“Honey Do” Hot Place

[SawyerTed]

Thanks.  The hexagon tiles did seem to work out well.  We went with large format tiles to reduce the grout lines, make cleaning easier and "speed up" (theoretically  :D ) setting the tile. We also thought because of the large wall area, small tiles would be too "busy "

The materials cost are in the $8k plus range.   That includes the heated floor and 72" tub, all tile grout, thinset, faucets and controls, plumbing electrical etc.  Emily and I did all the work.  

We have 5 or 6 white tile left, 17 hexagon floor tiles and a dozen blue and gray tiles. I think I have an 8 foot stick of pex pipe left over.  I figured it pretty close.  8)

[Stephen1]

Looks Great! 
I really like the no shower doors , both of my bathrooms do not have shower doors or curtains, a  little water on the floors is easily wiped up.

[SawyerTed]

My sentence was temporarily suspended so I could:

Clean up the tile scraps, demolition debris and finish the caulking in the bathroom. 

Do some light grading of the area around the pool.

Over-seed the yard, lime and fertilize

Scrape the driveway gravel back into place. 

Unclog the drain pipe in the back yard/driveway to the basement 

AND start collecting materials for the master bedroom renovation!  Aacckk!
:D

So after a couple of weeks of "time off" it is back to the "honey do" list.  

Monday we moved the furniture.

Tuesday I removed carpet and padding and removed the popcorn ceiling.  

Today I've been removing the particle board underlayment that was under the carpet.  It has to go because I'm installing oak flooring so it will require plywood instead of the particle board.  

[SawyerTed]

 

 The old carpet being removed.  



 

 I had to remove the particle board underlayment.  It won't hold nails for the hardwood .  

 New plywood over the OSB subfloor.  

[SawyerTed]

Also removed the popcorn ceiling.  Will be removing the infernal wallpaper boarder today.  



 

[Stephen1]

Keep going Ted, you need to get all that done before the new mill shows up.

[Mooseherder]

Popcorn Ceiling removal!?  No thanks! :D smiley_horserider

[Resonator]

Is the scraper clamped to the end of a fishing rod? ??? ;D

[Mooseherder]

Our whole house has popcorn Ceiling.   :'(

[SawyerTed]

 :D :D I wish!  I clamped a broomstick about 3' long to the scraper so I'm not under the falling mess. 

Our house had 2,500 square feet of popcorn ceiling.  Now we are down to 2,000.   I suspect my wife wants it all gone but I'm sure we will be leaving it upstairs.  

Removing popcorn ceiling isn't hard as long as it hasn't been painted. The mess is the problem and then remediating the sheet rock.  The only way to do it is to completely empty the room, no plastic sheets over furniture etc

I hate finishing sheet rock and every nail or screw head has to be touched up with mud.  It really is"the hot place."  My buddy loaned me a power ceiling sander.  It has an 8" disk and makes short work of the sanding after fixing the problems hidden under the popcorn. 

I did learn today to forget about using vinegar or fabric softener for removing wallpaper.  Zinner DIF wallpaper remover is the stuff to use.  That infernal flower border is half gone now.  It's slow going.  

[Tom King]

In our rental house with water stained popcorn ceiling, I just put a new ceiling up over it, and left it alone.  It was old enough to have asbestos in the popcorn.

The house came cheap because it was considered a tear down.  This was one of the small problems.


 

 

[Tom King]

My Wife talked me into a heated floor in our last bathroom addition.  We used it a couple of times.  In order to have a floor that felt warm to the feet, it kept the super-insulated room at 92 degrees.

[SawyerTed]

In some house renovations (other than my own), I have installed new sheet rock over older popcorn and over damaged plaster.  There are times when it's just quicker to install and finish new drywall. 

In this case there's little to no damage just the blemishes that the popcorn hid.  

I've done more damage to the walls pulling the wallpaper border down.   :

[SawyerTed]

The heated floor is awesome in our bathroom.  My wife says about every other morning how much she loves it.  

Per the instructions I didn't install the heat elements in the closet that's on the NW corner of our house.  

There is a stark difference in the main bathroom floor compared to that cold closet floor.  I did have to adjust the programmable thermostat not to heat after 7:00 pm or our bedroom gets too hot overnight.  

I have it set to come in around 5:30 am and heat until 8:00 am.  Then the temperature drops from 85 degrees to 70 degrees.   In the evenings it comes on about 5:30 pm until 7:00pm at 85 degrees.  

My power bill barely sees a bump.  

[Mooseherder]

We bought this house 30 years ago from an Electrician who had wired his own house.  My back exit has 12 switches 2 rows with 6 gang each.
I still don't know what a couple do.  This place is wired with other stuff on the ceiling.  Fans, intercom speakers, other lighting.  I just counted 38 light cans and trim in the ceiling.  I'd sell this house first. :D

I've repaired a small area years ago.  There's an area in the garage that needs repair above the garage door now.  I'll be puttin' it off. ;)

[Tom King]

Timer on the floor is a good idea.  

[SawyerTed]

 

 
Friday, I removed that flower border at the ceiling.  The paper on the sheet rock tore in many places.  Along with that the corner tape at the wall to ceiling joint peeled loose in spots when I removed the popcorn.  

To fix those problems, I had to skim coat about 10" at the top of the wall. After that I had to coat the ceiling to wall corner.  

The ceiling got mud on the screw heads.

Tomorrow I will sand and fix anything that needs a touch up with joint compound.  

There is an advantage to 25% humidity today.  The joint compound is drying fast. 

The plan is to paint Monday and Tuesday.  Install flooring on Wednesday, mill custom baseboard and institutes on Wednesday.  

[Tom King]

To fix torn sheetrock paper, I paint yellow glue over it, like T1, and sand it after it's dry.  That's followed by whatever mud it takes.  Without hardening the paper where it's torn, it's hard to ever finish sanding it.  Don't use more glue than you need to saturate the torn edges, or it will be too hard to sand without damaging more paper.

[SawyerTed]

It took about 3 hours to sand the ceiling and walls.  Tomorrow morning there will be a little time sanding the second "touch up" coat of joint compound and cleaning up the five corners.  

Between my Porter Cable palm sander and a borrowed ceiling sander, it didn't take long to sand it all.  I borrowed a 2 1/2" dust collector hose out of my shop and connected the sanders to my shop vacuum.  The dust was mostly sucked up by the vacuum that had a drywall filter in it. 

Here is an image of a ceiling sander.  It has an 8" disk so it doesn't take long to sand 275 square feet.  The handle is about 5' and extends to reach higher ceilings.  It's a bit heavy to hold over your head for more than 15 minutes as a time. 


 

[Peter Drouin]

Very nice job all around, 8)

[SawyerTed]

Truths about remediation of popcorn ceilings.

Fresh joint compound is a must.  No matter what the "boss" says about the 3 year old bucket in the basement.

A fresh set of drywall knives help despite the "boss" reminding you that you have a 12" drywall knife in the sawmill kit of tools. 

Don't apply more joint compound than you are willing to sand off.  Multiple layers are better than two thick ones.  

Every screw or nail needs a quick skim coat.  Don't hunt and fix a few, it's quicker in the long run to do them all. 

Corners are messy.  

When in doubt sand it. 

Knowing when to quit trying to make an application of joint compound "better" is important.

Knowing what paint will hide is important as well.  See the item above. 

Break loose of some of the "savings" and buy the best filters for the shop vac.  It still won't be good enough.

Paint is almost done.  Yes the ceiling is "haint blue" - its a southern thing. 


 

 

[Resonator]

Sounds a lot like auto body technique. The "more perfect" you want the surface, the more steps in the process (time). And that's why thick texture is so popular. They break up the surface imperfections (hide a multitude of sins :D), and can be done relatively quickly to get the room done and ready for occupancy. If going with a totally smooth (no texture) finish, I like to use a matt or low sheen paint to diffuse the light and make it all look uniform.

[SawyerTed]

Until a few years ago I did all the body work on our vehicles and especially on my children's vehicles.  So I can say there are similarities.  Interior paint prep is easier I believe.  

The ceiling was painted with a flat ceiling paint for those very reasons.  Any shine on the ceiling in the photos is wet paint. 

I know walls are usually painted after the ceiling but my walls were ready before the ceiling was finished.   There was a water damaged spot that required some additional work on the ceiling. 

I'm waiting on the first coat on the ceiling to dry.  I need to put a second coat on the field and around the edges.  

Next will be hardwood floor.   

[SawyerTed]

One of the reasons I got into sawmilling was to produce the replacement flooring for our home.  

For this project it just wasn't meant to be.  For the other 1400 square feet on our  first floor I will make the flooring someday. 

Emily wanted the primary bedroom completed so we went floor shopping.  There's a local flooring company that we've done business with over the years.   So we went there first.  

Long story short, we bought new pre finished oak flooring at a salvage price.  It had been in the warehouse since 2008.  It was on hand when the builder finished a group of spec houses and quit building houses.  We couldn't walk away from $1.33 per square foot. 

It isn't perfect but is quite satisfactory for this project.  It was less than 50% of the unfinished price!  

I started on the flooring today.  The flooring has been acclimating in our foyer for 10 days or so.  The moisture meter measured it at 7.5%.  I checked about 12-15 pieces from different places in the stack.  

Ssshhh!  I bought a new pancake compressor and the floor nailer with what we saved on flooring and still stayed under budget!  


 

[Andries]

Good progress Ted, and once that flooring is nailed down, you'll be 99.99% done!
Question: what are you using between the plywood and the hardwood?