Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
In an unexpected surprise, the tile guy was able to come over a few weeks early to install the kitchen floor. I greeted him with open arms. Anything we can get done early, the better.
He came over around 9:30 this morning. He called beforehand to see if I minded using 1/2 inch cement board instead of 1/4 inch. I didn’t mind, because the thicker stuff is stronger. The lumber place he goes to was out of the 1/4 inch board. The 1/2 inch board created more of a step, but the floor moulding will take care of that.
Here are some photos for you…
This is the before picture I took this morning, completely empty and fully swept.
This is us putting down the cement board on top of the thinset mortar. I say “us” because I helped him bring it into the house, lay it down and nail it into place. Yes, I got to use the power nailer. I am now somewhat of a legend around here. It was quite fun. I like the nail gun.
This is just a fancy view of the previous shot. Feel free to print this out for your scrap book.
This is all the cement board down and nailed in. I did all the nailing after the second piece. Yes, I did that.
This is the partial installation of the tile. The two doorways weren’t exactly square, so he had to do some fancy work. This is where the project would’ve turned into a mess if I was doing it alone.
This is the finished tile install, minus the grout. He is coming by tomorrow to do the grout.
The tile seems a bit lighter than I remember, but I think it will work out nicely with the cabinet color.
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Saturday, December 15th, 2007
Well, it’s time to prepare the kitchen subfloor for the tile that’s going to be going on top of it.
Some people have told me, “Hey, just lay the tile on top of the plywood…it’ll be fine.” I was always a little uneasy about that, so I read up on it. Apparently, it’s not a good idea to adhere tile right to plywood, because wood shrinks and expands with temperature and humidity. I guess you can do this in your house if you feel like doing the whole job over in a few years.
The way I like tile done in our house is to prep the subfloor, put thin-set over the subfloor, lay down cement board over the thinset and nail/screw the cement board down. Now, put your tile down. The cement board is what you want to adhere your tile to, not the subfloor.
So last night I started prepping the subfloor for the tile. The first thing I did was to head down to the basement. As you may know, there are several joints in the subfloor. Many of them travel with the floor joists, so they aren’t a big concern. We’ll call those “vertical” joints or seams. Then, there are other joints…we’ll call them “horizontal” joints. These seams travel across the floor joists and have nothing holding them from flexing. Well, I suppose they are tongue and groove, but from what I can see, they still flex when I stand on them. I good way to see if they flex is to walk around with bare feet. You can feel around better.
You can see the seams in the photo above.
When I went downstairs, I pulled out my nice new DeWalt miter saw and grabbed some spare 2″x4″s. My plan was to cut the 2″x4″s and screw them up against the bottom of the subfloor (screws into the existing joists). There was insulation in the way, so I tried to be very careful…I had just gotten out of the shower. Well, everything was going fine. I was cutting and screwing and cutting and screwing. Then, I started noticing some itching on my arms. Man!!! The insulation got to me. Oh well, there’s another shower.
Anyway, the purpose of those 2″x4″s is to stop the flex from those horizontal seams. I went upstairs and I succeeded in my mission. I walked around bare-footed and everything was good and solid. Now, I had something to screw into to finish off that job.
Also, when preparing a subfloor for tile, you want to be sure to re-screw the subfloor to the joists. Things are bound to come loose and start squeaking over time. If you walk around, you may even notice some play between the subfloor and the joists. Some hopping might help you notice this. This is the reason I went out and bought my new chalk snapper.
Luckily, in my case, the previous owners put down some really cheap parquet flooring. They came in 1′x1′ squares with foam attached to the bottoms. On the foam, there was adhesive. This adhesive left me with little glue spots all over the floor. Now, I don’t only have to sand the floor smooth, I also have to sand up the glue spots, which like to get sticky when hot (from the friction of the sander). We’ll see how that goes.
After the floor is all sanded, I am going to re-screw the subfloor to the joists and sweep up. The floor will be ready to tile and my job is done.
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Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Well, that was pretty quick. The tile guy came at about 9AM and left around 11:30AM.
I am pretty happy that there were no hiccups. When he first showed up, I went outside to greet him. I told him that I was going to be the best little helper he ever had. Then, I came inside and did some work. He hardly even saw me. Whoops.
So, here are some photos…
This is the empty bathroom. I made a little mess while taking the toilet off this morning. Also, the wood in the corner was a little wet from the shower, but still strong. He stomped on it just to make sure.
He put a layer of thin set down and then put a cement-type board on top of that.
This is all the cement board down.
This is the cement board fastened to the floor.
Ok, here we go with the tile.
…and it’s done. Well, tomorrow morning he is coming back to do the tile grout. I ordered a brown grout to match the tile. From the pictures above, it doesn’t look like the tile matches the walls much, but they do match the bathroom. The wall tiles have more of a shine to them, but it’s ok. The floor tiles match the upper portion of the walls.
People have told me how easy it is to tile and that I could do it myself. After watching him install this tile, I am going to have him do the kitchen as well. I don’t feel like it’s worth it for me to buy the tools and find the time to learn how to tile, especially when it’s a once in a blue moon kind of thing. I am happy he did it.
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Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
Well that sucked.
I thought this was going to be an easy job…just unscrew some stuff under the sink, pull it out and take off the toilet. That’s all there is, right? Wrong.
I got half the floor up and was cruising along beautifully.
I was doing well under the baseboard heating (not viewable in photos) and things were going smoothly.
Well, then I hit a snag. I opened the doors to get under the sink. I removed all the stuff under there and noticed that there was a drain pipe (PVC) and two copper water feed pipes. Well, the two copper pipes were poking up through two holes drilled in the thick wood base of under the sink. I started to think how the heck I was going to get the sink pulled out, when there was no way to do that with those pipes the way they were. I had to drill, grind and cut a chunk of the wood base away. I must say, the first time this vanity was installed probably was a snap. Removing it wasn’t. That took a few hours, I’m sure.
I pulled the vanity away and removed the floor underneath.
Then came the toilet. That was easy enough, in the beginning. I turned the water off and removed the feed line. Then I removed one of the side bolts without incident. I went over to the other bolt and the sweet surprise was that the bolt kept turning with the nut. Hmmmm…that was fun. There went another hour of my day. I want to smack the person who designed these things.
Anyway, I got the toilet up and took up the rest of the floor.
It’s a little wet in the corner…probably from the shower spatter. We are going to have to figure that one out. Now, at least it’s all set and ready for the new floor. I better get some of this stuff back together again or Laura is going to yell at me when she gets home. Just kidding, she doesn’t yell. She is well aware of my power.
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Friday, November 2nd, 2007
Here is an exciting post. It’s about the new medicine chest and shower rod we bought last night.
We had to go down to Sam’s Club anyway, so we decided to hit Lowes first. We needed a few things, with the medicine chest being the most important. The shower rod and the little chrome thing that goes around the shower spout came in second and third.
Since we decided to stay with the white vanity, the shopping was easier. It’s much easier to match white than woodgrain. The only thing you have to keep your eye on is the bevel designs. Everything is so damn cheap anyway, I’m not sure it even matters.
So, here are some pics -
As you can see, we decided to keep the current lighting (it has a bulb out). I just unhooked it from the wall and cleaned it up a bit. Then, I reinstalled it slightly higher, to accomodate the longer medicine chest. I like this new chest because it is more “classic” than the old tri-pane one.
Here is the new shower rod. I know, how exciting can shower rods be? Well, when your old one tore the paint off the wall and fell down all the time, a new one can be kind of fun. This new one is nice and heavy and screwed into the wall.
In other news, I ran down to the tile place in town again today and picked out the tile. We ordered it. They are going to give me a call with the availability for installation. I met the owner…he is a nice guy. I am glad I decided not to “Home Depot” this job.
I also ran over to the hardware store and picked up one of those big wax sealer things for the toilet. We need to temporarily remove it for the tile installation. The tile dude told me to get the biggest one I can find, to accomodate the new height of the floor.
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Thursday, November 1st, 2007
I have gotten quite a bit done. Laura and I decided last night that we are not going to buy a new vanity. We will keep the white one we have. We don’t love it, but we keep thinking that the next people who move in this house won’t appreciate all the time and money we are putting into it. We have little faith in them. We keep having visions of them rolling carpeting over our nice floors and lighting up a cigarette for a nice smoke on the couch, while watching the game on their huge screen TV.
On the cheap it will be. Well, not exactly cheap.
Tonight we are going out to Lowes to pick up a mirror/shelf type thingy. I think they are called medicine chests. I found one online last night that I liked. We are also going to try to find some sort of shelf system for above the toilet. We are keeping the current lighting too. I am just going to clean it up a bit and reinstall it.
Ok, time for some pics.
Remember what this looked like before? Here is a reminder. I finished up the crown moulding last night and finished the painting today. It’s not perfect, but then neither am I. The color came out nicely. After we get the shelves and all that, I am going to set up a time for the tile people to come to install the new floor. We have some choices to make tonight.
I am going for the grayish one in the uppermost left. It’s hard to see in this picture. I went down to the tile store in town this afternoon and wanted to take some photos, but of course, the batteries in my camera went dead after two.
There were way too many to choose from. We want a darker floor than the walls. Right now, it seems like you are floating in a sea of “light” when you go in the bathroom. It’s better than the dark though.
The tile store was kind enough to let me take home the sample boards. We will make a choice tonight and I’ll bring them back in the morning.
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Thursday, July 12th, 2007
Laura and I went out to Sam’s Club and Lowes last night to get some stuff. By the way, I think it was “Obesity Wednesday” at Sam’s Club. We really have to get out of that place. I can’t stand looking at those people any more. I try…I really try to be a nice guy, but when I see someone who obviously has some issues load their cart up with soda, cookies and other junk, they are just stupid. Wow…what a rant. Maybe we will try Costco or something.
After we sqeezed through the herd at Sam’s Club and made it through the doors without any potato chip grease on us, we went across the parking lot to Lowes. We really needed to get an area rug for under the dining room table. Every time I pull a chair out, sit on it and slide it back in, I cringe. SCRAAAATCH. I even nailed those plastic sliders under each chair leg and table leg. The problem is…if there is any dirt on the floor, the plastic slider slides the dirt too, for a nice big scratch.
So this is the rug we picked up. I wanted to go cheap…really cheap. I found one for about $29 and received a look of disgust from Laura. She has standards I guess. We looked around a bit and found this nice one for around $100. I think it was the nicest one in the store. It measures 7′x10′.
Well, what do you think? Do you love it? If yes, write a comment. If no, keep your thoughts to yourself. HAHA.
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Friday, April 27th, 2007
This is an old post that I have been meaning to put up for about a year. Since it is raining outside and kind of slow here at work, what the heck.
Back when we first purchased this house, we noticed that the master bedroom was the place the the previous occupants kept their dogs. It stunk and had a carpet in it. I have a real hatred for carpets. The only thing carpets are good for is to have someplace for the dirt to hide. If you are allergic to dust, good luck. Sure, with hardwood, you are vacuuming every day, but what else do you have to do?
We decided to rip up the carpet right after we unpacked. Basically, the whole room was trashed. The walls had little holes in them and the floor was just dirty plywood, or what you would call “subfloor.” These people even used crown moulding as base moulding…real champs. They were also smokers, so the entire house would need painting. Yum! Listen, here is a word of wisdom…if you can’t do it correctly, then please don’t do it. It is a real waste of resources and money for the next guy to have to tear it up and re-do it.
Anyway, since we were on a budget and have pets of our own, we decided to lay down some laminate flooring. I heard the stuff was really tough. A guy that I work with (Kevin) told me about a flooring place in Middletown that had good prices. He was right and I purchased enough Mohawk Laminate Flooring for the first room. We eventually did the whole house, except for the kitchen and bathroom. That’s going to be tile.
To start, you are going to need a few things. You will need a miter saw, a hammer, a circular saw, the laminate floor installation tool (looks like a small flat crowbar) and a bowl with water and a sponge. I really advise that you purchase the installation tool. You won’t think you need it until the very end. If you don’t have it, you will find yourself in Home Depot. It’s only like $13, so just get it.
I purchased the foam that goes under the floor too. The flooring I bought doesn’t require it because it had a thin layer attached, but I read that it takes the imperfections out of the subfloor. I will tell you about the consequences of that later. As you can see from above, it’s fairly simple to lay down. First, you cut your foam to size, if you decide to use it, and staple it to the floor. Then, you start from one corner and start popping the pieces together. When you cut your last piece, take the extra and walk it back to the beginning. That’s your starting piece for the next row…and so on. There will most likely be instructions on the box of flooring.
The flooring that I bought had glue pre-applied to the edges. When attaching one piece to the next, use your sponge to wet the edge, then pop it together. When you are done with the floor, install your base moulding and your good to go.
I think the directions said to wait a day for the floor to dry before putting the furniture back in. I am not sure if I read that part. Either way, the furniture made it back into the room.
Ok, so here is my opinion of laminate flooring, now that I installed about 1,000 square feet of the stuff. It’s ok, if you are on a budget. When you walk on it, due to the foam and it being a “floating” floor, some spots can feel kind of soft. You might like that because it is easy on the feet, but when I walk on it barefoot, it kind of annoys me. I like to walk barefoot on concrete, but that’s me.
I have to say that it looks good, but people will know it’s laminate. The way the world is heading, this may be a trend, so that’s ok. Also, if you scratch it or chip it, I think you may be out of luck. There are fillers and scratch touch up products, but don’t count on sanding the floor down in 15 years to refinish it.
Overall, laminate flooring is a good alternative to carpet. If I had it to do over again…and I will in our next house, I would do Bamboo. Now THAT’S a floor!
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