remodel

Day 7, tile down.

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We started tiling immediately this morning in hopes of being done by noon. Mr Experience needed to make a couple of stops and go to Hermiston and I needed to go to Hermiston to pickup the supplies for the kitchen and pick up our grout.

I decided to let the sheep out of the barn area today and allow them to roam in the entire barn lot. There is some green grass and the lambs can play king of the hill on the large dirt piles. I told Mr Experience that they would be out and about and he would see them when he was outside. Once he commented they were out on the hillside. I looked out and spotted them in the barn lot and gave it no more thought. As we are leaving the yard to go to Hermiston I spot the sheep and horses on the back hillside where they should not be. There is only one way to get there and that is through an open gate! We have had some young male visitors that had left open two separate gates allowing the animals to escape. The dogs love this as they actually get to work the animals. Once the sheep spotted me with the dogs they ran down into the upper prime pasture on their own. I was trying to move them into the barn lot but Mouse was running on Mouse directions not sheep dog directions so he got the dominance treatment of pining down by throat and staying next to dad while Zeke got to run around and chase sheep. Mouse did get to run around the barn lot in the evening and he even followed a “go left, circle around” command. Now he did it at an all out dead run but he did do it. There were no sheep it was just to make sure and to give him the practice of listening.

We did our errands and picked up the grout, while at the new flooring store I spotted some granite and inquired about the price. If I do the install I can get a sheet for $30/sq foot, this means I can build a custom breakfast nook in the kitchen. I am adding that to the list of needed items. Upon our return to the house we decided to just finish! We figured it would only take a couple of hours. We were wrong it took four hours.

I am so happy with the results. Hopefully, tomorrow we can get it all cleaned up and ready and the grout installed. I want to get all the furniture back in place and ready for Annmarie’s return at 1600 on Saturday. We will see if I can make it .

I tried to show her a picture of my new hat last night and she asked me if I was gaining weight! Who would think that I am binging on cookies, candy, pop, chips, no veggies and lots of beans!? I was offended. I told her it was all muscle from the hard work. She told me 6 days was not enough time to build up that much muscle. I may eat a carrot tomorrow in her honor.

Day 6 and it is amazing

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We are KILLING IT!! Annmarie left on Saturday and is due back this upcoming Saturday. I expect to have the downstairs done and the furniture back in place! We will start on the kitchen directly after that. We will lose two days of work next week due to commitments but the kitchen will probably only take us 6 days! I

I cannot believe how fast we are going. It is amazing when things just happen and we don’t have to keep asking for things. Mr Experience feeds me the mud, and lays out tile and we anticipate each other. It has made the job go incredibly fast. I am starting to plan out the upstairs bathroom and downstairs bathroom projects. I was pretty hesitant to start them but with this level of help each one will only take one week.

Before starting this morning we planned out our day. I called and ordered four more boxes of tile for the kitchen. We did the math and figured that was all we needed. I also ordered a Grout Bag. I had no idea what it was but Mr Experience said it was a cake decorating bag for stonemasons. Makes sense to me, he said we could lay all the grout in a day with it and not have to wipe up tiles 15 times to get them clean. I had to use a razor blade last time to scrape them clean. I ordered them from Amazon it was $5, he said I would only need one for the rest of my life. I ordered two they were cheap and he doesn’t know how easy I lose tools.

By 1030 this morning we were already on our third bucket of mud and making great inroads. I had to give up on my new expensive knee pads as they were not working well and they were cutting off the blood supply to my lower leg with all the pressure behind my knee. My old ones work much better.

Getting the last 2 feet installed against the outer wall was painful. I had to lean out over the tile and not touch it. My butt is killing me, my knees feel better today. I think they are just used to the dull ache now. But my abdominal muscles and butt are killing me. I just keep telling myself its only about 10 more days of suffering and the side benefits are amazing.

The picture below is the amount of tile we laid today. The blue painters tape was to let us know where we ended yesterday so we knew where we could safely step.

This is all that’s left to finish tomorrow. Mr Experience says we will be done by noon. This works for me as we can eat lunch and then drive to Hermiston to get our grout and grinder discs. We may need some more subfloor for the kitchen also, we will check first. I think there are 12 sheets left.

The safe is going to cause us problems. It weighs 600 pounds and has steel wheels on it. We cannot just roll it across the tile floor to its home next to the couch. I am going to have to make some hardwood coasters to go under the wheels and we will have to run it over sheets of plywood to get it in place. Its going to be painful. Now if only someone would crack the safe without damaging it! We still need the combination. I have a $100 reward to the first person that can figure out the combination. Its a four number combination and the dial goes to 100 that much we have been able to figure out from internet research based on the brand and markings.

There was a small panic midday were we thought we had not ordered enough tile. This required a job stoppage, triple recount and remeasurement of the existing job and kitchen with double checks on the math before we agreed that we would have 1/2 box extra or 4 tiles. This is not a lot of room for error.

It has been raining here and we have not had any new lambs in 5 days. I am thinking about opening up the barn so that the sheep can get out into the main barn lot. This will be good for everyone so they can run around and terrorize the horses and cats. I will give it a couple more days before changing the direction of the Y gate.

Day 5 of the downstairs floor project

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It is honestly only day 5 of this project! I cannot tell you how pleased I am that things are going so quickly. Mr Experience is the bomb and is a very hard worker! He is anticipating my next need and keeps the tiles and mud coming. This is such a departure from my normal virginal work help that I am just amazed at our progress. We have a total of about 46 hours each into the project. The best part is I am realizing how much I get interrupted in a normal day, get dogs out of crates, potty dogs, feed dogs, potty dogs, do am farm chores, feed barn cats, feed horses, feed sheep. The entire time I am doing chores, Mr Experience is moving the tile saw, filling it with water, making mud, laying out tile and in general making our project get done with little to no direction.

We did have some difficulty this morning with the area directly in front of the main entrance.
There is a low spot here of at least 1/4 inch. This needed to be built up but it caused problems. We laid down four tiles at first and had to pop up three of them and add more mud. It was very convoluted to get the tiles in place without stepping on any of them. It took us almost 2 hours just to do this small area. You can see the bottom of one of the closet spaces that will get tile in the bottom left corner of the picture below. This whole area took one bucket of mud.

Mr Experience heard me talking about the blog and offered to take some action shots. So you will be seeing my mug more than usual this project. Who knew I was bald?! As we exited the hallway into the main room I started to get very hungry. Unfortunately quitting time is dictated by the mud. If there is still mud in the bucket then its not quitting time! My knees were starting to bother me. Yes I have some fancy gel knee pads but after several hours they just don’t feel that nice. It took forever to get the last of that bucket used up. We had an excellent lunch of combined leftovers. What makes cheesy potatoes and ham mixed with chili and hot dogs better? More chili and cheese! It was amazing and hit the spot just right.

At 1500 the third bucket of mud arrived. It was huge, the entire bucket was full. It was going to take forever to get it all used up. I switched knee pads in the desperate hope that my new ones were somehow better than my old ones. Nope, this did not pan out the way I had hoped, my knees were killing me. We started to really sling mud and lay tile. One of the problems with this much tile at once is it starts to push on itself and get out of alignment. I never knew this as I have never laid this much tile in a single session before. We ended up putting a few strategic screws in the joints to keep the tiles from moving. This works very well. We had the last tile laid by 1730. It was finally quitting time. My knees were ready to call it quits hours before. They are already thinking of boycotting tomorrow but it looks like we can be done laying all the tile in just two more days! Incredible timing, I took off 25 days to do this and we could be done by day 10 with everything. As soon as we get grout in and it cures we will set the house back up and then most likely tackle the kitchen. I think we can do the entire kitchen start to finish in under 7 days.

Day 4 of the floor remodel

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Another exciting day of vacation as we attempt to get the downstairs tiled. Since my wife is now back to work and currently out of town I am doing all the farm chores during all this. I now wait until it is light to do chores, it just makes it easier than doing it by head lamp. We have not had any more lambs for the last two days to the best of my knowledge. I have to throw that out there as there are lambs everywhere! They are like cockroaches in the barn. Its hard to keep track of all of them. We have had one more bummer since the ram’s demise for a grand total of 10 bummers and 2 dead. That is a lot for us.

The real problem with any remodel is the prep work. it is absolutely crucial to the longevity of any job but it is the most unglamorous part of the job. Take today for instance, we finished laying the subfloor. I had to screw in another 1000+ screws. This is painful, first you run the impact driver in your right hand and pull the trigger with your index finger. It gets tired so you start to use your right middle finger for the trigger. This also has the added benefit of altering your grip. When this gets too hard you switch to your left hand even if its not your dominant hand. That is four different ways to drive screws. it is just enough to keep going until the job is done. The site needs to stay clean and when tiling there can be nothing under the underlayment and the fuzz from the screws needs to be cleaned up. All the low spots that we patched Mr Experience floated in mastic so that when it dries the floor is perfectly supported in all areas. We then spent about an hour drawing lines on the floor to make sure the tile stays in alignment once we start laying it. You can see the bright orange chalk line we snapped in the picture below. I have been trying to figure out how to keep a steady input of coffee ready at all times. My french press doesn’t keep it hot. So today I started to use a small thermos to keep the second cup of coffee from my press hot. I tested the thermos last night by putting hot water in it. This morning the water was still very hot! This has been a fantastic discovery and I will be doing this every day of my vacation.

I have had to put Zeke outside on the run as he keeps jumping the fence and Mouse just runs around in the yard. Gizmo wants attention but he cannot run around when there is wet mastic on the floor. He does not understand this and tomorrow we will need to use the back porch so the laundry room will need to be traipsed through. He is going to have to spend some time upstairs in his day room.

Lunch today was chili and real Hill, all beef, hot dogs mixed together with onions, and drowned in cheese. A very manly lunch. For tomorrow we are having leftovers I am thinking about mixing the cheesy potatoes and ham with the chili and hot dogs! A most excellent combination.

We were finally ready to start laying tile after we moved the tile saw out onto the front porch. Its above freezing and we are trying to get the cut pieces to the layer as fast as possible. A bucket of mastic had to be mixed and the first tile cut and then we could lay some tile. I am the designated tile layer. Mr Experience does everything else. This means mixing mud, cutting tiles, and feeding me whole tile stacks so I can reach them. The firsts batch of mastic was a little runny for me. I truly do like the peanut butter consistency. It works well and is is easy to manage. Mr Experience fixed it up and off we went. I am the designated layer as it is my responsibility to get it right! In an hour we were able to lay the tile below. This doesn’t seem like much but this hallway is hard as I have to lean out and work on one side. Once we start down the other hallway I will only have to work one row of tiles at a time instead of bouncing between 7 rows of tiles and jigsawing them in place. I am hoping for 50% completion tomorrow. I realize this is incredibly ambitious but one must have goals!

It has begun!

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I am officially on vacation now! I am going no where. It’s a very affordable place, I hear great reviews about it. I will be spending my vacation tiling the downstairs of our house. I have limited it to the hallway, living room and dining room. If we can tear it up and make incredible progress then we will do the kitchen also. The kitchen is going to be painful as we actually have to remove one layer of subfloor and linoleum and work around the cupboards.

There are two of us, I have a helper, we will call him Mr. Experience. This is a novel experience for me as most of my help is fairly naive if not downright virginal when it comes to hands on work. Mr Experience has done construction for a long time and specifically tile and concrete work. This is an amazing change for me. I am not near as stressed doing this project. He is doing all the measuring and cutting of hardiboard and I am doing all the grunt work and screwing in the thousands of screws needed to attach the board to our existing floor.

Day 1 was spent clearing out the downstairs. We used the kitchen, the downstairs library, upstairs spare bedroom and our bedroom to stash all the furniture. The kitchen had to store the couch and the old safe as neither could go upstairs or into the downstairs library. You cannot even get past the door frame into the spare bedroom. It is jammed full of everything. The dogs do not get any more toys! We are officially in a dog toy buying drought. We must of found 30+ toys trapped under the couch and loveseat. I am seriously considering building a square frame that hides under the couch and loveseat that prevents any toy from rolling more than 6 inches under the furniture. It was amazing how many toys were trapped in hidden realms. We left the dining room table but could stash it in the kitchen when we need to as Annmarie is in Berkeley for school for a week. There will never be a better time than now to jam everything into the kitchen. I just need to be able to get to the fridge, stove and microwave. Access to the sink is crucial as that is where water for the coffee maker comes from! I have to keep up a steady stream of coffee to survive. The second half of the day was spent driving to the Big Box hardware store for the needed supplies.

This note about my chickens was on the fridge when I got back. It seems the housekeeper was looking out the window as our younger border collie was barking at the tree. She looked up into the tree just in time to see the eagle swoop down and go for my chickens! Luckily, the chickens had been warned and were scattering when the eagle dive bombed them. It tried for them one more time. “Everything loves chicken”! We may have to put a mesh cover over the chicken yard. I was told they may be nesting in the upper prime field in the top of the trees. We will see, I have not noticed a nest up there recently, but honestly, I have not been looking for an eagle nest.

Day 2 was spent cutting subfloor to fill in the gaps and level off the floor so we could lay Hardiboard down. I love Hardiboard for all tile underlayment except for in bathrooms. I will always use Wonderboard when it calls for a wet enclosure. We did get a few pieces of underlayment laid and screwed down. This is really confusing the dogs as they are unsure where to lay or sleep.

Day 3 is today, we laid more subfloor. The only room left to install subfloor in is the dining room. We also floated in all the subfloor that had mismatched heights so we have a solid base to install the Hardiboard onto. This is very nice and we are cutting the seams to utilize full sheets and move the joints away from high traffic regions. It is amazing how much stiffer and firmer the floor is with just a new subfloor. We called it an early day so Mr Experience could do other things and I do recognize that other people do have lives. I would kill it until 2300 every night if I could. But with Annmarie back in school and back teaching I have to do the morning and evening chores so my remodel time gets interrupted. I become totally focused and obsessed with finishing the project. It makes her crazy but the project is getting completed so she tries to limit her feedback. The goal is to start laying tile tomorrow by early afternoon.