I took about a week off from working on the house to take care of something much more important. The PNP switch on my wife's car was acting up, and it's always a good idea to get on top of things like that as soon as they pop up because minor electrical stuff that tells the transmission computer what gear it's in can lead to huge actual transmission problems in no time fast, and because it's my wife's car. What can I say, family is more important than other things such as building houses...
As of today, the wood trim is totally ready for shellac. I can't wait to get that done. The shellac flakes will be in sometime this week, and the denatured alcohol I need as a solvent will arrive as soon as I can get to Home Depot. For the stuff to really work, you need to choose at least 95 proof alcohol (denatured or otherwise). After reading about it on someone else's blog for so long I'm looking forward to having a go at it for myself.
The bathroom is starting to move a little quicker. Today I finished temp installing the drain line and tomorrow I'm removing the pipe and numbering it for easy reassembly, and then I'm cutting and boring holes in some wood to stiffen things up in the area I'm boring holes in. Electrical work is essentially done - I just need to hook up the wire for the new light over the vanity and install a switch. Tomorrow I also want to drill the holes for the supply lines to the vanity and run them through the wall. With any luck I'll be able to put in a new toilet on Friday and then be finished with plumbing and electrical. Then I'll be able to devote the weekend to making it look more like a bathroom again. I move pretty quickly when it comes to finish work and I'm really looking forward to getting to that already.
Once the bathroom is done the rest of the place should come together pretty quickly. The only outstanding work is all small stuff... door hardware, painting trim in the laundry room and putting in flooring in there, and a couple of lights. Outside I need to do some landscaping (easy task for such a small yard), brick in a few areas where it's been removed and farm out painting the place. Then I'll be finished and can come back home!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Making Progress... No, Really
I have three projects running at the rental house all at once, so here's about a week's worth of updates on all of them.
The Kitchen:
The window by the kitchen sink was in terrible condition when we bought the place. Both parts were rotting out, and were about at the point where you really wouldn't want to touch either of them for fear that it would all come apart. Long story short, I have a new window in. It was a pretty rough install because the window came sized just a hair larger than it was supposed to be, and because that corner of the house settled differently than the rest (translation: the window frame was slightly out of square). The old window is well... really old, but seems to have been put there in the 1980s. Enough talk, time for pictures.
The old...
The New...
The Bathroom:
I'm finally at the point where I get to build things, so in theory the place should look better when I leave at the end of the day than it did when I showed up. I think that's starting to happen anyway. Here's a shot looking towards where the vanity will go (on the right). You can see the 1970s tiles better. The wood flooring seems to have been painted once or twice, then linoleum put down, then the tile that's visible here, then two kinds of linoleum within the last 25 years or so. I'm installing Pergo because.
Looking towards where the vanity will be. I put up the framing for the new wall today. I'd like to do the electrical for an outlet and a light above the vanity tomorrow. It's starting to look a bit more like a room anyway.
The Wood
I finally took some "before" pictures of how bad this stuff was. They speak for themselves.
An untold number of layers of paint...
This is the piece that goes above the window to the left of the (new) vanity. It shows what the wood looks like after I remove the paint, but before I sand it.
Here's another shot of the same piece after I stripped the paint from the crown molding. The actual color of the wood can be seen, along with what color the wood was finished once upon a time ago. Wish I could've saved the finish (because I'd be done by now) but it was too far gone.
Every piece of wood trim has been stripped and sanded, and within the next few days I'll have it all refinished. I'm going with shellac, and a polyurethane topcoat over that on the larger window trim since it's more or less in the shower.
Plans tomorrow are to run the electrical in the bathroom and do the plumbing. Wish me luck...
The Kitchen:
The window by the kitchen sink was in terrible condition when we bought the place. Both parts were rotting out, and were about at the point where you really wouldn't want to touch either of them for fear that it would all come apart. Long story short, I have a new window in. It was a pretty rough install because the window came sized just a hair larger than it was supposed to be, and because that corner of the house settled differently than the rest (translation: the window frame was slightly out of square). The old window is well... really old, but seems to have been put there in the 1980s. Enough talk, time for pictures.
The old...
The New...
The Bathroom:
I'm finally at the point where I get to build things, so in theory the place should look better when I leave at the end of the day than it did when I showed up. I think that's starting to happen anyway. Here's a shot looking towards where the vanity will go (on the right). You can see the 1970s tiles better. The wood flooring seems to have been painted once or twice, then linoleum put down, then the tile that's visible here, then two kinds of linoleum within the last 25 years or so. I'm installing Pergo because.
Looking towards where the vanity will be. I put up the framing for the new wall today. I'd like to do the electrical for an outlet and a light above the vanity tomorrow. It's starting to look a bit more like a room anyway.
The Wood
I finally took some "before" pictures of how bad this stuff was. They speak for themselves.
An untold number of layers of paint...
This is the piece that goes above the window to the left of the (new) vanity. It shows what the wood looks like after I remove the paint, but before I sand it.
Here's another shot of the same piece after I stripped the paint from the crown molding. The actual color of the wood can be seen, along with what color the wood was finished once upon a time ago. Wish I could've saved the finish (because I'd be done by now) but it was too far gone.
Every piece of wood trim has been stripped and sanded, and within the next few days I'll have it all refinished. I'm going with shellac, and a polyurethane topcoat over that on the larger window trim since it's more or less in the shower.
Plans tomorrow are to run the electrical in the bathroom and do the plumbing. Wish me luck...
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