bathroom remodel

Bathroom day 45

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It has only been 45 days on the bathroom project over the course of 26 weeks now. Mind you I told the wife it would only take four weeks. I may have been a little off on my estimate. Normally, you can take my estimate and multiply by three and be spot on. That is not the case this time.

I only needed to install the sink plumbing and I would be done with all water in the bathroom. To do this I needed to change out the wall supply valves so they were 3/8” outlets. I figured this was going to be fairly easy as the nut and crush washer were going to stay on the copper pipe and I just needed to change out the valve body.

I should know better by now. I am cursed when it comes to plumbing. I changed out the first valve without incident. I then did the second valve, again fairly easy. I figured that I should check both valves before I hooked up the sink in case I had a slow leak around my swap. I went back to the main water shut off in the laundry room and opened it up. I got distracted by something and was in the kitchen when I thought I heard a weird noise coming from the bathroom. I went into the bathroom to a fountain. I had both valves pointed to the ceiling and the second valve I had not closed. I was spraying water all over the wall, the light and ceiling. Luckily, the floor slants towards the toilet so the water was just pooling on the floor. I had about 1/2” of water on the floor. It took me another hour to get the bathroom cleaned up and dried. I did not get electrocuted when I cleaned all of the water off of the light. Neither valve leaked once I actually shut the valve.

I hooked up the sink without any further incident. I even cut the Pex pipe and used the parts Delta sent me to get a seal on the Pex. I wanted to run the water but the drain was not yet installed. So I tried to install the drain from the parts I had on hand. Nope, it was not going to happen. Sixty dollars later and two trips to the local store and I had purchased enough parts to be able to plum the drain. I then did turn the water on and it did indeed work and drain perfectly. This entire endeavor took me a whole day. I just do not get along with plumbing, we are enemies.

Bathroom Day 44

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it is week 14 of the bathroom remodel. I spent most of Friday working on it. I was able to get the leg adjusters installed on the vanity and spent about an hour getting it level. Every time I scooted the vanity right or left I had to readjust the entire vanity. I was able to get it level finally.

I managed able to carry in the granite top myself. I did have to set it down three times on the way from the old house. It was not very light, the real reason I was able to do it alone was the sink hole gave me a great place to hold onto that would not slip. I glued the top onto the vanity and then placed the sink onto it. It fits perfectly! I did not seal the sink in place yet as I wanted to get the faucet hooked up first then I can battle the sink and drain. I then set the faucet and then tried to hook it up to the wall valves. Nope! The pipe coming from the faucet is 3/8” Pex with 3/8” compression fitting for the supply valve. The only problem is they did not put the nut on first on one of the supply lines! So I cannot hook it up. On top of that the valves I installed are for 1/2” line. I can swap those out for another $25 to 3/8” but that one supply line is not going to work. I went to multiple stores in Pendleton and could not find 1/4” Pex let alone with a compression fittings. I tried to order it online and finally I have given up. On Monday I will be calling the Delta parts hotline number and figuring out what to do. Needless to say this has put me behind another week, or should I say it’s just par for the course on this project.

I was able to drill bigger holes in the door and reinstall the hold open latch. There was enough overlap to hide the previous holes so the only one that knows they are there is me. Latching the door open after a shower is making a huge difference in the amount of moisture the room retains.

I have the vanity drawers pulled out and am definitely going to have to alter three drawers once I get the drain plumbed. There is no way around it.

Annmarie pointed out that the vanity is fairly tall and with the elevated sink the bathroom is definitely not for short people. The Gingerman and myself are going to love it. I really do want to get the sink functional so I can do my morning grooming downstairs. Once I get the sink functional then I will move onto building the custom cabinet. Once that is done then I will work on the inside trim around the door and doing the dreaded sheet rock on the hallway side.

Bathroom remodel day 43

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It is starting to get there! We are only on week 13! I did not work on the bathroom Friday other than to move the vanity into the bathroom to see how it fit. Annmarie and I needed time to see it in place and time for our brains to percolate on how it was going to fit.

Today was the big bathroom push, I really wanted to go outside and mow tall grass down with the tractor but it rained off and on most of the day. Nothing really strong as evidenced by our 1/100” on the rain gauge. I do really think we got more rain than that. So going outside was not going to be a great thing so I opted to do the responsible thing and stay inside to work on the bathroom.

I did manage to run around the house, picking up, roasting coffee, cleaning up floor and doing laundry before I got started in on the bathroom. I opted to work on the vanity first. The crown molding is incredibly tedious and I just was not looking forward to it. Annmarie and I played with the vanity until we found the level spot but the vanity was not sitting right. I realized that I knew it only had three supports on the four legs. So I opted to move one of them from the front leg and put it on the missing back leg. Nope, it was a weird all in one piece that was hammered into the bottom of the leg. It was hollow and had a metal cap on it. Once I started prying on it I had to break it all apart. There were holes drilled in the bottom of each foot for these steel sliders. I had to get the drill out and drill out the hollow metal tubing from all of the holes, even the hole that was missing the top. This means I need something to go inside the bottom legs. I found an adjustable set of furniture elevators that will work. I had to special order them, they should be here next week. Now my excuse for not working on the crown molding was gone. I cannot put the granite top on the vanity until the feet are repaired as I had to tip the vanity up onto its side to get to them.

I am definitely going to have to do some reworking on the vanity drawers. The pipes are not in the planned spot. The top drawer is fine but the next two down will need to be reworked. I will just remove the drawers and get the countertop, sink and all plumbing installed then I will worry about fixing the drawers so they will fit.

It took me over three hours to do the other half of the crown molding. I am officially done with the crown molding for now. When I go to put the custom cabinet in, I will have to cut the top of the molding in the corner where the cabinet will slide in. This way I can wrap the crown molding around the top of the cabinet incorporating it into the room seamlessly. I only managed to cut my fingers once today with the tin snips. Working metal is best done with gloves but when doing finish work like this I find myself not wearing any gloves. I cut the pad of my fingers with the nippers! They are appropriately sharp enough.

The decorative hook we had ordered to hold open the bathroom door came on Friday so I decided to try and install it. I will have to remove it and put it back on once the final trim is installed. I had the wall hook installed and was tightening the last screw on the door piece when the screw head twisted off! This is a ridiculous problem, I should not have been able to twist off the screw top. Now there is the bottom half of the screw stuck in the door. I could spend an hour and gouge out a huge hole attempting to get that broken part out of the 115 year old door. I am just going to move the piece over 1/8” and drill out a bigger hole so I can easily insert the two screws. This is a stupid problem.

Bathroom remodel day 41

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The bathroom is chugging along just like the little train that could. I spent all day Friday getting three valves onto the copper pipe sticking out of the wall. The toilet valve was the easiest as I had a long chunk of pipe sticking out that had to be cutoff. The sink side had two short stubs that I needed to heat up and remove the copper caps. I ended crushing one of the tips with a set of pliers and then had to cut it off. I had to use the sawzall to cut it as it was too close to the wall for a pipe cutter. This then made a not even cut which messed up my compression tightening valve.

I had to go to Pendleton for a second time that day to get a new brass compression ring and a 12” hose for the toilet. On the plus side the toilet works and after soldering on an extension pipe the sink valves are in place and they do not leak. I am just not very good at plumbing.

We installed a curtain as a door so the toilet could be used on Friday. I had been working on the door all week. I had a wood insert glued into the end of the door and I purchased a 1” and 3/4” dowel so I could drill out the old door handle and lock holes. Once I had that all dried, cut off and sanded smooth I filled the cracks with an epoxy based filler. After that was sanded down I drilled the new holes for the new handle. It just made it easier to start with an intact door again before trying to make new holes. I am going to brush on a little stain after the door is hung.

Saturday we moved furniture! Sarah and Grant were given a nice set of Spanish style bedroom set. We cleaned out the old room, moved the box bed back into the sewing room and moved out several items from both rooms. We then cleaned up both rooms and all of the furniture. All of this we did in the morning, then I had enough time to install the door handle in the bathroom door. I need the door gone so I can get the corner trims stained then start working on the custom bathroom cabinet. Gingerman went out to their farm and started discing a five acre field that he is prepping for seed. The disc he got last week is working great.

Early afternoon we went and picked up the furniture. It was heavy. We were able to get the horse trailer across our spring by driving through the spring. I had brought in 2-3” rock when we thought the septic truck was going to have to drive around to pump our tank. It still makes a land bridge that the water flows over 1-2” deep. The truck and trailer went over it just fine. We used arm lifts to help move the furniture and they made all the difference. I don’t think I could have gotten the one dresser upstairs without them. As it was I had to place both feet wide on either side of the dresser and lift it up one step at a time. By the time we got to step 16 I thought I was going to die. When we made it to step 19 I told myself there were only two steps left and if I let go Gingerman was still holding up the lower end and could not do that indefinitely. As soon as we had it on the top landing we took a five minute break.

I took the low side on the long dresser and the Gingerman was surprised at the different muscles used on the uphill side. The lower side carries more weight but it is in your legs not your mid back. I told him it was much worse with the heavier piece of furniture. We forgot a piece of the bed frame. Once we tried to install the bed frame we realized there had to be more parts. All the parts fit in the bedroom and the kids have an actual bed to sleep on. I told the Gingerman when we left to go disc until dark that I was done working.

I ended up installing the actual bathroom door. It was a tight fit but I was able to get it in place and adjusted. It looks good. I think I will still hit it with one more coat of conditioner to seal up the wood. I was able to do a little work on the crown molding on Friday after the plumbing and now we have crown molding in the main section of the bathroom. All that is left is the shower enclosure. Now that the door is in place Annmarie is already talking about finish trim! We attempted to put the vanity in place but there is a cross piece that needs to be routed out about 1” to make room for the wall plumbing. I will also need to readjust some of the drawers in the vanity. The plumbing is more to the right of the cabinet than I anticipated.

Bathroom remodel day 40

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well it is a mere 40 days I have vested into the bathroom remodel over the last 11 weeks and we are still closing in on it a bit at a time. I had a few grand delusions and figured I could get all of the crown molding up over a holiday weekend. First of all the crown molding is taking forever. I did not order the precut corners as there are 12 in the bathroom. This is causing me to cut each corner about 12 times before I am getting the angle right. I am just making little cuts but I put it up, measure it, then cut it and measure again and repeat it until it works. On top of that the nails do not want to go into the plywood ceiling so I am now pre-drilling holes with smaller diameter bit and driving the nails in with a nail set when they stop moving with the hammer. I love the way the cut glass light shades break up the light, it looks great on the tin ceiling.

I did get the toilet lid installed. It only took me three tries to get all the pieces in the correct order. It has a push button that releases the toilet lid from the anchor bolts. I had plans to install the three shutoff valves for the bathroom but Annmarie was making rolls on Saturday and I did not want to turn off the water then get in a bind the day before a holiday. I opted to do nothing with the plumbing. My track record with plumbing is abysmal, no need to flout my efforts before the gods. We would all pay for that attempt.

I was able to cut down a board and get it glued into the pocket door. My next stop is to pickup a two pine dowels, one 1” & 3/4” so I can fill both holes in the door. I will just drill a hole the entire thickness of the door and drive in the dowel. This will also help my large piece I just glued in stay in place. Once I have everything glued in place the end will be filled in with some stainable wood based putty. Once it is all smooth and ready for stain I will drill the lock and handle holes in the door.

Since this is Easter weekend I did laundry and cleaned up the house. Mostly, this meant putting away tools from the bathroom. They were stacked up in the mud room and before I could use my new birthday present, coffee bean roaster I needed a spot to store it. This meant cleaning out the mud room and installing the bean roaster and cooler on top of the food dehydrator. The coffee roaster only does 4 oz at a time, so I will need to do two batches to fill up my coffee grinder hopper. It took three batches of beans roasted to get something drinkable. Green beans are only $10/pound so I figure I can drink coffee forever now. The fresh roasted is super smooth and has zero bitter taste. The mud room does get a little smoky, so we have to keep the laundry room door shut. I have been opening up the back door but that is not going to work during winter.

I will keep plugging away at the bathroom. The progeny and Gingerman both got to use the shower and loved it. I need to get the door done so I can start working on the custom cabinet. I need the sawhorses and working space that the door is taking up.