man.

Entry floor in various stages of stainlessness.

We asked my neighbors who had, incidentally, just recently redone their floors. It turns out they ran into the same problem. They suggested cleaning the floors thoroughly with Mineral Spirits before we went any further. And that’s as far as we’ve gotten..Drywall guy – the saint that he is for coming back after I snubbed him for the jack wagon from Des Moines – has first dibs on the space.

In other progress news: the siding is done!*

*for the year.

We actually ran out of siding for the very top part of the back of the garage. Our logic is: it’s covered in Tyvek, it’s not living space, and it will be fine. I don’t consider running 20 pieces short of siding to be such a bad guess. After all, I did the math on a scrap of paper using measurements I was only half sure about (if not making up entirely).

The house itself is completely wrapped in siding, though. Some new, some old, but the rest will come – along with new windows – next year.

Pro.Duc.Tivity.

This weekend was amazing! Not only had Wednesday’s wet snow melted off, but the sun was shining and the temperatures were unseasonably warm…well, at least warm enough to power through some siding, anyway.

We started last weekend and had hung several rows on the back of the garage – a good, straight run to get accustomed to working with the siding. For a couple of amateurs, we didn’t do so bad! As long as you maintain a level line and – in our case – a four inch reveal on each piece of siding, you’re in good shape. A good crisp chalk line comes in really handy on this project.

This was a really exciting corner. Seeing this little bit of siding go up somehow meant the entire house was finished and I could move in immediately. 

A good days progress for three people who have never hung this type of siding before!

Anyway, that was Friday. Saturday was also pretty productive: we laid a lot of groundwork for bigger things to come.

Then came Sunday.

Sunday was the siding day to end all siding days. We kept our collective nose to the grindstone and finished the east side of the house!

Remember, this is how it looked before...

...and AFTER!

Voila!

And dad/roommate and I fixed the booger-y spot in the dining room floor.

Before..

I pried out the worst of the wood floor..

..and replaced it with some of the flooring from a closet. We ended up ripping the "tongue" out of the tongue and groove and just face-nailing the new pieces into place. This isn't how a professional refinisher would do it...but I ain't a professional!

All done! Once the sander has a go at this area, it will take off the random bits of paint and even out the high spots. I honestly don't think you'll be able to tell it's been patched!

And my sister slaved away on the floor pulling up tack strips and staples from the carpet and pad. Hopefully, with that (tedious) job out of the way, we will be in relatively good shape to sand the floors down and get them ready for refinishing!

I’ve also had a nice surprise on the drywall front. My initial contractor had come back at $2,700 to mud, tape, and texture the entire house. Pricey, but not horrible considering the angles, corners, height of the ceilings…and that bit where I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with mud and/or tape. I was set to go when my dad/roommate insisted that I get another bid from a drywall contractor he knows that is supposed to work wonders with sheetrock. He came back with a $2,000 bid and can start Friday! Which is exciting…and sets another new deadline for us: move everything out of the house, and finish tying up the loose ends before drywall man comes to make this shell look like a house again.

Big days like these call for big celebrations! Unfortunately, I was too asleep to celebrate much. Although, margaritas are tentatively on the books for...someday. Feliz Lunes!

Picture Update :)

Dining room, without carpet..but, oddly including a kitchen countertop?

The only bad spot I've found so far. Dining room, right in front of the basement door.

Entry without carpet. The floors were in really great shape here!



Office without carpet.

This is the PVC trim I picked for the exterior of the house. With this and the cement board siding, it should be relatively low maintenance!

Kitchen window and a snazzy new door!

New furnace and electric water heater..

..and air conditioner..

Means no need for a vent pipe! No vent pipe means no chimney!

As you can see, the chimney had issues anyway. I thought about re-pointing it, but it would have been more work, more time, more money..without much benefit. The new HVAC system operates without the need for the vertical ventilation: win-win!

Keep checking back for more – we’re making huge, noticeable progress every day!