I have returned and finished the wetroom.

I am back from China, well actually I got back last Saturday but am still kind of messed up on the jetlag side of things. Last Sunday I expanded the coop because clyde#2 was getting her head torn up by the Americana chickens. We decided to split them up until she is fully grown and can handle herself. Coop expansion was fairly easy, 3 4x4s anchored to 8" foundation blocks and then a connect the dots of 2x4s. The door was the most hassle, I used some left over plywood from the wetroom, but it was 3/4" so it is very heavy.

Speaking of the wetroom it is done. Well done except for the toilet which in Belle's eyes means the whole thing is still unusable. I am waiting on parts from http://www.antiqueplumber.com/servlet/the-TOILET-PARTS-and-ACCESSORIES/Categories. Even now the toilet can be used, its just that the intake valve wont shut off for some reason (the float works fine, but im getting another one anyway) and the toilet leaks a couple drops (fresh water, coming from the downpipe) when flushing. The shower is great, I use it every morning and think the setup is awesome. Water rarely gets outside of the shower area and when it does its only a couple drops. The most wet the sink area gets is when I move to the sink after a shower and drip everywhere.

So what was added? Prior to me leaving for China, PaGyver and I cut some of the extra slate slab into a threshold for the door. It was a lot of work but came out awesome. It bevels up to about 1/2" above the wetroom floor and is flush with the bedroom wood floor. I have grouted it in and was able to flood the entire wetroom just fine. Today Belle and I did a lot of the finish work. We put wood frames around the door and window, as well as trim around the ceiling to hide the caulk seal. It really lives up to the epic standards we have been setting with these rooms. Wonder how long until its all over pinterest/huffpost/etc... like the penny floor.

My favorites from the wetroom:

The sink looks awesome. The sink came from http://www.texastuscanfurniture.com/ (they sell on Ebay) and I am thrilled with the one we got (it was cheaper than comparable ones we looked at too). I really love the scissor arm mirror that Belle restored too, the mirror and the toilet are the 2 pieces from the old bathroom we could not give up. I think they really complete the room.

The slate shelf in the shower. This chunk broke off the big slab we held the sink on and when I realized I could cut it and make a shelf it was a new step for the design. I quickly started making more shelves and replacing the rocks with them for more utility. The first one remains my favorite; while showering water will flow behind it like a waterfall effect. The jagged bottom looks great and there is plenty of room for shampoo, soap, razors and anything else that needed a home.

Next up on the project list is the bedroom. We have some pretty good ideas, but as I have mentioned before the level we have to hold ourselves to is continually rising.

Edit: How the dining room table looks now that I am back. Got some sandpaper, paint brushes, grout sealer, and a box'o'stuff already taking up space, sorry Belle!

Bathroom update (last update until 100%)?

So when we left off:

Whats left until we have the coolest bathroom on the planet:

• Sink faucet arrives and is installed. -- Completed.

• Ceiling green board installed. --Completed
• Toilet mounted on floor with "WC" mounted on wall. -- Completed.
• Tiling on west wall finished --Completed.
• Grout finished.-- Completed.

• Electrical connected and lighting installed. --Completed

• False rafters installed with mushroom plugs pre-drilled (will be a post about this) -- Todo
•  Window fixed and re-installed. --Completed
• Slate slab cut and door jam installed (this will keep water from flowing into the bedroom should it splash by the door. --Todo

Some updates. Flapper valves do not work with WC style toilets! The siphon power in the down tube will pull the valve closed despite a good amount of force holding the chain open. To fix this I went back to the upside down U pipe model and glued a modified flapper valve to the bottom of it. The seal is still not perfect and after flushing the toilet can run, so I am going to add some guide rails to make sure it lands perfectly centered. I switched materials from gross rusty iron to pvc, so it has lost some weight, adding weights may also make for a better seal.

We added a heater duct. This was a complete pain in the ass. This comes down to planning and scope creep. If we had planned for a heater duct it would have been substantially easier as I ended up having to cut the back wall out from a closet. Add heating ducts prior to closing up the walls!!!

Re-installed a six degree of freedom mirror that was previously in the bathroom. Belle fixed it up quite well, I am really happy with the way the bathroom looks. Tons more pics in our public album.

Bathroom update

So the bathroom is *almost* done. My hands are dry and white from grout. Part of the ceiling is in, amazing! Stay tuned for a guide to working with slate because I have learned a lot putting this together.

So we have been working on the bathroom for over 6 months now. What started as a remodel quickly spun out of control as is becoming the standard with each room we look at. We decided in the beginning that we wanted to have a wet room, but then we added on a (non-load bearing) rock climbing wall. Then rock shelves for soap and shampoo, then a massive shelf for the petrified wood sink. The bathroom is quickly evolving into a true cave, and conforming to our epic standards that have been applied to the office (penny floor, distressed textured paint and stain, see the posts about it.)

So we got a very custom sink, and PaGyver managed to pick up some rocking shut off valves for the sink from a company called CA Faucets. Basically they are 3/4" quarter turn valves with very long stems that can be cut to length. The idea behind these is that I will tap the stems into a rock, and have the rock be the shutoff handle. The same concept is used in the on/off valves for the shower and the dual shower heads.

I have "refurbished" the toilet. It will still have the "water closet" top down style but a trip to home depot has updated all of the guts. No longer is the crazy rusted upside down U joint necessary. We have replaced it with a slightly modified flapper valve. The problem with my modifications is that the overflow tube isn't present in this old a toilet so if the intake malfunctions, it will overflow and test out wetroom! I may in the future build a new U pipe but for now this will work fine. The only other modification was that I needed a counter weight to keep the chain from lifting the flapper. This was done with a rock epoxied to the other side of the lever arm. Fits the style and works well in testing.

The other cool twist I put on put on the bathroom was to slice 90 degree slabs off of rocks and cement them into the top corners. I had to cut the slate custom around them but it looks very cool. Still need to grout it in.

Whats left until we have the coolest bathroom on the planet:

• Sink faucet arrives and is installed.
• Ceiling green board installed.
• Toilet mounted on floor with "WC" mounted on wall.
• Tiling on west wall finished
• Grout finished.
• Electrical connected and lighting installed.
• False rafters installed with mushroom plugs pre-drilled (will be a post about this)
•  Window fixed and re-installed.
• Slate slab cut and door jam installed (this will keep water from flowing into the bedroom should it splash by the door.

Massive Updates!

Well things have been jamming over here. The big news is that the foundation replacement is done, the disintegrating bricks are only for looks now! Our foundation replacement went very smooth, big thanks to Antonio and Symon @ Copper foundation, this was very worrisome for us seeing some of the other information on the net. Luckily for us Copper did a stellar job, I would recommend these guys easily.

In the DIY arena I have gotten back in the rhythm of getting work done around here now that work @ work has calmed down. So what has happened?

• Sprinkler style drip irrigation system. This involved digging a massive trench all the way from the middle of the side yard back to the fruit trees. I got a good workout and a tan, and most importantly we got some squid hookups that allow us to easily expand the drip irrigation without pressure losses. Water now goes in parallel instead of series. 
• Ran electrical (with ground wires) to the garage, and moved the work shop from the back porch into the garage.
• Downstairs bathroom has a working (awesome) shower and we have some rad design surprises. It will be finished soon!
• The fence in the front yard was super degraded (termites) so I replaced the weak beams with pressure treated outdoor wood and it is much sturdier now. Held up to klee kai pen testing. 
• Installed a skylight in the back porch and set it up as a proto-greenhouse for Belle. Found some cool L brackets from the old sink and built a potting shelf. Also lined the edges of the skylight with the cool aluminum metal we used for the custom egg carton.

Once again I am promising to update the blog more and add photos. I swear I will this time, but for now going to grab a homebrew and chill because my body is destroyed.

Lazy Sunday

The PaGyver Pack stopped by to play with fire and make some serious headway on the wet room.  MacGyver has more detailed updates but has inhaled a prodigious amount of tar (or Gypsy Den grog) and seems to be making a slow start today.

Last Sunday was particularly cold and we decided to give the fireplace a shot.  I was pleased at the amount of scrap shop and yard wood we were able to dispose of in the process.  I started stacking scraps on the side door staircase leading up to the living room in readiness for the next fire.  By the end of the evening, we had a slightly warmer, slightly smokier front room.  GrandEpics suggested a grate to improve air circulation, so I ordered one on Amazon that rotates the burning space 45 degrees so much of it rests on the back wall instead of the ground.  This should route smoke further up the chimney and expose more hot cinders for heat.  We shall see.  Cleaning up was pretty easy.  I read chickens will sometimes roll in ash as a way to smother parasites in their feathers so I dumped the remainder in their coop instead of experimenting with the trapdoor into the unfinished basement.


The hen house is doing well.  The chickens are big enough to sleep outside instead of needing to go into a dog carrier on the front porch.  They developed a taste for spent brewing grain, so MacGyver indulged them by brewing a replacement batch yesterday.  They looked so cheated when I checked on them that morning I tried letting them sift through the most "done" worm bin.  I'm not sure if they've figured out worms are edible yet as there were still plenty when I took the bin out this morning.  We will need to go snowboarding and reprovision in NorCo soon because they are running low on straw and eat a lot of chicken feed.  I did order some grain seeds which could be used alternately for feeding chickens, people, or beer.  Those will take a long time to grow and probably not support hen appetites though.

The main purpose of that seed order was rhubarb which GrandEpics say makes great pie...  If you're willing to wait the 2 years for the stalks to get established.  The timing should be just right for us as we don't really have an oven to bake said pie in right now anyway.  We do, however, have an awesome diy magnetic spice rack.  The lids turned out to be press on when I was hoping they'd screw on, so there were a few spills.

Also looking forward to a few major appliances.  I ordered a compact dishwasher that needs to be shipped by freight because our counters are too low to accommodate a standard sized one.  We also got a pretty competitive quote for furnace and A/C plus removing all the asbestos duct work, so we'll schedule that as soon as MacGyver saves China and can get off mandatory over time and do whatever prep to be ready for them.

Old Ironsides

Nominally, this is a post about restoring the clawfoot tub in the one [formerly] "working" bathroom.  However, this is mostly fun facts learned from shadowing MacGyver.

Fun Fact:  MacGyver does not make shopping lists...  Belle makes them and arranges them roughly by Home Depot aisle location.    

• Sponge 
• Brasso
• Gasket rubber (we had to buy a generic reddish sheet and cut to fit)
• Tough Tile Tub & Tile Refinishing Kit (includes TSP, gloves, 2 pads steel wool, 2 cans of paint)
• Naval Jelly
• Bondo
• Painter's paper
• Painter's tape 
• Box o' rags
• Sand paper (220)
• Utility knife
• Cylinder o' pencils
• Pipe wrench
• Dremmel

1.  Convert Rust.  Over the past couple weeks, we've coated the drain with naval jelly (phosphoric acid), rinsed, and scraped.  This converts red rust to black rust you can sort of sand off.  

2.  Clean tub & disconnect fixtures.  This involved a bottle of TSP (trisodium phosphate) and sponge.  You probably want to avoid eye contact with The Lorax at this point.  We also discovered our gasket for the overflow drain was in bad shape.  Fun fact: fixtures can still work like hoses when disconnected to help rinse the tub...  but if you've disconnected your overflow drain, you probably don't want to fill the tub to clean it...       

3.  Cover black rust and divots with Bondo (polyester resin used for auto body work).  Fun fact:  Bondo can be sanded so you don't need to agonize about a smooth initial application.  MacGyver used the length of a pencil to get the drain patch acceptably flush.  It's stinky, but dries in 15 minutes which is about how long you need to prep splash guards for spray painting.  

4.  Protect surfaces you don't want to get hit with paint.  MacGyver intervened in my fraught hand-ripping paper to line the floor routine.  You can balance the roll of paper on a towel rack, cut with utility knife, and tape a protective bib to the sides of the tub which you didn't plan to paint.  You can also protect your copper drain by covering it with painter's tape, cutting around it, and peeling off the excess.    

5.  Sand the bondo smooth and spray first coat with your refinishing kit can of epoxy white paint.  Drips are bad.  Rags in a box are the undo button.  Spend the 15 minutes it needs to set on sanding/dremmelling/brassoing the green residue off the faucet fixtures.  Fun  Fact:  some paint can be burned off with a blow torch (see: light fixtures).  This is not that kind of paint.  

6.  Apply second coat.  Realize you still have ample paint left over to refinish nasty kitchen sink.  Repeat steps 1-5.  

7.  Realize you need to wait 72 hours before using either kitchen sink or tub.  Wish you had taken MacGyver up on that last call for baths...         

Floors Galore.

In addition to continuing to lay pennies (Thanks MAdams for letting us buy $42 in pennies) on the office floor, we decided to re-do the floor in the upstairs 'working' bathroom. I am typically against wood floor in bathrooms but this bamboo floor looked really cool and is ultra-renewable and pretty low cost.

Of course like all projects this one really had its hurdles to jump over, the first one being the clawfoot. The tub is 90+ years old and weighs I would say right around 400lbs. I quickly realized I was not going to be carrying it on my own. In addition the pipes were pretty old and there was very little room to grab the drain pipe to try and remove it. My MacGyver solution was 2 hydraulic car jacks on either end of the tub and a dolly. This sort of worked. The jacks lifted the tub very easily but the pipes were so rusted together that despite all the connections being loosened they pulled the plastic drain pipe out of its connection to the main drain. (Actually it also looks like PaGyver never glued that joint... amazing it didn't leak at all.)

After that discovery I loosened the no hub connector to the plastic and jacked the tub up until the entire 18" drain pipe cut off was above the floor. Then luckily i was able to separate the tub drain from the stub. The tub had to stay on the jack however because the tub drain is still 4" below the bottom of the clawfeet. Wheeled the tub out and got to work.

Next hurdle was that the door was too low profile to allow for the thicker floor. 30 minutes of hauling the door up and down the stairs and slashing the base with the router and it was all set.

From there it was a lot of cutting custom floor boards and gluing the panels down. Putting the tub back in left some nice compression marks in the new floor, but its still a vast improvement. From there it was pretty easy to re-connect the "broken" pipe and glue it in. First try no leaks, all good! Still need to floor around the toilet but it was very late when we finished the tub area and I was still tired from traveling.

I really like how it came out, and have some custom bamboo quarter round toe boards in mind to match. Also have some crazy ideas for paint.

Lessons learned: Small diameter car jack wheels will dent floors. Routers are the most versatile of tools. Old plumbing sucks.

Other random events: Clovers have taken over our yard completely. It looks very cool but I am really really glad we went with raised beds because they are everywhere.
Got rid of the old water softener last night. Thanks trash guys (they must hate us)
The garden continues to outgrow our demands for lettuce and spinach. 1/2 tomato plants is producing heavily. Peas are producing very well. Sweet potatoes are coming in strong and Belle has some artichoke started.
Thanks MaGyver for watching Kai and all of the 'epic family for having us over for turkey. I had a great time.

Some good days

Past week has been pretty good:

Monday 8-29-2011	Schedule competing repipe bids Further clean kitchen
Tuesday 8-30-2011	Intentional day off, we are both wrecked
Wednesday 8-31-2011	Plumbers 2 and 3 give bids We choose plumber 3
Thursday 9-1-2011	Fix leak on water closet toilet We no longer have to shut off the water after use Do some finish restoring on the redwood
Friday 9-2-2011	Trim black walnut tree to prepare for beds Remove some ugly bushes and shrubs
Saturday 9-3-2011	Build raised bed out of extra wood in side yard Plumber 3 gets tour shows where the walls will be cut up Start work on chicken coop Red Sheriff's mom takes another truckload of treasures. Thanks! Ma and Pa Epic fly out and get the tour Dinner at Mike's with Chi too this time
Sunday 9-4-2011	Start removing wood in working bathroom Remove old sink in now semi-working bathroom Get up in the middle of the night because its raining on tools Rain stops 5 minutes later Put roof on chickencoop, sort of Trip to home depot for bathroom ideas and a badger 5 disposal

Labor day 9-5-2011 was awesome. Easily the most productive day we have had on this place. The day started out slow with me botching a key handoff for my old apartment and "accidentally" breaking into some mailboxes to no avail. Left a text message to clear up the confusion, had some good breakfast at Bagels and Brew and got to work.

Finished taking the redwood siding out of working bathroom. Sink and some siding were removed Sunday. Installed the garbage disposal we had picked up Sunday, with some clutch thinking from Belle when I did not have plumbers putty. She pointed out that I did in fact have plumbers putty from the Toilet fix on Thursday. Disposal in, no leaks.

Get to work on the yard, chipper shreddering the walnut branches I cut down on Friday. Also run some more of hideous bush through the shredder.

Text message comes back, pick up the keys and start packing up old apartment. Do a precautionary load of laundry. Dad calls saying he is in the area and can help. Thank God. We move the fridge and Washer/Dryer along with tons of miscellaneous stuff. I am fully reunited with my tools.

Install washer and dryer, but in order to move them in it was just Belle and I and the washer is very heavy. She did a great job but regardless got her fingers hurt by the sheer weight of the thing and the crappy handholds. Also the Koi pond had to move which I was able to thankfully slide and slide back.

Did a load of sheets in the new setup. Hooray!