Butt Joints and Pocket Holes

Maple Dining Room Table - Applying The Finish

2010-07-24T13:16:00.001-07:00

Now that the thing is finally constructed, I cleared out a space in the garage and brought it in. First I attached the top to the stand by screwing through the pocketholes on both short aprons into the breadboard ends. Then I screwed the swivel figure eights to the bottom.

At this point I'm just repeating a cycle of applying coats of wiping varnish and sanding. I'm applying the coats once per day. I think I'll put about 8 coats on the top and maybe 3 everywhere else. Then I'll be done!

Maple Dining Room Table - Attaching the Breadboard Ends

2010-07-24T13:08:00.001-07:00

I used pocket holes on the bottom centers of each end to hold the breadboard ends to the planks. This will allow the planks to expand and contract. Afterwards, I had a few more hours of sanding, on both sides of the top, to get the breadboard ends to the same thickness as the planks. Someday, I'll buy a planer because that was boring work!

Maple Dining Room Table - Glue-up Redux

2010-07-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

While I was dealing with the mis-measured tenons for the short aprons, I neglected the long aprons. The first mistake was that I didn't clamp them. I though I could just pound the joints together and they would hold. Dumb...

The glue dried with gaps, between the apron cheeks and legs, on 3 of the joints.

So I called Brek and told him my glue-up nightmare (described in my previous post too). He convinced me to take it apart and fix it. He said I would feel much better. I hope he was right.

I used a flush saw to cut the tenons to once again separate the long aprons from the legs.

This was a depressing day. Next, I put all four apron ends into my hand-miter saw and trimmed each end about 1/8" to cut the cheeks flush. This will shorten the overall table length by 1/4". I flush sanded the tenon pieces left on the legs with an orbital sander. Then I re-drilled the mortises and re-cut the tenons. After a quick trip to Highland Hardware, I got my first pair of 72" aluminum clamps. Now I'm ready.

So this time, everything went smoothly and I ended up with a nice table stand.

I also cut, drilled, and attached three cross braces for the top. These will use figure-eight screw swivels to hold the top down while allowing for its seasonal expansion and contraction.

Maple Dining Room Table - Glue-up Nightmare

2010-07-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

And so I finally reached the glue-up milestone. All the pieces are cut, sanded, drilled, routed, chamfered, planed, and ready to be assembled. It's hard to believe a dining room table can come from that pile of random boring looking boards.

I moved the table top aside to use the particle board on my workbench as a flat surface. I had rags and a squirt bottle ready to sop up glue. I measured the mortises again and cut the floating tenons. Everything was ready. Glue-ups are always a nightmare for me. I wondered what could go wrong this time.

I had 30 minutes left before I had to leave for my Lasik appointment (I know, cool, right?). I figured 30 minutes was more than enough time, so I started. I glued the eight tenons into the 4 aprons. Then I began connecting the aprons to the legs. After banging with a sledge hammer and tightening with a clamp, in an attempt to close the apron-to-leg joints, it hit me. The mortise measurements were correct...until one side of each leg's apron tenons were inserted. Ahhh! I had somehow overlooked the fact that I had cut the tenons such that each would occupy part of the same space; a HUGE mistake!

As the glue was drying, I franticly retrieved my reciprocating saw, clamped the aprons to a porch post, and proceeded to cut 1/2 inch off each tenon. It was a mess. I was dragging the freshly sanded legs across the concrete and banging it all over the place.

Eventually I reconnected the aprons to the legs, and attempted to scrape out half dried glue from the joints I had neglected for that last 15 minutes. That's when Melissa stepped outside and said it's time to go to your Lasik surgery.

Racking. That's the word going through my mind today. I'll have to discuss this with Brek. Most anything can be fixed. I may need to reinforce two of these joints. Glue-ups. The nightmares of amateur woodworkers.

Maple Dining Room Table - Router Work

2010-07-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

I finally bought a flush cut bit for my router. This is an amazing little bit, I don't know how I ever got anything built without it. I used it for the final cross cuts on the table top, running it along my piece of particle board for the straight edge. Other than some tear-out on the right corner, it worked great.

Next, I switched to a slot bit with a bearing and cut the groove in each of the breadboard ends. And finally, I cut the tongue on each end of the table top. This part sucked because the table top was not perfectly flat. It has slight dips in a couple areas where I sanded a bit more along the joints. That means the tongue ends up with these same dips. I tried to compensate by making sure the widest sections of the tongue would fit tightly into the breadboard end groove but it became such a pain taking apart my jig each time to check, I ended up taking a bit more than I needed off the tongue. Hopefully, my brother's breadboard end technique allows this. I think it does.

Maple Dining Room Table - Drilling Mortises

2010-07-05T05:33:00.001-07:00

While Melissa sanded, I drilled the mortis holes in the legs and aprons using my BeadLock mortis jig system. The holes in the legs were difficult because it was hard to keep track of which sides of the legs needed the holes. Fortunately I pulled it off without mistakes.

Maple Dining Room Table - Working The Top

2010-07-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

After careful jointing of the table top plank edges I was finally ready for the top glue-up. I used some pipe clamps I borrowed from my dad, and some other clamps I borrowed from Lowes (I took them back...they were in perfect condition). Beforehand, I bought a piece of 3/4" particle board; it was the flatest thing I could find. I needed a flat surface for the glue-up. It was nightmarish, per my expectations. In the end, I got a table top.

Next, I used a jigsaw to rough cut the ends to within about a 1/4" of the target final length. Just for fun I took one of the 2"-wide end strips I cut off and bent it with my foot until it broke.

My joints for the table top planks were simple butt joints with glue. I wanted to test the theory that simple glued butt joints were stronger than the wood itself. Sure enough, after several tests, the board always broke at the wood instead of the joint.

The surface will require lots of hand planing and sanding. Melissa offered to help, so I put her to work with the orbital palm sander and some 60 grit. Boring....

This will take a while.

Maple Dining Room Table - Top, Chamfers, Crosscuts

2010-06-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

After noticing one of my wider top panels had cupped, I made another trip to the lumber yard. When I returned, I noticed my newly purchased board came from the same tree as a previous board I had. Cool! I called Brek and asked his opinion on book matching within a table top. He didn't like the idea of two book-matched boards next to a third; said the balance would be off. He suggested ripping the third board and bordering two center book-matched boards. That's what I ended up doing. I think I will appreciate the table so much more if I can always see the book-match and remind myself of my happy accident.

After firming up the table top boards and sides it was time to run them through the jointer. I carefully marked the edges to run each matched edge through the jointer the opposite way. This little trick will ensure matching joints, even if my jointer fence is not perfectly square.

Chamfers - I knew I needed them on this table. People will be moving around chairs and dishes and feet and knees and hands. There would need to be no sharp edges anywhere. So I angled the jointer fence at 45% and ran each edge through twice. I used three passes for each table leg edge to make the chamfers a tad deeper. Deeper leg chamfers will also hopefully deter pets from thinking they can chew a chunk off.

Finally, I screwed my trusty Nobex to the workbench and crosscut the legs and aprons. The Nobex is way more accurate than the table saw. It did suck, making all the cuts in 95 degree Georgia humidy, however.

Maple Dining Room Table - Ripping and Jointing

2010-06-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

The first cuts are the hardest. After the first cuts, you are committed to using the sections of lumber you picked out. I spent several hours examining all my wood before finally making the decisions. I got all the ripping out of the way. I hate ripping.

I found some inexpensive pieces of 3" X 3" hard maple that I decided to use for the legs. Cutting them down to 2" X 2" pieces was a major pain. The Shopsmith couldn't handle it in a single pass so I had to use multiple passes, flipping the pieces over. The saw marks were nasty but the jointer I got for the Shopsmith 2 years ago easily cleaned them up. The before and after picture above shows the jointed version on the left.

Maple Dining Room Table - The Wood

2010-06-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

The table will go into a dark room. The room's walls are made of old heart pine tongue and groove panels, so we didn't want a dark table. I really wanted birch, because I had just fallen in love with a birch salad bowl I turned recently. However, my lumber yard's birch selection didn't include anything thick enough for the table legs.

Soft maple was our next choice. This is my first time using soft maple. I've heard great things about it and love the pieces my brother has made from soft maple. The actual lumber selection was a nightmare, per my expectations. There are hundreds of decisions. In the end, I stayed fairly conservative, selecting uniform colored pieces with an emphasis on straight grain near the edges.

Melissa talked me out of most of the wild pieces we saw. I managed to end up with this one though...

I was going to use it for the breadboard ends or a panel on the top but I chickened out. There was a knot right in the middle that went through and I got worried it would look too wild.

Maple Dining Room Table - The Design

2010-06-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to build a dining room table for the last several years. We finally decided Greta, the nervous furniture chewing dog, had outgrown the chewing furniture stage. I used Google Sketchup to design the table to scale so I could plan out the construction and make a cut list.

The design is simple and modest. The only curve is that of the long aprons. The curve provides a bit of leg room without compromising the integrity of the apron. I'll use breadboard ends modeled after my brother's technique; where the breadboards are attached to the aprons below them (at their centers) and the joined table-top panels can float freely between the breadboards.

The table will comfortably seat four (two on each long side), with the option to expand to 8 (3 on each long side and one at each short side).

We Refinished Our Floors...Twice!

2010-05-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

Our southeast-facing front bay window takes in a lot of direct sunlight. It also gets a lot of abuse from dogs looking out that window to monitor the front yard. About a year ago we noticed the finish was beginning to wear itself off the floor in areas. We also had another room, the study, that had worn patches of finish from the time we bought the house. We hoped Minwax Reviver would be enough but after a couple applications, we decided we would take the plunge and try our hands at refinishing.

We did a bunch of research. My favorite video was this one. We waited for spring because we knew we would have to have windows open because of the fumes and to aid with drying. We picked a weekend, emptied both rooms, I rented an orbital floor sander, and we spent an entire Saturday sanding down both rooms. We used my orbital palm sander for the detailed areas and my 1/4-sheet palm sander for the corners. The reason I rented the orbital floor sander instead of the drum sander was because I wanted to remove as little wood as possible. This is a 1930's house and its floors have already been refinished multiple times. I could tell by removing the HVAC registers.

The next day we vacuumed, wiped the walls down, wiped the floors down with mineral spirits, and began applying the finish. We selected an oil based, clear satin, super fast-drying polyurethane finish for floors. Clear satin to hide any future imperfections.

Shortly after applying the first coat, our air conditioning decided to kick in. Ahhhhh! We both forgot about it. It had been on for weeks but not warm enough to actually turn on...until today of course. It wasn't the air conditioning itself that got us. It was months worth of pet hair that had fallen into the vents, now blowing all over our wet finish.

And with that simple little problem, we had to start over. The hair was everywhere and the only way to remove it was to wait several days, then sand it down again.

I had to go out of town for work so Melissa ended up taking a Friday off work and sanding down both rooms with our orbital palm sander! I don't know how she managed but when I got home Friday night, both rooms were ready to go.

So after turning off the air conditioning, we spent Saturday reapplying three coats of finish and declared it a success. That may be the last time we ever refinish floors.

Learning To Turn Better Bowls

2009-08-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently, making bowls was more than a brief experiment for me. I've been squeezing in lots of time, this summer, practicing with new wood and refining my techniques.

Here is a Red Gum salad bowl I made for Melissa.

Walnut...

I got lucky and found an abnormally large Rose of Sharon log being thrown away.

I used it to make one of my favorite little bowls (below). I turned it green and it has really warped since. I don't mind. I love watching it dry and change shape. The wood is pure white and like plastic after polishing.

Another curb-side find was a Sweet Gum log yielding this...

My Aunt Kim got this Ambrosia Maple bowl as a gift for letting Melissa and I stay in her lake house.

My Mom and Dad got this pretty little natural edge Dogwood Tree bowl.

This Lightning Struck Poplar bowl has neat ribbon figure...

My friends, Tracey and Jeff, took down a Silver Maple and Sweet Gum tree from their yard and donated several logs to my cause. The Silver Maple turned out to be infected with ambrosia beetles and they helped to make the wood much more interesting, though most was too rotten to use. I was able to get a couple bowls from it. This one has gorgeous figure but I don't like the final shape of the bowl.

I like this bowl shape better. There are four beetle holes on the bottom of this bowl. I decided not to fill them in because I think it's neat to remember the beetles. This bowl will have to be used for something other than liquids.

I think the Sweet Gum was my favorite, though. Here is the bowl I gave Tracey as a gift for the wood.

This one went to Michelle, Melissa's sister. It was a gift because she was the first person to ask for a bowl. I really liked this one. It is a perfect little bowl shape.

I picked up a really neat Crab Apple log from Carlton McLendon's...

Much of it was rotten but I still managed to get four bowls from it.

Including my first enclosed form.

I also messed with a Bradford Pear log and got one of my favorite bowls...

Yesterday, I cut up a rotten Dogwood tree log and manged to get a really neat bowl (below). This bowl is heavier than I usually make. I really like the feel of the sturdiness. And man, that Dogwood is gorgeous wood; reds, dark browns, creamy sap wood, a touch of spalting. This may be my new favorite bowl.

Learning Bowl Turning

2009-06-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

At art shows, I always stop at the bowl turners' booths to marvel at their mysterious and beautiful work. I've always wondered how they do it and recently I've taken a plunge into the fabulous world of face plate mounting or end grain turning.

This bowl turning stuff has really started to appeal to me. Or as Melissa puts it, I'm obsessed. After spending 6 months making my walnut coffee table (seen in previous posts), it's refreshing to know I can finish a bowl the same day I start it. Weird. Sure, it's not woodworking by most definitions, but it is working with wood, right? In fact, turning has brought me much closer to wood and I appreciate its beauty, smell, variety, movement, and texture so much more.

Here is my second bowl...made from an unknown blank I found on the clearance shelf at Highland Hardware. Cherry maybe?

Here's another...Maple. Its got some interesting holes in it, probably bored by some insect.

The shavings...you can't beat the feeling of being covered in all those warm wet shavings that fly all over you.

I'm still wasting tons of time experimenting with different styles of grinds on my tools. I have a crumby 6" grinding wheel with vibration problems. I'm also still learning how to use my tools, which tools to use, and which grind to give them.

In addition, I'm still trying to master all the basic stuff like how to safely hold my work, which speeds to use. And since my lathe is my Shopsmith, I'm also learning on a "stick shift"...nothing is rigid or solid. The Shopsmith walks all over the driveway if anything is slightly off balance. Someday I'll buy a real lathe!

Yesterday I made my first bowl good enough to become my personal salad bowl; Tulip Poplar. I put a rim that allows one to hook their thumb on it and tried the get the dimensions perfect for my nightly salads. We'll see how it does. I'm a little concerned I made it too thin for abuse.

I've always thought natural edge bowls (i.e. the bark is still attached to the edge) were impractical. After making one, I've changed my mind. It's way too cool. It allows one to really enjoy a tree long after it's gone and it still can hold stuff just as well. The most thrilling part is that I was able to turn this Oak log (found on the curb a block from my house after a storm):

into this:

Attaching the Coffee Table Doors

2009-03-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind in my posts. I attempted to attach the six coffee table doors two weeks ago and discovered I hadn't allowed enough room for the swing. The doors would open/close but they would catch on the rail above them. This was bad.

I set up the sanding disc with a coarse grit, tilted the Shopsmith table, and sanded the top back edge of the doors. Some of the doors also needed trimming on the bottom because they were catching the bottom rail. All this set me back a couple weeks because I had to refinish all the doors. The good part is, it gave me a chance to sand down the table top a second time and build the finish coats back up to a smooth glassy surface.

After the rain stopped, Melissa and I brought it in and sat it into its new home, in our family room. The final step will be to add a wax polish to the top. I guess I'll wait a couple weeks to make sure the poly has completely dried.

If my construction was done correctly, this table should withstand the seasonal humidity changes and I'll be able to watch the table top expand and pull away from the breadboard edges.

Magnetic Door Catches

2009-03-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still putting coats of finish on the coffee table. I have about one more coat for the doors and most of the table. The table top still needs about 5 more coats. I've been sanding down the top after sets of coats, in an effort to fill the pores and defects with finish. It's nearing a flat top but I think I'm nearing boredom with it so I'm going to end far short of perfection.

Meanwhile, I finally put together the magnetic door catches. They may be cheap, but they're also easy to install and durable. I found a piece of scrap walnut already ripped to match the coffee table rails. So I cross cut 6 pieces on the chop saw. Since there isn't room to get a drill under the bottom shelf, I had to drill and attach the magnetic catches using a straight edge as a guide. The catches have some play that alows for fine adjustment. I can adjust with a stub hand screw driver when I attach the door. I plan to mount the magnetic catch blocks behind the second from bottom rail. I'll use glue and a nail gun. Melissa doesn't like the plastic magnetic catches but they'll be hidden. I don't mind them because I know how difficult other catches are to install.

First Coat of Finish

2009-02-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

Dust-free environment. The instructions always say dust-free environment. Who the hell has these? Not me, obviously.

So instead, I swept out my garage the day before, let the dust settle, then brought my shop vac into the garage and gave the coffee table a good once over. Finally, I wiped it down with one of those special dust collector cloths.

I flipped through my copy of Bob Flexner's "Understanding Wood Finishing" book to see if Bob could talk me out of my standard, Minwax Wipe-On Poly varnish. He almost convinced me to use a two-part epoxy resin finish for the top surface. But a brief chat with my brother convinced me that the epoxy resin probably blocked moisure exchange completly, which meant unless I could coat all surfaces and joints with the stuff, I would have to be concerned with some warping some day. In the end, I picked Wipe-On Poly.

The first coat was a pain, which scares me about the rest of the coats I'll have to do. However, it was nice to see the warming effect of the varnish. I still have to put my first coat on the six doors.

Sanding Before the Finish

2009-02-08T11:41:00.001-08:00

I always think sanding will be a quick task but it never is. I used 60 grit to get rid of saw blade marks and remove remaining sharp edges. Then I hand-sanded the whole thing with 120 grit, and then a third time with 320 grit. I know the 320 is overkill since I plan to use wiping varnish, but I didn't have any paper between 120 and 320 left and I was too lazy to go buy it.

I used blocks of wood to hold the paper for most areas. There are lots of cracks, grooves, and hard to reach places on this table. And once I started using the 320 grit, it revealed all the scratches and blemishes. I tried to back down the grits and polish most of the defects out but after about 6 hours I was sore, bored, and feeling like it was good enough for a weekend warrior, such as myself.

Ebony Plugs Sanded

2009-02-08T05:40:00.000-08:00

After cutting the plugs with a flush saw and a little sanding, I've got my decorative, screw hole patches done. ...I'm not sure I like them. Oh well!

Ebony Plugs

2009-02-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

I wanted to use something fun and interesting for the plugs because I knew it was a good opportunity to use a scrap. I wanted something really dark to contrast with the Walnut. The guys at the lumber yard sold me a small cut from a piece of macassar ebony for about $10. It was a steal considering macassar ebony costs about $75 per board foot, making it one of the more expensive woods one can buy. Apparently a tax recently added to the wood in India, has made this wood extremely expensive. Below is a picture of my piece. It has black and chocolate brown stripes.

I converted the Shopsmith to a drill press and used my plug cutter bit to cut several plugs. I'm sure the scrap will yield plugs for projects to come, as there is much left over.

After using my router to add a chamfer around the top perimeter of the table, I glued and tapped the plugs in with a hammer. Next week, I'll cut them flush and do some sanding. Then it will be time for my least favorite phase...applying finish.

Six Simple Doors

2009-01-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

I finally cut the six doors. These are the doors that will conceal the bottom shelf storage area. They are just solid wood pieces. I decided making six frame and panel doors would drive me nuts (and probably be overkill). Yeah, they look a little plain. But part of my design is to use fancy external hinges to help bump up the cosmetic appeal a little.

I cut each set of three from the same plank so the grain would line up and make a continuous pattern. Those were the last cuts I'll have to make for this project. I almost feel sad.

Attaching the Top

2009-01-25T15:25:00.000-08:00

Drilling pocket holes below the table will not be possible because the second shelf is in the way. I decided, instead, to use counter-sunk screws covered with flush-cut plugs. Each breadboard end is attached to the glued panel top with only two screws, two inches apart, in the center. Anything else would prohibit the top panel movement.

Each breadboard end will have four screws holding it down to the carcase's top rails. This, right here, is the beauty of Brek's table-top design. If these breadboard ends were simply attached to the glued panels, the breadboard ends would be much weaker. Especially with my crumby tongue and groove job. But with Brek's method, they are solid. If someone tries to move the coffee table by lifting up on them, they won't break off (hopefully).

Center Table Top Support

2009-01-19T18:46:00.000-08:00

The ends of the top will be attached via breadboards. The long sides of the top can't really be attached to the carcase due to seasonal wood movement. That would fine until someone tries to lift the table using the top or if warping begins. It would also be nice to have a little support in the center.

I'm using my brother's technique. I made a center brace with a walnut scrap I had left over. I ran it through the jointer to square it up and cut it to length. Then I attached it via pocket holes. I also drilled and added some figure eight screws. These can screw the top down without prohibiting movement.

The trick with be drilling the pilot holes in the underside of the table top. My drill won't fit between the top and the second shelf so I'll have to carefully mark and pre-drill the holes.

Breadboard Ends

2009-01-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

Look around. Most table tops you see today are plywood or laminate. Rarely do you see solid wood tops. Apart from being cheaper, non-solid wood tops are easy to construct because they're stable. You could just screw the top to the carcase and it would be fine.

But solid wood tops are more beautiful and interesting. They also require some fancy planning to last. This is my first attempt at a solid wood top. I decided early on I wanted to use breadboard ends to keep the top panels flat over time, to cover the end grain of the glued-up panels, and to allow the solid wood panels to expand and contract with the seasons.

It seemed the simplest way to attach the breadboards was tongue and groove, one of the few joints I can cut (with my router). It was more difficult than I imagined. The main problem was my table top was not perfectly flat (see previous post). That means, when I ran my router base over the table top, it moved up and down in waves, with the panels. Cutting the tongue involved some frustration and lots of router passes with slight adjustments. In the end, I got something I can deal with.

Coffee Table Top

2009-01-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

I ran the glueable edges of each plank through the jointer, and glued them the same way I glued the second shelf. These pieces turned out to be more warped and uneven than the pieces I selected for the second shelf. That was the trade-off for clean looking, prettier pieces.

This time, instead of sanding the hell out of it, I decided to get out my hand plane. Of course, this also meant I had to get out the Japanese water stones my brother had given me; the water stones I pretty much destroyed by not understanding how to use. I read up on sharpening planer blades and got the best edge I could get with the stones.

I don't really understand hand planing, but after playing around with the settings on the plane, I found myself kind of liking it. Cutting the wood with a sharp blade is much more gratifying than scratching the hell out of it with a power sander. Each smooth pass with the hand plane leaves a beautiful glass-like surface trail. Now I understand why my brother said he never uses sand paper.

I spent the day rotating between planing and sharpening. In the end, I think I got a suitable top for my coffee table. Next, I'll have to cut the tongues and grooves to attach the glued planks to the breadboard ends.

Second Shelf Attachment

2009-01-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, the second shelf appears to be attached just fine, resting on two rails and a tongue and groove. However, the shelf was a tad warped and needed to be pulled down in the center of its long spans. Also the tongues and center could use extra support.

I glued two new side rails under the tongues for support, being careful not to glue the shelf, itself, because it needed freedom to expand/contract. The center support would be tricky because I can't use glue and I need to pull the shelf centers down without prohibiting movement. I decided to use figure eight screw mounts. A forester bit made a quick slot for the figure eight...

...which must be countersunk below the bottom of the shelf.

Using pocket holes to attach the center rail, the figure eight screw mechinisms allowed me to pull the warpped areas down onto their supporting long rails, without prohibitting movement. We'll see!

Bottom Shelf

2009-01-03T13:54:00.001-08:00

The bottom shelf will be hidden by the cabinet doors so it was a good place to save time and money. I went to Lowes and fished through all the 2' by 4' 1/2" pieces of birch plywood until I found the prettiest piece.

Then I glued new rails on the inside of the walnut rails to support the bottom shelf, using the brad nailer instead of clamping. These new rails are lower than the walnut rails, so the plywood top will be flush with the walnut rail tops.

Next, I flipped the carcase on its side and drilled pocket holes to attached the bottom shelf with. Then I cut the plywood with my circular saw, applied some glue, and screwed it down from the bottom.

All came out well except the gap between the plywood bottom shelf and the bottom walnut rails. I knew about this before attaching the plywood shelf but there was nothing I could do.

The 2' plywood was about 1/8" shy of spanning the rails, but I was not about to buy a full 4' by 8' sheet just for the 1/8". My plan is to fill the gap (1/16" on each side) with homemade wood filler.

Creative Clamping

2009-01-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Do you think all those clamps in the previous post's picture are mine? Ha! Yeah, right. Those ridiculous Bessy clamps are $50 a piece.

My longest clamps are 30"; the inexpensive, but adequate orange Jorgensen clamps. For the final carcase coffee table glue-up I needed at least six clamps that could clamp 45" each. My plan was to buy a bunch of 50" Bessy clamps from Lowes and return them afterwards. Come on, I spend so much money at Lowes, it's the least they can do. Besides, they'll be good as new after one use.

Unfortunatly, Lowes only had two in stock. Thus, I had to get creative for the other four joints. I just linked my shorter clamps together. It worked great. And my two Bessy clamps are happily back on the shelf at Lowes.

The Big Glue-Up!

2009-01-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

After talking to my brother, Brek, at our Christmas visit, I decided to shorten the six long rails. In theory, this would eliminate the gap between the second shelf and its slotted rail, as described in my previous post. Before doing so, I slapped the slot bit on my router and tried to clean up the long tongue. Apparently, my homemade router guide has become unreliable and warped because groves above/below the long tongue got cut too deep. Of course, I didn't discover this until after my final glue-up, when it was too late to fix it. Oh well. After all that work, I've got the damn grove back (gap between the second shelf and its slotted rail).

Okay, so time for the big glue-up. I hate this part. I stood staring at all the pieces, trying to figure out how I could pull it off by myself. Six rails with twelve mortises and the second shelf would all have to be inserted simultaneously. That would almost be possible, if it weren't for the glue. All these pieces must be put together before the glue dries. Impossible. At least for me. I called for help. Melissa assisted with glue spreading and inserting floating tenons. We put one side of the carcase on its side, so the long rails and second shelf could rest on one side vertically. After several panic attics, we got through it.

Wondering About the Shelf Gaps

2008-12-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

The next step is either to glue the full carcase or shorten the long apron pieces to eliminate the shelf gap. I'm concerned about a gap between the shelf and the legs/side rails. So is Melissa. She thinks they will fill with crumbs and dog hair. The gaps were not intentional, but they probably lend themselves to better wood movement.

So I dry fit the shelf between the sides and attempted to set the length between the sides to be what it would actually be. My main purpose here was to see if the gaps on either side of the shelf are acceptable, or if I should shorten my long aprons to eliminate the shelf gaps.

I'll wait until after next weekend because I'll see my brother, Brek. I'll get his opinion before moving forward.

Glueing-Up The Sides

2008-12-21T14:32:00.001-08:00

After some light sanding, I went ahead and glued-up the left side. I used Titebond III glue for the first time. Apparently, it has a longer workable time before it dries; perfect for these carcase glue-ups. The pieces went together well.

So I glued-up the right side as well.

To Chamfer or Not to Chamfer

2008-12-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

I've never cut chamfers before. Instead, I usually sand the hell out of edges to soften them. But I've always like the modest chamfers on my brother's furniture. While reading the manual for my new Shopsmith jointer, I discovered I can set the jointer fence at 45 degrees and cut chamfers.

Seemed easy enough, so I decided to give it a try. I tried to keep the chamfers on most of the pieces less than 1/16". However, on the legs, I cut them a little deeper. I'm hoping it will give it a nice subtle elegance.

Finishing the First Shelf

2008-12-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

After cutting the ends off with my circular saw, I used my orbital sander, with some 60 grit, to get the planks flat and even. I used my router to make a tongue on both ends. I'll have to remove about two inches of the tongue on all four corners so the shelf will fit within the legs. I know, it's weird but that's what I came up with.

I cut slots on the inside of these apron pieces to hold the shelf top in place. I'm already starting to think this may not work. Stuff is never going to fit right.

Clamping the First Shelf

2008-12-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

I wanted to join the panels for the coffee table shelf and glue/clamp them together first for two reasons. One, it needs to be completed before I glue-up the carcase because it floats between the sides. Two, I wanted to practice before I tackle the coffee table top. The top has to look good! The shelf is fairly hidden so it doesn't really matter if I screw it up.

I had a problem finding a flat surface for the glue-up/clamping. Melissa suggested our dining room table. I took her up on her offer. The water jug and car battery (in the trash bag) are used as weight to hold the shelf slats down as the glue dries; two of the slats would not lay completly flat. I put down paper on the bottom of the slats as a glue barrier from the table. I know I can always sand off the glue that drips out and any paper stuck to it.

Making the Side Panels

2008-12-16T04:56:00.001-08:00

Two sides will be frame and panel. I cut the tongues on the panels with my router. The router slots in the legs were too close to the mortise holes for the top and bottom frame pieces so I had to sand the tongue corners away. The disc sander did this in seconds. Love it!

The New Jointer!

2008-12-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Each new project deserves a new tool. This time, I finally added a jointer to my collection. I bought an old ShopSmith jointer off ebay. Utilizing my existing ShopSmith motor alowed me to get a pretty solid jointer, at about 25% the cost of new stand alone jointers. Plus it will save space this way.

I spent most of the day flipping through the manual, re-aligning all the blades, the fence, and several other pieces. Once it was all ready to go, I turned it on and passed a practice board through. The cuts were impecable. I grabbed another scrap board and passed it through. This one made a weird sound. When I completed the pass I took a look at the edge and discovered a huge staple cut in half. Dumb! I had paid attention to every operational and safety proceedure in the manual. But somehow I forgot to check the board edge for foreign objects. And just like that, I had ruined my perfect blades. Unbelievable.

Fortunatly, I was able to move the fence and use the other end of the blades becaue I only needed to edge join. Boy, did I feel stupid.

Making Panel Slots with Router

2008-12-13T20:17:00.000-08:00

Each coffee table side will have a solid wood panel in a frame. I used the router to slot out the frame in the apron and legs. The slots in the legs were scary to cut because they were so close to the mortises. I also used the router to make the tongues on the two side panels.

I love the piles of router shavings and nothing beats the smell. Wonderful!

Careful Mortise Measurements

2008-12-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

The mortises on the legs are trickier to cut (drill) than those on the apron pieces. But somehow I managed to get through them. I'm sure there is a mistake that just hasn't surfaced yet. In the end, I had to measure and drill out 48 different mortises...ridiculous!

Mortise and Tenon Depth Oversight

2008-12-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

Most of my coffee table joinery will be floating mortise and tenons. But I'll cheat and make them using the BeadLOCK system. Today I made the easy mortises; on the apron pieces.

I discovered an oversight in my design. I had the aprons too close to the same corner of each leg. I had not accounted for the depth of each tenon. The only fix I could think of was to make my tenons shallower and move my front and rear aprons further from the corner. This little oversight may mean I don't have enough wood for the shelf. Right now, I'm too lazy to come up with a solution. Considering I don't really have a choice, I'll deal with it later. Worse case, I buy another board. More likely I'll just come up with another design for the shelf. Darn.

Examining the Grain

2008-12-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

After picking out wood at the lumber yard based on how clean and straight it was, and cutting the pieces to maximize my purchase, there is still a challenging and important decision left to make. Now that I'm left with the pieces I cut out, I have to decide where to use them, which side to show to the humans who enjoy it, and how each piece will play nicely with each other piece.

Each piece has four choices by itself; two sides and two orientations. These four choices compound as I match each piece with each other piece. It all comes down to the grain. A woodworker with more experience can make these decisions better and with more criteria. I have a few basic things I look for.

I want my straight and tightest grained pieces used in areas I can't tolerate warping.

But the cosmetics are sometimes tougher. I want the curves of the grain to frame certain areas of the coffee table. I want the curves to help circle the outside of it, helping us look toward the center. This will have a large effect on how the finished table looks. The pieces of wood should help trick the eyes into thinking they fit together nicely.

Whatever choices I make now, I'll be stuck looking at for the rest of my life.

The Joys of Disc Sanding

2008-12-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Melissa got me a new 12" steel sanding disc for my Shopsmith. It was to replace the disc I bent last year during a screw up.

Man, what a great tool. I used a fence and the quill feed to duplicate exact lengths for all my apron pieces. If one piece is off it could make the whole glue-up a real nightmare.
The second thing I used the disc sander for was to remove all the saw blade marks from my ripping. I mounted the fence at a slight angle and passed the boards through so they would meet the sanding disc on its down turn. Two passes and no one would ever know how dull my rip blade is!

Wood

2008-11-29T15:28:00.001-08:00

Melissa wanted dark wood to contrast with the couch. That means, either buy expensive wood or stain cheap wood. I hate stain, so I guess it's expensive wood. I went with walnut, which is beautiful IMHO and it's domestic so it's a little cheaper than most of the exotics (plus, it smells nice when you work with it).

The coffee table legs will come from these two pieces.

The wood for the legs was easy to pick out. The rest was horrible. I love lumber yards and I hate them. I love them because of all the beautiful wood which says "take me home and build something wonderful with me!". I hate them because it's so stressful trying to determine exactly how much wood to buy and which pieces to choose. You have to have a solid plan, you have to look for twisting, cupping, cracks, knots, grain pattern, colors, interesting markings, etc.

After picking through every piece of walnut, I found the best ones and hoped I had just enough. Walnut is not the kind of wood you want to buy too much of ($!). I felt good when one of the guys working there said, "Oh, you found it, I remember that piece when I put it out". It was not easy. Apparently, large clean pieces of walnut are not that easy to come by.

When I began cutting my pieces and making hard and fast decisions about which piece to use where, I realized there was less usable wood than I had planned for. But I was so close!!

After playing around with my plans, I determined if I shortened the depth of the coffee table by 2 inches and shortened six apron pieces by 1/8 inch, I could just make it. Yikes, I hope I don't mess any pieces up. If so, I'll be back at the lumber yard.

Here are my pieces after general ripping and cutting.

Coffee Table - The Design

2008-11-29T15:17:00.000-08:00

Now that we have our new couch,

Melissa has been threatening to buy a coffee table. I, of course, insist that I can make one better and cheaper than anything she could find. So she showed me some pictures, we discussed, customizations, materials, dimensions, and now it's time to get started.

I used Google SketchUp to design it because 2D models just won't cut it. Here is what I came up with.

The top surface is based on an awesome dining room table my brother, Brek, built. His design is ingenious. The breadboard ends are actually attached to the legs. This allows the joined panels, between the breadboards, to expand/contract freely without an over-engineered way of attaching them.

The second shelf was trickier but I think I came up with something that will also allow for seasonal changes. The bottom storage area is an idea Melissa spotted in a picture. Instead of cabinet doors, or drawers, that would need a wide swing, I'll use doors with hinges on the bottom. This way, if the user is perched between the couch and the coffee table, they will still be able to open the coffee table doors and have full access to the storage space. I think this is the most practical way to conceal storage on a coffee table, which will obviously be right next to a couch.

Pepper Grinder Completion

2008-11-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've been lazy with my posts to this blog. Yes, I finally completed the second pepper grinder. Here is a picture of main body, after sanding, on the lathe.

Here is the head. This is the part you twist to grind the pepper. You can see the little tiny piece of wood still attached to the top of the head. The trick is to get this as tiny as possible without breaking it. Then you just pop it off and sand down the area by hand.

The final step is to epoxy the grinder mechanism into the body and head.

Does it work. Yes, it works great. It has room for improvement though. I'm going to put the lathe projects on hold for a bit and start working on the next project, the coffee table. See next post.

Pepper Grinder Attempt #2 - Rounding the Block

2008-09-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

The first step of any spindle woodturning project is to round the block. I started with a 3" x 3" x 12" block of Brazilian Rosewood.

To make the initial rounding easier, I used the Shopsmith's tablesaw to cut the corners off.

Next, I converted the Shopsmith to the lathe and rounded the block to a cylinder. This is a fun step. Wood shavings fly everywhere and you feel like you're getting somewhere. If the roughing gouge catches, no big deal, you'll have enough wood to correct it later.

I also used the parting tool to separate the grinder head from the body. These would later be cut completly apart to become two pieces.

After the previous, failed grinder attempt, I did learn an important lesson, however. It's important to get a consistant diameter across the entire cylinder. If not, when the block is clamped in place for boring, the holes will be crooked. More on this later. I used calipers to check the diameter.

Learning the Lathe

2008-09-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

When my brother, Brek, gave me the Shopsmith last year, he also gave me all the lathe accesories it came with. I'm not sure what got me going but sometime recently, I realized it may be practical to make gifts for people with the lathe.

My friend, Aaron, recently invited Melissa and I to his wedding and I thought...this would be the perfect time to figure out how to use the lathe. I decided every newly married couple could use a pepper grinder. After some research, I ordered a crush/grinder mechanism and some forestner drill bits and signed up for the begining turning class at Highland Hardware. My instructor informed us that woodturing tools can lose their edge after about 3 seconds and stressed the importantance of sharpening. Shortly thereafter, I bought a grinder and built a woodturning tool sharpening jig.

The first attempt did not work. I ended up burning the wood because I pushed the drive center and cup center together too tightly. The challenge on these pepper mill projects is that you have to hold the center of both ends of the grinder body, and the grinder body has holes dilled out of the center of each side. So I tried turning little stopper-like pieces to shove into the drilled grinder body holes. Since my stopper pieces, alone, did not provide enough friction to spin the grinder body, I compensated by smashing the two centers together. It worked great until my soap on my cup center wore away and the wood started burning. And then the stopper started rotating inside the grinder body. Soon after I saw smoke and smelled the terrible burning that would later kick of a chain of other events making it worse.

Later I went online and ordered something called a "live center", which replaces the fixed cup center with one that spins on ball bearings. Problem solved! I don't understand why live centers are not standard on these Shopsmiths.

Lila Mae is Back

2008-08-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Last year Lila Mae, our 13-foot 1969 Boston Whaler, started dieing on us. Last week we got it out of the garage, hooked up the ear muffs to the hose, and started her up. She started, but I noticed the pee hole (or telltale) was not spitting water. Yikes. After the first bit of spoke came out of the motor we turned it off.

So today I changed the lower unit gear lube then took the little water intake filter off and poked around with a screw driver looking for debris. I also shoved a paper clip into the pee hole, as well as spraying water in the pee hole and flush intake.

All the messing around must have dislodged something because when Melissa cranked her up, she started peeing again! Woot! Looks like Lila Mae will be taking us out on the water next week.

Bathroom Rennovation Complete! (Almost)

2008-08-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we had 9 guests spend the night (Melissa's family), passing through to Florida. The bathroom was ready for its first customers and appeared to function properly! Here are some photos of what it currently looks like.

The truth is, we're not quite done. I still have to build my teak shower bench and shelf. We also need to hang the wrought iron Medusa head we bought on our recent visit up to Toledo, Ohio. It was too awkward to bring on our return flight so my parents will drive it down when they visit in October.

But other than that, we are done. And we love taking showers, craps, and washing our hands downstairs!

Polyurythane = Non-Sticky Shelves

2008-07-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed shelves with latex paint tend to stick to objects placed on them? I used my left over Minwax Wipe-On Poly on all the shelves in the bathroom for extra protection against wet stuff and to remove the latex sticky factor.

Stoop Repair

2008-07-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

During the bathroom renovation we probably neglected the rest of the house. But the kitchen door stoop could not wait any longer. The paint had peeled away in places and I could see cracks in the wood that were taking water. It was mushy too. So rather than just repainting, I decided to scrape it and remove the rotten wood.

I wish I could have replaced the whole board but it appeared to go under the entire door jamb and would probably affect our new kitchen tile. Forget that. When I removed enough wood to see under it, I found a nest of sweet ants that were a little surprised. After evicting them I coated everything left with rotten wood hardener. Several days later I found some scraps of mahagony (left over from vanity project) that fit perfectly. I screwed and liquid nailed the scraps in place.

Finally, I covered them with Bondo, primed a few coats, painted a few coats, and caulked. Someday, I would love to add a little roof over this door to deflect the rain. But until then, this should hold.

Shower Valve Roughed Too Far Forward!

2008-07-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

Now that all the painting and caulking is done, it was finally time to attach the shower trim plate and hot/cold lever. The wall trim plate attached fine but the lever was about an inch out away from the trim plate. After a deep breath and closer examination, I concluded that my plumber had roughed in the valve too far forward. All I could think about was what a huge pain in the ass it was going to be to rip the finished wall off to move the valve.

Clinging to the notion that everything has a workaround, I googled the problem and found someone else with the same exact situation. They even had a Moen valve and handle. In their case the plumber was also responsible for the finished wall, which is even more embarrassing. In my case, I had stuck with my detailed plans for finishing the wall so I am still blaming my plumber. Apparently, the Moen valve installation instructions must confuse plumbers. Either that or plumbers are too cocky to use the instructions. I assume it is the later.

Anyway, the other couple had posted their problem on the Terry Love plumbing forum and managed to solve it by using Moen's valve stop extension piece. The extension is actually provided for valves that are set back too far into the wall, but I guess it can also be used for the opposite. And despite the fact that Moen says to correct the valve in-wall depth instead, several Terry Love moderators seemed to think correcting the problem by using the extension was acceptable. In fact, some argue that the rough-in is still technically accurate because the trim plate fits.

Since bringing my plumber back was about the last thing in the world I wanted to do, I studied the valve and lever parts to determine if said workaround was sound. I came up with a few modifications to help improve it. Since two screws would now be exposed, I added rubber washers between the screws and the trim plate. Then I filled the extension with plumber's putty in case water dripped into it (to prevent it from flowing into the valve from the lever). Finally, despite a rubber gasket where the extension passes through the trim, I had Melissa seal it with black caulk. The caulk looks a little out of place but I prefer to error on the side of function over style.

Well, it looks a little weird but the damn thing seems to work and as far as I can tell, it should be a suitable workaround. In the end, I'm disappointed and I can't help hearing the phrase, "If you want it done right, do it yourself". Next time, I'll rough in the plumbing myself!

Roll-Away Dumpster and Old Washer Removal

2008-07-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

Or...saying goodbye to our old bathroom for good!

We've had this pile,

the guts of the bathroom we removed, sitting in our driveway since December. I guess my plan to slowly dispose of the pile, piece by piece, via our weekly trash pick-up, was not a success. So Melissa put her foot down and rented a roll-away dumpster.

With the dumpster sitting in our driveway, we also decided it would be a good time to get rid of the old washing machine sitting in our basement. It came with the house and when we replaced it, the Sears delivery guys acted like there was no way they were going to get the thing up, out of our basement. It weighed a lot. So at the time, I said "just leave it in the basement. Some day I'll take it apart and move it upstairs in pieces. " Some day was this weekend...and it sucked. I had to cut through a one inch thick solid steele rod with a hacksaw because we couldn't get the solid metal spinning thingy detached from the base. I'm glad it's over.

Water Proof Window Trim

2008-07-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

We had a rough time trying to figure out how to frame our glass block window to have a water tight seal. It wasn't set back far enough to frame it with tiles set back into the wall. Yet, it was set back too far to have a huge grout line. We finally decided to use rot free vinyl exterior PVC molding. I attached it with some kind of outdoor caulk adhesive. After it dried, Melissa applied grout colored caulk between the trim and the tile. Then she applied white caulk between the trim and the glass.

Threshold, Toilet Paper Holder, Shower Head

2008-07-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Now we're getting down to the easy cosmetic stuff. Mom and Dad bought us the toilet paper holder for Christmas.

They also got us the Shower head. This was scary to attach because I had to attach the pipe feeding the shower head. If the pipe leaks where it connects to the elbow in the wall, it will be difficult to detect. The other complication is that the thing basically screws on. Sounds easy, right? Well, it has to screw on such that it aims down on the final tightening. This proved very tricky so I wrapped the threads about 6 times with thread tape and applied a little rector seal for some extra piece of mind. I have a plan to check for leaks from a small access point behind this wall...

This is the fourth threshold I've added in this house and each gets easier. I buy the oak threshold from the flooring section at Lowes, router out any necessary areas on the bottom, cut to length, apply stain and polyurethane to match the adjacent oak floor and countersink four screws. This one is rock solid and except for all the dog hair in this photo, looks fairly good IMHO.

Vanity...Finally

2008-07-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

Seven months after building the vanity, I am finally able to put the porcelain top on it, connect the plumbing, and put the doors on. The porcelain top mounts onto the wall. It was tricky working from inside the little vanity to tighten the mounts but somehow it worked. I like it.

P-Trap Trouble

2008-06-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a problem I predicted would happen. To prevent it, I installed the faucet onto the vanity top, mounted the vanity top on the vanity, told the plumber the plans for the finished floor height, and told her to measure off the vanity to determine where to rough in the vanity drain discharge. I warned her that the vanity had a shelf that would be below the plumbing that would have to be considered.

Even with the above precautions, she roughed in the discharge too low. So low that there was not enough room for a proper P-trap below my sink. Grrrrrrrrr.

After switching from my 1.5" plastic P-Trap to a 1.25" chrome P-trap I gained a 1/4" but it was not enough. So I had to spend all morning with a chisel and hammer, cutting out a chunk of the shelf for the low side of the P-Trap to sit in. It was a depressing task considering I had build the vanity myself.

I did my best to carve out my hole without going all the way through the shelf because I had a drawer below it. After getting as low as I could, the pipes still connected at a slight angle that caused the gasket to leak. After 2 trips to Ace Hardware and 2 trips to Lowes, I still could not find a gasket big enough to fix my leak. I ended up buying a piece of rubber and making my own gasket with scissors and a knife. So far...no leaks. But I'm keeping an eye on it.

The Lights

2008-06-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

Installing light fixtures must be one of the most satisfying parts of any renovation. After viewing the bathroom via the harsh florecent work light for months, it is nice to see the bathroom under the actual light it will have.

Attaching the fixtures is a piece of cake but I still have some gripes. I have yet to come across a company that accounts for "old work" electrical junction boxes. This is what us folks changing the location of the light fixtures have to replace the original boxes with. The "old work" boxes have extra stuff that usually happens to be in the way of where screws need to go to attach the new fixture. So once again, I found myself having to custom cut the screws with a hack saw...very anoying, especially since all they had to do was give me a few smaller screw sizes. Cheap bastards.

Okay, another gripe. This particular lighting company provides wire nuts that are way to large to fit through the mounting plate slots on the mounting plate they provide. This means, if you attempt to use the wire nuts they provide, you can't actually attach the light against the wall because the wire nuts will not fit (i.e., they are so big the light will stick out from the wall and the wire nuts would be visible). Are these people morons? It is easy to fix by just using your own, smaller wire nuts or cutting a hole in their metal mouting plate but the oversight is nearly impossible to catch until you've gone through the trouble of wiring the fixture and attempting to push it into place over the junction box.

One final thought on these lights. We had a hard time finding wrought-iron-style lighting fixtures so we went with these. Upon buying them, it appeared possible to mount them flipped up or down. Unfortunatly, the glass lamp shades are actually only designed to aim the light up. This is stupid because they are marketed as bathroom vanity lights. They look pretty in the picture but they actually shine more light on the ceiling than on your face (as you look in the mirror). Dumb. Another case of style over function, as is often found with home fixtures. Maybe someday we'll replace them.

The Toilet!

2008-06-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

It's a wonderful thing! To install a toilet. So satisfying.

It was last December that we ripped out the old one to begin tearing out the concrete floor. This morning I used our newly installed Toto Drake 1.26 gallon E-Max flusher for the first time. It was wonderful. However, while I was using it Melissa was quick to note that I need to bring the bathroom door in to put back on its hinges.

When we rennovated our upstairs bathroom two years ago, I installed a Kohler toilet because it matched the Kohler style series we had picked out (i.e., sinks, towel bars, etc.). I remember the Kohlet toilet having poor instructions, coming with parts that were from the wrong toilet, and having manufacturing defects that caused major leaks. This time I did due diligence and picked out the Toto Drake, which has outstanding reviews all over the web. It's made here in Georgia but not sold by the big box stores. It was a joy to install. The instructions were detailed and the design was well thought out. All the pieces fit right and nothing leaked...at least so far.

This morning's field flush successfully cleaned out the bowl with 1.26 gallons and quietly refilled in seconds. I added the easy-close seat/lid, which seems to be the current trend. If you drop the seat or lid from the open position it catches and gently closes. Fun!

Note: I choose not to put a bead of plumber's putty around the underside of the toilet platform as suggested by most toilet installation instructions. I'm following the logic that if the wax seal fails I want to see the leak on my bathroom floor imediatly rather than having it contained within the plumber's putty (or calk as some poeple use) seal under the toilet and forced to go into nasty places.

Toilet Flange

2008-06-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

I cut the PVC pipe for the toilet discharge with a flush saw so I could mount the closet flange onto the tile. It seems most builders say this is the preferred method (some say the top of the flange should be flush with the top of the tile). It's ridiculous there are different opinions on this, such an important part of every bathroom.

After destroying several cheap Kobalt brand glass/ceramic tile cutting drill bits from Lowes, I bought one from ACE hardware that actually worked. After about an hour of drilling I finally got six holes through the porcelain tile. I surrounded each hole with plumbers putty and filled it with water to cool the drill bit. Sometimes the water boiled from the heat. That porcelain is tough stuff! I drilled 1/4" holes so the screws would clear them and pull tight against the wood. I used the purple PVC primer and PVC paste to attach my metal ring flange and screwed it securely to the floor. And now I've got a rock solid attachment point for my toilet.

Compression Fittings and Flanges

2008-06-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

I added a compression fitting to the roughed in copper toilet supply line. The usual drama occurred when I began cutting through the copper pipe with my hack saw. Even though I turned off the main water line and opened the kitchen sink facet, water sprayed out onto the bathroom floor. I yelled for Melissa to turn on an outside hose and that seemed to do the trick.

Before the compression fitting goes on, you have to put on the flange (the little decorative skirt thing between the tile and the fitting valve). I think they're called escutcheons too. I bought a pretty chrome deep flange made by Keeney & Duracraft Plastics from Lowes. The sealed package said 5/8" OD 1/2" copper pipe but the flange hole was about 1/2". After banging a scrap of copper pipe through the flange with a hammer and using tin snips to force the hole open, I got it to fit. But it looked like crap as a result of the trauma. This was more or less to prove to myself that Keeney had given me the wrong product (or Lowes somehow messed it up).

So I used another white plastic 5/8" OD 1/2" copper pipe flange I had for the sink. It was correctly labeled and fit! The compression fitting went on fine, so I shut its valve off and turned on the main water. I yelled up to Melissa "is it leaking?". She yelled back "Yes!". I yelled back "You've got to be kidding!!!". She yelled back "Maybe it's not leaking, I think it was just a shadow".

Trim

2008-06-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

The base molding was easy. I used the coping saw method for the inside corners and the wood putty method for the outside corners (joke). Of course all the walls were far from square. With 5 inside corners and 2 outside corners, there were lots of cuts. I added shoe molding to the base molding to match the style of the house. This was even easier. The nail gun is a life saver with trim.

Okay, and then comes the crown molding....Hate it! This was a real nightmare but we had to do it because the shower tile didn't terminate against the ceiling very gracefully. Crown molding would be the only way to fix this. Each cut felt like a shot in the dark...like I had a 50/50 chance of doing it right. I built a little jig on my miter saw to get the angles right but not only did I have to deal with non-square walls...the ceiling sags in the middle and is way uneven.

Wood putty and caulk. That is so much easier than trying to custom rip each piece of molding to follow the contours of the ceiling and walls.

A few coats of paint later and we've got decent looking molding!

Priming and Painting

2008-06-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

Painting sucks. It takes so many steps and can look like crap when done poorly. Fortunatly, Melissa doesn't mind doing it and she does a good job.

First she taped builders paper over all the shower and floor tile. Then she painted on two coats of Zinsser primer on the walls and ceiling. Then she painted the ceiling with ceiling paint and taped around the chair rail shelf and shelves above the vanity. After this, she painted the drywall above the chair rail shelf and the tongue and groove below it.

After examining countless paint chips, we settled on two greenish grayish colors, one slightly darker than the other (for the tongue and groove planks). Unfortunately, once on the walls, the two colors look nearly identical. Oh well.

Finally, Melissa switched the tape around and painted the chair rail shelf, shelves above the vanity, and the door casing molding.

Upon removing the tape, some of the paint came away...yikes. This will be touched up.

She's done for now. But she'll have to tape and paint again after I hang the crown molding, base molding, corner molding, and door (which I had to remove so I could cut the bottom off...it didn't fit with the new tiled floor height).

Shelves and Durham's Water Putty

2008-06-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend I finish the last of the shelves; a stack of four more. I sanded all the wood and filled all the nail holes with Durham's Water Putty. Durham's was great. It smelled nice, very doughy and was a joy to work with. This week I'll sand down the parts I puttied over and Melissa should be ready to start priming by Saturday.

Grout!

2008-05-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

Melissa read up on how to grout and spent most of the day grouting the shower. I worked on building the chair rail shelf and listened to Melissa grunt and groan.

Later, I joined in and we finished most of the shower (didn't have time to do the floor or curb).

The next day Melissa mixed up unsanded grout, which we needed to use for the floor because the tiles have less than 1/8" gaps between them. After the floor, I joined in and we grouted the curb and the bathroom floor. Several days later, I applied a first coat of grout sealer and wiped it down. Finally, the next day I applied a second coat of grout sealer and wiped it down. Whew! That's it for the tile!

In conclusion, tiling is not a weekend project. It has many different tasks that all need ample uninterupted drying time before moving on to the next task. That is, if you want it done right.

Tiling the Floor

2008-05-18T16:34:00.000-07:00

Once the holes were cut for the toilet discharge and intake, the rest was very easy. Since we will be adding base board, the accuracy of the cuts was not important. This made the measuring and cutting go quicker and I could keep up with Melssa's tile laying. Somehow, we ended up fairly square with the tiles. I was quite surprised.

I also cut an oak threshold to fit and used it to determine where the tile in the doorway should terminate. This turned out to be much easier than my usual technique of finishing a job and then thinking, oh, how am I going to transition to the other floor?

Planning for the Floor Tile

2008-05-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

After staring at the floor for hours we finally came up with a plan and drew some guide lines to help us. Tile should look good when one enters the room but we thought it should also look good in the space between the toilet and vanity. This would be the longest space. To keep it from looking too long and narrow and to hide our unsquare walls, we decided to use the brickwork pattern we used on the shower walls.

After lots of Google image searches for pictures of brickwork tile floors, I realized nobody seems to be doing this. Oh, well, we think it will look more interesting...

Bathroom Floor Backerboard

2008-05-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

Finally, something went smoothly!

Going through the trouble of laying two sheets of plywood for the subfloor made us comfortable laying 1/4" backerboard. Despite my hatred of the 1/2" Hardibacker, I decided to give the 1/4" stuff a try. It was sooooo much easier to work with. Lightweight and easy to score and break on a straight edge. After getting the toilet discharge and water intake holes cut in the proper place, the rest was easy.

Melissa mixed up the dryset thinset (I think that's what it's called), spread it on the subfloor, and I layed each cut backerboard in place, leaving 1/8" gaps around edges. The Hardibacker screws were available with square head drivers and they went in like dreams. No stripping like the Philips head wall screws Lowes carried. Now it's ready for some tile!

Then we can finally tile the shower curb. Despite the fact that every DIY site fails to say so, logically, it seems better to do the bathroom floor before the shower curb so water running down the curb will land of the floor tile rather than a grout line or silicone bead.

Tiling the Shower Floor

2008-05-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

We finally got the shower floor tiles and started laying them. It was not as easy as I hoped. Once down, we realized the drain strainer had been set too low. I guess we didn't expect the thinset to raise the tiles so much.

We decided to fix this by removing the tiles surrounding the strainer and digging out the top layer deck mud a little. This will make the slope around the drain a little steeper than the rest of the floor but I'm hoping it will also be more comfortable to stand on with bare feet. Less chance to stub your toe or kick a tile loose!

Chair Rail Shelf

2008-05-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

I added the chair rail shelf to one side of the bathroom. This was my idea to transition from the tongue and groove planks to the uneven plaster/drywall combo on the top half of the walls. It worked pretty well. I had to cut the back of each horizontal shelf to match the bulges in the wall but I can't imagine any better way of making this transition and hiding the wall imperfections.

I think the shelf will look nice when it's painted to match the trim and the tongue and groove planks are painted. We'll see...

Tiling the Shower Walls

2008-05-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

While Melissa mixed up the thinset outside, I attached a board to one of the shower walls. The board would be used to rest what would become the second row from the bottom of tile. We decided to start with the second row for several reasons. 1.) We want to install the shower floor tile below the wall tile so water flows down to hit the floor tile. 2.) The board could not be screwed lower because it would puncture the shower pan liner. 2.) Part of the lower row will have to be cut to accomodate our top-layer deck mud slope and because we don't know the exact height of the finished floor tile. Yes, these things take planning!

Melissa applied the thinset to the wall and began setting tiles as I ran in and out cutting tiles on the $88 tile saw we bought from Lowes. There were a lot of tiles to cut because we decided to go with a brick pattern. This brick pattern, along with a grout color closely matching the tile, are part of our plan to hide our non-square shower walls. Anyway, tiling around the window required 2 out of 3 tiles to be cut.

Working with the thinset sucked. The mixing process is long and ridiculous, and the thinset only allows a working period of a little less than 2 hours. This resulted in us throwing away most of our thinset and mixing a batch that didn't work because we attempted to measure out for a small batch (and measured wrong). The thinset drips down the wall and falls all over the place. It gets on your hands, which means it gets all over the front of the tiles you set, which means you have to try to wipe it all off after you've set the tile.

I don't understand why everyone says "tiling is the fun part".

Here's a picture of the cheap Lowes wet saw I bought. It comes with instructions that vaguely match the parts given. The people who wrote the instructions must never have attempted to follow them because they don't make sense. The saw also came with a warped blade. It was so warped that it would not spin because it would hit the table edge. Fortunatly, there was a generic blade in the box (that was not supposed to be there) that seemed to work.

Top Layer Deck Mud and Curb Mortar

2008-04-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

The good folks from the John Bridge Tile Forum told us we could mud the bottom of our Hardibacker in place using our top layer of deck mud. Other sites suggested it was fine to do this with Durrock but not Hardibacker. The John Bridge folks said a properly constructed shower would not have problems mudding the Hardibacker; we kept it 1/2" above the liner.

After double-checking the weep holes with a plastic cable tie, we attached the strainer half of the drain, set it to the correct height, and poured the plastic spacers around the weep holes to keep the deck mud from clogging them. We wrapped a piece of galvanized metal lath around the curb to prepare it for the mortar.

Melissa mixed the deck mud.

We used our homemade 2X4 floats and packed in the deck mud keeping our slope proper. After letting it dry for a few hours, Melissa mixed up the mortar for the curb. Our first attempt resulted in mortar crumbling off the curb because we didn't use enough water. So we scrapped it and mixed in more water. The second time seemed better. Melissa carefully shaped the curb and although not perfect, we should be ready to start tile work in a week or so.

Hanging The Hardibacker

2008-04-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

We used Durock when we tiled our upstairs bathroom. I hated it because it was so difficult to cut. I swore I would use Hardibacker next. So we picked up 10 sheets of 1/2" Hardibacker and a couple boxes of the screws that are made for it. The dude at Lowes remarked, "Yeah, Hardibacker is so easy. You just score it and snap it like drywall." Boy was he wrong.

Melissa and I made a nice deep scoring line and proceeded to break our first piece...nothing. I got angry and draped it over a 2X4 on the ground. We tried to break it by stepping down onto it...Nothing. I wanted to determine the breaking strength of this stuff so we both essentially stomped on the damn piece until it broke. It broke nowhere near our score line. Instead it bent, dented, cracked, splintered, and flaked off all over the place, but not on our score line. It was at this point that I decided I hated Hardibacker, too.

I got out my concrete jigsaw blade and showed Melissa how to cut. I don't know how she did it, but she cut ten pieces over the course of two weekends. Of course, we couldn't use a single full sheet, all ten had to be cut.

Cutting it was one thing. Hanging it was another. The pieces that are within standing reach were not that big of a problem. I was able to get enough footing to put my weight into the drill enough to get the screws flush with the Hardibacker. However, for 50% of the pieces, I had to hang from a ladder. This is when I really started hating Hardibacker and whichever company made the philips-head screws I was using. How about some hex-head or square-head screws? Hello!? Why on earth anyone would make philips-head screws with tapered driver slots is beyond me. Each damn screw either stripped or failed to countersink itself (when driven from the ladder). I just couldn't get a way to push hard enough from the ladder.

As I cursed and invented new ways of screaming how frustrated I was, Melissa did some Googling and determined most people have the same problem. She came up with a suggestion to use galvanized roofing nails. This saved the day and I backed out most of my misplaced screws from the higher sections and used the roofing nails, which I was thrilled to already have.

Preparing For Hardibacker

2008-04-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

When we demoed the shower, I noted there was no insulation on the outside wall. That must have been one cold tub/shower in the winter. We, of course, remembered to hang some insulation.

Afterwards, Melissa cut the 15# roofing felt to hang as our vapor barrier.

I had the ingenious idea I would kill two birds with one stone by hanging the roofing felt by attaching my furring strips over it. When I was about 90% done I heard Melissa holler from the study that I had messed up; my stupid technique ended up with wood on the wrong side of the vapor barrier. Dumb. So I had to rip out the roofing felt (to prevent a moisture sandwich) and staple it on top of my furring strips.

Speaking of furring strips. I'm so sick of making them. I deciding early on to use them because our framed shower was not plumb or square. I figured the furring strips would give me an opportunity to fix these problems by shimming out the flaws. Although I was able to fix some obvious problems, man, I sure spent a lot of time cutting and hanging the darn furring strips!

Shower Pan Leak Test Passes!

2008-03-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll admit it, folding the shower pan liner was not fun at all. In fact, I hated it. At one point I actually said "forgot it, it's too hard." But with Melissa's help absorbing my frustration, we did it. And we must not have done too bad because after holding water for 24 hours we declared the leak test a success! Which was more than we could say for our plumber's attempt.

Building the Preslope With Deck Mud

2008-03-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

It sure was depressing removing Pam's preslope. I thought I was done removing concrete.

However, her attempt at a preslope was unlike anything I had read about. The code demands at least 1/4" per foot slope. Pam's slope didn't even go all the way to the drain.

After more research, Melissa and I came back from Lowes with roofing felt, galvinized metal lath, Sand Topping Mix, sand, and a PVC liner that was actually the right size.

I nailed some carefully sized wood strips around the perimeter to use as a guide for the slope.

We put down the felt and metal lath to help hold our mud in place, mixed the deck mud to carefully researched consistancy, and spread it using 2X4 floats. Tomorrow it should be ready for the liner...scary!

Shower Pan Leak Test Failure!

2008-03-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

After letting the shower pan (i.e., PVC membrane or liner) hold water overnight, I discovered it failed the leak test. Water was running out from under the curb and appeared to have soaked through the two subfloor layers near the drain.

I wanted to cry. I called Pam and she said sometimes they get pin holes. She told me to drain the pan and agreed to come back in two days. I ripped out the PVC membrane because I knew my subfloor was soaked and I wanted to let it dry.

In the meantime, I posted some pictures and asked for advice on the John Bridge tile forum. I was not thrilled with Pam's mud slope and I was already uncomfortable because she essentially refused to build the shower floor per some instructions Melissa had found. The good folks on the forum pointed out Pam's failing to wrap the liner around the curb and nailing it to the top was a code violation. They noticed some other problems and I decided I wanted to do it myself.

So I called Pam and told her not to come back because I wanted to do it myself. She was cool and offered to give me some materials. I'm really amazed at the different opinions of how to make these shower floors. The two other plumbers I got quotes from before picking Pam, didn't even make a preslope. They just attached the liner directly to the subfloor. 5 minutes of research shows these guys are building showers that will not last long, result in discolored grout, and mildew.

Why are these professionals doing such crumby work? I don't get it. I guess plumbers do plumbing well and these shower floors are best done by someone else....like me!

Pam the Plumber

2008-03-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Punctuality is not Pam's strong point. After rescheduling five times she promised to be at our house by 9AM so Melissa could get to a meeting at work. Pam never showed so Melissa had to leave. Then she had to come back at noon to let Pam in. Pam finally showed, though!

On the second day Pam let herself in using the key we gave her. She worked until 9:30 PM that evening (with her helper Todd). Before leaving, Pam showed us her beautiful copper work...

...and left water in the shower pan for the leak test. This was the shower pan she talked me into doing because she was sure it was beyond my abilities. More on that later. She also posed for a couple pictures with Todd. Yes, she is a clown.

So far, I'm happy with her work. She gave me good advice and had some good extras, like making the toilet discharge higher than I would need it, which is good. I'll be able to cut it down to where I need it when I tackle the finished floor. There were two things I was disappointed with, however. One, she removed the shut-off valves I had added for the hot/cold water lines running to the shower and two, the shower pan didn't wrap around the curb.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Waiting For Pam The Plumber

2008-03-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm waiting on Pam the Plumber. I think this is the fifth time she has rescheduled my appointment. I'm getting a little frustrated but trying to be fair. After all, I rescheduled on her during the whole re-framing of the shower thing. She is supposed to come tomorrow. If she cancels again, I told Melissa I may give up on her and do it myself. If that's the case, I'll probably use Pex instead of copper. We'll see...

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Stupid Electrical Boxes

2008-03-09T17:56:00.001-07:00

Adding 9 inches to the width of my shower, caused other things to have to be moved. For example, I had to move the box for my toilet task lighting 9 inches to have it centered between the shower and opposite wall. Annoying.

Okay, I have to complain about the blue "Old Work" junction boxes. They neglect those who have really old work. Like in my case where I have drywall over plaster. The stupid little screws with the plastic pieces that are supposed to flip up and grab the back of the wall board only go so deep. Replacing the screws with longer longs doesn't work because the plastic barriers that force the flippy things to flip up only go so deep. I always end up wasting my time getting something to anchor these boxes to. Everything I have replaced in my house has given me this same challenge.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Shower Strainer

2008-03-09T17:49:00.001-07:00

One nice thing about re-framing the shower was the shower drain can now go exactly in the center without having to cut any joists. I was lucky there were no nails or screws in the way on the hidden first layer of plywood subfloor. This picture shows the four bolt strainer just sitting in the hole. The actual strainer portion screws on to this thing (to adjust to the tile) and is not in the picture.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Sink Faucet

2008-03-09T16:21:00.001-07:00

I installed the sink faucet and trim today. It was a relief that we had all the parts and everything actually fit our porcelain vanity top. We used all Moen stuff and I think it went together a little easier than the Kohler faucets I put in the upstairs bathrooms. But then again, I hate Kohler.

I was pleased with my vanity design. The open back made it fairly easy to install everything. I hate going in from the front upside down trying to get to everything.

I'm excited to get these faucets hooked up to some water but it will be a long time until we're ready for that. Until then, we'll have to just look at a non-functional vanity in our guest room.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Re-Framing The Shower

2008-03-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

Our new design called for extending the depth of the shower by 9 inches. I built a little 9-inch wall that extends to the ceiling, built the curb, and trimmed back my tongue and groove panels to the new curb.

Since the tongue and groove panels are now terminating between two studs I built a deadwood stud between the two existing studs. The deadwood stud will also have to serve as the anchor for the shower door. Since I didn't want to remove my finished wall, Melissa removed the drywall and plaster along our terminal line. She left the plaster slats for my deadwood. Since I could only fish the deadwood stud in at a certain length, I had to build it out of two pieces. I used the plaster slats as support and screwed the deadwood stud up against the slats. To my surprise, it actually worked. The slats were solid enough to anchor the deadwood stud.

Okay, so now we've got our larger shower. Oh, we also decided to tile all the way to the ceiling. So we ripped out more plaster/drywall layers. This should finally be the last of it!

Subpar Subfloor

2008-03-02T05:42:00.000-08:00

During my recent shower size dilemma I was fortunate enough to have one of the John Bridge Forum moderators, CX, catch another major problem with my bathroom renovation. He noticed I had installed the plywood subfloor with the sheets parallel to the joists, thus not making my subfloor strong enough to support a tile floor.

I had used my own twisted logic at the time, and managed to convince Bob, my father-in-law of the same. We thought we were saving on plywood and supporting the plywood edges better to prevent flexing. Turns out this was at the expense of maximizing the ply grain strength and we did not end up with the minimum 5/8ths plywood subfloor strength needed for a tile installation...even though we used 3/4" plywood.

Following the advice of said moderator I used Titebond II to glue additional 1/2" plywood sheets on top of my 3/4" plywood, laying the 1/2" sheets perpendicular to the joists.

Renovating the Renovation

2008-03-02T05:18:00.000-08:00

When Pam the Plumber stopped by last week to get her materials list (to change our polybutylene to copper), she noted how narrow our finished shower was going to be. She suggested a different design but said she was ready to rough-in the current shower. After a sleepless night and lots of staring at our unfinished shower and bathroom design, I posted the question on Terry Love's Shower and Bathroom Forum and John Bridge's Tile Advice Forum. Is a 26" wide finished shower too narrow?

When I read the first of many similar responses ("As long as you're not planning on using your arms to wash your body while in the shower, you should be fine."), I knew the decision was a no-brainer.

This will set me back several weeks because I have to remove framing, part of my tongue and groove wall panel, build a new wall, move my electrical, and determine how to install a deadwood stud without removing all of my finished wall.

I had my reasons for trying to build a shower in the old tub's footprint but I should have done more research and design. Oops. In the end, I'm sure it will be worth the pain, misery, and humiliation.

New Art

2008-02-03T16:05:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, Melissa's team gave her a gift certificate (for Christmas) to The Alcove, one of our favorite art galleries. She finally spent it this weekend. We picked out two more Emmy Dudley pieces, titled "Cat" and "Dog". We hung the cat above Melissa's side of the bed because she had a cat when we got married, and the dog on my side of the bed because I had a dog when we got married.

These pieces are a little different than our other Emmy Dudley, "Betilda and the Bee", hanging on the other side of our bedroom...

...because they are painted on wooden cut-outs that stick out about an inch from the wall. Yes, we like Emmy Dudley. Many thanks to Melissa's team for the great Christmas gift!

Sump Pump Slump

2008-02-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

Last night, lying in bed, Melissa asked if I had left the downstairs fan on or something. She thought she heard some kind of motor running. I ignored it and went back to sleep. This morning I heard her yell something from the basement. I went downstairs and saw the sump pump well overflowing as the pump ran. It smelled like it had been running for a while.

We assumed, after demoing a concrete floor with porcelain tile above the sump pump, we had gotten the sump pump well filled with so much debris it had clogged. Melissa had pointed this out earlier and we attempted to clean it but apparently we didn't clean it well enough.

Anyway, after several minutes of unsuccessful unclogging with my hand, we manually drained the well and attempted to remove the sump pump to examine it. I began unscrewing plumbing to get the thing free. Like a fool, I unscrewed a one-way flow valve that had been put there to prevent sewage from backing up into our basement. At first it looked like clean water, but after 2 or 3 seconds it turned brown and smelled like the worst sewage. I stood there with the stuff pouring all over my arm and leg as we started yelling at each other wondering what I had just unleashed. Somewhere during this chaos I revealed that I had just taken a crap upstairs and that maybe it was now draining out all over me. After several agonizing seconds of screwing the valve back the disgusting water finally stopped flowing. Damn that was gross. After repeated washings I can still smell the stuff on my hands.

Later, I just cut the PVC pipe below the valve and was able to remove the sump pump. Melissa's standard technique seemed to work. We just took the thing apart, put it back together, tested it in a bucket...and it started working again. I guess we had dislodged some piece of debris. We put the whole thing back in its place, connected the cut pipes with a boot, and did a final test with more water to ensure it was still working.

If you ever demo something above your sump pump, make sure you cover the sump pump so debris does not put your sump pump in a slump.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Tongue and Groove Planks

2008-01-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

I've always hated drywall. I have limited experience working with it but I know it's a messy install and it feels hollow and cheap. I know drywall absorbs water like a sponge and weakens to nothing after water damage. One can easily kick holes in drywall or even do so by swinging a door handle into it. When it punctures or tears you see paper. It costs about $6 for a 4 X 8 sheet. How good can this stuff be? I just don't get it.

After Goggling "solid wood tongue and groove planks", something I had been toying with, all I see are post after post of people complaining about wood planks on their walls. Oh the horror! There are countless more articles on removing wood planks or covering them with drywall then anything praising both their aesthetic qualities and durability. What's up with this? My two favorite rooms in my 1920's house are those with the original pine planks.

So when it came time to determine a wall covering for our bathroom walls where the old tile used to be, I talked Melissa into tongue and groove planks hung horizontally. My original plan was to buy a router bit to cut the tongue and grooves. But my work colleague, Dave, brought me some samples of clean yellow southern pine sold at Lowes and HomeDepot that had the tongues and grooves cut already. Although, it would have been more fun to cut them myself, I went with Dave's easier suggestion.

The damn panels are a joy to hang and are thus far the most satisfying part of this bathroom renovation. They look a little country-ish now, for my tastes, but once painted, I think I'll get the old ship-type look I want.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Shower Curb

2008-01-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

I went with stacking three 2X4's for the shower curb. I used lots of nails and liquid nails, including screwing into the studs on either side. This curb is not going anywhere.

Though, building it was the easiest part of this bathroom renovation, deciding exactly where it would go was a challenge. I hope we decided correctly.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Furring Strips?

2008-01-27T16:21:00.000-08:00

I think renovation is much more challenging than building from scratch. Everything you do must take existing construction into account. I can deal with things like walls not being square but the thing that I am growing to hate most is determining how to transition to existing wall. In our case it's the whole drywall hung over plaster thing. We've got metal crap sticking out that is attached under wallboard we are trying to keep. Matching new wallboard to the existing stuff is a real pain. Especially determining how to transition to tile.

We decided to build a shallow shelf as a sort of chair rail type thing to cover the transition from old to new wall. In preparation for the new wall (where the tile used to be). I cut a bunch of half inch furring strips from plywood and gave them to Melissa to hang with the nail gun.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Drywall Patching

2008-01-27T15:59:00.000-08:00

The idea of ripping out the original plaster ceiling and layer of drywall over it, then replacing it, seemed like a nightmare to me. I hate the idea of drywall over plaster but I figured it would be more trouble than it was worth to replace it. Other than several nail pops and some poorly sanded areas it was in good shape.

We fixed all the nail pop areas, some crumbly sections under the old mirror (that was glued to the drywall), and patched the old electrical box holes. We used the standard technique of screwing a board behind the hung drywall, cutting a small filler patch out of new drywall, and screwing it to the wood. In our case it was a pain because we had plaster behind our drywall. Which meant we had stack drywall scraps and shims to get the patch flush.

The only drywall screws I had long enough to go through the drywall and plaster to meet our wood strip were too long. I know it's not cool to leave pointy screws sticking into the hollow of walls so we improvised. Melissa cut a wine cork in half and I screwed it over the screw points in the wall hollow.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Plaster Demo

2008-01-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

Melissa and I have had more conversations about how to tile the shower than anything else. Tile to the ceiling? Tile the ceiling? Tile the non-shower walls? Should the tile be flush with the wall board or overlap it? Should the glass block window have a tile frame or should there be wood on the top portion?

We think we've finally figured it out. The plan is to tile up enough to frame the window top, leaving the original plaster covered with its existing drywall above. The tile will overlap the wallboard at its transitions.

Ripping out plaster covered with drywall is one thing. Trying to do it while saving certain parts of it is another. Melissa used a utility knife and drywall saw at the boundaries. I used a reciprocating saw to cut the plaster boards where they could not be removed in their entirety. We used hammers, pry bars, and tin snips to remove the drywall, plaster, and mesh.

I stitched together 12 photos to show the future shower walls after the last messy chunk of demo. The plaster walls in the rooms on either side of the bathroom are visible. They appear strong and healthy after 87 years.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Electrical

2008-01-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

The bathroom's electrical fixtures were black with brass plate covers. They were also installed in the wrong places for our plans. Finally, we wanted to add an additional task light near the toilet. One each of the switches and receptacles were in the right place so I attempted to use the existing metal boxes instead of switching them out with the new blue plastic ones. I got one of those vertically stacked dual single-pole switch jobies that fit in one box. I wanted to consolidate two switches into the existing box. It would have been so nice if it had just worked.

What I discovered was a mess of spaghetti in each box, with several wires coming in and out. As luck would have it I was not able to add another switch and get all the wires shoved back in the tiny metal box. In addition, the stupid switch body kept coming apart whenever I screwed it in. Apparently the old metal box had gotten squished or it wasn't universal enough to accommodate my new switch.

So after a little more cursing, I was forced to rip out the old metal boxes and replace them. We had removed the bottom half of the wall so it was easy to reach up behind the drywall and plaster to make the swap. Here's the new main light and fan next to the entrance. We'll keep the old box in the wall and patch over it.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - The Damn Glass Block Window

2008-01-13T05:35:00.000-08:00

What's the best solution to the problem presented by a window in a shower? Replace the window with glass block. At least, that seems to be what everybody does these days. Instead of researching all the companies that make these glass block kits, we just went with Pittsburgh Corning Glass Block, which is what Lowe's carries. Despite the flashy website, I hate this company's kit. For example, instead of making the various spacers one needs, they give you a generic spacer and explain that you need to make the spacers you'll need by cutting their spacers up and filing them down. Trust me, it's a real pain in the ass!

I spent most of a day framing out the new rough opening per Pittsburgh Corning's specs, according to our plan. Melissa spent a good portion of the day making the stupid glass block spacers and buying other Pittsburgh Corning accessories. At the end of the day I finished my rough opening, Melissa primed it, and we added the plastic channels (breaking one in the process). Again, Pittsburgh Corning's steps suck. They wanted us to rip one of the channels in half (lengthwise) with an exacto blade. Yeah, right. I would like to see an exacto blade that could score this thing enough to rip it. Ours certainly didn't work. A final measurement revealed I was 1/2" short on my height. Oh well. I was done for the day. It would have to work.

The next day we painted the channel screw heads white so they wouldn't show through the glass. And now we were ready to mix the mortar. I hated every bit of this project, especially mixing the mortar...with a piece of wood. Buttering up the glass block sucked even worse than I expected. The mortar wouldn't stick to the glass, so we could only pack it on with our hands. The more we worked, the more mortar slid off our glass block and fell all over the place. Complicating matters was the fact that the outside of the window was above a basement stairwell. So one of us had to be on a ladder on the other side of the window trying to catch mortar and shove it back in. After lots of cursing we managed to fit the last of the glass block in place. We spent the rest of the day messing with the mortar and trying to clean the glass. In the end, I'm sure it will be beautiful. But I sure hated doing it!

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Bondo

2008-01-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

The obvious way to deal with rotten wood is to replace it. But sometimes that's easier said than done. For example, as I began pulling out rotten studs I discovered what must have been a window leak in the old shower (below bottom left corner of pictured window). There was an obvious trail of rotten wood behind four side-by-side studs I had to replace. But these newly revealed rotten boards were the planks that make up the external wall and the exterior siding planks were nailed in part to said rotten planks. Thus, replacing said rotten planks would involve taking off a chunk of the siding.

Since the planks were in excellent condition except for the leak trail, I decided to repair them instead of replace them. First, I attacked the rot with a hammer claw, removing all the rotten wood. Second, Melissa saturated the areas with Minwax High Performance Wood Hardener (which turns the wood a dark wet color as shown in the above picture). Third, I rebuilt the original wood with Bondo, which is a less expensive version of Minwax High Performance Wood Filler.

Roof Leak Near Chimney

2008-01-13T04:30:00.000-08:00

Every time I clear the gutters I make a point to remove the leaves that build up behind our chimney. We have a steep roof valley that directs water and debris to a spot directly behind a granite chimney in front of our house. After lots of rain I've noticed water pooling up behind the chimney but I figured, surely whoever did the roof put adequate flashing below all the tar and calk around the chimney. At least that's what I thought until Melissa pointed out a ceiling leak...that happened to be right below where I always notice water pooling.

So after Googling roof leaks around chimneys and staring at my problem spot for 30 minutes I decided this one was way out of my league.

The home's previous owner left behind a substantial amount of paper work on the home so I was able to find the number of the guy who put the roof on. I figured I would start with him, hoping he would honor his work, and fix the problem. He remembered the house and explained that the previous owner refused to pay the extra money to add the cricket behind the chimney and opted to find his own solution. Anyway, the roofer was cool, gave me a decent price, a five year guarantee on his work, and had the same shingles in stock (so the cricket would match the rest of my roof).

When he was done I climbed up to examine his work and enjoy my new cricket and flashing.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Under the Tile Walls?

2008-01-06T18:14:00.000-08:00

I didn't know what we would find under the tiled walls. After what I saw under the tile floor, the was expecting the worst. We found both good and bad. The good was that for the most part the structure was in good shape. We even discovered three vertical 4 x 6" posts, which I thought was cool. The bad was the rotten wood we found below the window where the tub/shower used to be. It would all have to be replaced. To complicate things, the outside wall of the house was nailed to these rotten studs and cripple studs. I knew I would have to remove the original plaster around the window to see the fill extent of the damage. Fun fun fun!

As I continued to demo the window area, Melissa washed down the studs we would keep with a watered down bleach solution in case we had any mildew/mold anywhere.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - More Concrete!

2008-01-06T16:54:00.000-08:00

Next, we had to tear out the wall tile that surrounded the entire bathroom. Sounds easy enough, right? Of course not. This tile was attached to 1" thick concrete that was attached to a wire mesh. Once again Branden's hammer drill saved the day. After another day beneath face masks and at least 50 more crate loads of concrete, we finally had most of the nasty stuff out for good. Now I'm just wondering if we should have rented that roll-away dumpster Melissa wanted.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Rebuilding The Floor

2007-12-31T15:15:00.000-08:00

As we removed the concrete and the planks between the joists supporting it, we couldn't believe what we saw. How was this bathroom floor and all its weight being supported? The joists were completely rotten except the bottom inch or so. In fact, one of them fell on its own once the concrete was removed. We were hoping we would only have to sister one or two of the joists and the rest would be fine. Instead, we knew we would have to replace all the joists.
It was weird walking into the basement and looking up through a large hole into our old bathroom.The job wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for all the cast iron plumbing, electrical, and other spaghetti hanging from the old joists. We had to support everything from below as we removed the old joists and made the new ones. This also meant we had to weave our bodies around all these pipes as we worked. Pain in the ass! Two days later we had our new floor.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - Concrete Removal

2007-12-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

After our Christmas vacation we arrived home with Bob as planned. We used my friend Branden's hammer drill with it's spade bit and broke up the concrete between the joists.
What a back breaker! The concrete was about 6 inches thick, super heavy, and required constant trips outside to a pile we started...Cutting through the ceramic tile was scary as the pieces flew like broken glass. After a while, the concrete dust was ridiculous. The basement floor, looking through what used to be the bathroom floor, looked like the surface of the moon, covered with concrete debris. Eventually we removed the last of it.

Bathroom Renovation #2 - The Concrete Decision

2007-12-31T12:39:00.000-08:00

Once the tub was removed I noticed a split in the concrete slab that had been poured between the bathroom floor joists. The split allowed me to shove a crowbar between the layers and I began ripping up a 1.5 inch deep layer of concrete the ceramic tile was attached to...Now I could finally start to see what we were dealing with. Below the 1.5 inch concrete layer was about 4.5 more inches of concrete. But worse yet, the joists surrounding the concrete appeared completely rotten from nearly a century of concrete moisture. Sensing I was way over my head in this project, Melissa and I began posting questions on Do It Yourself forums. I marked up the following picture (looking up at the bathroom floor from our basement) to help describe our bathroom floor construction to the various contractors that would hopefully respond to our questions.In addition to the concrete and rotten joists, we also found rotten wood all around the plumbing side of the tub we removed.Most of the responses to our DIY posts recommended removing all concrete to get the weight off our poor house and to allow us to create a stable, solid, flat floor. So we abandoned our previous plan of using self leveling compound to fix the sagging, cracked concrete floor and decided to remove the concrete.

I knew hiring contractors to do this would be expensive and take a while to find good ones. I also have a hard time trusting contractors and sometimes feel they don't respect the rest of the house. I suggested to Melissa that we drive her dad, Bob, down with us from Ohio after our Christmas visit (and fly him back several days later).

We've worked several projects in the past with Bob, including building a backyard storage shed and pergola. Bob tends to work quickly and figure out complicated construction solutions with sound knowledge and he typically does it without overspending on materials. We called Bob, showed him the pictures of our bathroom problems, and he agreed to offer his help.