I guess I can't abandon this blog as 90+ people have read it in the last 30 days! Beats me why as I haven't written anything useful or even anything at all since, I dunno, ever. Well here's an update on Thistle House.
We have been in since 1 October. That makes it something like five months. We have finished installing the master whirlpool tub and are slowly making progress. It's as tough as we thought it would be to live here and finish the trim--and a real Ohio winter hasn't helped. There's snow outside and more coming tomorrow and I just don't like having the chop saw setup out in the snow. So I think trim is going to wait on better weather. We can focus on the master shower and finish the tile and glass block work instead.
I need to chronicle the saga of the whirlpool tub and the seven times we installed it. I am not sure if it was really seven but let me pass on a lesson from the school of hard knocks--don't install a whirlpool tub in a dormer window in a gambrel roof.
Showing posts with label tile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tile. Show all posts
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Big catch up note
Okay, I last posted a note on 7 August. Tonight is almost two weeks later--zoinks!
We have been going full throttle to get ready for the final inspections. In the last two weeks we have: installed two full bathrooms, a kitchen, finished all the electrical in but one room, built a glass block wall, installed tile in two bathrooms, plumbed in the water heater, installed the porch railings, the porch stairs, the balcony railings, the window screens (had a lovely 52 degree night on Friday), installed a sub-panel for electric as we have 10 more spaces than our 40 space panel (electrical breakers take one to two spaces each), and I am sure more than that. Whew--just typing it wears me out. We also have two sickies in the house right now--Linnea and number one son have a cough/running nose/ear infection going. Son is getting better but Linnea may take a trip to the base emergency room tonight to get some medicine to help her get better.
Looking over the photos from the last weeks, I see that we also spent the first nights at the house--how could I forget? We took last week off on leave and camped overnight from Tuesday to Saturday. Coming back to the apartment in military housing was a let down after being at Thistle House for five nights. Even in it's chaos, it's an easy to live in house. Plus, all the food is there now and the larder is bare here. There is no connection to the internet at Thistle House yet, and I told the kids we are not moving a single computer until every dust speck is gone and all messy work is done. That motivated them as that means the Xbox stays at the apartment too.
So, here is a montage of photos from the last few weeks; comments are welcome.
Basement mechanical room; well pressure tank, water filter, water heater with pressure relief tank--not pictured are the electrical panels and PEX manifold.
The Leaning Tower of PVC Babel. This puppy took about two hours to figure out and build. I had to label all the parts--three bowl sink, one garbage disposal, two dishwashers and one air admittance valve. When it was installed, the right sink drain line was 1 1/2 inches below where it was supposed to be--two hours later it was right. Works great.
Here's the kitchen sink without the Leaning Tower of PVC Babel. Did I mention that we got this sink (Kohler) from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore? It's a real bargain--we spent $40 on a sink that would have cost us $2,000. All we had to do was clean it up and remove the old fixtures. Sweat equity in action.
Re-installing the KitchenAid fridge doors after moving it upstairs. I am really getting bald.
The essentials are getting in place--and if anyone knows where my green Nalgene water bottle is, I need it for physical training tomorrow morning.
Laundry/bath sink--Kohler fixtures are great--install easily and well. I have one problem with a sink missing a washer and they are FedEx-ing it to us. That's three sink faucets, three showers and one bath faucet. Great stuff--two thumbs up and five stars.
A nice photo taken by son #1 (I think). Shows the laundry/bath and nice use of the mirror. Linnea developed this mirror fetish while we were stationed in England, and we came back with something like 15 wall mirrors. Apparently everyone in England is getting rid of theirs and we had to take them--probably something to do with reparations after the Revolution.
The cat is at the house full time now, although he isn't earning his tuna at this time. He is turning into quite the fly and moth catcher though. Number 2 son isn't too bad at flies either, but he doesn't eat them. There is a standing 10 cent bounty on every fly, payable at the ten fly count in Thistle House.
Here it is; the end of the 'Blue Room'. I have an entire future blog series on the trials and tribulations of having a port-a-potty for a year. It's a joy almost indescribable to have indoor plumbing. Now all we need to do is install the bathroom door.
Same toilet in the laundry/bath, showing the glass block shower wall just getting started.
Dinner interruption on Saturday night. Fresh from the garden, our own veg. Disclaimer: the onion is from the store.
Glass block wall, post dinner. Linnea and son #1 are hard at it, installing it. I was doing electric in the upstairs bedrooms.
We are doing a 'Tuscan' theme in the laundry/bath, and when I say 'we' I mean Linnea and Daughter. I just haul boxes of tile.
Finishing up the glass block--rubbing off the stray mortar.
That's it for now--more later. Probably another week before a good post, as the Air Force (and DoD) has blocked access to Blogspot from Air Force networks. Being a military IT guy, I totally agree in principle but it sure impacts my slack time at lunch doing updates. Oh, well.
We have been going full throttle to get ready for the final inspections. In the last two weeks we have: installed two full bathrooms, a kitchen, finished all the electrical in but one room, built a glass block wall, installed tile in two bathrooms, plumbed in the water heater, installed the porch railings, the porch stairs, the balcony railings, the window screens (had a lovely 52 degree night on Friday), installed a sub-panel for electric as we have 10 more spaces than our 40 space panel (electrical breakers take one to two spaces each), and I am sure more than that. Whew--just typing it wears me out. We also have two sickies in the house right now--Linnea and number one son have a cough/running nose/ear infection going. Son is getting better but Linnea may take a trip to the base emergency room tonight to get some medicine to help her get better.
Looking over the photos from the last weeks, I see that we also spent the first nights at the house--how could I forget? We took last week off on leave and camped overnight from Tuesday to Saturday. Coming back to the apartment in military housing was a let down after being at Thistle House for five nights. Even in it's chaos, it's an easy to live in house. Plus, all the food is there now and the larder is bare here. There is no connection to the internet at Thistle House yet, and I told the kids we are not moving a single computer until every dust speck is gone and all messy work is done. That motivated them as that means the Xbox stays at the apartment too.
So, here is a montage of photos from the last few weeks; comments are welcome.
Basement mechanical room; well pressure tank, water filter, water heater with pressure relief tank--not pictured are the electrical panels and PEX manifold.
The Leaning Tower of PVC Babel. This puppy took about two hours to figure out and build. I had to label all the parts--three bowl sink, one garbage disposal, two dishwashers and one air admittance valve. When it was installed, the right sink drain line was 1 1/2 inches below where it was supposed to be--two hours later it was right. Works great.
Here's the kitchen sink without the Leaning Tower of PVC Babel. Did I mention that we got this sink (Kohler) from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore? It's a real bargain--we spent $40 on a sink that would have cost us $2,000. All we had to do was clean it up and remove the old fixtures. Sweat equity in action.
Re-installing the KitchenAid fridge doors after moving it upstairs. I am really getting bald.
The essentials are getting in place--and if anyone knows where my green Nalgene water bottle is, I need it for physical training tomorrow morning.
Laundry/bath sink--Kohler fixtures are great--install easily and well. I have one problem with a sink missing a washer and they are FedEx-ing it to us. That's three sink faucets, three showers and one bath faucet. Great stuff--two thumbs up and five stars.
A nice photo taken by son #1 (I think). Shows the laundry/bath and nice use of the mirror. Linnea developed this mirror fetish while we were stationed in England, and we came back with something like 15 wall mirrors. Apparently everyone in England is getting rid of theirs and we had to take them--probably something to do with reparations after the Revolution.
The cat is at the house full time now, although he isn't earning his tuna at this time. He is turning into quite the fly and moth catcher though. Number 2 son isn't too bad at flies either, but he doesn't eat them. There is a standing 10 cent bounty on every fly, payable at the ten fly count in Thistle House.
Here it is; the end of the 'Blue Room'. I have an entire future blog series on the trials and tribulations of having a port-a-potty for a year. It's a joy almost indescribable to have indoor plumbing. Now all we need to do is install the bathroom door.
Same toilet in the laundry/bath, showing the glass block shower wall just getting started.
Dinner interruption on Saturday night. Fresh from the garden, our own veg. Disclaimer: the onion is from the store.
Glass block wall, post dinner. Linnea and son #1 are hard at it, installing it. I was doing electric in the upstairs bedrooms.
We are doing a 'Tuscan' theme in the laundry/bath, and when I say 'we' I mean Linnea and Daughter. I just haul boxes of tile.
Finishing up the glass block--rubbing off the stray mortar.
That's it for now--more later. Probably another week before a good post, as the Air Force (and DoD) has blocked access to Blogspot from Air Force networks. Being a military IT guy, I totally agree in principle but it sure impacts my slack time at lunch doing updates. Oh, well.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Mom's Cafe
I haven't been able to tall about this project so far this weekend, but Linnea finished the tile front of the range hood. It's a monster 1,200 cfm exterior fan that has a 10" opening outside attached (somehow) to the 8" duct at the range hood. We puzzled about how to build the sheet metal duct, and ended up using leftover cement board to build a box over the hood that went up to the 10" opening for the blower motor.
Linnea and our youngest son spent part of Saturday and this evening finishing the tile over it. She got some chalk board paint from Lowes to add a message area that she can decorate as she wants. Linnea says "It's mine to decorate--it's not for everyday stuff". I think it looks cool.
And here are some more pictures to show where the room paint is in the kitchen and living room. More painting tomorrow and it looks like we will start the final grade backfill and rough landscaping this week.
Linnea and our youngest son spent part of Saturday and this evening finishing the tile over it. She got some chalk board paint from Lowes to add a message area that she can decorate as she wants. Linnea says "It's mine to decorate--it's not for everyday stuff". I think it looks cool.
And here are some more pictures to show where the room paint is in the kitchen and living room. More painting tomorrow and it looks like we will start the final grade backfill and rough landscaping this week.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
What's happening?
We have been working like mad to get the drywall done and get the house ready for paint. In a nutshell, we have finished the walls, ceilings, cement board for tile floors and showers and Linnea and our daughter have started painting the kitchen. Here are some pictures to show where we are.
This morning as we started work. From there, after laying out the tile for the range hood, we went to primer.
Cutting in the green heather #3 from Laura Ashley at Lowes
To here:
At the end of the day:
This morning as we started work. From there, after laying out the tile for the range hood, we went to primer.
Cutting in the green heather #3 from Laura Ashley at LowesTo here:
At the end of the day:
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Passed the rough inspection
Well, we passed the rough inspection! Troy was happy with just about everything, but we will have to add a receptacle above the second sink in the master bath. That and a few little nit-noids and we were done. Yeah!
On Tuesday the 25,000 pounds of drywall showed up--okay, but it seems like that much. Tony the building supply guy did a more detailed take-off to get a better idea of how much we needed, and with all the supplies it added about $1,300 to that budget category. Good thing we don't need any money. So, we took the rest of the week off and started putting up ceiling board. That's 1/2" gypsum drywall with fibers in it to resist sagging. The crew from Building Specialties boomed the load into each floor and carted it around to each room. Boy is that convenient, but boy is it in the way of putting it up.
As a bonus, here are the pictures of the two upstairs shower floors Linnea is putting together. The tile is in ours, it's bargain tiles from Lowes. The river rock is for the kid's shower and it's an artistic experiment that Linnea and our daughter are doing. They are going to set the rocks in the concrete with their flat side up to give a smooth floor, yet show off the rocks. I think it will be cool.
On Tuesday the 25,000 pounds of drywall showed up--okay, but it seems like that much. Tony the building supply guy did a more detailed take-off to get a better idea of how much we needed, and with all the supplies it added about $1,300 to that budget category. Good thing we don't need any money. So, we took the rest of the week off and started putting up ceiling board. That's 1/2" gypsum drywall with fibers in it to resist sagging. The crew from Building Specialties boomed the load into each floor and carted it around to each room. Boy is that convenient, but boy is it in the way of putting it up.
As a bonus, here are the pictures of the two upstairs shower floors Linnea is putting together. The tile is in ours, it's bargain tiles from Lowes. The river rock is for the kid's shower and it's an artistic experiment that Linnea and our daughter are doing. They are going to set the rocks in the concrete with their flat side up to give a smooth floor, yet show off the rocks. I think it will be cool.
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