Let There (Eventually) be Light

I'm not planning on re-roofing the house for a month or two, but I found these light tubes on sale at Menards for $10.00 off, so I figured I'd save money and get them now. Well, I actually only got one since that's all they had, but I'm going back before the sale ends to get the second tube. I'm planning to put one in the bathroom and one in the hallway. Neither area has any natural light, and the hallway seems especially dark unless we turn on a light - even during the day. I got the 10" tubes, although they also sell 14" tubes. I think the larger size would be overkill for the limited space I'm trying to light.




I also had to make a run back to the tile store today. I noticed late last night that I was missing a box of 8" tiles. When we were (over)loading the van, we put one box off to the side because it was open and there was a shattered tile inside. The intent was to go through it to make sure it was only one tile, but in my haste to drive a low-rider van, I forgot about it. Only one tile was broken, and I was refunded the cost of that tile. While at the store, I decided to pick up a pair of corner shelves for the shower. I don't know if I'll use both or only one, but either way it should help keep us from having the shampoo bottles all over the lip of the tub.




I also got a chance to review the instructions for the heat mat and thermostat. It doesn't look like it'll be difficult to do, although I'm not sure yet if I'll need to run another power line to the bathroom to run it or not. The current service panel is pretty much tapped out and should be replaced, something else to add to the long list of projects! I like the blaze-orange color of the mat - reminds me of road construction barriers. I guess I'm easy to amuse.




While we were out picking up stuff for the house, I grabbed 160 pounds of Milorganite (high-nitrogen fertilizer) and a big bag of Scotts weed preventing fertilizer. The Milorganite is basically recycled waste from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Not a tasty thing to think about loading into your car, but I like to think there's a little bit of each of us in every bag.

Crush!

20 boxes of 10 pieces, 12" travertine.
9 boxes of 24 pieces, 8" travertine.
2 boxes of 10 sheets (6 pieces x 6 pieces), 2" travertine.
200 pounds of thinset.
75 pounds of sanded grout.
2 gallons of grout admixture.
1 3'x5' heating mat and thermostat.

All in one Dodge Grand Caravan with a 230 pound driver, four bucket seats, and one bench seat.

How much did it weigh? A lot. I'm guessing there was easily over 2,000 pounds of tile and mix.

Before:



After:



It may not look that bad, but that's low enough to drag the exhaust tip upon exiting the parking lot - lower than I've ever had it ride. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I easily exceeded the gross vehicle weight. In fact, I know I had very little suspension travel left (if any) in the back end. Luckily it isn't a long drive from the tile shop to my home. The steering sure felt light though! :)

Ramen Noodles are my Future

Damn, travertine tile gets real expensive when you buy enough for a kitchen/dining room, bathroom, and entry way all at the same time! I guess I know what I'm going to be doing for the next year.

The plan is to do the full bathroom floor and entry floor in the same way we did the half-bath - 2 rows of 2" tile around the perimeter and 8" turned 45 degrees on the inside. The same 8" tile will be run straight up the shower walls, with an accent row of the 2" tiles worked in somehow to keep it interesting. The kitchen & dining areas will be 12" tile run across the whole area, approx 200 square feet.

This is what I put in for the half bath, which convinced us to go with it in the other rooms (shown here before I painted the walls - not bad for my first attempt at travertine if I do say so myself!) :




Eventually (if we have money left over) we'll go with some granite tile for the counter tops in the kitchen and bathroom. Unless we save money somewhere along the line, plywood is more likely in our future!

Renovating the Half Bath

I posted another "before" picture of the half-bath a few days ago, showing the original toilet and nasty old flooring. Those were bad, but the cultured marble vanity, crappy base, pitted and leaking faucet, really complete the picture of an outdated bathroom. There was also an old-style medicine cabinet/mirror and 60's era light not pictured here. Overall, the only thing worth saving in this room was the oak trim around the door and window.




The vanity was easier to tear apart than I could have hoped for. The top wasn't glued down at all - only gravity held it in place. While tearing it apart (and I'll admit that I wasn't careful at all about how I did it) I broke the P-trap where it goes into the wall. This was actually a good thing, as I found that the drain line was about 75% blocked. After tearing it apart, I found out a little about the history of this bathroom. The first color on the walls was that light blue you can see little bits of in the following picture. You can see a lot more of it where the base molding was in the following pics as well. It's a pretty nasty color, in my opinion. After blue came an avocado green and then a layer of off-white. Next was that beautiful wallpaper. After the wallpaper was on the walls, the original pedestal or wall-mounted sink was replaced with the vanity I got the pleasure of destroying. Eventually the wallpaper not covered by the vanity base was removed and more off-white was applied. 20 years later, I get to ridicule it on the internet. Yay for me.




I had to break into the wall to replace part of the drain line. At this point, the wall is ready for drywall to cover my destruction and the hole left by the old medicine cabinet. I've also sanded the walls where the vanity was to try and even out the ridges left by the layers of old paint. New shut-offs were added to the supply lines for the faucet, as there previously were none.




The old linoleum was covered with a 1/4" layer of cement board, held in place with thinset cement and about 100 screws. On top of that was laid travertine tiles in two sizes for some interest in this small room. In this picture, I've got the tiles installed and have just finished pushing grout into the joints. 20 minutes later and the floor would be finished.




A couple of days later and the trim is back in place, the walls are painted, and the new toilet and sink are installed. I went with a somewhat classic style and tried to keep everything with the same look. There are still a few details to take care of, such as cutting the extra material from the toilet bolts, but it's essentially ready for action. We're extremely happy with how the flooring turned out, and plan on using the same tile in the kitchen, full bath, and entry of the house. For the full bath we'll probably use a heat-mat under the tile to take the chill out of it on cold winter mornings.

Giving the House a New Entrance

The original door to the house has been weather beaten for decades due to the southern exposure. Having the glass storm door compounded the damage. The wood is heavily checked and loose on the door. The locks on the door are also quite old, and since we have no idea how many copies of the keys are floating around out there, it's time for some changes.




The storm door that came with the house is pretty dated, and not as secure as the style would indicate. It's pretty darn heavy and works fairly well, but the style is just nowhere near what we want so it'll have to go.




An few hours into the project and the new door is in place. It took a bunch of trimming along the top edge to make it fit, but the sides just slipped in between the bricks. Luckily, door sizes haven't changed in 45+ years! The urine-yellow color is the primer which comes standard on the door. I've got some high quality exterior paint for the door which I'll apply once it warms up a bit.




From the inside, the door makes a big difference in this corner of the living room. Since it isn't a dark wood (like the previous door) that corner looks larger and lighter. I still need to re-install the old trim and pull up the old laminate flooring. Speaking of that laminate, the original laminate is hidden under the equally ugly more current laminate. They'll both be removed to make room for travertine floor tile in the near future.




With the new main door installed, I could go ahead and add a new storm door. I prefer the look of not having a storm, but it really makes a difference when the weather is hot. As you can see, the storm has two glass panels. What we really like about this door is that when you lower the upper panel, a screen unrolls from above the top panel to take it's place. You can open it as much as needed for some airflow.