And so the basement story continues...

For a reference on our previous progress renovating our basement, go here.

A few things have happened since I have written last.  One, we had a daughter!  Isn't she cute????!??

She is now 3 months!!  My my, how time does march on.

Little miss has slowed down basement progress some.  Juggling new baby and creating a room for said baby to live in at the same time is no joke!  I don't recommend it.  We intended to have it done before she came but it just didn't turn out that way!  Finding time to do (loud) basement projects in-between the naps of a toddler and infant (a sensitive, colicky one at that!) has proved to be quite tricky.  We couldn't have done this without the help of my generous parents!!

At this point, the space is really taking shape!  There was a lot that took place behind the scenes down there...so many details to think about before closing in the space!  Here's a recap on plumbing work we have done: Gabe re-routed/replaced almost all the in-efficient copper plumbing with PEX, we moved the water heater from one end of the house to another, and added a bigger water pump.  And Gabe did it all--minus the initial pipes that were added underground for septic.  I was very impressed with his thoughtfulness, planning and ingenuity in the whole process.  We now have better water pressure and a quieter, more updated system thanks to Gabe's research and dedication.  Here's Gabe in action with a blow torch:

Here he is moving the water heater:

And then installing the new, bigger water pump a week later:

Mind you, this work was going on the week we decided to try and potty train our toddler boy.  THAT was an interesting week!!!

So many pipes!

Gabe was forever adding things to the list for what needed to be done before we could schedule the drywall guys to come and work their magic.  On top of the plumbing work, Gabe also did most of the electrical himself, with me being consulted on location of boxes, type and size.  He put in all the vents and we added an exhaust fan in the bathroom--that will be nice, there isn't one in the upstairs bathroom, so we have to open the window in the middle of winter ;) We had to cut into the exterior wall, through brick to fully vent.  That was a noisy day!  Also, I must add, our 2 1/2 year old son is pretty sensitive to loud sounds--he doesn't yet love the sound of his daddy's drill.  It seemed like there was always one more spot to frame (having something on which the drywall would attach!  Just another thing I wouldn't think of!!)

For a good 6 months from the time we started framing in February, there wasn't a whole lot to see--minus minor details only a specialist would notice!!  At the end of August, Gabe and my dad worked on insulating the space.  This was an exciting step since it starts to feel like an enclosed space.  The sound started to deaden a little bit--in a 1960's home with squeaky wooden floors this will be much appreciated!!  The insulation was placed around the exterior wall and in the ceiling, upon my request.  I'm so glad we did!  Here are a few pictures:

After installation, we needed to have one more inspection before we could drywall.  Almost there!!

The night before the drywall guys came, Gabe was rushing around finishing last minute things.  It will be easier to add a light fixture to the stairwell before the drywall goes up, so he took the opportunity to go up to the attic crawl space (yuck!) and do a little guess work on where the fixture would be dropped.  He got it right on the first try!  That's ma man!  :D  Our son was so excited daddy was going up the ladder to an unknown, un-explored space--he wanted to come too (he couldn't--too messy with insulation).  I was rushing to make room for all the little things that were in the room outside of the room.  Gotta be organized or it gets chaotic real quick!

Pics the night before d-day:

Just to note--we have no general contractor.  Gabe and I source and gather materials before the guys come and make sure they will be as efficient as possible.  In this case, we bought 38 sheets of drywall and buckets of mud.  I'm sure there are more details, and we have additional help from my mom and dad too.  My mommy brain spins at times!

Three weeks ago is when we were able to schedule a couple days for the drywall guys to come out and get the job done.  It ended up being a 3 day process stretched over a week timeline.  He came on a Tuesday, with a buddy, and hung the drywall, taped and mudded.  He was here another time over the weekend to sand and mud again and then one final time the next Monday after that to do one more mud and sand.

We had 2 sheets of drywall left.  Better too many than not enough when you are paying someone else for their time and labor.  There was just enough time to take back the last few sheets in Gabe's pick up truck before we sold it to fund more of the project :)

Pics of drywall!

in the mud room from the basement door

from the bathroom

looking into the bathroom

The bulkhead looks a little rough because the guys didn't put drywall there.  Gabe wanted to clad it with something different so he could access the pipes in this trunk line.  So he put 1/4" primed plywood in it's place and we will do some sort of trim piece to hide the cracks showing at the top.  Not my favorite idea, but I guess it's a necessary thing.

Since I didn't get pictures of every. single. step. you can see that it has been primed (with a spray gun) and ceiling paint is already done on top of that.  It is Sherwin Williams "High Reflective White" in a flat finish.

We have since moved the freezer out into the "mud" room where the water heater used to be.  It just fits!  Although it is not in its final location--there will be some switching around of utilities to come.  Just not a priority right now like having a bigger bedroom so we aren't all tripping over one another and all our furniture in our current bedroom!

Freezer's new location:

Basement bedroom without the freezer in the middle:

Now for an especially fun part.  Finishes and fixtures!

Last weekend, we had another subcontractor come out (thanks for the reference Dad!) to tile the bathroom.  Know this, it kills my husband to have to hire someone out to do this.  He wants to do EVERYTHING!!  :P (i love you Gabey)

They came on Saturday, completing most of the shower/tub surround and flooring.  They were there until after 10pm that evening! And they came the next day around 8:30 until around 1pm and laid the rest and grouted.

I'm very pleased with my tile design:

The pink that can be seen around the edge of the tub is part of the waterproofing membrane and can be scraped off easily.

Here is a detail shot:

And the wood look flooring + vanity (uninstalled):

Few more shots:

You can see the paint color options I'm mulling over on the above picture.  I'm looking at some variation (lighter) of Behr "Dolphin fin", "Rhino" and "Sage Gray".  "Rhino" was used in the bathrooms in our first house flip.

Here are the color samples:

Dolphin fin

Rhino 

Sage Gray

Here is the tile on the floor in the bathroom:

I had them lay it in a wood staggered pattern with 3/16" grout joints.  The grout color is "Truffle" from Home Depot.

Here is where we ended up sourcing our wall tile since it went discontinued at Home Depot during our project and I had only bought one box as a sample!  It is a 4 1/2" X 10" matte white tile.  There was one box total out of 11 boxes (120 square feet) of breakage and they were kind enough to send us that replacement free.  This is laid in a brick pattern with a 1/8" grout joints.

This is the accent tile:

I had them cut it down to 4" wide for the band.  We had to do some planning in order to make it fall neatly where we wanted it in relation to the niche.

We haven't installed this yet, but here it is:

Here is the laminate (not my first choice!) flooring we ordered for the bedroom.  I guess hardwood and/or carpet isn't a good idea for a basement.

I made a mock up of the vanity mirror to see how it will fit.  It was tricky to find a mirror that will fit between the sconces.  It's up high because I have a tall husband :) and also because we are putting in a "chair rail" of tile on the north wall to act as the backsplash.

Here is the mirror we bought:

Here is a pic of the vanity sconces:

Here is a pic of the lighting fixture in the hallway of the bathroom, in front of the linen closet:

This weekend, we are hoping to install the doors and some trim.  Gabe bought them a couple days ago:

The floor trim we have ordered in keeping with the rest of the house:

We are also hoping to install the flooring in the bedroom.

Here's hoping it's done soon!!  We sure are ready.

I'll be in touch for the conclusion of the matter!

Moving Forward with Flooring: Wood & Tile

Day 75 for Gabe and I, Friday, February 1st.

This weekend we all worked to prepare the space for flooring to be installed.  Mom & Dad worked mostly to prepare the wood flooring.  Boy, was it a lot of work!  I didn't know how much extra work it was going to be to reclaim the original, old 1890's heart pine we had in the house to start with.  But in the end, it will be hard to put a price on such an antique!

The interior doors and trim also arrived during the week.  The interior doors were stashed upstairs in the 2nd bedroom for now until they get installed.  The 16' long trim pieces were crowding up the living room (the wood floors were there too, making it total chaos), so they needed to be moved upstairs and out of the way.

Apparently Mom had spent a good 30 hours that week (Dad probably wasn't too far behind) working at the house to clean out the caked-on gunk in the tongue and groove of the reclaimed wood slats....  Through the past century, dirt and debris got wedged into the crevices of the groove and got "cemented" there with the smoke from the wood stove.  It had a hard, brittle composition, resembling black carbon.  Mom went through many flat head screwdriver tips (her tool of choice) to remove it.

Here is the diligent one in action:

Oh and more good news!  The electrical system works again so we now have a newly working HVAC unit!!!  That was exceedingly exciting to me.

We arrived on the scene late Friday afternoon after a trip to Home Depot (this is becoming a pattern) to see new rails on the front porch.  Our framing subcontractor had been at the house during the week working on it.

Exhibit A:

I got busy painting a new set of paint samples on the walls:

This time around went much better.  I honed in on one color for the main areas downstairs which turned out to be a lighter version of Raffia Cream and have the porch ceiling color picked out:

They say, if you paint your porch ceiling light blue, the insects and wasps will get confused and think it is the sky and look for a different, more solid and permanent spot to build their nests :)  I don't know about that, but I do know that I love me some turquoise blue!!!

To be exact, it is:

I'm going for a light gray blue for the two bathrooms and am still testing this one.  Here are some contestants:

A lighter version of this one

At this point, I have ruled out Dolphin Fin, as it looks too much like putty.

After moving trim upstairs through the large master bedroom window, Gabe and I tackled the floors of the downstairs bath and foyer while Mom & Dad continued to prepare the wood flooring slats.  Gabe showed me how to use a belt sander to smooth down the seams of the plywood subfloor in preparation for adding cement board (Durock) as an underlayment for the slate tile to go down there.

Along with other unglamorous things such as sweeping and locating and opening up a buried electrical box, these two spaces were ready for Durock:

Downstairs full bath

Foyer

The next day, the wood flooring was nearly ready.  Dad had hired a local guy to assist us in laying the wood floors the next Monday, so we needed to have it ready by then.  Dad used the sander to remove caked on "carbon" from the groove side of the slats and Mom worked to inspect and sort each piece into piles of size, as per the flooring specialist's instructions.

Gabe and I sorted through some discarded piles of slats to establish which ones could be used in more tucked away spots where it wouldn't matter if the tongue had broken off or there was a larger nail hole in the middle.  These boards would be face nailed into spots like the storage space under the stairs and possibly the utility room.  Any boards we just couldn't use I plan to do make an art project, or create a mirror frame.  So many projects!

We also used the belt sander to level out a seam in front of the French doors that had already seen a bit of water, causing it to ripple.  We were able to smooth it down rather easily.

Then, we moved on to installing another cabinet in the kitchen.

Lookin' good! 

Next, we fastened the cabinet doors back on to keep them off the ground and away from damage as well as keep dust out from inside.  This cabinet was the last we could do on the right side before we figure out what to do about the over-the-refrigerator cabinet bump-out and how that relates to the soffit, that doesn't bump out to the same depth yet.

Additionally, we needed to have the subfloor reasonably cleared so the work could begin.  This proved to be an awkward task.  Cabinets belonging downstairs were temporarily moved to the upstairs, so we did a little cabinet dance.  This is where being organized and remembering where you put something comes in handy.

After while, Mom & Dad had to leave for their evening plans, so we stayed and finished what we could of the wood floors.  I worked to remove carbon from the remaining dozen or so boards, while Gabe did Dad's task of sanding down the groove side of the slat from all the caked on dirt.  We had to leave for dinner with friends around 5, but we had cleaned off all but a few scraps, so the wood flooring installer, Rene, and Mom could get to it on Monday.

Kitchen area all cleaned up for the install:

Boards all sorted into piles of varying lengths:

Yes, my mom is an expert organizer

After a good sweep, we were outta there!

On Monday and Tuesday evening, Mom and Dad met with Rene, who would be installing our floors.  Mom laid the boards out and Rene tacked them down with his special tools.

These are the photos we saw of the progress during the week:

Very exciting!!  The dark spots in different places are low spots where the original varnish was not completely removed.  We plan to sand down the whole floor plane to get a more even finish as soon as it's done.  This will remove the dark patches.

On Wednesday, it was established that there was not going to be enough flooring to complete the first floor.  There was about 6 1/2 feet that were left along the south wall in the living room.  In the original upstairs arrangement, there was a partition wall made up of thicker and wider heart pine slats that we were going to use as stair treads, but we decided to have these planed down to match the thickness of the floor boards.  We will buy additional stair treads in heart pine later, which will not be immediately adjacent to the floor.  Whew, dodged a bullet on that one!!!  It would have been sad if we could not have the same heart pine flowing through the downstairs...even though they say it will look exactly the same as newer, reclaimed heart pine, I had my doubts.

The next weekend, we got to the house on Friday eager to see the flooring.  It looked fantastic!!  The planed down heart pine to be used for the rest was even delivered already!  The only hitch we needed to address with was the width of the heart pine.  It is wider, and will be noticeable.  The only way we could have made that work was to "feather" the pieces in over a greater space, but it was too late for that.  Here are some more shots of what is completed so far:

Along the far wall the unfinished section can be seen

looking into the Dining Room

View into the Kitchen:

Coat Closet

Transition into the Utility Closet

Speaking of the Utility Closet, here is our brand new HVAC!!!

I honestly never thought I would get this excited about an air handling unit.  But when it's your first one, anything goes!!  :D

Also, we couldn't get a hold of the local lumber supply company that day, to return the pine to have it additionally milled down to the right width.  These are the problems we seek to resolve in this process!!!  It will have to be done next week.

The project first on Gabe's mind for Friday was to retrofit a line for cable in the upstairs which we managed to forget to do before the drywall went up.  Boo.  But, he bought the cable line, ran it from the 2nd bedroom closet (where he would eventually tie it in downstairs to the cable box) to the master bedroom, all around the room to the only location a T.V. would work in the space.  Here it is, to the right of the large windows:

He's running the line around the baseboard, eventually to be behind the trim.  In the dark.  Yeah, we don't have electrical hooked up yet...

The next day, Saturday, Gabe worked to finish running the line for cable pretty much all morning.  I was there to be a gopher.  Yay.  Dad was working to get the master bedroom organized to suit the contractor coming next week to work on trim.  The miter saw needed to be arranged just so to accommodate the long lengths of trim he would be dealing with.  Then he started on the skirt board for the stairs.

Here is Gabe wiring the study for cable:

Running the cable around the 2nd Bedroom:

And then he ran it down to the first floor to tie in with the cable box.

Dad worked on the skirt board running up the stairs, shown here to the left of the makeshift treads, running up the side:

Our next project was to install Durock on the floor of the foyer and downstairs bath.  We bought eight 3' X 5' sheets that were 1/4" thick.  The plan was to cut the pieces for a dry fit before we mix the Thin-set.  We wanted to get the substrate down before we install the wood flooring, so they don't get damaged in the process.  

The strategy is to offset the seams, and leave patching and small piece for low traffic areas.

This is what the entryway will look like when it's done:

Moving into the downstairs bath:

Mixed Thin-set:

And we are ready to lay it down!  But we have to be quick...  Gabe spread the Thin-set with a grooved trowel:

And then I came behind him and screwed the boards down at 5" intervals.

Then, I had to leave so I could keep a commitment for that evening volunteering at our church so Dad took over my post.  And, wouldn't you know it, there are no more pictures!

My school semester has been underway for about a month now with two afternoon classes a week, which is a lot more manageable than last semester, which was really, really busy!!  Our goal is to have the house finished enough for an occupancy permit sometime in April.  

We are going gang-busters until then to get it finished!

'Til next time....