Ooo...we're trendy

According to builderonline.com (via Charles and Hudson) our house is pretty trendy and has features that will help boost its value with buyers. We have their "10 Things You Must Put in Your Next House" list pretty decently covered:

1. Radiant-heated bathroom floors - check
   
2. Butcher block countertops - nope
   
3. Glass tiles - considering for the kitchen
   
4. Dual flush toilet - check
   
5. Low-flow showerheads - check
   
6. On-demand water heater - check
   
7. Water re-circulator - considered, rejected for now because our water usage is low
   
8. Folding patio-door - maybe if we had a bigger house...
   
9. Central vacuum - nope
   
10. Excellent insulation - check -- I've blogged about this before (1, 2)

That's 5 yesses and 1 maybe without evening trying in an addition and remodel. Of course, we're doing the work on the house to make it what we want and to reduce the resources it uses, not to increase the sales value. The nice-but-not-million-dollar view from the bedroom is for us, not the next people who own the house. But it's nice to know the work isn't detracting from the value of the house. The economy is doing that well enough on its own.

Knock, knock

Knock, knock.
What's not there?
Isn't that supposed to be "who's there?"
So? What was the last thing about this house that was exactly the way it's supposed to be?
Good point. OK...what's not there?
The old front porch!
Hmm...interesting, but not very funny. Don't quit your day job.

Yesterday I touched up the paint around the tile in the bathroom, then I went into demolition mode. I hauled the last bits of debris from the front porch 'round to the back yard, chopped up some bits of rim joist that had been rotting away in the back yard, and then went to work on the front porch with my sawzall. After working on the media for church, I went back at it today.

The good news is that I got a lot of stuff removed. The bad news is that I need to take out even more, because the termite damage goes beyond the porch itself. The mudsill, the rim joist, parts of the floor joists...I hope it ends soon. I still haven't seen any live termites, but the damage is pretty extensive. And the construction was pretty sketchy in any event. The ledger board that the joists under the porch were resting on wasn't attached to the foundation, just to the joists themselves. So instead of it holding them up, they were holding it up. And not very well, give how rotted stuff was.

Sigh.

Shower Power

Yesterday, Katarina and I applied grout sealer. While that was drying, I installed the shower curtain rod, and the shower head and control handle. Drilling through tile is a pain in the patooky. Back when I installed the new toilet, the holes were larger so I could use a masonry bit. But the holes needed for the shower curtain rod are little 1/8" things, so I probably trashed my 1/8" bits in drilling the four holes. Ah, well...it won't be the first time I replaced them, since I've broken 1/8" bits in the past, and given how frequently that size is used and how skinny the bits are, it probably won't be the last.

I also worked on The Mediocre Wall of Montclair. I was mulling over what a pain it was going to be to haul away all the rubble from the old front porch. Either I'd have to pay someone to haul it, or haul it myself and then pay to dump it. I got to thinking about our other plans for the house and yard, including a recent brainstorm to terrace the hillside. There was already a small flattish spot where Katarina had put some potted plants and a chair. I enlarged that, and have started using the rubble to build a small, mostly decorative retaining wall behind it. At some point, we'll build one or more terraces below with proper stones, and make them into a vegetable garden. But for now, this is a good place to use the rubble and get it out of the way so I can continue removing the old front porch.

Then yesterday evening, we took our first showers in the new bathroom. We both give it two thumbs up! It also feels great to hit a major milestone, too. Even if there still is lots more work to do (and even a little in the bathroom...like touch up the paint on the ceiling above the shower, install baseboard in the corner between the vanity and shower, and build and install some shelves in the little nook to the left of the shower...)

Bored on the 4th of July

OK, technically it was cut with a tile-cutting hand saw, not bored, but the title was too good to pass up. Today I worked on the long-neglected shower. It's been sitting 1/3rd tiled for quite some time. Until my ladder levelers get here, I decided it would be safer to leave the last bit of painting over the windows for now.

A happy 4th of July to my American readers! While I love my country, I frequently find myself at odds with those who run it because of the decisions they make. I read an interesting article on CNN today about a recent poll: "69 percent of adult Americans who responded to a poll June 26-29 said the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed by the way the nation has turned out overall." Yowza! 69%? That suggests a lot of people feel that way, too. I wonder how much is the war in Iraq and the countless deaths, how much is the terrible economy, and what other factors enter into it.

And since it's the 4th of July, it's time for fireworks, right? Well, not so many here in extra flammable California. Apparently because of droughts all over the place, personal fireworks have been banned a lot of places (they've long been banned here in the Oakland hills), but a number of cities have canceled the big displays, too. Which isn't all bad, given the environmental impact of fireworks (partly the noise, but mostly the toxic ingredients). There are various attempts at 'greener' fireworks, but even with those, how good can it be for the environment to blow stuff up (even if it is fun) just for a celebration?

Shower Surround of a 1,000 Cuts!

The shelf that exists because of a step up in the foundation makes for a great bookshelf in the bedroom. It will make for a nice place in the shower to store shampoo and the like. But it and the window (4" thick glassblock in a 6" thick wall) have made for a heck of a lot of cuts in the tile. With some better layout, I could have reduced it to, I dunno, 700 cuts, but it's still got a lot of odd bits and pieces compared with the shower surround in the old bathroom.

Progress has been slow this week, because of a pinched nerve or something in my shoulder. Ibuprofen is my friend, but reaching with my right arm is not. But today I forged ahead and installed some more tile. I found that tiling doesn't hurt my arm much more than working at the computer or doing anything else, so what the heck. I'm probably 40% done overall...after I finish the walls, it'll be time to do the floor of the shower and the curb into the bathroom.

I'm making progress, but my slow progress has made me very glad I bought an inexpensive tile saw rather than renting. The tile saw I bought also has a nice adjustable angle attachment. The corner notches for the decorative tiles are beyond the limit of what I can cut with the angle attachment, though, so I'm back to the old method of using a 45' fragment as a brace for the piece I'm cutting the corner off of.

Found Treasures

We're planning to use the same tile for the shower as we used on the floor in the new bathroom. It's a nice soft green (Katarina loves green), and is the same design (sort of a random wash of bits of darker stuff) as the sand colored tile we used in the shower surround in the old bathroom back when I redid that. That had a similar orangish version, matching bullnose tiles, 3x3 grid tiles (that I cut into 3x1), and a nice complementary set of accent tiles with different designs. The green version had the bullnose and the grid, but no accent tiles, and no similar color that went well with it. Despite the shower being unique (custom size, shelf because of the foundation, etc.), I was worried it would be a bit boring with just some bits of 3x1 at the edge of the shelf, but I went ahead and bought the tile for both the floor and the shower.

While I was waiting for the tile to be brought out of the warehouse, I looked around at what there was to see in the driveway between the tile showroom and the warehouse next door. Various warning signs, tile saw for customers to use for a few cuts, etc. Then I spotted something I'd seen before -- the tile scrap bin. Basically bits of cut and broken tile that aren't salable any more. I looked in it, and found 95% of a sheet of 1x1 glass tiles, in a nice mix of blues and greens. It was missing a few squares, and a few were chipped, but it was otherwise a lovely little bit of tiles, so I snagged it and put it in the car.

Today I figured out the layout for the shower tile, cleaned up some stuff, and started tiling. I think these little guys are going to make perfect accent tiles, and the fact they were free-99 and headed for the dumpster is all the better.

I didn't get that much tile put up, but got a good start and more than that cut for some of the odd-sized bits at the ends. Alas, tomorrow will be a busy day so no more tiling until Monday. First service at church to train the second service person on the differences; second service will be a joint service with the Baptists that share our sanctuary; the evening will mean a return trip for an organizational meeting for this year's Mexico mission trip. Easter is earlier this year, so spring break for the schools is, so the Mexico trip is, too.

One step closer

I'm seldom -- I'm rarely --I've never been so excited about being able to do laundry, except maybe after a long trip overseas when laundry was difficult to do. Today I ran copper pipe to the cold water side of the laundry tub and to the hose spigot, and amazingly had no leaks after one pass. That was due in no small part to the use of a little inspection mirror, which my friend Jim showed me a while back for double-checking that a sweated joint had solder all the way around. A quick check after sweating a couple of joints allows you to go back and touch up things before moving on. Of course, this frequently doesn't work with a bronze fitting, only with copper-to-copper junctions, but that's most of the connections.

I also recently acquired a 4-in-1 brush for prepping copper pipe and fittings. I've had separate brushes for the insides, and sandcloth for the outsides before, because I'd acquired the different sizes over time instead of needing to do 1/2" and 3/4" all at once. I needed a new 3/4" inside brush because the existing one was getting smushed and rusty. I've still got a supply of sandcloth for dealing with tight spaces, but the 4-in-1 brush does an awesome job cleaning off the oxidation from the insides and outsides of 1/2" and 3/4" pipes, all in one tool instead of 3.

All that to say I was able to do a couple loads of laundry this evening, and I have the outside faucet working again, too. That just leaves running new pipes to the toilet and sink in the old bathroom. Woohoo!

The Year in Review

Happy New Year! The last year has been a busy one. Not especially productive on the house, but we've gone from having to go on to the deck to get to the bedroom to having another 0.5 bath. (The other half of the new bath will happen at some point after I replace the old galvanized plumbing so we can get a decent amount of pressure on the cold water side to the addition. It's a daunting task, to say the least.)

The addition got gutters. Far too many people died, including Katarina's dad. I survived a back-to-back mission trip to Mexico and Habitat Build-a-thon (with the Random Acts fundraiser and creating a memorial video squeezed in for good measure). I was in an article in the SF Chronicle. The Thrivent Builds-sponsored house at Habitat for Humanity East Bay was completed. We got a new neighbor. The new bathroom got radiant heat. And now we have another 0.5 bath, which is especially nice for those early-morning ablutions in these cold months.

Here's hoping 2008 will be a happy, peaceful, productive new year.

Cavalcade of Shmë

The plumbing in this house is in sad shape. Not the parts that have been replaced, like the water heater, or the new stuff in the addition, but pretty much everything else is in need of replacement. I've known I was going to have to redo the plumbing to the sink in the old bathroom for a long while. Over two years ago a leaky faucet led to a sizable project replacing things there, and the discovery that the hot water side was completely full of corrosion. Fortunately my good friend Jim had convinced me to replace the plumbing to the shower with copper back when I had that ripped up, but I'd left the sink and toilet supply alone since I hadn't opened that part of the wall.

Since the last blog post, I've finished painting the new bathroom, tiled the floor, installed the vanity, toilet, associated plumbing, and all those little details (minus window trim) that go into a bathroom, and basically got us up to a 1.5 bathroom house. The new toilet is a wonderful thing, a Toto Aquia that has two buttons, one that uses 0.9 gallons for a flush, and the other that uses a full 1.6 gallons. More expensive than the cheapo ones at Home Depot, but it does a better job with 0.9 gallons than many of them do with 1.6 gallons or more. And if we'd been replacing an old 3.5 gallon one, we could have gotten a nice rebate from EBMUD. It was a bit more complicated to install because of the streamlined design, but it looks nice and works great.

After I'd installed the vanity, the drain pipe, and the supply lines, with much fanfare I turned on the hot water faucet. Sploosh! as expected. After some adjusting of the pipes in the trap, I turned on the cold water faucet. Dribble...not as expected. We've had low water pressure on the cold side in the kitchen for quite some time, but I hadn't worried about it too much since the kitchen plumbing will be redone in the remodel. But I'd tapped into the water lines near the kitchen, and it turns out the cause of the low pressure is further up stream than I thought. D'oh!

The plumbing in the old part of the house is a mishmash of galvanized and copper, with dielectric unions and bronze fittings scattered about to connect the two. I really need to replace the galvanized all the way out, or I'm going to hit this problem again in the future. Sweating dielectric unions is a royal pain, so I decided I didn't want to just replace a little of it to start, but the water pressure in the kitchen and new bathroom is low enough that there's no point in finishing the shower until I do something about it.

So this morning I took Katarina to the BART station (our friend Tess is borrowing the Golf for a while, since her car died) and headed on over to Home Depot. A long time and several hundred dollars later, I left with a bunch of new copper pipe and fittings, came home, and went into the basement to get started. And realized that more work and more parts would be needed. I'd missed counting one of the branches (ironically, the cold water supply for the old bathroom that I've known for years I was going to need to replace). But I also noticed that the pressure regulation valve is badly corroded on one end. So before I pick up Katarina this evening, it'll be another trip to Home Depot...

Painting

I've been working away on the bathroom. Wiring for the radiant heating, taping and mudding the drywall, wet sanding and more mud, etc. Doing a smooth coat instead of texture (recommended for bathrooms and kitchens, because it's easier to keep clean) is a lot less forgiving of irregularities.

We spent a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with Katarina's mom up in the mountains where she lives, so not much got done last week. I got back to things today, and primed the ceiling and walls. Priming is my least favorite painting, because it's hard to see what you're doing, with white primer on white drywall compound. But it's very important, particularly in a high humidity environment like a bathroom, so it must be done.

It's Alive!

Well, OK, it's not. But the lift is very handy for putting drywall on ceilings. Lately I've been putting drywall and backer board in the new bathroom. I also put some drywall up in the entry hall (it's had drywall on the ceiling, but been bare studs and insulation in the walls forever), and after using up my 1/2" drywall supply moved on to part of the dining room ceiling. It's funny how much more like a 'room' the bathroom looks with drywall on the walls instead of just bare studs and insulation.

I've got a line on the radiant heating system for the bathroom. Katarina is quite excited about it. It should be pretty easy to install. Lay it on the subfloor, bury it in thinset, et voilà -- ready to lay tile over it. It's relatively expensive since we're doing a small area (12 sq. ft.), so the thermostat/controller is going to cost more than the wire grid. But I think it'll be well worth it, especially once we get solar panels for some of our electrical needs.