Author: turtle

we continued working on paint prep this week. not a whole lot done, but moving forward.

janeen continued stripping paint from the baseboards and the picture rails. it’s quite satisfying, but really labor-intensive.

we also sanded the ceiling to help the paint adhesion. still to do on the ceiling: finish skim coating. you can see the white patches where i’ve taped over the cracks and the plaster washers.

i reinstalled the old (ugly) ceiling fan in the kitchen. instead of having it hang down – the way it was before – i mounted it up as close to the ceiling as possible. also, because there’s a window directly behind it, there’s nowhere for the power cord.

it used to have a cord stapled to the ceiling and running down the side of the cabinet. we managed to fish a power cord above the ceiling; i was in the attic with the fish tape, and janeen was listening below to hear where it was because there’s no access directly above the kitchen ceiling. amazingly, it worked, so i added a plug in the ceiling to plug the fan into.

janeen’s parents were over this weekend, again: they spent all sunday painting the upstairs dining area.

on the left above, this is how the previous kitchen looked. it’s a photo mole took when we were first looking around the house. on the right, i have removed the hood over the range, so you can see the window on the back wall. it makes the kitchen so much brighter. now we’re trying to figure out how to have a hood that does not block this window. any ideas? you can also see the mold in the lower left of the photo – the old cold box is rotting away.

turtle sanding the kitchen.

mole and her mum, painting.

mole’s dad priming the kitchen. looks so much better already. originally we had been planning to paint the trim white and the rest the same yellow as the dining area. once it was painted with white primer, mole decided the keep the whole kitchen white.

last month our friend alex made the suggestion to hang the bathroom vanity off the wall instead of support it on the floor, to make the bathroom feel larger. at that point i’d already finished making the cabinet, it was ready to polyurethane. on sunday i hid down in my workshop, taking it apart and altering the pieces. fits with this home remodel project: do everything twice! it’s now glued up again, and clamping.

not much happening here. i pottered around upstairs this weekend, looked at things, stripped some paint off the wainscote boards, and got back into bed:

it may not look like much, but all that paint, glue and spackle takes about 10 min per foot to remove from each piece. and when your nose is running, it’s difficult (and messy) wearing a respirator.

i also got the head and side casing cleaned up, and attached at the bathroom door (above right). the side casing is the same wood shown in the first photo of last week’s post, after stripping about 1/8″ of paint. it is beautiful tight grained smooth old wood (where it doesn’t have nail holes and dents).

i also finally finished painting the (hopefully repaired) leaky mouldy window, patched a couple of roof leaks from the last storm, cleaned out some gutters. sorry, no photos yet – maybe next post.

i’ve been on a bit of a grump about jm recently: not only did janeen miss a weekend to go on his ‘make money for jm’ cruise trip (nope, it wasn’t even a benefit), but when she came back she’s been sick! now i’m sick too, so not much has been happening around here.

last weekend, i was realizing just how slow it is to try to reuse wood. We have the old wood, covered in paint, chipped and dented with holes in it from nails. Then we need to strip it down to the wood to make sure there are no nails hiding in there that could become projectiles when i cut the wood or shape it with the router. Then we need to sand it, and fill all the dents and scratches. then sand again. then prime. aiiieee!

above left shows the wainscote in the bathroom with most of the paint stripped off it. i’m not sure if we’ll bother to strip it all off, because the left side will be behind the vanity (which i still need to make). On the right, i’ve started to install the door jambs. it took me a long time. the wall framing is not necessarily perfectly vertical, so the door jambs are shimmed away from it with wedge-shaped pieces of wood. I kept shimming the jambs, checking for level with the plumb bob (a heavy pointed metal piece attached to the end of a string), and then accidentally bumping them. there’s probably a better way.

Now this part feels like progress: To waterproof the shower, we are using a special waterproofing membrane made by schluter-kerdi that has a bondable surface so you can apply the tile directly to it. I like it because it keeps all the water out of the shower backing. Traditional showers have a layer of mortar over the top of the waterproofing membrane; the mortar never completely dries out between showers: mold. Although we used cement backer board everywhere, apparently this stuff allows you to use plaster (gypsum) board. On the left i’m putting in the bottom piece. it goes in quite easily: you press it down against a layer of thinset mortar. There’s also a special drain with a really wide flange that also has a bondable surface. The kerdi membrane adheres to this also. on the right, half the shower is covered. almost ready to tile.

Not much more to show, but I got the wall plastered. On the upper right you can see the difference between ‘plaster’ and drywall. Here I’m trying to show how shiny and reflective the plaster gets when it has been worked. Apparently plaster is much stronger and resistant to damage than drywall. I can believe it – it makes a hard shell on the surface of the wall. One thing that I really like about it is that it is a single application. No sanding needed (theoretically) – for me there’s some touch-up needed. hey, i’m not a pro!

The new sill that I started repairing on saturday is now installed, along with the trim. The plaster in the repaired area is still drying (it looks grey in the photo on the left). On the right, I’m starting to install the wainscote for the bathroom. It’s all reused wood that was on the walls before, so there are some interesting colors. I’ve stripped the paint off the grooves and edges of the boards so that they fit together. We’ll finish stripping the paint and preparing it while it’s in place.

Mole is out of town this weekend, so that leaves me to update. This weekend I concentrated on trying to get upstairs ready for paint. Actually, we’ve been working on that for months…
When uncle Ken came to visit last week, one of the first things he commented on was that in the bathroom, I’ve only used a single box to put the GFI (ground-fault interrupter) plug into. This box has a lot of wires in it, and GFI plugs take up more room than normal plugs. He recommended replacing the box with a double box and a ‘plaster guard’ on the front that reduces it for a single outlet. Exactly what the wiring book says, too. Should have read the instructions.

This turned out to be quite an effort. It’s always disappointing to have to tear apart work i’ve already done, too. We already had the gyp board up on one side of the wall, and the cement board on this side. fortunately i hadn’t plastered it yet.

when i installed the boxes the first time, i’d added a piece of wood as a backer to make it easier to screw the boxes in. unfortunately, since the wall is so thin, there was not space for this as well as the double box and the plaster guard. i had to tear out both boxes, and carefully drill out the piece of wood backer i’d installed – without damaging the drywall on the back side – then screw the boxes back in against the studs. getting them aligned and set at the right depth took quite a while.

Above left shows the boxes installed. Right is with the plaster guard on.

Ahh, backer board is back on. Had to move the hole over slightly because the plaster guard centers the opening on the double box and the stud set the location for the box. Above right shows the trim going back on around the door into the bedroom. Exciting… Janeen stripped the paint off the vertical piece months ago.

Got a new toy in the mail this weekend: a ‘dustless’ sander. It uses sanding screens and attaches to the vacuum cleaner, so the dust is sucked straight in. nice. except that the sanding motion and the constant air flow through the thing generates so much static electricity i felt like a spark plug! In the photo above right you can see the solution: i attached a piece of wire to the pole and fixed it to the plumbing. ahhh.

Plastered the bump-out in front of the chimney. ready for paint!

The rotten window. To fit a new sill on the inside of the window, I trimmed off the vertical pieces of wood on each side of the window flush with the top of the trim. Using a piece of scrap wood helped getting the saw aligned. Above right you can see the test-fitting.

I glued the new piece of wood to the old sill after trimming off the old rotten wood. To hold the pieces of wood together, I used ‘biscuits’. Using a specialized tool, these oval-shaped pieces of wood are really easy to install, and when glued, the join is quite strong. I’ll clamp it over night and attach it tomorrow…