Let the Cleanup Begin

Anyone having to deal with fall cleanup knows this......what a pain!

I've been using my new back pack blower.  I like it.  It's easier on the arms to not have to hand carry a blower that will get progressively heavier as the day gets long.  It takes some getting used to as to how you need to walk and herd leaves.  But overall it makes the work a lot easier and it goes faster.

Both my neighbors have made overtures about borrowing it.  One not so direct, the other just asked outright with a 'pretty please' attached.  Nope.

So far I've spent about 12 hours over the last week or so and then about 8 hours on New Years Eve day blowing leaves into a huge 40'x40' area in hopes of eventually burning it down to a small pile of ash.  I'm still only a third the way through what needs to be cleaned up.  Who knew there could be so many leaves and debris compacted down to the soil?? 

Looking up from the channel

Looking down towards the channel
Just barely started the cleanup.

My neighbor across the road has mentioned twice I could just mow it all away.....and I've responded twice I can't (and won't) until I know and remove damaging obstacles lying in wait under the years of leaves.   Why ruin a perfectly good lawn mower?  I also want to get down to the ground anyway so I can eventually lay out a new layer of grass seed.

At about 4:30pm New Years Eve I drug up a chair and started a fire to get rid of a combined pile of underbrush I had cleaned out the week before and the new leaves.

I've got enough leaves and other debris left over for several more burnings!

Happy News Years!

Fall Foliage

One of the really nice things about living on a lake is that the majority of the inhabitants on the water tend to be seasonal....meaning not around.  Houses back off the water tend to be owned by year round residents.  In the summer, the lake can be a hopping place, though this last year because of the drought nearly everyone's boat house being high and dry so it's been relatively quiet.  My boat sits unused on it's trailer at the Dallas house waiting for some usable water.  Rumor has it that even 2012 will be light on rain.  Oh well, at least it's allowed me to focus on the house.

The upside of having several lots tied together (did I mention I finally bought the lot to the right of me?) and having a fair amount of established old growth trees around the house is the that everything is green and pleasing to the eyes.  The trees provide beautiful shade canopy overhead.  No one lives on the lots to the left of the house and there are two lots between me and the house on the right.  The only house across the channel is over one lot with empty lots to the left of that.  It's not remote by any stretch, but it is sufficiently removed from the neighbors to be peaceful.

Of course, the down side of all that is the maintenance.  In the spring and summer the old growth trees provide a beautiful canopy.  In the fall however, they dump a ton of leaves and branches to keep a fire going all winter!  Add to that the fact that the lot on the right hasn't been maintained and you have a some six years or more of accumulated debris.  The two lots to the left has a lot of St Augustine grass and other varieties and had been maintained probably up until about three plus years ago.  The drought has slowed growth so I only had to mow it one time this last year.

If I was going to get a leg up on I'd have to get some industrial help!  Before the holidays, the big box hardware store ran a special so I picked up a pretty powerful backpack leaf blower offered by Husqvarna.

Shower Pan; Step Two

Hey, Merry Christmas again!  After all it's Christmas day!

Progress!!
I completed the shower pan floor yesterday, Christmas Eve.  From start to finish it took about 3.5hrs with me finishing the actual shower pan work at about 4:00pm.  I had some leftover cement that I was about to discard until I remembered a place where I could do some repair work on the porch.

I was done and had all the tools cleaned up by 5:00pm, leaving plenty of time to get myself cleaned up and over to a friends for Christmas Eve dinner.  I didn't get home until after midnight!

The Shower Pan
The first step was to measure and draw depth lines on the lower hardibacker board all around the lower perimeter to identify how deep to make this layer of the pan and.  It was important to get the measurements right as I still had to match the same 1/4" drop for every 12" stretch slope to insure correct water runoff to the drain.

The biggest chore was mixing the sand and portland cement to the right consistency which, according to my online sources, is for a clump of it to ball up in your fist and not leave cement or moisture on your had.  If your hand was wet, too much water.  If the clump fell apart, not enough water.  I was never sure about getting that part right as my clump never quite looked like the one in the picture.  I got pretty close though.

Once consistency was achieved, I shoveled a layer around the entire perimeter and with my trusty knee pads strapped on, started working it under the gap at the bottom of the backer board and then packing it down a 1-2" wide 'shelf' all around making sure I was right at the measurement lines I had drawn on the wall. 

 Once the perimeter was laid and packed down, it was just a matter of filling in the center section, using some planks to scree it level, then packing it down using a trowel to work it smooth.  Working down on my hands and knees in a tight quarters is not a lot of fun!  The thought did occur to me more than once that I'm getting to old for this kinda stuff!  Sure glad I had those knee pads.

The curb...
The hardest part was working on the curb.  I started working on it and then remembered that I needed wetter cement for that section so I scrapped off the lay over the mesh, added more water and then reapplied.  It was still a bit tricky but with the forms I was able to build the curb and smooth it out.

With the curb in place, I set up a fan at low speed to provide some air circulation.  At about 4 hours it was looking a little splotchy but it was on it's way to drying out to a smooth consistent surface.

Success!
I removed the forms at about noon today.   It came out really well even if I do say so myself!

What's next?
Finish installing the upper sheets of hardibacker board and on the toilet side of the divider wall.  Eventually, as in after the drywall is installed, tile installation and then some type of upper divider wall glass and door combination.  I was at someone's home today and saw a nice glass wall and door so it gave me food for thought.

As for the tiling, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do but I've not settled on anything specific just yet.  Whatever I do, it's going to be timeless in nature....as in NOT trendy.  Last thing I want is for someone to walk in the bathroom and accurately tell me when I installed it.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

And Happy Holidays!!

No rest for the weary!  Work progresses!

I've spent a couple of days this week cleaning up the lot to the right of the house.  I blew leaves for three hours last night till I couldn't see anymore.  I got a new blower just for the occasion....hmmm....I think I'm going to do a whole write up on blowing leaves!!

Anyway, I blew less than a 1/5 of the accumulated leaves onto the existing burn pile.  I ran to the store and what do I find when I get home....?  The pile had slowly consumed itself.  It was still smoldering a bit this morning but I'm sure today's rain will kill it for good till the next time.

Speaking of rain, it started this morning so nothing like a rainy day to force focus on indoor activities.  So I'm going to take the opportunity to lay down the second layer of concrete on my shower floor.  Should be interesting!  Will post on it tomorrow sometime.

In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas and a safe holiday week!

Communications closet

Early on I came to the conclusion it would be a bit irresponsible, given the walls were all open framing to not take advantage of that fact and wire the place for television, computers, printers, sound, etc.    A prelude to that was researching home networks.

I staked out the location, the right side closet space behind on the right side of the fireplace.  Originally it was going to house the stubby hot water heater but because of the pressure release valve drainage pipe, I opted to move it over to the closet on the flip side of the fireplace box leaving the closet fully useable.

I opted to go with plywood backing as it provided a much more sturdy mounting surface than what  drywall might provide.  I didn't want anything to inadvertently detach itself.  To maximize the available interior space, I created a plywood insert that would allow the use of what otherwise would have been 3.5" of dead space inside the wall cavity.  It covers over the backside of the brick wall just as well as drywall.  I've been contemplating whether to layer it with dry wall for esthetics or, because it's a utility closet, to leave it as it.s

Anyway, the routers, wireless modems, etc, will mount on the inside right of the closet while the heavier equipment will be placed on some heavy duty closet racks mounted on the back wall.

I added additional framing for
better rigidity and support

 The closet also provides access to that side of the cupola up and behind the recently installed AC system.

Shower Framing Continued

Now that the sloping floor has been installed it was time to get back to finishing out the framing.

First to be installed were the lower side panel support boards that serve to provide a flat surface upon which the waterproof floor membrane could be attached and provide the Hardibacker board with additional surfaces where it could be screwed down tight some six inches above the floor.

Installing the Oatey waterproof membrane which needed to go up about 6-12" above the source of water to insure no leakage.

The Boss checking my work.

Installing an additional layer of water proofing barrier, in this situation a sturdy layer of tar paper or roofing felt.

The tar paper overlaps the shower pan waterproofing barrier so that in the unlikely event moisture somehow gets behind the Hardibacker board it will run down over the shower pan membrane.

 Installing the Hardibacker board. 

Notice the framed opening for a second niche on the right side end of the shower stall. 

The top of the divider wall is also framed to provide a shower side niche shelf while the bottom portion will serve as the inset providing tank or elbow space for the toilet.

The wire mesh over the threshold was also installed and nailed down only on the outside to prevent leak points on the inside which will rely on the weight of the cement flooring to keep it in place.

It got late so I wrapped up for the night.  There remains about four panels to install as well as the niches.  Once completed I can set out laying the new concrete flooring which will be somewhat a challenge for me to get the thickness and slope correct to the drain.

It supposed to rain in the next couple of days so not sure how much evening work I can get done given the carport tends to flood somewhat under heavy rain and that's my prime work area when cutting wood or in this case, Hardibacker board.  The drainage problem, a near future project, will be handled with the installation of french drains to assist with faster run off of rain water around and away from the house.

Christmas weekend is next weekend and I may have to go back to Dallas for at Christmas Eve but hope to get back and have Sunday and Monday to work on the house again.

HEY!!  I'm not working down there.

Lot aquisition

I've been wanting to convert the three bay carport into a four car drive through.  Given the pie shaped layout of the lot, the house being on the narrower end of the lot, the only way to sensibly accomplish that is to acquire the empty lots on either side of the house to provide the necessary driveway access on each end.

Current configuration

Looking towards the right side lot

I already knew who owned the lots to the left of the house; the original owners of the house.  I didn't know who owned the lot on the right side so I started researching.  It's amazing in today's Internet world what you can access online!  Suffice it to say, I found out who the owner was and it turned out to be a lady living on the next street over.

Mary....
Coincidentally, I met Mary when she dropped in one day out of the blue to greet and meet the new addition (me) to the neighborhood.

I found her to be a delightful person and learned from her that she and her husband built their house from scratch back in the early 70's and she's lived there ever since.  Sadly, she lost her husband a number of years back and now lives there on her own.  Her kids have grown and moved out though her son still lives in the neighborhood in a house at the entrance to the sub-division.

Since meeting we've had numerous enjoyable conversations.  Sometimes we talk about my renovation project because she can relate through her own home building experiences, and some times we venture into politics....which proves to be lively as we're in opposite parties.  I don't hold it against her...someone has to be on the other side!

At some point we talked about the lot with her mentioning she had committed the lot to the neighbors across the street from me.  I didn't tell her that in various conversations with them I already knew that regrettable fact.  I also didn't tell her that from what I was learning of them by their own admissions there was no way in the world they would be able to follow through with purchase.  I expressed my disappointment and suggested that if the circumstances were to change to keep me in mind.

In a later conversation, it became apparent that Mary might already be aware of the likelihood that the neighbors, with BIG dreams and no money, were not going to be able to follow through with their stated desire to purchase the lot.  When I told her about my hopes to convert the carport to a drive through (which I had not conveyed to her earlier) I could tell she really liked my idea.  We walked over to the house and I showed her how it would work out......if I could acquire the lot.

I could see she was visualizing the concept in her head and finally, pleasing to my ears, acknowledged out loud that it really did make more sense for her to sell the lot to me rather than the neighbor because I'd be putting the lot to a better and more practical use and that it would add value to my project.  We parted company with her commenting that she'd 'pray about it'.

Someone must have been talking to her cuz a month or so later she told me she quietly backed out of her commitment clearing the way for me if I still wanted the lot.  I did.

Still it was probably 4-5 months later before either one of us finally got around to closing the deal pretty much because, having verbally agreed to it, neither one of us was in much of a hurry.  Just before Thanksgiving 2011, I suggested we really needed to move forward on finalizing the sale.  She agreed.  In the first week of December she came over with the paperwork and I handed her the check I had drawn up back in October.  I promptly went over to the county seat and filed the papers.

So!  I'm now the proud owner of an empty lot!

Lots of pics!
...of an empty lot!

Across the lot,  early spring 2011

Before the initial cleanup, summer 2011

Before the initial cleanup, summer 2011

Before the initial cleanup, summer 2011

Cleaning up the lower half, summer 2011

View from the porch, Dec 2011
The lot starts this side of the Cedar tree

View from the porch, Dec 2011.

View from the far corner by the water channel
Dec 2011

The neighbors house across the road is on the left
Dec 2011

The side neighbors fence on the property line
Dec 2011

What's next?
Obtaining one or both of the lots on the left side of the house.

It's going to require a bit of diplomacy because I was the one negotiating with the owners on their original attempt to sell the lots with the house before the deal fell through and they lost the house altogether to foreclosure.

People can get a little weird when they think they have something you want so they start jacking around on the pricing....which is what they did in the middle of the original sale transaction.  Their behavior caused me to get annoyed, cancel the contract on the empty lots, and focus solely on the house alone....which ultimately left them with some low value lots that they still have to pay taxes on.

I've been contemplating approaching them anonymously through an intermediary with an offer on the lots and, if successful, buy the lots and quit deed them over to me when the deal is done.   If I'm not successful, I'd be disappointed but it would be no big loss.  The carport can still serve as a 4 car carport accessed from the one side.

We'll see how it goes.

Shower Pan; Step One

Do you know what's involved in creating a shower pan where there wasn't one before?  I could have taken the easy route and just bought a prefabricated pan but I didn't want to be standing on plastic.  And besides, the walls were going to be tile so why not the floor too?

You have to have a solid foundation.  In my case, I was dealing with a slab foundation otherwise I would have had to laid out probably a good 1"+ of plywood subflooring and then make accommodations for the drain.

Once you have your subfloor established, then you need to create a sloped cement floor bed on top of the subfloor to facilitate drainage, then cover that with a water proof membrane, cover that with yet another 1-3" of cement upon which the tile is attached.

Quite elaborate but necessary if you want to avoid standing water damage and/or leakage.

Step one:  The slope.
As with any shower, the floor must slope towards the drain or you have a big problem.  The slope is 1/4" drop per 12" of distance.  I set the new drain at 3/4" above the cement floor which means at the farthest outer wall, the rise has to be 1.75".

Easier said than done.  I looked around for one of those kits that you could install on the floor that predetermines the slope in all directions from the drain based on distance.  Well as luck would have it, I couldn't find it ANYWHERE.  So I had to improvise.

I measured and cut four 1x2" strips of wood to be used as 'scree' supports.  Each strip is tapered down at the rate of 1/4" per 12".  The shallow ends fit level with the 3/4" lip of the new floor drain and spread out to the far corners or sides of the stall.  This promotes the necessary slope for water drainage later after the next two layers in the process are laid.

Placing the sticks in place to be used as scree supports, I set about mixing 1 part Portland cement with 5 parts clean sand and then dribbling in water until it had the consistency of damp sand.  Then you just plunk it down and tamping into place and using the scree supports to level out the cement.

 Once screed out and smoothed over, let it dry.

The scree sticks will remain in place as the next layers are installed.  There is no concern about the wood getting wet and/or rotting as they will be beneath the water proof membrane, a topic to be covered in the next couple of postings.

Shower drain continued...

After some trial and error fitting with various drain pipe fittings, and digging the hole in the floor deeper and wider, I finally figured out how to best utilize the space offered by the original hold in the ground.

I dug out the dirt under the original p-trap, took my handy torch to the fitting just under the lip of the floor and sweated the P-trap off of the drain pipe laying the way to adding a newly fashioned p-trap.

 I back filled the hole using water to settle the sand down into a hard pack leaving about about a 1-1.5" to accommodate a cement layer bringing the floor back to level.

Back filling the hole with sand.

Laying in a layer of cement to bring the hole
back level with the floor

Next step will be the sloping concrete subfloor.  Who knew a tiled bath had so many layers and requirements to it??

Catching up!

Ok, I'll admit it...I'm way behind on my postings.

The recent annual time change, losing an hour of daylight, is having a drastic motivational effect.  It gets dark now at 5-5:30p.  It sucks because my momentum and motivation has gone right out the window!  It's only been a little while but I sure do miss those sunny 8pm evenings!  Compounding that problem, add a recent plunge in temperatures and it there's even less enthusiasm.  Oh, and did I mention I'm working 40hrs a week now....and lost 40 hrs a week free time that had been applied to working on the house....?

Well.....it ain't gonna get done if I don't do it so I'm still moving forward....albeit a tad slower!

Aside from working bit by bit on the house, I've also been doing some work around the lots on both side of the house.  It's fall so the place is covered with leaves.  The trees are tall and old so they tend to drop limbs and stuff that has to be cleaned up so I've had a couple of burn piles going on.  I kept stoking one small pile each morning to the degree that it burned for five days and consumed a ton of natural dead debris laying around.

It's starting to look better.

Shower Framing

While pondering the drain situation I started work on framing out the stall.  Now, I could have made this a whole lot easier on myself by simply purchasing a ready made shower surround and plunking into the space.  But I have yet to find a fiberglass/plastic surround that appeals to me.  For this bath, my bath, I wanted to go with a real tile surround.....which means a whole lot more work!

I will continue to look at the various tub surrounds mostly because by the time I finish all the different layers and required work that goes into a tile surround, I'm going to be so over it that I'll want NOT to do it again and thus will need one for the guest bath (fodder for a future post no doubt!).

In the meantime, the soon to be tile shower pan itself is going to measure 30x60", essentially the same footprint as the original tub. Where it is proving to be a challenge as inferred in an earlier post, is working around the placement of the toilet.

Layout challenges....
Normal standards require a minimum of 12" of floor space between the toilet and any wall it's placed beside measured from the center of the floor drain.   The purpose is not only to provide comfort to the person sitting on the facility, but also to allow room for the tank and access to it.  The only way to make the shower larger was to encroach upon the toilet space but I didn't want to do crowd that space for obvious reasons.  It required some creativity. 

I pondered (yes again) how to go about accomplishing the goal while meeting some informal requirements I have in my head....

• I wanted to be able to see the far shower wall lending to a more spacious feel of the environment,
• I wanted to decorate the space with some tasteful (timeless, NOT trendy) tile work
• I want to see it whenever I'm in the bathroom. 
• I don't want someone walking in 20years from now and without a blink of the eye exclaiming in horror "2011!!" (remember those harvest gold bathrooms of the 70's??....the "travertine" of our time).

Options....
I could leave the shower stall completely open and use a straight curtain rod exactly like I encountered in the Florida hotel room but there's that claustrophobic thing again.  I could use a curved shower rod allowing more upper body space but then the curtain when closed...or even open, would crowd out the airspace above the toilet.  I could go with just a thin glass dividing wall.....but then my practical nature kicked in and said that would not be practical in the long run....I'd always be cleaning it (both sides) just to make it look good.  I ditched that idea pretty quickly.

An excellent compromise!
As always, with time it finally came to me;  Build a 30" wide, 60" tall divider wall between the shower and toilet, install a glass panel at the top so you can still look out (or in),  utilize the unused interior airspace inside the upper wall on the shower side for a shelf niche to hold the shower essentials while the lower portion on the toilet side serves as elbow or tank room.

This solution offers a modicum of shower privacy and keeps the water splash inside the stall while enabling additional toilet placement options. 

So that's what I did.....

I laid out the initial framing and set up some temporary uprights to validate my idea.

Turned this way, the tank can stand freely
inside the wall cavity

The toilet can even be angled slightly to provide
to provide elbow room on either side....or
turned 90 degrees to parallel the shower stall.

Very doable!  With that, I started framing it out. 

The framing will include a 30" walk in opening to the left of the toilet area which may or may not include sometype of door.  Getting pressure for a glass door!  ;-)  The curb will be four 2x4's deep.  In the far left corner in the pics below, because of the curve of the outside wall, to take advantage of what would otherwise be unused (wasted!) airspace, I framed out the wall to allow for a second niche.

The second niche will fit between the two
right side 2x4 upright frames.

But, before I can apply any permanence to my ideas, I have to finish dealing with the shower drain and then lay down the foundation for the shower floor, a sloping cement subfloor to the drain.