A Toilet Story

When we moved into the house, it became evident very quickly that the upstairs toilet had issues. The handle wouldn't spring back up (so it ran constantly), the floater wouldn't engage, and the tank plug wouldn't close properly. A new kit to replace the "innards" of the toilet, cost $20.

Well, we were at Lowes the other night, and they were redoing their sink and toilet aisle. As a result, all of their "displaced display items" were SUPER on sale! We were able to purchase a $200 pedestal sink (which will go in our new master bath which will go in the secret room) for only $10! We were also able to get this Titan display toilet (it can flush a tennis ball, and is supposed to never clog!)



The only downside, was that the tank cover was glued on for display purposes. Thankfully, nothing a screwdriver and hammer couldn't pry open :-)


The old toilet was a low-sitting, square one (circa 1980ish). The new one looks SOOO much better. Here's Jeff working on switching them out.


The other downside of buying a display toilet... no instructions! There was this little black foam piece sitting in a bag in the tank, but no instructions on where it went, so we just took it out and installed the toilet as was. Imagine our surprise when we flushed the tank for the first time, and the entire thing emptied out onto the floor! Oops! The black piece was to form the seal between the tank and the pipe. The piece was placed, and then there were no more leaking issues from the tank :-)


I can't believe I'm blogging about replacing a toilet, but it's technically part of the household renovations, so it must be included :-)


PROJECT COST
Toilet: $20.00
Toilet Supply Hose: $3.29
Wax Ring: $1.97
Toilet Seat: $12.99

More Work on the Dining Room

The work in the dining room continues! The scraping of the layers of wallpaper which was underneath the wallboard has been a slow process. Thankfully, I don't have to strip everything off- just anything that has a loose corner hanging off.




After the scraping was done, I took the Plaster Weld which was the consistency of milk (and cost $29 for a gallon) and painted it over all of the walls to seal them so that the dry plaster wouldn't suck in the moisture from the drywall mud when applied (which would make it crack)



Jeff ended up renting a drywall lift to do the ceiling- mainly b/c I've discovered that I'm not strong enough to hold up at 4x8 foot sheet by myself while he screws it in! The process was frustrating though, b/c 100 years of settling floor joists and plaster make for a not-so-flat surface to adhere the drywall to. Let's hope the mudding job hides it all :-)



I told Jeff that I hope he appreciates that not every wife would be up, hanging drywall with a hammer drill, at 3 AM with him!


And... Ta da! The ceiling is now covered with drywall! It still needs to be mudded, but it looks so much better already! :-) The end is in sight!!

It's 2 AM and Jeff and I are still drywalling. 'Nuf said... :-P

Entry Way Floor

The entryway to the house had the nice view of the wooden staircase going up, but when you looked down, there was super-ugly fake wood linoleum on the floor. We decided that since we were going to have to sand down the dining room, we might as well do the entry at the same time.


Who thought this looked good?!


Jeff attacking the floor, and HORRAY, the hardwood underneath is in GREAT shape (with no protective tar!)


MORE layers! 3 different types of linoleum on top of eachother- a fake wood, white squares, and then a fake stone looking one.


A door! The carpet and linoleum both prevented the hidden pocket door that separated the entryway and the dining room from eachother. It was SUCH a great feeling to be able to pull open a door which hadn't been opened in decades! As we hoped, it was in great shape just like the other one in the house


This cup contains hundreds of 1 inch staples. I spent FOUR hours last night pulling these out with pliers, one at a time. They were recessed almost all of the way into the floor, and took a ton of elbow grease to pull out (not like carpet staples, which pop out relatively easily compared to these). By 2 AM when I finished, the floor was staple free (and safe for little feet to walk on), and I couldn't stand up by myself, or make my hand into a fist (hence the reason why I'm blogging tonight, instead of working on the house).

It was a nice encouragement to pull up something and see that it was in good shape underneath. After the discouragement of the dining room walls, it is nice to see the entry way floors :-). We'll sand and stain them at the same time as the dining room :-).

(on a side note, there is still paneling in the entryway, as well as the drop ceiling. We removed the ceiling tiles, and found that rather than fish wiring behind the walls, they just decided to punch holes in the wall and run it in FRONT. Stupid corner-cutters!). So, there's still work to be done there... :-P

The Dining Room Continues

So, the saga of the dining room continues. This was supposed to be the EASY room! We discovered 3 more layers of wallpaper. These were between the 1/4 inch wallboard, and the original plaster. They're all brown now, probably from age, and I wonder what they might have looked like originally. One has a wheat type pattern, one is a woven design, and the other has small sea shell type circles. Amy Barry came over to help me scrape the other day, as we were able to get the last of the paneling down, as well as pull out all of the residual nails in the walls which had held the paneling up. THANKS Amy!!

We've decided to hang drywall on the ceiling. The plaster would take a whole lot of work to repair, especially in the parts which Jeff pulled out to do the lighting. So, we will be hanging the drywall ourselves, and then having our neighbor do the mudding.

Speaking of the lighting, we replaced the light location. The current one was in the center of the room, and since we didn't want to center our table in the middle of the room (it would have obstructed walking through to the kitchen), Jeff hacked into the ceiling to move it. The outlet box where the light wiring came out was never recessed, so that had to be done as well. As we expected, the wiring was all knob and coil (think ancient!), so Jeff had to run a length of new wire up for the light, and then fish it through the ceiling around the joists, to the new location. Once that was done, he recessed the lighting box and attached it to one of the joists, so we're all set to hang up our new light fixture once we get to that point.

We're still thinking of doing plaster on the walls. The walls will be my thing, and the ceiling Jeff's. I have been scraping off whatever is cracking and peeling, but not necessarily trying to get down to the plaster anymore. Once I have a flat surface that is not cracked anywhere, I can apply the Plaster Weld, which is an adhesive product that will allow me to plaster on top of it, without having to do all of the various layers (did you know real plastering takes a YEAR to dry?!). Spots that are lower right now, I am applying drywall mud to bring them up to an even surface with everything else. Then I'll sand it all down (with proper ventilation, incase there's any lead paint lurking in there) for the Plaster Weld.

We're thinking that we may hack in to the walls around the base of the room, and replace the knob and coil wiring with updated stuff. We'll see how ambitious we end up getting. Though, since the wall is all crappy at the moment, now would be the time to do it...

We've pulled up the carpet in some places, and have discovered that they did paint the black "protective tar" on the hardwood years ago before they covered it up. That will have to be sanded to death, but the hardwood looks great underneath! We'll pull up the carpet to do that once the floor and ceiling are done. :-)


More layers of wallpaper- there were 3 more layers underneath the wallboard, and on top of the plaster


Amy came over to help scrape down wallpaper and pull down the last few panels.


The ceiling- with the paint peeling off of the plaster, some stress cracks, and the lighting outlet box, which they never bothered to recess into the ceiling.


Rewiring the light. Jeff had to pull down some of the plaster, and fish a new wire in by the floor joists.


Ripping up and pulling out some of the dining room carpet.

Layers

So while I was gone in NH this past weekend, Jeff decided to start on what we're HOPING will be one of the less involved projects on the house- the dining room.

The plan for this room is:
* Remove drop ceiling and go back to 10 foot ceiling
* Remove wallpaper
* Remove paneling
* Remove carpet
* Refinish hardwood floor
* Patch plaster walls
* Decide on drywall or plaster ceiling, and finish
* Install beadboard wainscoting around the room (oak preferably, to match trim).
* Install new light fixture to provide more light and accentuate high ceiling
* Choose new drapery hardware and sew new valences or panels.

border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5231659714084871522" /> Before- lots of wallpaper and paneling


Before- the other side of the room


The drop ceilings taken down


Removing one of the layers of paneling (4x8 foot pieces)


Lots of construction adhesive left on the walls.

Well, Jeff started with the drop ceilings and took them all down while I was gone. Underneath was an additional 2 feet of headspace which had been covered up. The celing had peeling paint on it, as well as an area that shows a water stain. We're anticipating that this was from an ice backup on the porch roof, sometime before it was replaced 8 years ago. The ceiling is plaster, with a 1/8" wallboard on top of it. We still need to decide whether we're going back to plaster for the ceiling, or if we're going to have it drywalled.

We spent tonight working on the walls. Talk about LAYERS! There is light wood colored paneling, on top of wall paper, on top of dark wood paneling, which is then CONSTRUCTION ADHESIVED to the 1/8 " wallboard, which is somehow adhered to the plaster. We had to remove window trim and pull up the carpet around the corners of the room to get this stuff off the walls. As you can see from the pictures, the construction adhesive remains.

One cool thing, is that for whatever reason, the baseboard trim was not nailed directly to the wall. Instead, there are strips of newspaper which were placed between the baseboard and the wall. It's funny reading excerpts from the Grand Rapids Press from May of 1981. I'm going to save some of the clippings for my house restoration scrapbook :-).

I found a product which we can get at a dealer in Kzoo, which will allow us to paint it on the wallboard, and then apply plaster directly to that (rather than the normal 3 step plaster process, which you have to let dry for literally at YEAR!). So we're thinking we're going to replicate the look of the restored living room, and do plaster in there. Another fun skill to learn :-).

So far, the cost of the room has been:
$16- Ceiling primer
$2- dust masks
$65- new light fixture (originally $169- we got it on clearance at Lowes :-)