Ceiling Fan Installation

I feel so good getting back to quick win projects. With the bathroom being 99% done I moved on to the weekend project of installing the rotating ceiling fan in the living room. It had been sitting in its box for around 4 months maybe longer. Installation was for the most part easy, the only unexpected part was that I had to tear out more of the wall than expected. The wall demo made a terrible mess but luckily MaGyver and BroGyver came down to help. Belle and Mom built a cool article of clothing that might make an appearance here so I don't want to steal her thunder. Brother mopped the hell out of the living room after we cleaned up all the rubble.

Here it is (still need to fix up the ceiling patch some) 

The parts for the antique toilet came in so I fixed that up and everything seems to be going well. I still need to cut the copper tube to height and thread it in tight with teflon but the toilet is 100% usable. Bathroom complete although we might add an under the sink steamer trunk if we can find one that fits the decor.

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.

Sprinklers, Blinds and Hops

Some updates:

• Sprinklers installed in the front yard. Hopefully the barren wasteland look will be a thing of the past. Still need to get the back half by the star pine.

• Replaced the blackout blinds in the dining room. Reused the bamboo blind as it fit perfectly across the two windows and only took slight modification to fit on the existing brackets.

• Fully harvested the Saaz hops. 18oz total which is pretty good for a first year plant. Cloned a start of it for a buddy at work. Also hope to clone more and get them on the perimeter fence.

• Mounted some mirrors in the 'greenhouse'. Belle has set up an office there because it has been so hot.

Bonus Material -- Details of Installing A Skylight on an old zero degree roof:

I had relatively no idea how to do this moving into the project and the instructions given by the manufacturer while helpful mainly focused on ehhh newer construction. There were some good takeaways but some gripes as well (why don't you just tell me what to cut my 2x4's to instead of giving the outside dimension?). Anyhow I first built the frame and verified the skylight fit. Then I investigated the roof, which turned out to be tongue and groove 3/4" redwood with a 3/8" particle board mat on top which the shingles were nailed to. I measured the spot to put the skylight and drilled 4 1/2" starter holes at each corner. I then went up to the roof and traced the inside diameter of the frame on the shingles. I then cut a massive hole in our roof. At this point I became very timid to step on the area between the hole and the edge of the roof, as the only support (at the time) was the grooves and the wall. I would recommend this to others as well, there is no need to risk it, so keep to the solid side. I then cut back the shingles about 3" around the entire hole and pulled it up so I could slip the underlayment and the flashing under it. The flashing kit that was built for the specific skylight while expensive was worth it as it fits extremely well and required no modification. Prior to attaching the flashing I screwed the frame to the roof from the inside of the house. Then screwed the flashing to the frame (keep this above the level of the seal). According to the manufacturer this is enough to completely seal the skylight, but with a 0 degree roof I felt I needed to do more. I took some spare torch down tar we had left over from the wet room and a blowtorch and proceeded to go to town on that. The easiest and safest way was to do it from the inside with my torso sticking out the top while standing on a ladder. Finally I cleaned up my saw cuts with a sander and added some metal we used on the egg carton. Also skylights cost more than I expected (~450 bucks on sale).

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.

Life is good.

Once again the blog has seen neglect due to life getting in the way. I will really try and at least get a post down a week if nothing else for my own benefit in keeping some tabs on progress. Speaking of progress, it seems slow as we go but looking back it feels like we are keeping the pace at least somewhat. I have set up a plan where after work I put in a minimum of 2 hours on the house. So far it is going very well and progress is much less stagnant on the weekdays.

We took some of the chalkboard paint and put a massive to do list on the kitchen wall. It really drives home the motivation that I should get this stuff done now. Good planning Belle, keep me on task! The main project remains the downstairs bath and bedroom. The bed was moved out because the downstairs was continually so filthy that it just made more sense to put it in the 'dining' room for now. I have stripped nearly all the wallpaper from the bedroom and have patched most of the plaster cracks.

PaGyver has been trucking on the bathroom. We have run all new drainpipes (including a gray water diverter), I put in the new electrical and we have placed new floor joists down. The whole floor had to drop 3" to accommodate the concrete for the wetroom. Plywood is down and the next step is to hot-mop the whole thing with tar. Dad took the week off to go on the singer-songwriter cruise to the Bahamas so Belle and I have focused on some other areas in the meantime. Here are some recent developments in Hallidayland.

-We got chickens! Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde have moved in to the coop.
--Belle revamped the chicken tractor. The ugly green clunky one has been replaced with a lightweight easy to move one.
-We have a map of the Sierra Nevadas that we have been filling in camping locations on . It got its very own oak frame and will be on the wall soon.
-Belle has crafted some shroom logs. Well I drilled the holes and hammered the pegs but these should be pretty cool in about 6 months when they are covered in yummy oyster shrooms.
-The brewery has been in full swing. Doing batch 5 for the year right now.
-Sold the 1923 downstairs tub to a lady in Venice Beach also doing a resto. Glad it went to a good home.

In Kai land, Gizmo (Kai's best friend from work) has been staying with us. It is pretty awesome, despite all the attention we give Kai, it just seems like she is happier when Giz is around. They have been playing pretty much all day today. Kind of makes me want to get a second dog. ^^ An epic game of tug of war.

Big update lots done.

We finished the penny floor and are 95% done with the office. It is currently in a good enough for government work state and we have moved focus on to the bedroom and bathroom. After the floor was surfaced I transformed one of the el-cheapo mirrors into a pretty cool looking wall mirror with some redwood and old electrical wires from the basement.
We added some antique furniture from my Grandmother and Aunt and popped the super comfy reading chair in the corner. The room looks really good!
Today I finished stripping the old wallpaper in the bedroom. About halfway done patching all the cracks in the plaster. After that it is primer and then we are going to test some paint colors to see what looks good.

Another quick win was tearing the old runner from the stairs. The wood needs to be refinished but is otherwise in really good shape. We are most likely going to just restain it and leave it naked. Here is Belle cleaning the stairs after I pulled all the nails out. It was actually really gross carpet, but we are desensitized at this point. The snowflakes were horrible dustballs.


The big project however is the bathroom downstairs. PaGyver is spearheading the effort to turn the stinky old bathroom into a very cool but appropriate wet-room. So far we have completely gutted the room and ran new drain pipes for both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms (no more galvanized!). This involved cutting a hole in the foundation to run the new pipe through and attaching it to the sewer outside the house. We have already connected it up and patched the foundation. Tomorrow the goal is to get the electrical in, finish the shower drain and put in a new wash machine intake/drain. We are turning the front closet and bedroom closet into a washer/dryer room while leaving some closet space on the bedroom side. The front closet will get moved to a hidden passage under the stairs. Very exciting.

Kai's Victorian Door

I am catching up on blog posts. Belle and I have had this week off of work so quite a bit has gone down here @ Halladay.

Kai likes to use the bathroom very (by MacGyver standards) early in the morning. When she starts running around the house in the AM someone better open a door or there may be a crouton on the carpet. It was time for me to put in her very own door. The designs of dog doors kind of suck. Most all are ugly white plastic and essentially hideous. We planned to mask the hideous white plastic with some real wood trim to match the style. What I did not account for was the thin center of the door is too thin for the trim boards to cover the plastic. Instead I just butted it up against the plastic and bottom of the door. It also hides the shims I had to put in to make the dog door stable/tight to the top side.

These things are pretty easy to install. I drilled 1/2" holes on each of the corners then just jigsawed the opening. The wood trim got sliced on the new chopsaw and nailed in place with a finish nailgun.

Pic:

Tub finished.

Here are some shots of the mostly finished tub. I have a really cool idea about making the now refinished clawfoot shower capable as well.

Knocking the chrome off the fixtures took a couple hours but I love the brass look. The handles are not brass or are heavily plated, I still think they look ok, especially with the brass bolt shining in the center.The rest of the tub came out really good too, although I worry about the bondo given how forcefully the water comes out of that spigot.





On to my idea. We have a hookup ready for the shower head at the slanted side of the tub. I want to build a shower curtain that hangs above the tub (the ceiling is very high in all of our rooms, bathroom included) and that pulls down vertically. The bottom of the curtain will have a flange that matches the curved top rim of the tub and latches on with magnets. When done with the shower you can lift the magnets off and the whole curtain will retract back up to the ceiling. Need to work out how to have it so drips land in the tub while the curtain is up and drying and it might be difficult to have 2 degree of freedom folds of plastic around the curved part of the tub.

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.