My Remodel Thread

[black2002ls]

I haven't updated this in a while. We have been here almost three years, meaning it was about time to freshen up the paint. We started working on shifting away from the beige to a gray color scheme. We have a few rooms that are a dark grey, the whole home is a light grey color. I made the mistake of taking my wife to the new model homes in my subdivision and it led to this...



Excuse the mess on the couch, that is all of the stuff that came off of the walls.

We are trying to decide what kind of art work to hang. We are leaning towards a bicycle wheel mosaic, so if anyone has a lead on some vintage bicycle wheels, feel free to share!

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[lincolnboy]

For something a little different. I have put in a little time in the back yard recently, trying to spruce it up, and help push the water away from the house more. I extended my paver patio, built a raised deck to put the grill on, and planted some bushes I pulled from our model home that we are converting for sale. The grill deck will get a 26" granite prep station/counter as well, from a left over piece from the kitchen.

What I started with



Before trimming the decking and staining



I thought I had more after pictures, I will get some this weekend. I now have a problem with the end of the paver extension washing out, I am going to have to take that apart Saturday morning and reset them and hope that the dirt I packed in before finishing up the deck takes care of the problem. If not, I may have to try a polymeric joint sand in that area to "seal" the joints in the bricks to keep the water from washing out the bedding sand.

We have several brick as in pic that we are about to trash. Still in good condition. Wish I had a house still.

[black2002ls]

We have several brick as in pic that we are about to trash. Still in good condition. Wish I had a house still.

How many? I had several hundred left and got ~.40 each out of them from craigslist

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[black2002ls]

I had some time to finish up some projects while the HVAC guys were dwapping out the furnace and coil.

I finally got around to finishing up the bench seat in the nook. It needs sanded and the final coats of varnish put on it, as well as the walls touched up, but I can finally scratch this off of the list.

I'm not 100% happy with it. There are some areas that didn't take the stain, and the piece of the top that will be most visible is very different from the other two. It has a rough texture, and took the stain differently than the other two. At this point, it will stay as is. The stain is kona brown with Deft satin varnish.



When we designed our kitchen, we had a few ideas for organization and this was one of them. I didn't want to pay the cabinet company to build and install things I could do cheap and easy. This drawer was built a bit deeper to accomodate our kitchen utensils in utensil cups. In between coats of varnish, I put this together.



I still need to come up with a better solution for storing and organizing the measuring cups and spoons.

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[black2002ls]

I figure it is about time to update this thread. The front yard is finally shaping up, I'm filling in low spots here and there to help with some of the standing water, and that is in turn helping the grass thicken up in those areas. Now that the front is looking good, I've turned my focus to the back yard. The kiddo will be 1 in June, so he is going to want to start playing outside soon, and with the current state of things, it is only possible when it hasn't rained for a week.

My plan has always been to fix the grading/drainage in stages.

1. complete the patio
2. set up the raised flower beds
3. re-grade yard

The patio has been complete since last year and late last year I began work on the flower beds. The original plan was to have the stone come up high enough so that it was almost level with the patio, thus pushing the water out further away from the house and into the yard. I finally decided to split the stone and lower the height of the stone. This allowed me to use less dirt to fill the beds, and the original height, I don't think, is really necessary.

Here is where I left it yesterday evening:







I started the flagstone path that will lead out to the storage building



Now comes the decisions on how to start fixing the drainage. The number one issue at this point, I believe, is that the ground on the outside of my fence where the yard should drain into the street is higher than the ground on the inside of the fence, thus damming up the water. I have some surface drains along the fence line, 3 to be exact, that has aided in draining the water off and allowed the yard to dry up quicker. I don't want to lose any fence height, so I'm thinking the best course of action here is going to be to knock the level of dirt down so that it is the same as what I have on the inside of the fence and grade it down to the side walk and install a toe board along the fence to close the gap. The other issue is the water that stands at the right side and between my house and the neighbor.

Here is a reminder of where I started and the water issues:

Right side:



Left side looking towards street



Back of home

[black2002ls]

Well, we have been here long enough, that we are finally starting to get agitated with some of the areas of the home, and have begun to create solutions for them. We are working on removing ALL of the carpet. The only areas left are the master bedroom and closet, and the entry coat closet. Before we do the master, we are re-doing our master closet. Once that is done, we will pull the carpet for laminate.

This is the beginning of the closet. There is a little niche to the left of the closet that had 5 basic shelves in it. They were about 18" deep. We used 11x11 cloth bins for storage on the shelves, which left us with a good bit of unused space behind them. I've worked up a plan for re-building the closet last week and did phase 1 yesterday. I tore out the shelves and built a "built in" unit that has bins on the left, a shelf along the top, and a space for a closet rod to hang her long clothing. The right wall of the closet will be converted to double rods for more hanging space, and a single along the back wall. We also want to work in some shoe racks or pull outs on one of the other walls to help with organization and space savings.

I forgot to get before pictures. Here are a couple after removing the shelves. You can also see the associated drywall damage:





Here is the design, I haven't done the bins along the bottom, as we haven't decided whether we want those, a drawer, or to leave it open:



And my finished product. It still needs caulked and painted, but it is functional until I get time to do that.

[black2002ls]

We finally got started on the Master Bathroom remodel this weekend. This was phase one:

Remove Furr down
Remove old vanity and top
Install new vanity and top

It has taken a few weeks to get this completed. I pulled the furr down a few weeks ago, when I confirmed the orders for the vanity and top.

Notice the vent stack that was hiding inside of the furr down. Our home was built in 1986, so I'm not sure what the reasoning behind running the vent outside of the wall was. I am guessing the code didn't allow for the pipe to be run through the double top plate.

Well, I remedied that and put straps accross the hole on both top plates.

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[black2002ls]

Once all of that was completed, I picked up a texture gun, scraped the popcorn, fixed the walls, and painted the room.

Next came the vanity tear out. I tackeled that installing the new vanity Friday after I got home from work. The plan was to remove it all in one piece (2 pieces technically with the top and the vanity) I have resold as much as possible through the course of the remodel to offset some costs. Well, not this time. Out came the sledge hammer and sawsall.

The new vanity was made by the same company that did our kitchen cabinets. Dark gray, full extension glides, vinyl coated interior. For the top, we decided on a white cultured marble with integrated sink and no backsplash for now.

All told, this cost about $800 with the vanity, top, faucet, and miscellaneous stuff needed.

Next up will be new floor tile, a stand up shower, and new commode.

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[juiceweezl]

Dang, Russ. That looks great! Nice work!

[black2002ls]

Dang, Russ. That looks great! Nice work!

Thanks. I have some drywall repairs to make, because everything was such a tight fit. That compounded with installing it myself, I beat up the walls a bit. After the first of the year, I will tackle the new shower and the floor tile. Once this bathroom is done, The remaining remodel items are:

Guest Bathroom:
-remover furr down
-replace fiberglass shower unit with tub/tile
-replace commode

Entry
-Re-tile

Then it is a matter of fixing minor trim issues, re-painting trim, etc. We are at the point now where it is time to start deciding where we want to put Lance in school, whether transferring him in somewhere, or moving. So, we are deviating a bit from the "what we want" to the "this is nice and should be relatively durable for a rental property" finish.

[juiceweezl]

Thanks. I have some drywall repairs to make, because everything was such a tight fit. That compounded with installing it myself, I beat up the walls a bit. After the first of the year, I will tackle the new shower and the floor tile. Once this bathroom is done, The remaining remodel items are:

Guest Bathroom:
-remover furr down
-replace fiberglass shower unit with tub/tile
-replace commode

Entry
-Re-tile

Then it is a matter of fixing minor trim issues, re-painting trim, etc. We are at the point now where it is time to start deciding where we want to put Lance in school, whether transferring him in somewhere, or moving. So, we are deviating a bit from the "what we want" to the "this is nice and should be relatively durable for a rental property" finish.

Make sure and carve some time out next week to visit with me here at work. I'll be swamped most of the day, but I can find a few minutes to catch up. Lots going on here and in our industry as you know.

[black2002ls]

Make sure and carve some time out next week to visit with me here at work. I'll be swamped most of the day, but I can find a few minutes to catch up. Lots going on here and in our industry as you know.

Yessir. I think you were listed as an instructor on at least one of my classes. I am going to have to skip the final session. I have a meeting I have to attend at 3 in wylie

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[juiceweezl]

Yessir. I think you were listed as an instructor on at least one of my classes. I am going to have to skip the final session. I have a meeting I have to attend at 3 in wylie

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No worries. I'm teaching a few different times and helping with others since I'm the guy in charge of the whole thing. If we can't catch up, I'll try and meet you for lunch next week sometime too. Let me know if you want materials from any of the classes you can't attend.

[akfodysvn]

Why not tile the bathroom floor before doing vanity?

[black2002ls]

Why not tile the bathroom floor before doing vanity?

The vanity was replaced out of necessity. The old one was coming apart, and my contract with the cabinet company at work is coming to an end. So I wanted to get it ordered before I could no longer get it at my company price.

In addition, the new shower will be a different size, so instead of trying to plan for that, we waited to do tile until we do the shower pan. We have the material for the floor, however, what we have is all that is left. It has been discontinued. So I disn't want to get into a situation where I hade to replace tiles at the shower, and run out. We will most likely have to make some tile repairs in the guest bathroom that has the same tile we will be putting in the master.

Is it a bit backwards, yes. Am I confident that I can pull the old tile and not damage the vanity, also yes. I have a stock pile of thermo ply for these types of situations! It will be sufficiently protected.

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