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Remodel Project
Update 16 |
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| Paint and Tile |
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| September 26, 2003
I hate painting. But I hate paying someone to paint more that I
hate painting, so I do it. I've had a lot of experience and have
gotten pretty good at it, but it's still a hot, tedious, messy, exhausting
process to me. That's why I use the best paint I can get so that I
won't have to do it again very soon.
Today after a week of scraping, sanding, and caulking (18 tubes of
caulk), I sprayed the woodwork with semi-gloss. |
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| After spraying the enamel, the fun part started. The
walls are a different color than the ceiling or the woodwork, so it's
easiest to mask the woodwork off, rather than try to cut in and roll the
walls around it. This lets us spray everything, not an easy task
when the walls are not textured (smoothwall or slickwall). Every
little flaw shows up, and requires lots of puttying and
sanding. |
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| October 5, 2003
The results. We still have to cut in the dark wall paint near the
ceiling, but you get the picture.
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| What a pain this was. I started spraying Saturday
around noon, and finished washing the sprayer out Sunday night around
8:00. 13 gallons of primer, 15 gallons of topcoat, and about 10
color changes in between where I'm washing the sprayer out and changing
paints. There's lots of touch-up to do, but a major milestone is
passed, and we can start setting the finish electric and trim. |
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| October 22, 2003
Time to start tiling the master bathroom. Since the subfloor is
so uneven, I troweled on a layer of thinset mortar underneath, then
scratched it with a 1/2" square notched trowel. |
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| I then laid 1/2" Hardiboard (the same material that the
exterior siding is made of) on top and fastened it to the joists with
stainless nails, and screwed the edges with these special Hardiboard
screws that countersink themselves wonderfully.
The seams are taped with fiberglass tape, and then a layer of
thinset. |
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| The first of many cabinets. I had to build the
bathroom vanity since it gets tiled around. The rough plywood side
goes against the wall. The notch on the bottom is for a toe-kick
heater. |
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| We're playing around with tile patterns, trying to come up
with that old-fashioned look. We got the tile from a local
manufacturer that still makes the old patterns, and custom-ran a batch for
us. |
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| The hardwood flooring arrived today. Ugh. This
is one of two stacks that weighs a total of 2600 pounds, and took a good
hour and a half to unload from the truck and haul inside. Of course,
we're in the middle of a freak late-October heat wave that has the
temperatures in the 100 degree area. This wood will have to
acclimatize a couple weeks before installation, as it was pouring in
Indiana when they shipped it.
By the way, Pennington Hardwoods, an Amish mill, had a killer
deal on this quartersawn white oak flooring, way cheaper than the regular
red oak flooring quoted us at other places. |
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| 10-26-03
Despite the fires raging in the hills, we started the tile in the
master bath.
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| Ugh. This is going to be a heap of work. We're
still waiting for some trim tile to be manufactured. |
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| October 21-Nov. 1, 2003
While several other major fires were burning in Southern California, an
arsonist started a fire in the San Bernardino mountains that threatened to
wipe out dozens of towns, and the most beautiful forests. 100 degree
weather, 50 MPH winds, 7% humidity, and millions of drought-stricken,
beetle-infested, dead, crispy pine trees gave thousands of firefighters an
epic battle that none of them will ever forget. 100 foot tall pine
trees generated 200-300 foot flames that incinerated hundreds of houses
and blew through everything the firefighters threw at it. Thousands
were evacuated on short notice, and could only watch on TV as thick
columns of smoke approached popular resort towns. Many would not
know the fate of their homes for weeks, as the roads remained closed
and dangerous with downed power lines, toppling trees, burnt guard
rails, and fire flare-ups. The fire even burnt the paint stripes off
the highway.
Saturday we had family stay with us who's home was threatened in San
Bernardino (it came through O.K.) |
photos by Mark Zaleski, The Press
Enterprise |
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November 1, 2003, 3:00 AM
This morning we got our first measurable rain since last April.
It sounded like ball bearings bouncing on our RV roof. Only about
1/8", but enough to turn the tide of the firefight raging in the
mountains as the higher elevations got blanketed with snow
We had a fire in the fireplace this morning while we're working.
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| November 12, 2003
O.K., back to work. We finished tiling the bathroom over
Veteran's Day weekend. My wife says it reminds her of a classic
car. I'm just relieved to get it done. Now time to paint the
vanity, build three medicine cabinets, install shelves in the linen
closet, and on to kitchen cabinets. |
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Remodel Update 18 (Cabinets)
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