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.

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.

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.