I drafted this post in 2020 and didn’t get around to adding a photo. So, I’ve added the photo and will post it, but you should know we have finished the bathroom and I’ll add a post about that soon.
The original bathroom in the house, upstairs, was quite small. I’ve seen photos of smaller bathrooms, but this one was small enough. One couldn’t sit on the toilet without bumping knees on the bathtub. It had a pocket door, a small pedestal sink, cabinet above the toilet, and a 5′ clawfoot tub.
The bathroom was at the end of the hall. To the left was the main bedroom and to the right was a spare room. I used that spare room as a wood refinishing room. Prior to that it was my home office.
To get into the spare room, there was a 3′ ‘tunnel’. Along the west wall was small closet, which earlier owners of the house had built a closet extension feature, making it possible to actually hang clothes in it.
That closet wall was shared by the other bedroom upstairs, my son’s room. He too had a small closet, with a custom built closet extender. So, between the spare room and my son’s room was a double wall, permitting closets for each bedroom.
We have now removed the spare bedroom closet wall, gaining about 2 feet in that room. We have also closed off the original entrance to that room and added that space to the bathroom. The bathroom door is now extended at an angle across the hallway. The bathroom is significantly larger. Here’s a picture of it in its gutted state:
Bathroom gutted and expanded
The plan now is, once taping is done, to:
The window stool (what most people call the window sill) was broken when the exterior siding was put on last summer. I”m not sure how that happened but they obviously pulled or nailed so hard that it cracked the stool. And I damaged one of the window casings when I pulled it out. So, I have to re-do the window trim for the bathroom. I’ll leave the window as it is – vinyl casement – for now, and hope to find money in the next few years to replace with a more appropriate window.
prime and paint (a light sea-foam green)
install in-floor heat
install rectangular floor tiles, reminiscent of marble
install wall panelling about 3′ up and leave it a creamy white
install a traditional medicine cabinet
install a larger pedestal sink, already purchased- here’s a stock photo:
Install new toilet, already purchased – here’s a stock photo:
refinish exterior of claw foot tub and paint black
have interior of tub refinished
install new light fixture, already purchased- here’s a photo:
install linen cupboard in newly created space. Not sure where I’ll purchase that from.
So, lots to do, but it’s amazing how quickly some things can get done. The reconstruction of the space upstairs (which included changes to my son’s old room and the stair case, to be covered in another post) took just a week. Drywall hanging took a couple of days. Taping seems to be taking forever. We’re on week two of that, I think. But it can all come together pretty quickly. Or not. we’ll see.
Blood, sweat, and tears. But only a few hundred dollars to refinish the family room floor myself, instead of $1700 by a professional*. Was it worth it? The jury is still out.
As a recap, this floor was one I installed myself, from reclaimed Douglas fir. I knew the floor would never look ‘new’, and that was what I was looking for.
From the farm:
Beautiful old growth Douglas fir floors
To my house in the City (installed but not sanded and finished):
I am not happy with the new colour (see photos below), but I can’t change it unless I’m prepared to re-sand it, and let me tell you, sanding it was tough and I won’t take a re-sanding decision lightly.
It was tough only because I did not have the right sander at the outset. Because it is a softwood (fir), I used a random orbital sander. My understanding was that a belt sander would be too aggressive and I would wreck the floor, particularly in my amateur hands. So, I rented a random orbital sander – one that uses four 6″ round sanding discs. I’m sorry that I didn’t take a picture of that sander, but it was a Cherry Hill U-Sander, rented from my local Rent-it store.
I started with 36 grit. I couldn’t get a 20 grit. I sanded for four days, maybe 18 hours total. Then I went to rent a drum sander and handheld edge sander, but the rental store talked me out of it and rented me a random orbital plate sander. Essentially, the same device as the random orbital disc sander, but using a single large sandpaper instead of four discs. I spent another 2 days sanding with that. I preferred the plate sander over the four disc sander, but it was also very slow.
You’ll notice in the photo above that there are what appear to be barbells attached to the sander. Yes, I tied on 40 pounds of barbells, so that I would get better friction/sanding, because otherwise the machine was entirely useless. For the hours and hours and hours I spent sanding, I had comparatively little sawdust. So, on the next floor it will definitely be the drum sander to start.
Anyway, after the plate sander, I got on my hands and knees and used my own handheld Festool random orbital sander for two days, until I noticed that it was so aggressive that it was leaving marks of its own. So I got out my handheld finish sander and spent another day on my knees sanding out the Festool marks.
I could have kept sanding, but I finally had to call it quits. My holidays were coming to a close and my knees were bleeding. But the floor looked gorgeous. Not brand-new perfect, but stunning to me.
I had to patch two spots before I finished sanding. I used sawdust and glue to mix a matching patch compound.
I ordered a finish called Rubio Monocoat. You can see in the photo below that I ordered cinnamon brown.
I read about Rubio on other blogs and did some brief research and decided that it was suitable for amateur use and would give me the finish look that I was going for – a rubbed oil look, in a single coat! I think another way to describe it is ‘hard-wax oil’.
It is oil – linseed oil. And that is the only smell. No other chemical smell, and while the linseed smell lingered lightly for 2-3 days, it is not an offensive smell.
The product goes on in a wipe on/wipe off fashion. Youtube videos recommended using a floor buffer/polisher for application. Use a red scrub pad to wipe on, a white pad to wipe off, and then a soft cloth wrapped around the white pad to buff and remove any remaining product. I tried that but it was far from easy and I hated doing it. Really hated it. I’ll never use that machine again.
Floor polisher
I ended up on my hands and knees again (occasionally wiping my blood and sweat off the floor), and did it that way for half the floor. It was labour intensive, but I liked the result better than the machine. In fact, you can see where I applied by hand and where I applied by machine, and in my view, the hand applied coat is much nicer. Unfortunately, the camera can’t pick up the difference.
Unfortunately, I don’t like the colour. It is too red. I should have stopped at this point and ordered a different colour:
What I loved about using Rubio:
No overlap or streak marks. The way that Rubio works (in my layman terms) is that the top wood cells absorb only as much of the oil as they can hold and no more. Once the cells are saturated, any extra that is put on top will not be absorbed, it will just be wiped off. So, as you wipe on and wipe off, there are no streaks or overlaps. Perfect for an amateur.
One coat only!! Really!
You can walk on it within 24 hours, and it is ‘cured’ in a week.
As I noted above, there is no offensive odour. In fact, I’ve read that some people like the smell. I can’t say that I liked it, but it was just fine, was very light, and dissipated entirely in 3 days.
It appears to be an environmentally friendly product – being linseed based. It’s low VOC.
The oil produces a glow in the wood. There is wonderful glowing depth.
The patches (made with sawdust and glue) are not noticeable as patches, per se, but as colour differentials. But since there are wide colour variations in the floor already, the patched ones don’t stand out in any way. The board in the photo above, just under the electrical socket, is one of the patched boards.
What I was less enamoured with:
I picked the wrong colour. Because where I live it is online ordering only and because I had only a week to get the entire project done and the sanding took far longer than I thought it would, I did not order samples and try out a few first, and I didn’t stop and re-order once I saw that it was too red/dark. This is entirely on me. But the lack of local dealer was a problem, and had there been a local dealer I would have stopped and reconsidered.
I got the product on my skin and it does not come out easily. I scrubbed with steel wool and got nowhere. Now, a week later, most of it is off, but my nails are still stained. I called the Canadian company to ask for their recommendation on removal, but got a response that suggests they’d never turned their minds to the possibility that someone might get it on their skin. Their suggestion for removal was soap and water.
The buffer process was problematic for me. I don’t know how other non-professionals managed that, but I didn’t. I did not get the best out of the product because of the buffer.
Because it is linseed oil, there are high flammability risks in used cloths/towels. I went through an entire old cotton bedsheet for wiping on/wiping off, and each fabric piece had to be laid out flat to dry before I put them in the bin.
So, the finished product, right? Let’s see it. I just want to warn that the photos don’t do justice to it. It truly glows. But it’s also really red.
It looks like an old-world finish to me, and just what I wanted.
So, walnut floor upstairs is next. Definitely starting with a drum sander, and not wasting time being gentle. Will use a ‘pure’ coat of Rubio, because I still like the product. I hope to get to that floor in the next few weeks.
*I had an estimate from a professional for almost $7000 for four similar-sized rooms, about 200 square feet each. The professional also told me that hard-wax oil finishes were not available in Canada because they were banned by Health Canada. Not true. So, he wasn’t going to give me the finish I wanted.
The new basement floor was poured almost three years ago, by asshat builder. I posted earlier about being promised a 7′ basement, but receiving something less – more like 6’8″. Since my son is 6’4″ and possibly still growing, every inch down there counts, as it is supposed to be a play area for him.
Drywall/taping/mudding was finished last week and it’s ready to be painted and finished. And this week, since I’m on vacation, I went down there to do that. That is when I noticed that the floor is nowhere close to level. I don’t know why I never noticed before, or maybe I noticed but did not understand the consequence, because I’m not an effing builder. I’m only trying to pick up the pieces and staunch the copious flow of cash out my door by doing some work myself. Live and learn baby (I’m listening to Nina Simone as I write).
When I think back to when it was being poured, I recall seeing one of the asshat’s assistants levelling it with a 2×4, which I have seen being done on TV. Since there are dips in the floor greater than two inches, I can only surmise that the massive dips were installed on purpose.
Like, I can’t understand how something other than a reasonably level floor could have been installed.
In any event, after years of being shocked and dismayed by the work of the asshat builder and his asshat associates, I understood that there was nothing to be done except to fix it, since no sub-floor would sit on it properly. So, I undertook to use a self-levelling cement . I’ve never done this before and have zero experience with working with cement, but I’ve seen it on TV. Not unexpectedly, like it was for Goldilocks, it’s been a bit of a disaster for me.
The good news is that my son helped me and I never once had to pick up or carry any of the bags and bags of 50lb cement.
Other good news is that I figured out that you can’t believe what you read on a label. The label on the cement said to use about 5L of water per 50lb bag, and that for my roughly 150 square feet I would need four bags of the stuff.
But after mixing four bags with roughly 20L of water, I was left with a substance that wouldn’t really pour/self-level (it required pushing around with the handy squeegee I bought) and only covered one corner of the space.
So, we had to let that dry and went back to the hardware store to buy four more bags. This time I Googled reviews of this product and added more water as was recommended by some users. Unfortunately, too much, and it probably won’t set properly. But it still didn’t cover the entire floor.
So, copy and paste, we had to let that dry (as much as it will) and went back to the hardware store to buy four more bags. Like I said, the good news is that I had my son to carry the cement. I’m an old lady now and my hands and wrists don’t like 50lb bags of dead weight. And he liked learning how *not* to pour cement.
And, four days later, I’ve decided we’re close enough, and once we have concrete, I will wipe up the water soup left over and we will shim the heck out of the subfloor and proceed as if everything is “just right.”
Last fall I finished the powder room window trim, much like in the upstairs bathroom. I’m satisfied with it, although a real carpenter would have a fit.
Powder room window
The problem with this window was that it needed a bigger jamb than was built for it. The jamb did not extend flush to the interior wall – it was 4 ⅝ inches inset from the wall. And there was a 2 ½ inch gap on the left side between the window and the wall framing, and a 1 ¼ inch gap on the right side.
Since I struggle with the proper names for window parts, here’s a pic that helps me remember.
My windows are single hung, so do not have the sash weights/pullies. On mine, only the bottom window sash opens, and the top is fixed. On a double hung window, both sashes open.
The question was how to create a jamb extension using hemlock (which looks like Doug fir) that I could buy at the HomeDepot. It was not straightforward because there was nothing dimensionally suitable.
I’m working without a table saw. I have a mitre saw and a jig saw and a circular saw. My circular saw smokes and I really ought to return it, but in any event, I don’t use it. So, try to figure out how to assemble a jamb extension where no pre-cut hemlock dimension exists. I ended up using two pieces that I glued and nailed together. After lots of custom trimming I got the jamb extended and trim on. I probably spent $130 on hemlock. It’s pricey, but mainly because I don’t really know what I’m doing.
The new hemlock jamb pieces did not match the old shellacked fir, so I stained them with a mahogany gel stain and then a coat of shellac. Everything is all a little darker than the window sashes. I’ll live with it for a while and see if I care in the long run.
Also, the stool does not extend past the apron, as it normally would. Again, that’s because the window itself was inset deeper than usual. But I think it looks fine.
The window also opens and closes as designed now. There is only one problem, which is that I could not get the original sash lock off, so I left it on but it doesn’t work, so I’ll have to use an old fashioned stick to keep the window “locked.”
It’s April 15, 2019, and the new builder and his team are starting work today. I am relieved but mostly worried. Worried about:
the financing. My contract with this builder is for an hourly charge for his workers, and whatever the trades charge for their work plus 15%. I think it’s reasonable, but I have no way of knowing the anticipated final cost.
I think I’ll get what I want, but I’m not exactly clear on what I want.
there are so many daily decisions to be made. Will I have enough energy to make through the next two months?
having strangers in the house for two months.
Living in a state of extreme disarray, including not knowing where anything is anymore.
Anyway, I’ve jumped off that ledge and they’re starting today. I’ll work through my anxiety and I’ll find the energy.
In anticipation of their starting work I had to clear out the spaces in the addition. It was a lot of work and my knees and back are done and need some time to recover. I spent three full days on it and had to scrounge for places to put stuff. Which raises a new question: Why do I have this stuff? I can see that my next task is getting rid of some of it before I have to put it away again. I’ll be considering everything before I find it a new home, and give away, recycle, or garbage whatever is ridiculous to keep storing.
Here’s a look at the basements, which is where most of everything was stored. Both basements are now pristine.
Heading downstairs. Watch your head!My laundry roomFrom south wall looking northFrom north wall, looking southView from one end to the other (south to north).
In the meantime, my dining room looks like a scene from “Hoarders: Buried Alive”. Really. It creeps me out and I’ve jumped a few times when I catch a glance of it from the corner of my eye. And my living room reminds me awfully of a little old lady’s house, crammed full of useless things. I had to roll out an old carpet as well, to protect the floor, and it brings with it an awful musty smell. This is odd, I’m sure, but I sensed the house is not happy being junked up like this.
Well, maybe “master” isn’t the correct description. How about “conquered”? In any event, I got it figured out and created a decent-enough rounded edge for my window stool! (Stool is the actual name for what most people, including me, call a window sill. The sill is the name for the similar part on the outside of the window).
Anyway, yay me!
The reason I’m proud is that I bought the router over a month ago and it has sat since then waiting to be magically figured out or for someone to come and show me how to use it. Neither of those things happened.
I was intimidated by the router because the assembly instructions were written by a non-linear thinker, and certainly it did not come with instructions on how to use it. So it sat in its brand new fancy bag. But today I got at it and viola! It is not beyond me!
On the sofa with a cup of coffee is a great place to try and navigate crappy instructions.
I’ve got a coat of shellac on this practice stool and once a few coats are dried I’ll attempt to fasten it to the window jamb, to see how it fits.
Here’s a squared off kind of edge. I’m going to just do a bullnose for the actual stool.
That’s also going to be tricky, because ass-hat builder built the jambs and they suck. The bottom jamb has a 30′ angle, so there’s no flat part for me to mount the stool. If I were a true carpenter, I would build a 30′ matching wedge for under the stool, but that is not within the realm of my abilities. So, some other ‘fix’ has to be worked out, I’m just not sure what it will be yet.
Not only is the jamb at a 30′ or so angle, I had to hack off glued-on trim so that the window will open and close. Ass-hat put the trim on so tight that the window doesn’t work.
As with everything in this addition, the window stool is far from perfect, so it fits right in. Yay!
The actual stools are going to be from original fir from my grandma’s house. I’m so happy to be able to use it.
I’m using doors, windows, trim, and flooring from my grandmother’s house (which is now abandoned). This is the door for the powder room, which is a pocket door.
Since the doors are shellacked, I merely wiped down the door and added a couple of new coats of shellack and it looks wonderful.
Before
After
Before
After
Then I installed it (definitely a two person job) and discovered that the effing builder had used drywall screws too long for the pocket space, such that when the door slid into the pocket it was scratched by the screws.
This is a 100 year old door, in mint condition. It survived 100 years of use in a family of 5 and my builder scars it with his effing malicious idiocy.
So, I had to dig out the screws from the already taped/mudded drywall and replace them with shorter screws.
In February I began working on my new upstairs bathroom. It was supposed to be ready for toilet/sink/tub installation in May, and I work quite slowly with lots of thoughtful breaks.
I painted the ceiling – White Blush ceiling paint by Benjamin Moore. And I painted the walls the same colour.
Benjamin Moore – White Blush
I installed baseboard and beadboard and will paint them Jamestown Blue.
Benjamin Moore – Jamestown Blue
Elite Trimworks – Bayside beadboard kit
The beadboard came as a kit, with baseboard, shoe moulding, beadboard, and top rail.
The baseboard was slightly complicated to install, as the floor tiles were a little uneven and I’m not a carpenter. Also, despite it being a brand new space, the corners are not 90 degrees and some carpentry was required to get the corners as tight as possible. I didn’t do the best job and lots of filler was required. But once that baseboard was in, the beadboard and the rest went in quickly and the overall look is nice.
For this job I purchased a pneumatic nailer and a mitre saw. Sounds like expensive beadboard, but those are tools that I will use often in the next year.
Anyway, I think the beadboard application is good enough and hopefully no one will notice or care about the imperfections and the bathroom is a little closer to completion.
I haven’t painted yet, so will post photos after that.
I’ve heard it said many times that whenever work is done on an old house, whatever is touched by renovation has to be ‘brought up to code’. Of course that code changes yearly and is designed to keep manufacturers and industry folks busy and rich, and I’ve never questioned whether it’s true, because the Canada Building Code and its Provincial subsets are not public documents and must be purchased at great expense (every year). So, I have no idea whether it’s true. But on the basis that it is, the plumber noted that my existing bathroom plumbing, which was upgraded in 1999, did not have ‘p’ traps. Or ‘y’ traps. One of the alphabet traps.
The result is that my only bathroom has been torn apart. As has my dining room ceiling. And my living room ceiling. And living room wall. That’s additional work and cost I wasn’t anticipating, and mental stress as we struggle to manage around the living situation. The only non-disaster/untouched room in my house is my bedroom. And it’s a disaster anyway, because it is crammed full of things from every other room in the house.
I wouldn’t ordinarily gripe about this situation, especially since as far as I know this is the only unexpected thing to happen and the only unexpected cost, but I’ve been living in shambles and half-done work since July 2016 – 18 months at this moment. I’ve moved the same things around in my house, from space to space and room to room, trying to make room to live in for 18 months. I am DONE. Actually, I was DONE in December. And that’s when my friend Craig stepped in to take responsibility.
Anyway. I’m sure you’re not here to read about how angry I am. So, photos!
Here’s my living room ceiling after the plumber caused a freezing pipe at Christmas – the ceiling stain is from sewage.
Holes in the ceiling, cut to see whether my existing plumbing meets money-making code.
What was noticed by the builder at this point was that the previous plumbing company (Go Gregs!) cut through the joists to install pipes. So, my cast iron tub was not properly supported. Scary. The builder fixed that. 2x4s supporting joists until they can be sistered.
New plumbing in living room wall. What was interesting to see from this cut, was that plumbing was always installed in the houes – that is, there are no plaster keys in this area and it was always walled at an angle across the corner. Cool.
Long view of ceiling and wall cut outs in living room.View of bottom of bathroom floor.
This shows the original fir floor in the bathroom (from below), but it also shows that the fir was cut away and replaced with plywood. Two layers of plywood now. So, in restoring that bathroom I will have to re-tile it.
Next post to display lovely photos of inside the destructed bathroom. Stay tuned.
