Hall Bath Work

We've burned out two little floor heaters in our hall bathroom over the last six plus years.  And we've never even tried to turn on the existing wall heater that's in there (You can see for yourselves why).  We'd purchased a replacement wall heater a while ago but never installed it.  Since winter is approaching, we decided to install it.  And we decided to connect the light in the venting fan to power as well.

Here are photos of the heater before, during and after.  The new heater is a little bit smaller so I just filled the gaps with Gorilla tape.  The wall is going to be removed (hopefully soon) to make room for a nook that will house the new sink... so doing wall repair and rebuilding just isn't energy well spent.

The light switch/outlet got replaced by a GFCI and double toggle switch.  The existing light in the bathroom will remain and have the fan light tied into it so they'll both turn on when the top switch is on.  The bottom switch will control the night light that's in the fan fixture.

Here are some photos of the other side of the wall.  I'm going to take some drywall remnants and close it all up.

But we're going to keep the hall access open for now so that we can use the space as additional storage.  Yay, storage!

I also finally connected the second bedroom heater to the service panel. And... yes, it works!

2nd Bedroom - Part 13: Painted Trim

I've filled all the nail holes, sanded, and painted the trim.  I've also installed a curtain rod and hung some curtains.  The room feels very nice now.

The only thing left to do is built the built-in closet cabinet, install it, trim around it, and then paint the closet trim and doors.  I'm hoping to do that later this week or next week.

Bedroom Improvements

We made a a few bedroom improvements over the weekend.  We built and upholstered a headboard.  We used 1x4's 2x4's, screws, 2" thick foam, upholstery fabric, and staples.  It's not perfect, but it's nice enough.  And it keeps up off the cold exterior wall.

 

We also installed a footboard.  It's a little narrower than the bed so as to help keep us from bashing our shins on the corners.

We also removed the closet doors and hung some curtains.  We got the curtains at Ikea (they're pretty nice!).  The curtains are an attempt to increase the airflow into the closets so as to reduce mold growth on the walls.

We cleaned the entire room with white vinegar to remove as much mold and mildew as possible.  We wiped down the floor, the walls, and the furniture.  The bottom foot of the walls tend to grow some mold because of the temperature and humidity during the winter.  We're also going to look into using an air filter fan to help circulate more air from the top of the room to the floor.

2nd Bedroom - Part 12: Trim

I was able to finish the trim in the second bedroom this weekend.  I took my time with the window and even sprayed insulating foam in all the cracks before installing the trim around it.  I also fussed with the door frame and smoothed the closing action.

All the trim is MDF except for the window sill.  I used wood (hemlock) because the MDF window sills I've seen don't age well.  Plus the profile that I used under the sill is only available in wood (hemlock).

Now all I have to do is fill the nail holes and paint the trim.  That... and... build the built-in closet cabinet, install it, and install trim around it.

If you're interested in seeing what a three-year-old does in a mostly empty room... click here.

2nd Bedroom - Part 11: Floor

I almost forgot to blog about the floor! I had to install the floor before the last coat of wall paint because I needed a place for my brother-in-law to sleep while he visited.  I pulled up the old carpet and began scraping up the tiles.  It proved much harder than the first tiles I pulled up.  So much so that I gave up.  This is as far as I got.

I just didn't have the time or energy to pull up all the tiles before company arrived so I slapped down the Ikea flooring.  It's pretty forgiving with little floor variations (though they won't tell you that).

The three-year-old was very excited to be able to walk around in his room!  He immediately turned circles in the middle of his [empty] room.

Then I filled the room with a lot of his stuff so that living room wasn't so full of his stuff.  Nicer for company.  And the three-year-old liked it, too.

2nd Bedroom - Part 10: Paint

I was able to finish painting last weekend.  Over the course of a week or so I was able to put on a layer of primer (ceiling and walls), a thick coat of flat white on the ceiling, and two layers of semi-gloss pastel blue on the walls.  The first coat on the walls was a little splotchy because the paint looked white when it was wet and didn't turn blue until it dried.  Painting white on white is hard (the primer was white).  I may go back and touch up a couple of spots along the ceiling corners, but I might not.

I spent today (July 4th) installing trim.  I did the trim around the door and the base molding.  I'll do the window this weekend.

2nd Bedroom - Part 9: Mudding

I've been grabbing some time in the evenings (after the almost-three-year-old goes to sleep) to mud and sand the walls in the second bedroom.  The screw holes and the wall corners were pretty easy.  The intersection between the ceiling and the walls was more tricky and required some significant feathering.  The reason for that is that there is a layer of cloth adhered to the ceiling to cover the panel seams.  Since I didn't replace the ceiling drywall and didn't want to even think about touching the fabric, I had to build up a little joint compound on the ceiling corners to get over the lip of the fabric (it didn't go to the edge because of the crown molding).  After about three coats of joint compound and a lot of sanding, I am done.  Or as done as I can be and want to be.

If only I wasn't so obsessive compulsive and fixated on having smooth walls.  It would be so much easier to just tape and mud the joints and then throw some texture on the walls.  But I really hate textured walls.  Maybe hate is too strong a word.  But since their my walls, I guess I get to have them the way I want them.

More May Flowers

Here are some more photos of flowers in the backyard. 

Buttercup

A weed or a volunteer.

A smelly weed.

Clover.

Tristar Everbearing Strawberry

Foxglove

2nd Bedroom - Part 6-7-8: Drywall, Window, and Door

I finished the drywall last weekend and installed the window and door, too.  Quite the busy Memorial Day weekend.  I did the closet too even though it's going to receive a built-in cabinet (like the living room shelf) because I wanted to minimize draft and also provide for the possibility for using the closet as a real closet some day in the future.  I also put some screws in the ceiling.  There were a few nail pops and the screws make me feel better.

Here's a photo of the closet.   And a SketchUp concept of what the built-in will possibly look like.

The window wasn't all that hard to install.  I first cut away the siding so that the window trim can be installed later.  Then I inserted the window and nailed it in place (with a bead of silicone between the flange and the sheathing). It's really nice to have the window in after a month of not having it in.  Much warmer in the room now.

This is the first time I've hung a door.  It was a little fussier than I'd hoped.  But I didn't really know what I was doing either.  I read a little about it first and promptly nailed/locked myself out of the room by using a 2x4 as a stop on the interior (this kept me from being able to open the door).  I took out the two nails I'd just hammered in and used a different approach.  I put a door lever on so that the almost-three-year-old can come and go as he pleases.  He likes the door a lot.

Mudding is next.  Then paint.  Then the floor.  Then the trim.  The built-in will happen sometime.  I have to draw it first since I'm probably going to have the panels cut for me by someone else.

2nd Bedroom - Part 5: Insulation (Walls)

One of the big pluses to remodeling the second bedroom is that there is now going to be insulation in the walls.  There will now no longer be mold growing on them in the winter.  Hopefully.  I installed R-15 on all the exterior walls.  I also installed R-13 on the interior walls to aid in sound dampening (and temperature, too, since the house is a bit drafty).  The R-13 is four times less expensive than the R-15.

Code for new walls is R-19.  That means that the walls need to be 2x6 and not 2x4.  But this is just "repair" work and not new construction.  There a way to get R-19 in 2x4 walls and that is to use the styrofoam board insulation (it's usually pink, but I think I've seen blue as well).  I might do that on the additions of the house since I'll want to build the new walls to match the existing walls (so that the windows and doors all look the same).

Anyway, here are some photos of the insulation.

 I'll be putting new insulation in the ceiling and the floor as well.  But that will have to wait.  The rush right now is to get the living space livable.

And Some More Flowers

Here are some more photos of flowers at the rat-hole.  The rhoddy is in bloom.  Such a pretty shade of lavender.

And here different sort of flower.  The mushrooms/toadstools that pop up are very pretty.

And the seed head of a dandelion.

And the mutated poppy.  There were only yellow when we moved here.  Now there are a handful of orange poppies.

More Spring Flowers

Here are some more photos of flowers in the yard. This is a weed.  Or maybe some sort of wild flower. But the flowers are really gorgeous!

This is not a weed, but I don't know what kind of flower it is.

And the yellow poppies are back.  So many poppies!

By the way, I've installed one wall's worth of insulation so far. It might go faster than I expected.