Category: downstairs

work on the downstairs apartment

slight detour

on saturday, i mentioned that i’d really like to replace my plastic csi office door for my real door (that has been sitting in the garage for months.) mathew was more than happy to change his agenda for the day because plumbing is his least favorite activity to work on.

doorwindow

(left) mathew planing the door to fit the frame. (see, my ugly csi plastic door? still in place to keep the dust away from my office equipment as i sanded the door frame.) (right) i’m finally painting the frame for the window in the living room. it was sunny and warm, a perfect day to have the windows taken out and painted.

doordoor

(left) mathew clamping wood to the top and bottom of the door. victorian door frames are taller than today’s standard doors. we purchased this door from a local discount place and it was easier and cheaper to alter this door than place a custom order for the correct height. plus, settling of the house caused the door frame to become slightly off-square, so a thin angled piece was added to the top of the door. (right) here mathew is lying on the floor drilling the hole for the door knob while the wood glue is drying.

ceilingceiling

and finally on to the plumbing! mathew wouldn’t be mathew unless he was cutting holes in ceilings, floors and walls. (he needs to get to the pipes…)

all over the place

last weekend we spent all of our time in the downstairs bathroom. this weekend we worked in and around the bathroom and we had helpers.

dadmom

my dad was in the downstairs bedroom drilling holes in the wall for blow-in insulation. my mom and i were in the garage pulling nails from wood, then separating floor tile from particle board, saving any reusable tile to donate to Scrap.

mathewjaneen

mathew was in the bathroom cutting and pulling up floor boards and making tons of noise. i’m sure he was doing more than this but i don’t know exactly what he was doing. (maybe he’ll add to this.)

kitchendad

later my mom and i moved upstairs to sort through the blue wall tile that we’ll need to reuse and fill in the gaps in the bathroom. and my dad drilled more holes in the kitchen wall. the system is: you drill holes at the top between all the studs, then you drop a string down with a weight to find where the fire blocking horizontal wood pieces are, this is about half-way down the wall where the blow-in insulation would be stopped within the space, then you drill another hole below the fire blocking.

janeenjaneen

i spent most of sunday sanding the double-doors in the living room downstairs, first the large flat surfaces with the power sander and then the smaller and curving parts by hand. i spent about 5 or 6 hours on this.

joistjoist

mathew was working on moving and replacing joists below the bathroom. the previous owners had cut out parts of the joists: BAD. and the new layout of the bathroom causes the plumbing to move, so a couple joists needed to be repositioned.

vent prepducts

in the evening we moved on to heating ducts in the garage. the new bathroom layout means these will get moved around too. mathew is hoping something can be done so that the new ducts will NOT be the perfect height for hitting his head on…

ductstinman

mathew pulled apart all the pieces leading from the furnace to the bathroom and i scraped off the asbestos tape. (right) now we’ve got enough old and new parts for an interesting tinman…

total destruction OR plan A, B, C, D, etc.

it was a weekend full of bathroom demolition. our friend stef has offered to help with demo many times and we would have contacted her to help last weekend if we had known it would involve this much destruction…

wall tilefloor tile

(left) blue wall tiles, the covered about 75 % of the walls! (right) crazy, slippery, busy floor tiles. say goodbye to those!

doordoor

the weekend started with mathew cutting the closed off door from the bedroom to the bathroom.

doorwindow

(left) originally we had hoped the door would be a clean, easy opening and that the tub could stay in place. when the door was finally opened the shower wall obstructed about 1/4 of the door. and it is already a very narrow door by today’s standards… (right) mathew re-framing the original window opening where the old/new bathroom door was.

janeenfloor

(left) there are now lots of scary pieces of wood filled with tons of nails. pulling them makes our work space safer and we can reuse the wood. (right) mathew pulling up floor tile. he had a fast method: he pulled up a vertical and a horizontal line of tiles then with a circular saw, cut the plywood they are attached to (without disturbing the subfloor.) he then pulled up large pieces of plywood covered in tile. a lot of the tile is still useable and we might donate it to Scrap.

wallwall

(left) mathew removing the shower wall, where i have removed most of the tile. (right) wall removed, door unobstructed.

walljaneen

(left) mathew removed the gypboard on the left side to find a nice surprise: old plaster wall and panelled wainscoting. we were hoping to find the same wainscoting on the right side of the door. no such luck. (right) here i am cleaning up tile i’ve pulled off the walls. we need to fill in spaces around the shower and old window so i’m doing my best to salvage the old tile.

janeenmathew

chipping away at tile…

plansplan

mathew became obsessed with figuring out configurations for the bathroom. he really had his heart set on putting in a clawfoot tub, but i don’t think my grandmother would use it and our friend, bob (who has experience working with seniors and bathroom designs) recommended a shower with a removable seat. last night after taping a shower outline on the floor and moving around the vanity and toilet we decided on a layout, with a 47″ shower and minus the clawfoot tub.

bathroombathroom

the current state of the bathroom. (left) where the toilet and vanity will go. (right) where the shower will go. we’re not in love with the tile, it’s far from victorian, but it will save a lot of time and be much less wasteful to keep it, at least for the shower area.

raw, vegan, chocolate cake

on wednesday my cousin larry came to help with the house.

larrylarry

before having lunch at Herbivore, larry and i painted closets. after lunch we did some shopping at Rainbow then came back for more painting and sanding. here larry is sanding the double doors in the living room.

cake

for dinner larry created a tasty and satisfying raw, vegan salad and chocolate cake. yum. thanks larry! please feel free to visit anytime!

last weekend

i’ve really been dragging my feet with making these posts…

doordoor

(left) last friday mathew planed the door so it would fit into the door frame, as the bears watched.

closetanaglypta

(left) the closets are now completed with drywall. (right) and the anaglypta gets some paint.

bathroombathroom

(left) a hole that shows the right side of the door that leads into the bathroom from the bedroom. the original owners had closed this door but left the door and frame on the bedroom side. (right) toilet removed.

mathewbathroom

(left) and next goes the sink and vanity. and the cabinets and mirrors.

tapingbottle

(left) all four closets now have drywall and taping done. we worked together in cutting and installing the drywall as well as taping with topping plaster. (right) morning sunlight streaming into the upstairs bedroom.

hope everyone had a good week!

happy 2009

paintcolors

we spent hours sanding and filling the door taken from the basement. this photo shows where a piece of wood had been used to fill where the door handle had been moved, many years ago. janeen counted the layers of color. it was archeology:

  1. dark green
  2. dark grey green
  3. apple green
  4. dark brown
  5. medium grey
  6. mint green
  7. medium grey (again – i guess they decided they liked the color)
  8. cream
  9. pale turquoise
  10. off white
  11. white

janeenbiskitjoinerscrewing and glueing the door extension

we then added a piece of wood to the bottom of the door. the door from the garage is shorter than the opening upstairs by about 5 1/2″. We just added a piece of 2×6 from my offcuts pile onto the bottom of the door. janeen used the biscuit joiner to cut slots for wood ‘biskits’ that will hold the new piece of wood to the bottom of the door. she also screwed in two 6″ long bolts to help clamp the wood while the glue dried.

it’s not ideal. panel doors are built with vertical pieces on each side, and horizontal pieces connected between them. the vertical side members help to prevent the horizontal pieces from warping. the piece we added has no vertical pieces, so it may warp. the bolts may help. we’ll see.

woodshavings_20090103dumpy's palace

the next day, i planed the wood flush with the face of the door.

above right: dumpy has a palatial new home. janeen finished off most of the trim painting in the front entry foyer.

begin demo of closet doorlookingupcloset_20090103

meanwhile, i tore out the makeshift ceiling and walls in the closets between the bedroom and the living room and framed in a wall between the living room and the bedroom. our plan is to create a bookshelf on the living room side, and a closet on the bedroom side out of this short passage between the rooms.

I made a hatch to get at the space over the closet in case I need to get to the plumbing under the bathroom above, and added in wiring for a light in each of the three closets.

janeensviewframing closet

above left: the view janeen saw of me on new years day. on the right, the framing is installed.

installing gypcloset ceiling

we got most of the gyp board on.

janeenfastdoorsjaneendoors

janeen painting the trim around the living room doors.

halllightclosehall light

i cleaned up the light in the entry hallway. you’ll have to look back to see how it looked before. but i really like the retro patterned glass. i also painted the cover plate at the top of the light to match the walls: janeen calls it a Mercedes hubcap.

bathroom doorbathroom door open

ok, one last thing: this door between the bedroom and the bathroom was closed up. we are planning to re-open it. here you can see how insulation and a wall was framed in front of the door. get ready for ugly.

holiday progress

electricalelectrical

to rewire lights downstairs, mathew had to open up the floor upstairs between our dining room and living room.

electricalelectrical

he also had to open up the floor in the living room.

uninsulatedgas pipe

(left) and he spent a lot of time in the last uninsulated crawl space next to the living room. (right) here is the new junction box mathew installed, next to the gas pipe that used to run downstairs for the gaslights.

tapetape

my parents came over on saturday and helped with tape masking, trim filling, sanding and painting.

janeenparents

mathew worked on electrical wiring while i painted trim and closet/cabinet interiors (green!)

owieowie

late that night we pulled up the special green paint masking tape and sadly it pulled up the primer and 2 layers of color. it didn’t happen everywhere but it did do quite a bit of damage, especially for something that was supposed to save us time. more sanding and painting will be needed.

paintpaint

on sunday i finally took some photos of the new pink paint in the living room. and you can see the green closet interior.

anaglyptaanaglypta

mathew and i spent almost all of sunday installing anaglypta on the wainscoting in the entry foyer and hallway. it is applied like wallpaper but with a heavy weight paste. because it is paper the moisture from the paste can make the paper expand so it is applied to the wall and then trimmed in place.

anaglyptaanaglypta

this new anaglypta is not as obvious as the thicker lincrusta we removed, but because it’s a very frilly, victorian look we like that it doesn’t stand out too much. it will be painted the same semi-gloss white as the trim so it doesn’t add color but subtle texture and interest below the chair rail.

tuesday

tuesday was a house day.

i sealed the heating ducts with aluminum tape while mathew masked the crown moulding, picture rails and door frames in the living room.

(left) ready for spraying. (right) the color in the living room is a very pale pink (i’ll take a daytime photo soon.) my grandmother loves pink and we thought it would be fun to give her a cheerful, fun color, but when the paint first went on, it was late at night and i was worried i made a bad choice. but now that it has dried and we have seen it in natural light we like it more and more.

on this night we were up till 1:30 painting and i added color above the picture rails and gave the walls a second coat.

paint at last!

mathew did some holiday baking! (he’s applying glue to the underside of a ceiling medallion.) isn’t it pretty?

after attaching it to the ceiling and securing it with boards and screws, mathew realized the medallion wasn’t sitting evenly on the ceiling and would require too much filling to hide the gaps. so he removed the medallion, scraped off the glue and sanded the medallion flat then reapplied the glue and secured it to the ceiling. the next evening there were still large gaps between the ceiling and the medallion and mathew figured he had no choice but to fill the gaps (even though it goes against his perfectionist tendencies) because the ceiling was also uneven. he was really upset at how badly it had gone but while removing the securing boards and screws the medallion fell off completely! so now he has a 3rd chance to make it perfect. sitting in the trash is the “Power Grab” glue that he used. it was not powerful, nor did it grab.

in our bedroom we have a space with a door leading to the backyard stairs that is without insulation or even interior wall panels. it makes our bedroom COLD. we decided i could steal this door from down in the garage because it will fit the doorway in our bedroom. the previous owners had this weird plywood panel bolted to the top and i’m removing it so we can put glass in it.

sunday night the painting began. mathew got to use his industrial paint sprayer for the first time. it is incredible how fast this thing is. the test closet was done in minutes.

next he moved on to painting the living room. it’s primer so it went on the ceiling and trim. the paint sprayer is FAST but it’s also noisy, creates a fine mist of paint in the air and takes about an hour to clean. but the foyer, hall and living room were done in just a couple of hours instead of a couple of days or weekends.

here i am masking a door that will be polyurethaned. mathew thought my outfit was a crack-up, i had a plastic bag on my head to protect my knit cap from the paint. (maybe he was laughing at my goggles and respirator too?) (right) the newly painted living room.