Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Just a few minutes ago, I finished painting the basement. I feel like this is breaking news or something. Well, with the way I dread painting, I feel like it should be some sort of news.
I have been doing a little bit each day…chipping away at it. Luckily, the walls were in great shape. There were some pin-holes here and there, but no real spackling. I didn’t even have to sand, I just used a wet sponge. That is so sweet.
For this painting project, we bought two gallons of color and one gallon of white. When I began to paint, I noticed that I was going through the color pretty fast. I also noticed that I had no idea how much white I was going to use. We went back to the store and grabbed two more gallons of color and one more gallon of white. Now that the project is done, I have exactly two extra gallons of color and one and a half of white. Isn’t that funny? Not really. Now I have to decide which room gets to be the same color as the basement. I think my office may benefit.
It’s not too much of a change from what was here before. Just a slightly different color. I also changed the trim and doors to white. I love that contrast. It looks soooo HGTV.
The door guy is coming (hopefully) this week to replace the basement door. Also, the tile guy is coming out on Wednesday to give me a price on doing the floor. If everything goes smoothly, we should have a brand new basement in a few weeks. Then, I can call the pellet stove place and have that whole thing set up.
I wonder if I am the only guy on the planet thinking of a pellet stove when it’s 94 degrees outside.
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Thursday, June 5th, 2008
I have been pretty busy lately, between working, planting plants, getting the cars registered and, oh yeah, re-doing the basement.
I believe I told you about it in an earlier post. Then, I had the floor torn up and was considering what to put on it. Now, I am paiting the whole thing up.
I realized something along this short journey. That is, I hate painting. I mean, I can do it in short bursts, but I lose interest fast. One room is fine, two maybe, three weird sections and I’m lost. I have to say it’s getting there though.
We picked out a color that looks very nice when dried. We got a little nervous when I started putting it on the walls, but got over it. I am also painting all the trim and doors white.
You may be asking yourselves, “Why, Jay, are you doing this now? Why so fast…what’s the rush?” Well, I’ll tell you. The whole reason is that we are going to put a pellet stove in the basement. In order to put a pellet stove down there, we need a new floor. In order to put in a new floor, we need to remove all the base moulding. If the base moulding is off, we may as well paint the place. Also, since the moulding is off, we might as well take this time to replace the French doors leading to outside. They need to be replaced and it needs to be done before the floor goes in.
But “why now” you ask? The reason is that you need to get a pellet stove in the summer. Things are slower and more available. Also, pellets are cheaper. We will need at least three tons.
Yeah, all this just to put a pellet stove in the basement and get rid of the carpet. I told you how I feel about carpets. I also removed the carpet from the basement stairs last night. That was fun. I really like pulling up tack strips and pulling out staples. Good thing I am proficient at this type of thing.
I am setting up the date to have the door installed tomorrow. When the install happens, you’ll know about it. I am also having the tile guy come over tomorrow to give me a price on the installation. I was going to do it myself, but I quickly lost interest in that once I started painting.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I am going to put this one out to the masses. I recently became stumped with what to do with the basement floor. Unfortunately, the stump”ness” came about after I tore the whole thing up.
If you don’t know me all that well, I oftentimes shoot first and aim later. At first, I thought this was bad, but later on, I realized that by doing this, I don’t mosey around over-thinking the whole thing. Since many of my projects come out very decently, I intend to stay this way.
Ok, here goes. We have this finished basement that is very dry. It has a concrete floor that used to have carpeting covering the majority of area and those linoleum tiles covering the rest. There is a dehumidifier downstairs keeping any moisture in the air down to a nice level.
Yesterday, I decided to peel up the linoleum tile and carpeting. This took me a few hours, but it’s all nice and clean now. I cut the carpeting up into squares and took up the underlayment. Everything is now out in the garage. As for the sticky goo, underneath the tiles, I used mineral spirits and a brush to get that up. Then, I used Simple Green to clean the entire floor.
Why did I do all this? Well, for one, I don’t really like carpet. I like hard wood or tile. Dogs like to pee on carpets and dust mites like to live in them. Also, I never like to think about what’s growing under a carpet, especially in a basement. Even thought basements feel dry, there is always moisture coming through the concrete. That doesn’t sit well with me.
The basement floor is in very good shape. It’s dry (as I mentioned above) with no cracks. There is one small hairline crack, but it’s hardly noticable. There are gaps between areas where they poured the concrete.
My initial idea was to tile the entire floor. We pretty much had tiles all picked out. Then, I started doing a little research on the internet. That may have been a bad move. One guy says, “Yeah, go ahead and tile right over the concrete.” The next guy says, “Sure, you can tile down there, just use cement backer board.” The third guy says, “You can’t use cement backer board on concrete.” This goes on and on across any number of websites. It seems like no one knows what in the world they are talking about, but love to give uninformed opinions. I am going to call the tile guy who did the old house for advice.
Since my reading, I have had some other ideas. I thought that we could put down a bamboo floor or laminate. I promised myself that I would never use laminate again, so that’s going to be hard.
What I am looking for is ideas and advice. Will those gaps in the concrete affect the tile? Will temperature differences from outside to inside make the tile crack or pop up? There is going to be a pellet stove down there too, so the temperature will be quite different from outside, especially when it’s a cold January night.
By the way, we don’t mind a cold floor.
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Friday, December 21st, 2007
Well, the floor is done. Yesterday, the tile guy came back and did the grout. That went fairly quickly. He took about a half hour to finish up.
The grout is ivory color, but went on kind of dark. My sister and I were talking about grout the other day. She did her kitchen tile by herself, which is gutsy. She was saying how you can’t have grout darker than the tile, because when you first look at the floor, your eye will see a big grid and not the tile. That gave me a little concern when I saw the grout go on darker than ivory. Then, the grout started drying and I remembered that the grout gets lighter as it dries.
So there it is.
Today, I have a bunch of stuff to do. I have to seal the grout, cut the threshold mouldings, stain them, clear coat them and move an outlet. There is one that will be buried by a cabinet. I am going to move that up so we can use it. After that stuff is done, I have some plumbing work to do. Paul might need to help me with that.
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
In an unexpected surprise, the tile guy was able to come over a few weeks early to install the kitchen floor. I greeted him with open arms. Anything we can get done early, the better.
He came over around 9:30 this morning. He called beforehand to see if I minded using 1/2 inch cement board instead of 1/4 inch. I didn’t mind, because the thicker stuff is stronger. The lumber place he goes to was out of the 1/4 inch board. The 1/2 inch board created more of a step, but the floor moulding will take care of that.
Here are some photos for you…
This is the before picture I took this morning, completely empty and fully swept.
This is us putting down the cement board on top of the thinset mortar. I say “us” because I helped him bring it into the house, lay it down and nail it into place. Yes, I got to use the power nailer. I am now somewhat of a legend around here. It was quite fun. I like the nail gun.
This is just a fancy view of the previous shot. Feel free to print this out for your scrap book.
This is all the cement board down and nailed in. I did all the nailing after the second piece. Yes, I did that.
This is the partial installation of the tile. The two doorways weren’t exactly square, so he had to do some fancy work. This is where the project would’ve turned into a mess if I was doing it alone.
This is the finished tile install, minus the grout. He is coming by tomorrow to do the grout.
The tile seems a bit lighter than I remember, but I think it will work out nicely with the cabinet color.
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Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
I went outside last night to chisel out the cars. They were covered with ice. I got on all my old snowboarding gear…jacket, snowpants, mittens, etc… I was as warm as a bedbug on the floor of an overheating pickup truck.
I started up both cars and let them run for a good long time. I didn’t think I was going to get them uncovered. Then, I saw a little speck of water and I had hope. After a while, I had thawed both cars out completely. I had to use a pick ax to move the cars out of their initial parking spots. I was even sweating a little bit.
Today, I went outside to try to fix up the driveway a bit for the tile dude. He is going to need some space to work out there. He needs to cut some boards and mix some thinset. It should be interesting. I got a nice area cleared out down to the gravel. The sidewalk is still about three inches higher than normal, but I threw some driveway gravel on it for traction. It was pretty warm today, so some of the mess melted. The sun does a good job of hitting the dark gravel and melting whatever is around it. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 45 degrees, so the ice should melt even more.
I tried my old driving back and fourth along the driveway trick. It didn’t work out too well. I almost got stuck once and then the car just drove on top of the ice. That didn’t do too much good.
This afternoon, I had to run out to the store. I backed up all the way to the street. I made the mistake of stopping while half way out into the road. I gave it some gas and felt the car sink into the ice/snow. I had to get out of the car and bolt downstairs for that damn pick ax again. I got the car out quickly, but it would’ve been embarrassing to be “that guy” to the cars driving by. Luckily none did.
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Monday, December 17th, 2007
Oooh, how exciting!!! I thought he was going to come to install the kitchen floor after the new year. This Wednesday is a pleasant surprise. Good thing I finished up all the floor sanding over the weekend.
Now, if the kitchen people would just call…
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Sunday, December 16th, 2007
Well, that was fun. Not really.
I sanded for the better part of yesterday and now I am a little sore. I do have to say that I am very happy that I bought that respirator mask. It has come in quite handy and it’s nice to know that I am not breathing in the crap I am working on.
Yesterday morning, the sanding was going very smoothly. I was more than half way done. I was working on a particularly tough spot (with lots of glue) when I began to smell something. I looked down and the motor of my brand new DeWalt belt sander was smoking. I gave it a break and tried again…no power. I burned the motor out. I guess not even DeWalt can handle me. I ran down to Lowe’s to return it and grab another one. Once back, I finished up pretty quickly, paranoid that I was going to burn this one out too.
When sanding something like this, with old glue on the floor, is to sand a bit, then sweep, then sand, then sweep. You have to get the glue particles out of the way, or else you will heat them up again and spread them out on what you just sanded. Things went faster once I figured this out. Also, a good tip would be to get those knee pads…I didn’t.
I snapped a chalk line for each joist and re-screwed the subfloor down.
This is the finished floor…all sanded. It doesn’t look great, but will be a heck of a lot better for tiling. It’s also much smoother on my bare feet, and that’s important.
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Saturday, December 15th, 2007
Well, it’s time to prepare the kitchen subfloor for the tile that’s going to be going on top of it.
Some people have told me, “Hey, just lay the tile on top of the plywood…it’ll be fine.” I was always a little uneasy about that, so I read up on it. Apparently, it’s not a good idea to adhere tile right to plywood, because wood shrinks and expands with temperature and humidity. I guess you can do this in your house if you feel like doing the whole job over in a few years.
The way I like tile done in our house is to prep the subfloor, put thin-set over the subfloor, lay down cement board over the thinset and nail/screw the cement board down. Now, put your tile down. The cement board is what you want to adhere your tile to, not the subfloor.
So last night I started prepping the subfloor for the tile. The first thing I did was to head down to the basement. As you may know, there are several joints in the subfloor. Many of them travel with the floor joists, so they aren’t a big concern. We’ll call those “vertical” joints or seams. Then, there are other joints…we’ll call them “horizontal” joints. These seams travel across the floor joists and have nothing holding them from flexing. Well, I suppose they are tongue and groove, but from what I can see, they still flex when I stand on them. I good way to see if they flex is to walk around with bare feet. You can feel around better.
You can see the seams in the photo above.
When I went downstairs, I pulled out my nice new DeWalt miter saw and grabbed some spare 2″x4″s. My plan was to cut the 2″x4″s and screw them up against the bottom of the subfloor (screws into the existing joists). There was insulation in the way, so I tried to be very careful…I had just gotten out of the shower. Well, everything was going fine. I was cutting and screwing and cutting and screwing. Then, I started noticing some itching on my arms. Man!!! The insulation got to me. Oh well, there’s another shower.
Anyway, the purpose of those 2″x4″s is to stop the flex from those horizontal seams. I went upstairs and I succeeded in my mission. I walked around bare-footed and everything was good and solid. Now, I had something to screw into to finish off that job.
Also, when preparing a subfloor for tile, you want to be sure to re-screw the subfloor to the joists. Things are bound to come loose and start squeaking over time. If you walk around, you may even notice some play between the subfloor and the joists. Some hopping might help you notice this. This is the reason I went out and bought my new chalk snapper.
Luckily, in my case, the previous owners put down some really cheap parquet flooring. They came in 1′x1′ squares with foam attached to the bottoms. On the foam, there was adhesive. This adhesive left me with little glue spots all over the floor. Now, I don’t only have to sand the floor smooth, I also have to sand up the glue spots, which like to get sticky when hot (from the friction of the sander). We’ll see how that goes.
After the floor is all sanded, I am going to re-screw the subfloor to the joists and sweep up. The floor will be ready to tile and my job is done.
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Saturday, December 8th, 2007
I set a goal for myself today…to finish the kitchen. That didn’t happen. It almost did. All I have to do now is to sand the joint compound, reapply and then sand again. Then, I paint…and all done for me. Well, I still have to do some prep work for the floor, but that’s fun.
I have amassed some tips for drywalling. These are from my brother, Jeff and my neighbor, Tim. There are only three…
1. Mark the ceiling and floor where the studs are. This will help when it comes time to screw.
2. Hang the drywall vertically. This will help not have “mounds,” since you will be butting the beveled edges together.
3. Start in the middle of the wall. This helps the cut edges stay in the corners.
See, that helped me in my drywalling endeavor, and I have never even done this stuff before. I am a little proud of myself for kicking ass today.
So, do you remember those before photos? Well, I have some “in the middle photos” for you now.
This was today after Paul came over to pick up the cabinets. I had to single-handedly unhook the sink piping and cut apart the wood underneath. That was a real pain. Then, I had to cut the counter top and unscrew them (from being screwed together). Then, I had to unscrew them from the floor. I am not sure why they screwed to the floor. Did these people think the cabinets where going somewhere? Maybe that’s the norm. Anyway, I finally got everything away from the wall so I could work. I finished taking down all the sheetrock and was ready to put it back up.
For the rest of the afternoon, I hung sheetrock and taped. I really like taping and am glad I got the five gallon bucket of joint compound. I fly through the stuff and it’s nice not to have to worry about running out.
So as I said above, all I have to do is finish up the walls and paint. Then, prep the floor for the tile guy and my job is done. All Laura and I have to do at that point is to wait for the kitchen guys to show up with the cabinets (in a very messy house).
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