Bottom Floor Bathroom Project

Okay so when last we left off we talked about coming projects on the house. The main project we'd like to focus on is turning this room into a finished fabulous bathroom.

I'd like to restate that we already have permits to finish this bathroom.

Crammed full of crap which is our way...You can see that I've done the initial framing for the bath with backers for towel bars- grab bars.

One issue that I didn't think of at the time is what to do about this siding. I would like to carefully remove it and install the earthquake shear panels in this area. As you can see there are several soil stacks in the way that will have to be removed for access. Also the closest window is pretty rotted away to nothing and I've bought a replacement for it.

But, how to remove the siding without destroying it?!?!!? Any ideas? Then how do I strip the siding back to bare wood (safely and effectively as there is lead paint there for sure) and reinstall it?
I want to install house wrap and flash the window openings with peel and stick flashing. There also is a question on how far I should strip the siding. Should I do this entire side then I can flash that far window also. Unfortunately that far away soil stack is the one most used on the house as it connect the only working bathroom to the sewer main....that's gotta stay attached and working as much as possible.

That nearest soil stack shoots way up to the third floor. This stack is not being used at all so I think it makes sense just to remove it entirely and replace it with modern no-hub cast iron when we get to redoing the upper bath.

Check out what looks like an old boarded up window and the lame t-111 siding in this pic. More evidence that this back part of the house was probably a porch at one time.

Another shot of the weird old patch job and old window. It might be fun to put a window back in but the city won't allow it because the house is too close to the property line on this side for any additional windows. I don't honestly think I noticed this when we bought the house...

Here's the bathroom window with no header, and no weights that we want to replace.

Here's the fancy-cool new marvin ultrex window I bought to replace the rotted original....only problem is, is that for some reason I bought a replacement window that is several inches bigger in both dimensions! I'm not sure why in the heck I did that...I'm also not sure now if it'll work...

When I do get to replacing the window I'll have to reframe the opening and add an actual header like these we did on the other side of the house.

Along one wall of the bathroom half the height of the wall is foundation. We're not sure what we are going to do along this wall. One idea is to tile it as a wainscot and continue the tile around the room. Since we are planning on tiling the room in an antique tile style this idea should work out nicely. Irene has a tile plan worked out for the bathroom I believe.

Astute readers will notice that the sole plates in the bathroom are not pressure treated lumber. When building on concrete using regular lumber is generally a no no. I applied a water proofing membrane to the bottom of the sole plate which should be okay with the inspector but I need to check. If not he'll probably make me pull this up and redo it...which would mean basically redo the framing for the bathroom entirely!

The shower area is going to be the biggest puzzle to figure out. We're not doing a bath just a stand-up shower. The dimensions for the shower are 3by5' with the shower head probably coming out of the ceiling and the shower controls near the door to the shower which will be the 3' side nearest the door. Ya a diagram would help but the computer that has all those plans on it died on me and I haven't gotten it back from the shop yet.

The fun and exciting things about this are that I get to pour a mud bed-why not just concrete? and slope it correctly and form a curb.

Here is a picture of the type of drain that I was hoping to use. Its from a company called quickdrain and they are newish to the U.S. Using this drain I can do a simple slope towards the drain, not a fancy 4 way slope you have to do with a standard center drain. One problem is that I thought this company had a rear discharge model...which I can see nicely hooking up to the drain line in the above picture. With how the drain line is above slab I don't know how I'm going to get a standard bottom discharge drain to work unless I have a very thick mud bed. Also, I'm not sure if these drains are approved for use in Alameda... I could be looking at a pretty serious step up into the shower if I don't plan this right. When I'm old I don't want to have to take a giant step over the shower curb and into the shower...

Here's a shot from the quickdrain website that's very close to what we want to do. Except that the solid wall on the right will actually be a door.

Another interesting mystery to be solved is how to water proof the shower enclosure on the two walls. The quickdrain comes bonded to a nobel seal TS water proofing material flange. The nobel seal TS is interesting as it fully water proofs the floors,walls etc. Using this product I can just use regular plywood for the walls and the tile is thin-setted to the nobel seal. Seems interesting and much more likely to be a whole lot more waterproof than cement backer board with felt tacked up underneath it. Water is the enemy of old houses so what ever I can do to avoid it getting where it shouldn't I try to do.

I also need to figure out the plumbing but that'll be for a later post I think.

This Means War!!

No this isn't yet another post about how Winnans Construction has screwed us over....

This is a post about squirrels! Yes Squirrels! Alameda has the craziest squirrels that I've ever encountered. They have no fear of humans and plunder gardens without hesitation.

This is our neighbors avocado tree which hangs into our yard a good amount. Now of any kind of tree that you are going to have hang into your yard I'd say an avocado is just about the best kind. Before our neighbors cut the tree back we could reach out from our deck and pluck fresh avocados!! I'd like to say we could pluck avocados to our hearts content but nooooo. Half the time the damn squirrels would get to them first! They would always chew the side facing away from us so we wouldn't know the dang thing was ruined until we'd pluck it and find that it was half eaten!! Arrrrrgh!!!!

today I went out in the morning to water the tomato plants and look what I found sitting in Irene's shoes! I swear I didn't fake this, that this is exactly how I found it this morning. Some dang squirrel is taunting us!!!

I still have my BB gun from when I needed it to scare raccoon's away from our pond in the old neighborhood......squirrels are a smaller, faster moving target but I bet I could zing a couple in the butt.....

Nah, that'd be cruel right?

What Lies Ahead Part 2

When last we left off we were talking about the permits that we have that are due to expire this October. For fun here is a clip of the section of the plans that go along with the permit.

Here was the existing bottom floor as we found it. Love how the garage enters into the unit via the bathroom? and how the middle bedroom can only be entered through the bathroom also! Talk about a multi-use space.

Below we have the after that we're supposed to have finished by Oct! Sorry about the small size if you click on the picture its readable-ish. Wow, look at all that stuff!! What was I thinking! Basically the only parts of the above that are done are the slab-foundation, the radiant heating, the tankless water heater and some of the earthquake retro-fitting! That means we've got to do all the plumbing still, the wiring, I've got to actually install a kitchen! the bathroom(which is on a seperate permit), frame out the garage and utility closets, insulate and sheet rock everything! Just basically finish everything!

Ya, it'll just take a couple of weekends right!?!?!

Sheesh, what'd I get myself into!

Future Plans for the House

Well I guess I should really say 'Future Near-Term Plans for the House'.

We've decided that while I've got some extra 'free time' now that I'd apply myself to getting some projects done around the house. We have an f-ton of permits expiring starting in October so we've got to try to close as many of them out as possible or else we'll be on the hook for the fees all over again AND for any changes in the building codes since the permit was pulled.
The giant foundation-entire downstairs permit is the first to expire in the beginning of Oct. so we're hoping that we can get as much of that complete as possible. We should be able to complete everything but the drywalling (can't do the drywalling because lots of framing, plumbing is going to have to be added to the area when we redo the top two floors) by the drop dead date...that won't close the permit out but we're hoping stuff that was signed off on won't have to be re-inspected.

Job 1 is turning this room into a full bath. We'll finally have a bathroom on the ground floor so people won't have to go upstairs to potty during patio parties.

We've already got the permits to do this so its just a matter of time...
I get to learn how to hang doors during this project. I'm going to plumb this bath with PEX tubing so we'll see how that goes with the building dept.
I'll do a more in-depth post on just the bathroom with the floor plan and stuff later.

We bought the bathroom vanity a while ago...I think there was a sale or something....here's the back of it, pretty exciting huh!

We already have the toilet too! Its a super cool wall hung unit that looks like a regular toilet-not all super high-tech and inappropriate for a Victorian bathroom.

Its an elongated bowl and since its wall hung we can set it at any height we like! Hello 20" seat height! I can't wait to use this baby! Actually, it will be good for when we're elderly and can't bend our knees so well...

This is the plumbing for the shower. Notice how its above the concrete floor? Ya this is going to be interesting....we're going to have to build some sort of raised mortar bed-platform thingy to get the level of the shower floor correct.

On the back of the house we need to rebuild the back stairs (we get to cut our first stair stringers hurray!!) and make them code compliant to get the back deck amnestied.

If we're lucky we can get the stairs to land on the edge of the sunken living room. We need to get rid of that ramp its outright dangerous when its wet and or you're drunk...

Here's an up close shot of the jury-rigged stair stringer. That vertical post is just kinda wedged in there and that horizontal member is just nailed up to a deck post....not real-super secure.

Our neighbor who we share this fugly bit of fence with would really, really like to redo it. We basically can never see this fence unless we go looking for it. But because it shares a border and its currently built on our side of the property line I'm going to get roped into , designing, spec'ing, making the lumber run and over-seeing the work being done...what fun. The neighbor who stares at this fence all day long, wants a fancy fence with an arbor top....which is fine, but much more expensive than what we want, which is just a basic well built fence that will last a long while and contain her dogs....hopefully we can come up with some sort of equitable compromise.

Now, what Irene really wants is to replace this section of fence which we stare at all day long with something that's not falling down and attractive looking. Unfortunately this is with a different neighbor who doesn't seem to care about it so we might be footing the bill to redo this section of fence ourselves.

On the left at the bottom of the fence, do you see how rotted the bottom of the fence boards are? That's because they were literally underground by that much from all the accumulated debris that the previous owner had spread around the backyard....

Ghetto Baby-Gate Fix

This is a little late to help our friends the Harveys who screwed into their woodwork to support their gates....
We had to contain the babies in the 'baby-safe' area which of course means baby gates. The big pocket doorway represented a particular problem for us. Its very wide so a standard compression gate won't work and we wanted a doorway for easy access when you have a baby in one hand. Annnnd we really, really, really didn't want to tear up the original moldings around the doorway with a bunch of screws.

Here's what I came up with. I cut two 2by3's to just fit inside the doorway. Then I tapped shims into the top of the 2by3's locking them in place.

Check out the tuning fork in the middle of the doorway. Its to keep out 'bad vibrations.'

Ya its ugly and ghetto-tastic for sure. How ya like that big ole crack on the wall?

If I REALLY cared I'd cut the shims even with the wood and paint the whole thing white. I think you'd barely even notice it then.

Just in case people don't know what the heck I'm talking about here's a picture of the shims.

One funny thing that happened was that as the wood dried out it shrank pretty significantly in length and I had to tap the wedges in a lot more.

Now its so tight that I can not even get the 2by3's to budge. I think it'll stand up to the kids pretty well.

Never Use Willson Bailey Construction!!

A Crook Is A Crook Is A Crook!!

As a public service I feel I need to point out a foundation contractor that everyone should stay away from.

The contractors name is Willson Bailey Construction 2879 Humphrey Avenue Richmond, CA 94804 - (510) 236-7796

The kids down the street at Casa Decrepit have chronicled their huge foundation fiasco as it happened.

They recently settled out of court with the crook and as part of their settlement they are not allowed to mention his name on their blog or go after his contractors license!

But, their settlement does not stop me from saying things like, 'After reading the saga on the Casa website I firmly believe that Scott Bailey of Willson Bailey Construction is a total honorless crook!!!'.

Since the settlement the Casa kids have been meticulously dissecting the fraud, if you have not already you should read those posts here, here and here.

Just so you know how full of crap the BBB is check out their rating of Willson Bailey Construction. Can you believe these guys got an A+!?!??!

D

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Take Off Yer Shoes Damn It!

We have this rule in the house about not wearing shoes inside past the doorway. Ya I know it seems a little silly with the house being only 1/3rd habitable but really its the only way to keep the place reasonably clean....you know, since we are not the clean-freak types and we can not afford maid service. Besides, think about all the places the bottom of your shoes go. You use a dirty nasty public bathroom then you're going to go walk thru your house on the same floors your baby crawls on? Yuck!

We had a small shelf by the door but it didn't look really good and could not hold enough 'stuff'.

So, in secret for our 11yr anniversary I commissioned a local artist-fine furniture maker by the name of Paul M. to make us something a bit more classy to store our shoes. I think what he came up with is perfect and fits our needs exactly. You won't get him to compete with IKEA on prices but if you want something truly custom and high quality don't hesitate to contact him. He got the job done on time and on budget and I would not hesitate to recommend him.

WHO'S THE BEST HUSBAND ANYWHERE? I AM!

Check out the finished product installed in our entryway.

The two big cubbies on the bottom corners are sized to fit the ginormous boots Irene wears everyday. There's even six spots left over for guests shoes! That's a huge improvement over what we had before where our little shoe rack was full of our shoes and guests had to throw their shoes on the floor where people would trip over them.

The big drawer is separated into thirds with a spots for my mail, Irene's mail and a power strip to charge our cell phones and camera batteries and what not. The two smaller drawers are full of gloves and sunglasses and assorted brick-a-brac.

Here's a shot of the cabinet coming together in the shop. Paul forgot to take a lot of 'making of' shots so these will have to do.
He used solid cherry and birds-eye maple plywood.

I like this pre-staining shot. You can see the different woods.

Here's a shot after staining.

Complete and in the shop awaiting the low VOC clear finish to cure.

Here it is in our entry way with our cool hall chair where people can sit and take off their shoes in style. You can also check out your outfit in the mirror.

They make a pretty good pair don't they?