Category: upstairs

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…

today was all about ceilings.

i applied a skim-coat to half of the bedroom ceiling. (it doesn’t look like much from this photo, but it’s a pretty large room.)

after attaching cement board to the shower wall and base, mathew plastered the bathroom ceiling (and parts of the floor…)

i removed plaster dribbles. after dinner mathew went back upstairs to plaster a bathroom wall. he’s getting quite good at plaster!

during the day we had a visit from auntie em and uncle ken. i forgot to take photos. (and the contrast between the construction site and their nice church outfits was great…) uncle ken brought over some electrical tools and supplies and reviewed the wiring in the house with mathew.

after purchasing more plaster and ordering our tile, we had a productive saturday.

the bedroom window where mathew pulled off his plaster to repair the leak and rotten wood. i cut drywall to fit.

after the drywall was attached i spackled to fill in the gaps and now it’s ready for plaster. again.

mathew worked on the little shower wall. (left) making sure it is plumb. (right) attaching moisture barrier paper, then chicken wire to the shower floor.

mixing mortar in the garage.

applying the mortar to the shower floor. the plastic drain piece needs to be level and properly supported by mortar. the edges of the floor are built up and leveled.

then mortar fills in the rest so the floor slopes towards the drain.

last night we did a shower test-run.

and this morning mathew decided to add a small wall on the right and change the angle of the shower slightly to give a little more room inside. we then went and ordered 78 square feet of travertine tile that will arrive in 1-2 weeks.