The Saga of the Kitchen Floor, pt 2

So, Monday we started working on the floor.  Somewhere in there we had to cut part of the threshold between the two rooms to make a more square starting point.  So we started laying the border tiles, which had to be shaved some of them (made thinner) to keep an even transition from the wood to the tile because things were not only not square, but not level either. We found out pretty quickly that these tiles were pretty brittle and lost a couple early on.  Then we laid the first row and our guide line.  Then we filled it in.  We had to add mortar or shave tiles here and there when the floor was just not level and a couple tiles cracked or chipped on the edges, but we didn’t feel like it was too too bad.  Laying the tiles took 2.5 days.  And I learned how to use a tile saw.

Then it was time to grout.  We really felt a rush to grout because the edges were chipping and the tiles cracked so easily that we really felt they needed the stability of side support before we lost any more.  We started in a corner and immediately noticed staining, so Daniel wiped it off as quickly as he could and we checked the instructions and found this item:

M. If the tiles are not pre-sealed, apply the Grout Release following the manufacturer’s instructions. This will help to     protect the tiles from being stained by the grout.

So, Daniel ran out to get grout release, which they didn’t have, so he got a penetrating sealer instead that is supposed to keep out stains.  We applied that and left for the day.  The next day we started grouting (with a whole new batch of grout, mind you, since the first batch was wasted) behind the refrigerator in case there was more staining and immediately we saw there was.  Big grey stains on the white blocks of the tile.  So I called the company and they were totally unhelpful, saying only that since we hadn’t used the grout release, as stated in the instructions, there was nothing they could do (or apparently recommend).  So we turned to the internet and found some grout release that had only an hour’s setting time rather than 4 hours like Dupont, called around to find who had it, and out Daniel ran to get it, hoping that the grout we had mixed, if kept covered, would stay good.  It didn’t.

So, at 4 in the afternoon, I ran out an got yet more grout, calling the babysitter watching Gus and Addy to see if they could stay later (thankfully they could and she was our savior and even fed the kids dinner) and we grouted the floor until 6:15 that night.

The next day, though it wasn’t as bad as before, there was still staining.  Some of it was from the grout, some was just from traffic during installation, but it wasn’t pretty.  We tried haze remover, I Bon Amied the whole floor, we mopped it with vinegar, nothing brought up the stains.  So, we decided we had to sand it out.  So we rented a big floor buffer and sanded it down past the stains.  But then, that left white crud along the grout lines.  Of course, we noticed that right before getting ready to seal when I had to leave to go to pick up the kids (Addy was at school, Gus at the sitter’s).  So, I left Daniel thinking there was maybe 15 min to half an our of work left.  When I texted him two hours later, he was still getting up the white crud from the grout and ended up working till 7, leaving maybe 10 min before we got home.

And that’s the epic saga of the kitchen floor.  There’s still a little staining that wouldn’t come up, but we were getting to the substrate of the tiles, but I’m hoping that over time it will all blend into the patina of the floor.  From far away, though, they look great and are everyone’s favorite part of the kitchen.

In case you were wondering, we went with Granada Tiles in the Toscano pattern in a custom colorway.  Again, Mapei grout, I think pearl gray again, but this time sanded.

Finally, tiling is very messy work. It took three days for the grout to wash off of my hands.

 

The Saga of the Kitchen Floor, pt 1

I’m just now finally getting around to posting about the kitchen floor.  For the most part, this renovation has gone remarkably smoothly, with very few hiccups, and petty swiftly considering we’re not just throwing a ton of money and contractors at it.  We’re only nine months in and already we’ve taken the downstairs down to the studs and built it back up to the point of living in it again.  We also have a whole new kitchen.  So, while I’m going to be complaining a bit, I realize that we’ve still been pretty lucky.

That said, these tiles were a pain in the a**.  It all started just fine.  Daniel started with me on the job on a Wednesday(? maybe Thursday, I’m forgetting already).  Our first day we spent entirely on planning and measuring and such.  This was especially tricky with the floor because the room itself is not square.  We fudged it a bit with the cabinetry so that the cabinets are square with the opposite wall, but the kitchen, because it was added on five years later, is not square to the great room.  That might not have mattered or been noticeable when there was a wall between the two, but now there’s not.  So, we needed to not only get the lines right in relation to the cabinets and walls, but also make sure that the sight lines were right, because it doesn’t matter if it is objectively square if it looks off because of the lines around it.

Then we decided to tile the wall first, since it would be easier and we could ease me into tiling.  (A funny little note — almost exactly one year before this, I decided to tile the tub/shower of one of the units in Oakland.  After demo and installing HardiBacker, I realized I was in over my head and contacted Dave to help.  He was busy, but referred his friend Dan, who was available.  And that’s how I met Daniel and we spent two great weekends tiling a tiny bathroom in Oakland where he graciously fixed my mistakes without ever making fun of me.  And he taught me how to tile.)  So, back to the wall.  We got all of that up before going into the weekend, and it was totally uneventful.  There was a little shimming of the countertops because the uppers and the lowers weren’t parallel, but that got sorted and we were able to grout and it looks great

In case you’re interested in this type of thing (I know I always am) we used

- Daltile 3×6 matte white field tiles. I’m not even sure exactly which one if you look on the website.  It was        the one they had in stock at the Daltile showroom in South San Francisco (where everyone is very         nice, btw).  It’s really basic and totally does the trick.
- Mapei Pearl Gray Unsanded grout on 1/8″ grout lines
- Omnigrip.  You apply it the same way you do mortar, but it’s so much neater.  I also used it to do some        repairs at Addy’s preschool teacher’s house with the leftovers and it worked great sticking an old tile        towel bar back to the wall.

Pictures:

Floors

I should let you know that we are living downstairs now. It’s not all finished, there is still much to do, but it’s livable and we couldn’t stay cramped upstairs anymore. We moved everything in on Christmas Eve and it made for a great present to ourselves and allowed us to open presents in the new space.

The week before, the floors were refinished. They look pretty good. For the most part, they’re fir, so they’re not going to be perfect and even, not to mention they’ve had various materials laying in top if them for 100 years. Chan did a great job of patching the hikes and putting in a strip where the planks meet the threshold to the kitchen. The oak in the den looks fabulous as well. I was a little sad that we lost the painted red stripe by the front door, but you can’t keep everything.

Before (after putting in the new walls and mopping)

After

I’ll add detail photos tonight, these are just from my phone.

The Kitchen!

This is the one I have been asked about the most. Even my mom and sister haven’t seen pictures. Linda and Jack saw the cabinets without countertops when they were first installed. But now, I’ll show what we have of the kitchen so far.

The fridge still needs to be put in place, the backsplash and floor need to be installed. That won’t happen until January. I just got word the other day that the floor tiles are arriving at the Port of Long Beach next week (yay!) and I still need to choose the backsplash tile — you would not believe how many options there are for matte white subway tiles!

We’re using it now, so it’s already way messier. Once the tiles are in, I’ll clean it really well and do a good final photo shoot.

In the mean time, it’s the pictures you want, so here they are:

The upper cabinets where glass is going to go. Aren’t the curves pretty?

The old sink all cleaned up with new matte black fixtures.

<;img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-1501″ alt=”IMG_1227″ src=”http://springtreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/img_1227.jpg” height=”750″ width=”500″ />;

update the fridge is in place and I got word that the floor tiles are on their way, all 1150 lbs of them!

Also, I’ve decided on a backsplash tile: a basic Daltile matte white 3×6 that’s <$5/sq ft, made in the USA, and in stock. Can't really best that.

The Last Week (for a while)

but don’t worry, it’s not the last post. Last week was the last of having full-time childcare and having Daniel and Dave come work every day. I’m really going to miss it. This last week was a mad rush and there are still bits to tie up, but that last 5% of any project is always the hardest.

We didn’t get off to the best start. Dave emailed Sunday night to say that he messed up his back working over the weekend and wouldn’t be able to come in on Monday and wasn’t sure about Tuesday. We really needed him to bring the biscuit joiner and 9 ft clamps for the countertops and it would have been nice to have an extra set of hands throughout the week, but he was down for the count, so we had to make do.
We got the walls up in the guest room and started on the taping and mudding. I took ownership of that room to see if I learned anything about walls in all the other rooms. By the way, I’m still working on them, but that’s another story. Daniel went to work getting the skim coat on the great room and working out the bumps and irregularities. That pretty much took two days since it’s such a big room. He also got the radius curve for the countertop cut, but we needed to get a belt sander to finish it. Oh, and we got the outlets wired in the kitchen, but I still need to do the great room and guest.
Finally, Dave let us know Wednesday that he would be able to bring the clamps and biscuit joiner in and do the countertop. He also brought a yummy lunch. But then, trying to move the heavy oak countertop around, he tweaked his back again and had to go home. Luckily, I’ve used a biscuit joiner before in making my book case, so I could do that. We got them cut Wednesday afternoon, but then I had to run out early to take Addy to the doctor for her checkup, so we cut the day short and glued it up the next day.
Since we had been short handed earlier in the week, we really needed some help if we had any hope of being anywhere near a closing point by Friday. So, Daniel roped Ryan (remember him from the last post?) in to working with us the last two days. He took over finishing the walls in the great room, which consisted of a ton of sanding and wiping the whole thing down to get the dust off and then priming and painting. And yes, that took two days. It’s a big room. That freed up Daniel to mount the hood in the kitchen, hook the stove up to gas, plumb the sink, get the dishwasher hooked up, and I’m sure there was more. Thursday morning, we also glued up the countertops, which was a trial in itself. We almost lost them when we moved them from the floor back to the cabinets and had to do a little regluing, but it all worked out in the end. Especially after Daniel sanded out the bow.
Even with the extra help from Ryan, we were painting when I picked the kids up from the sitter at 5:00 and were still cleaning up when Tuck got home around 6:30. Gus was so interested in the plumbing that he climbed into Daniel’s lap to see what he was doing. Addy also had fun playing around while we cleaned.
Even with all that, Daniel still had to come back for a few hours the next week to tie up loose ends. Dickie came over Tuesday to connect the stove to the outlet and the HVAC guys came Wednesday to vent the hood. So, the kitchen is actually functional! And that’s my next post. But right now, I’ll show some pictures of the great room and what we did that week.

The walls got taped (one might say, “expressively”) in the guest bedroom

The great room getting more coats.

Daniel figuring out the radius curve

After it was primed and painted, I mopped the floor

and hung curtains.

Jack it up

Once we got the kitchen ready for the cabinets, we turned our attention to the Great Room and Dave and Daniel noticed that the header over the huge sliding door consisted of a single long 2×4. Even if you don’t know much about structures, you can probably tell that a 2×4 is insufficient. It wasn’t even doubled up like it is over a regular window or door. All the weight of the upper story side wall was resting on one very tired, very bowed piece of wood. So that really had to be addressed before we finished putting the walls up in the Great Room.

Daniel took the lead on putting in the new header. We knew we were going to have to jack up the wall (literally, we rented jacks) and build a temporary wall to hold the load while he cut out the studs to make room for the properly sized header.

He did lots of research over the weekend figuring out what size it needed to be. Ideally, an 12×4 engineered joist was recommended, but those are hundreds of dollars and are special order, which would have really messed up our schedule. So, Daniel, being a thrifty and creative person, made his own with two 12×2 (really 1 1/2) pieces of lumber with 1/2″ ply sandwiched between them nailed together with special structural nails.

Once that was made, the jacks lifted the wall just enough to transfer the load to the temporary wall so that the old studs could be cut away to make room for it. It was pretty creepy hearing how the house creaked when the jacks were turned. I think we were all half holding our breath all day, since this was the most structural work we’ve done this whole endeavor, but no windows popped out!

There was once casualty: Daniel’s 7 year old reciprocating saws all finally met its match. RIP

With all of the load on the temporary wall and the studs cut out, the new header was lifted, tapped, and then nailed into place.

Then came the moment of truth — the temporary wall was knocked back down and the load transferred back to the new header. It did not creak this time. The sliding door slides much more smoothly and the upstairs is a lot less bouncy. Everything is doing its job.

The amazing this is, this was not the only thing going on these two days. Tom the cabinetmaker and Ryan, his assistant (and a good friend and frequent coworker of D&D) were installing the cabinets and Dave and I were putting up walls while this was going on, so Daniel was pretty much just engrossed in this project for two days with one of us jumping in whenever he needed a second person.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s thanksgiving weekend and I had hoped to get lots of posts up already, but we’ve been taking care of sick kids instead. I’ve been so wrapped up with the house that the holiday totally snuck up on me and it was Tuesday before I realized that we were Thanksgiving orphans. Luckily, great friends (hi Bethany!) invited us over and we had a wonderful low key dinner at their house where the kids played and the grown ups talked and drank and ate. It was perfect.

I also found out that people actually read this thing, so I need to get some updates posted. Like, tonight!

Also, I finally got a working charger for my dslr, so some really good pictures will be coming up soon. Enough with these phone photos!

So, as we go into our last week of construction with the big push, I’ll post several of the big changes.

Weeks three and four

It’s really staring to look like a house again. It’s so exciting! So, let’s do a run down.

Last week, Dave, the other D of D&D Builders, starting working with us. This was great since it allowed us to get the walls up in the kitchen and start the taping while Daniel was totally occupied by getting the replacement shingles and the trim up around the exterior of the windows. The shingles were very fiddley to work with and it ate up way more time than he hoped. The end result is good, though, and the trim we devised looks great.

Finally, toward the end if the week, he was able to come inside and work on getting some blocking in on the ceiling of the great room. It’s amazing how it has already helped with the stability of the second floor. Also by the end of the week we had both the den and kitchen walled, taped, and mudded. Also, my cabinet hardware arrived and was picked up by Tom, the cabinet maker.

This week, we were very good about making a list of goals for the week and writing out an am/pm plan for each day, and, for the most part, we really stuck to it. We got the second coat, the float, and the walls skimmed and primed by the end of the week. Dan and Dave got the new subfloor squared and installed, evening out the floor while they were at it. It’s not perfect, but there’s only so much you can do with cement board and thin set. We also got the ceiling insulated and most of the sheet rock up. One part was left open because next week we need to jack up part of the wall over the sliding glass door to replace the header with a double or triple header since they apparently didn’t put on in when they cut the door. Right now, all the load is going onto a single header and it’s pretty bowed.

Next week is going to be exciting. The kitchen gets installed! And Tuck’s patents are coming to visit and will be staying in the den, do its going to be fixed up by then.

And now, the pictures:

Kitchen, taped

Great room, insulated

One stripe up

Dan, taking care of a low spot

Dave and Daniel getting the Sheetrock up

The whole ceiling, and Daniel measuring the last bit.

Addy and Gus in the kitchen

The den

I’ll add some more pics of the exterior and the bowed door. I thought I had them on my phone.

Construction, week 2

How’s that for an imaginative title? So it’s actually Tuesday of week three and I’m in bed with a migraine and I’m so thankful I have Tyana to take the kids and Dan and Dave are working downstairs do the work doesn’t stop just because I’m in pain.

We go a lot done last week, so I’ll give a little rundown.

Monday: installed the den window. After the false start the Friday before, it went pretty quickly Monday. Daniel did most of the work and I would cut the pieces to size. I did a couple supports so u could get comfortable with the nail gun.

Tuesday: Daniel framed the kitchen window while I insulated the den. By the end I’d the day, the second window was in.

Wednesday: half day because I got a call from Tom of Living Woods that the cabinets were built and I needed to go to San Leandro to see them and also Dan’s compressor broke and he had to take it back and get a new one. But that afternoon, we started rocking the den.

Thursday: finished rocking the den and cleaned up in there. Designed an exterior trim to deal with a 1″ depth difference between the siding and the window.

Friday: I spent a lot of time with the saws-all getting a filled in foot frame even with all the other studs on the kitchen. Then I started insulating in there. Daniel worked on the exterior if the windows, making the trim.

And now we’re walking the kitchen. I can’t believe how fast it’s all going.

Here are some pics of the progress.

Getting the frame up

Window’s in

Insulated

Another hole in the wall

It’s in!

The cabinets

Figuring out trim

The den with walls

Insulated kitchen

Puttin’ it back together

It’s time for an update. Last week was the the first week of working all week on the house with my fabulous contractor (or “worker” as Addy calls him) Daniel Awand of D&D Builders. We spent most of the week getting the ceiling of the kitchen straightened out. One of the joists was very bowed and the wood was failing a bit at one end. Besides that, none of the joists were level with each other. To fix that, we found the lowest point and then attached metal sister joists to each one, making sure all of the new joists were level with each other. We also reinforced the sagging joist and it now feels much more secure.

Wednesday morning I put up the insulation while Daniel picked up the windows and that afternoon and Thursday we put the drywall up on the ceiling. The joists were more or less 24″ on center, so we had to go with 5/8″ board to avoid sagging. Luckily, the rest of the ceilings are 18″ oc, so we’ll be able to use 1/2″ on all the other ceilings because the 5/8″ was a pain to get up it was so heavy.

Thursday afternoon and Friday morning we started framing the new window in the den. Unfortunately, Daniel came down with the flu, so we had to call the day short, but we started right back up Monday morning.

Here are a few pics. I need to find the charger for my slr, so I’ll get better pics soon.

And off topic: Go Giants!