House Stuff

Where is it?

Sorry, the mapquest map is gone because the people at mapquest are idiots. Try Google Maps
15 Cpl William Dickerson Pl
Troy, NY 12180
(518)271-3802

Directions

Links to all the pictures

Links to all the various blueprints


Running Commentary

(I refuse to call this a blog, as that sounds like something you call Roto-Rooter for)

August 23, 2010

Fell a bit behind my schedule from Saturday, largely by going through and cutting nearly all the pieces of membrane for the entire rest of the shower in one session, rather than cutting a couple, putting them up, lather, rinse, repeat. One wall is covered, and almost everything but the pieces for the floor are cut.

In related news, John's got the Greek Key pattern for around the inside of the shower made, and has been working on cutting 1" hexagonal tiles in half to smooth out the transition from the Greek Key to the central area of hexes.

August 21, 2010

OK, since the 11th I have been playing a lot with mortar. The prefab shower base and sill are installed. I've installed the shelf and little seat that I've been saying would be in the shower. I've been going through with the Kerdi band strips to seal up all the joints. All of these are mortared in. Tomorrow I do the walls with the membrane, then possibly the shelf and the wall above the shelf. (Going in this order lets me do lap joints from the top down, like shingles on a roof.)

Once the walls are done, a seriously heavy layer of mortar on the floor, then the drain goes in, then the floor gets its membrane. Then tiles.

Speaking of tiles, at one point today we had the edge greek key pattern dry-fitted along one wall in the shower. Looked awesome. That, more than the membrane installs, makes it feel like I'm getting close.

August 11, 2010

While cutting 1.375" wide strips of concrete board is a pain in the butt, at least it was the last piece of concrete board for the upstairs bathroom. There was a matching piece of sheetrock on the other side of the shower door, and then I cleared ALL of the scrap pieces of concrete board AND sheetrock out of the bathroom to get moved to storage. That step is DONE.

August 10, 2010

Tonight I discovered that the tools used for cutting concrete backer board cut sheetrock like butter. Still need a knife to cut the paper backing, as the carbide tip isn't really designed for that, but two passes through the gypsum, snap, cut the paper on the other side, done. One minute per cut. So now the only thing left of the walls is a bit of "trim" rock/sheetrock in the doorway to the shower.

August 9, 2010

OK, I'm being bad about updating. I'm trying to do an hour or two every day after work, and more than that on weekends. I'm not quite keeping that pace, but this way I'm much less likely to burn out.

I started working on the drain plumbing but didn't get far. Had to get parts. Instead, I got the back on the wall that has been left open to do the shower plumbing. Also installed the shelf in the shower that I've been talking about - 6' off the floor, all the way across two 4' sides of the shower. Lots of room for "product".

August 1, 2010

There is water in the upstairs bathroom. Intentionally.

July 27, 2010

Most of the water supply plumbing is done. I've still got to do final connection to the sink and tub on the hot side, but it's only the last 5 joints left. Then I start drain side. Fun.

July 25, 2010

The platform for the tub is designed and framed. I even went so far as to taper all the joists to correct for (most) of the slope of that part of the floor. I'll deal with decking and such after the plumbing is done.

The plumbing. Other than one major mis-step yesterday that cost me a couple hours, I've been plugging right along. The water feed lines now extend from the feed up from the basement, the toilet is connected, both sides of the shower are connected, and both sides are one sweat joint away from extending in to above the full bathroom. (The feed up from the basement is next to the square toilet in the half bath.) I'm holding off on that one joint because it will make a couple joints down the road easier if I wait on this one. But I'll hopefully be getting the tub and sink plumbing in on Wednesday, but I think we have a social engagement that will delay me.

July 23, 2010

More progress on things. I've got the water supply plumbing starting to snake around under the floor. The toilet feed is done. The shower feeds are close, but currently too hot for me to make more progress on tonight. The drain pipe has been trimmed back a bit, since the tub wouldn't have been able to drain to where it was.

However, I discovered a problem with plumbing in the tub. Specifically, the drain was going to try and go through either a double beam OR a brick shelf on the inside of the exterior wall. So now I'm working on designing a small "platform" for the tub to sit on, that will hold the weight AND will provide a space to run pipes underneath. I also now know way more about how the drains on antique tubs work than I ever thought I would, and found that my tub actually conforms to modern standards. But now I need to buy more fixture bits to hook it all up. Ugh.

July 12, 2010

So I'm taking two days off this week to work on the bathroom and whatever else might get worked on. The weekend was not nearly as productive as I'd hoped it would be, consisting mostly of a few trips to HD for plumbing bits (supply-side), plumbing bits (soil-side), mortar tools, lumber (3's window mouldings really need to get finished one of these days), and anti-bug stuff. A small bit of drain plumbing was accomplished, some brackets holding some supply plumbing got done, and the realization that I really need the concrete board on the floor before I go running pipes through the floor (sink, toilet, and tub supplies) was come to.

Today has been installing concrete board. It gets mortared down as well as screwed down. It is very, very hot work.

June 7, 2010

Actually had a weekend that was vaguely useful. The shower supply plumbing is in the wall, and I got a bunch more mud done. The plan for this week before we leave on vacation (England!) is to get the supply plumbing for the whole room at least roughed in to cutoff valves for every fixture, so I can pressure test the shower and seal up the wall.

April 4, 2010

Getting stuff done on the first truly gorgeous day of the year means changing what you're planning to do. New gate on the end of the alley, this time made of cedar so I don't have to make a third one, and a rip down, clean up, and rebuild of the center window on the living room. The top window of the two was slowly sinking, and I was afraid it was going to just let go one day and we'd have bits of broken glass everywhere.

February 28, 2010

Picked up the mixing valve Friday, spent some time staring at how it all goes together. This thing is a major win over what was in there, as it is nearly 100% servicable from the inside the shower without doing any damage to the tile. The old one involved ripping huge holes in the wall to replace even the gasket. This is why the downstairs shower drips, and has been dripping since before I bought the house.

Got the rest of the rock up in the shower, once I knew how things would go together. Starting to look at plumbing the shower in so I can put the back on that wall, finish mudding the room, and get ready to tile.

February 16, 2010

ARGH. So the shower stall is framed. Next step is to rough in the plumbing, so I can rock the stall, mud _that_, and move forward from there. Problem is, I pulled out the shower kit (shower head, handles, etc.) to discover an extraneous 'T' on the part number... meaning trim only. No mixing valve. Just ordered the valve, 2-3 weeks for delivery. I can get bits done, but I'm very quickly going to be completely stuck waiting on this.

February 15, 2010

The past several days have been "mud", "more mud", "a bit more mud"... ugh.

Today, however, has real news. John did the cleanup on the mud in the corner where the shower is going, specifically so it would be largely done in that corner. So today I framed the shower stall.

February 11, 2010

First pass of the mud is done, second pass of the places that really need a lot is done.

February 10, 2010

I haven't said this in a while... I @#$%ing HATE sheetrock.

On that note, I got the first pass of joint compound ("mud") about 90% done before my fingers plead for mercy. I'm using the self-adhesive fiberglass mesh joint tape, and it is brutal. But the first pass will be done tomorrow, and the second pass will begin. My goal is to never sand, just doing the job with care and very wide knives.

February 9, 2010

The bathroom is sheetrocked. Tomorrow, we mud.

January 11, 2010

Motivation has been lacking, but I've started moving again after the holidays. The door is rehung, which has caused me to now understand why the old jamb seemed to have been cut by someone with a serious list to one side... the door is seriously warped. Hinge side corners and the bottom of the latch side define a useful plane. The latch side top corner is 3/4" out of the plane, toward the jamb. I'm going to use shower steam to straighten it out... every time we shower with the door latched shut.
2009 Archived Commentary
2008 Archived Commentary
2007 Archived Commentary
2006 Archived Commentary
2005 Archived Commentary
2004 Archived Commentary
2003 Archived Commentary
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