Nov  20  2021

The final finishing touches !

I’ve been working away since the finishing of the kitchen.  Once the plumbing was all done and the last of the framing..  I was able to put up some drywall with the help from Brother Scott.

And this is where we are..  flooring is in .  then the shower stall had to be installed.

Done !  Took a whole day to do this part.. some tweaking needed. But it looks great.  Then the drywall is finished..  that covers the attachment flanges. We are ready for the taping now.  The flooring was done before the shower because I wanted the flooring to go under the shower base.  The floor is a new product.  No glue vinyl sheeting..  Thick and water proof.. just like vinyl planks but no seams. Notice the upstairs toilet drain is gone from this picture.  The modification done by the plumbers worked out perfect.

My Son has Come and taped and filled all the drywall.  And today I sanded cleaned and primed the room.

Two more days and the painting will be done. And there’s more work after that.

Painting done ! and the trim is in too.  Lights and the vent cover done !  And today I put the toilet back.

Vanity next… then maybe the door..

All DONE !

Skipped taking photos.. Sorry…  But the important thing is … I’m finished.  And we are having showers and using the bathroom.

This project turned out great.  Careful planning and quality components makes the difference..  We love the shower.  The vanity has lots of storage and counter room.  The powered mirror is just cool.

Thoughtful things like LED lights (shower too) and coat hooks for the towels.  I made a short video to point out the changes from the old bathroom..

And that concludes this project..  Taking the winter off renovations.  I will be out in the garage fixing up my new Polaris quad.   Check in on that  HERE.  Polaris 500.

Oct  15  2021

The cabinets are Here !

And being installed .. All the base cabinets are in place now..  And a few of the uppers too..

Enough to tell me how much room on either side of the window. And whether my wire for the light was in the right place.. So far everything looks good.

Well here’s progress.. All the cabinets are installed and the crown moulding done.  It’s going to take another day to build the counter tops ..

A different view.  We have more cupboard space now.

Here’s the first peek at the counter tops..  We like !  getting closer to the finish.  Also the new stove is installed.

All Done !

Oct  10 2021

We’ve been waiting for months for the cabinets to be delivered.

And that time has come!

We knew it would be sometime in October.  Got the call “get the kitchen ready”  Everything else gets put aside … Cause there’s work to be done and it’s a bummer not having a place to cook. So the quicker the better. The photo above was taken a week after moving in.. Therefore this is what we call a “base line”.  Almost immediately we moved the island from the middle of the kitchen to the place you see here. This worked better, and made sense to us..  So you will see that the new kitchen design has this configuration. Here’s a video explaining some things..

As the story goes we really never intended to replace the whole kitchen.  But when we looked closer there was just too many things wrong.  We thought that just getting new counter tops would be great..  Now that grew into spending three times as much and just make it right!  Worth it Right!

The first cabinet to go was the tall one with the wall oven and the microwave.  The microwave was plugged in behind the wall oven, and that was hard wired in behind the cabinet. Nope not surprised. I’m re-purposing this cabinet out in the garage. Only a few cabinets were junked, the rest will find a home either in the garage or the basement.

This is the wall that a lot of folks remove for an open floor plan. That’s not going to work for us.. It’s needed for more cabinets and more electrical.  I had to remove the band of drywall that had the tiles glued to it.  That allows for fixing the wiring, and new surface for new tiles.

With all the old cabinets gone , I’m working my way around the walls removing only what’s necessary.  Those access holes were already there.

There! all the drywall removed and a few surprises. I moved the stove over to it’s new home so we could still cook.

So let’s talk about those surprises shall we !

Nothing wrong with the window wall.  But the one between the bathroom and the kitchen…  I was really wanting to see more of that. First off there was a stove vent..  I believe it went up to the roof.  Cause the roofers found a vent cover that seemed to go no where.  So they patched the wood and carried on.

There it is beside the fridge.  Whomever did the back splash tile just tiled over it..  Okay that works..  But the wire for power to the hood was just taped up and left in the wall. You can see it by the red broom.  NOT good !  There also was a set of three switches that worked the hokey lights over the upper cabinets, and the one over the sink. And the heat lamp under the cabinets ?  Not sure what that was for.  Both these wires got pulled back into the basement and removed from the utility room light box …. where a zillion other wires were connected.

And here’s the bath tubs business end of things.  Some pretty fancy framing there..  I was thinking of changing out the tub faucet … but there is nothing wrong with it. The pipes are good too.  So leave it alone.  The one mystery that needed solved… Was the creaking sound coming from in the wall when hot water was run in the bathroom sink.  Watch this video…

Again not too surprised ..  The house has been full of DIY gone wrong.  The fridge needed it’s own circuit  and we needed a proper ground fault plug in the bathroom..

Done!  Easy when you have this kind of access.  And the mystery pipe noise from in the wall..  Solved !  Someone mounted a shelf bracket into the drain vent, pinning it against the dry wall.

So after several attempts to find something solid they did !  the vent pipe …  Why not.. but to their credit there was no way to know unless you have a stud sensor.  Stuff happens.

Speaking of things happening…  The dry wall is done and the first coat of tape and filler. It feels good to be putting things back together rather than fixing stuff.  One more coat of filler , then primer and paint..And DONE !

There… ready for the cabinets.  They are coming tomorrow.  I only painted the grey where needed..  So lets start a page 2.

PAGE 2

Sept  17  2021

Everybody’s favorite..  pipes !

I already did the bathroom drains, and the plan from the start would be to replace the pipe nightmare with new PEX .  And I can do the whole house… because the kitchen is getting it’s overhaul in October.  That will involve taking down the drywall behind the sink and the wall backing the upstairs bathroom.  All the back splash needs to go.  Some wiring needs work in those walls too.  So much of the water piping is a bloody mess.  No saving it..  And there’s some bad things ..like the main water feed going along the outside  concrete wall.  YA it could freeze if it gets cold enough.  Guess that’s why there is pipe wrap on it.

In this photo you can see that pipe running under the window ?  It does not need to.  And what’s up with that drain pipe?  Fairly sure it was hooked up to the kitchen sink drain (red arrow).  I’m thinking that will go back there instead of cutting across the room.  In the future this laundry room will also get a much needed makeover.

These two pipes (one hot one cold)  Go up into the wall between the kitchen and bath. I’ll temporally hook up to them …till the kitchen work happens.

So the plan is to build the new plumbing system along side the old.  Then hook it all up at one time so there is less down time.  And what are those mystery pipes..  just rattling around in the wall..  I think there was a bar sink in the rec room other side of this wall.  AND did you know …you can’t buy the old style laundry sink faucets any more..  had to make my own. Down the road when this room gets it’s make over All this will be inside the wall and proper faucet.

Here’s the new plumbing all done in the basement bathroom.  No mistaking hot from cold.. And yes the cold is on the wrong side.. but these pipes cross the utility room parallel to each other and I did not want to cross them over.. On the other side they are correct.  You will see later.

Here they are 3/4 ” PEX and are (loosely ) in place..  I’ll firm them up after the copper is gone and out of the way.  This is were they cross over the hot water tank on their way to the other side of the utility room.  Where they go back to 1/2″ PEX  and feed the laundry , kitchen and utility sink. And that’s where things were left…  There’s a part of me that wants the plumber to do the switch over..  I had to do some outside stuff ..getting ready for winter… and the Kitchen has to be started on soon..   See that post HERE.

Well After dealing with the kitchen… I did get the plumbers to finish up the conversion to PEX.  All done .

Here the part over the hot water tank.  Tons of copper taken away. I all so got them to redo the upstairs toilet drain..

It’s now tucked up and out of the way..  The city water feed / meter is up and ready for the water softener to be hooked up. Now I can resume work on the bathroom…  as soon as the back splash in the kitchen is done..

The water conditioner is in and working great.  What a difference! This should help save all our new appliances.  No more water lines near the outside wall.

It’s great to get back to work on the bathroom.  Got all the framing done and all the drywall that can be done before the shower stall is in stalled.  Things should move along nicely.

I’m going to start a new page for the final finishing of the bathroom.

Page 3  Finishing

Sept  14  2021

Yup It was usable….  JUST!

The toilet was new-ish.. Good.  The sink and vanity were right outa the seventies..  Oh they worked but they were but ugly.

All paneling,  check..  ceiling tiles, check.  Bedroom closet intruding into space, check.  Phone booth sized rusty metal shower,  check.

And …holy crap the plumbing for the toilet and the shower is down right embarrassing.

And the mystery hole in the ceiling turns out to be someones attempt to have a heating duct.  Not the least surprising. Some reno’s are own right bad !

So let’s gut the room and reconfigure it !

First to go bye bye is the shower..  it was not even attached !  just sitting there ?  WOW.   The label says “Fiat”  that figures.

So they put the shower stall up on a base so as to run the drain out to the laundry drain..  NO P trap ! Removed the copper mess and ran a temporary pex line for the toilet..  not wanting to give it up yet.

We took down all the paneling for the bathroom and the bedroom next door.  And removed the closet.  Yup no insulation behind the shower ?  HUH..   The outside walls were framed with 2×2’s and R6 insulation.  Ya the works for an Alberta winter… NOT!  Quite a bit of the 2×2 sill plate was black and rotten from wayward water..  Still using that toilet..

When the vanity was removed the drain pipes fell apart !  The funky vent pipe going across the ceiling was not glued ?  And it all fell down.  Fine by me.  All the framing was removed on the outside wall.. bedroom too.  The flooring was scraped up.  New windows were installed in the whole house including the two small ones one this side of the basement. It’s good to have a bare concrete wall.  And I had a bit of a leak under the bedroom window.. That needed to be remedied.  This is the way it sat for most of August and a bit of Sept.  Still using the toilet !

Time to get going again..

Looking like I got that crack fixed good..  So I guess the toilet needs to get outa the way.

Time to move some drains.  I rented a Hilti concrete drill and hammer..  Hard work but the 4 inches of floor gave way to my aggression’s. Revealing where the sink drain goes. And the 3 inch toilet drain goes straight to the clean-out under the plywood lid.    We decided to move the toilet a bit into the bedroom.  Just ten inches ..to give a little more room when you step out of the shower.

Lots of trips outside with the concrete bits and dirt.  Time for new pipe..

I moved the toilet flange just 40 inches. And the shower now has a P trap.  The sink drain is also a vent ..so there’s plenty of air.

I put sand around the pipes and a layer of gravel too …All packed .  Five bags of Quick Crete and there you have it.. Just leave it for a few days .

Ok framing time !

Well all that rippin things apart..  now it’s time to put it back properly. The bedroom closet used to intrude the bathroom space..  Now we are going the other way.. 10″ into the bedroom, making a bit more room for the toilet.

Treated lumber for the sill plates with gasket.  2×4 walls  for better insulation.

I have the shower sill plates down.  And a bit more framing ..to a point where the old plumbing is in the way.  Look up..

That mess needs to be dealt with..  Sooner or later I was going to get to the point where all the water pipes would need to get cleaned up and become PEX pipes.  And I would need to do something about the upstairs toilet drain.  This intrudes into the shower big time..  It’s working fine.. all the drains in the house work fine..  But this needs re-working .  As well that 3/4 copper water pipe is in the way.  Time for some… PLUMBING !   Let’s start a new post..

Page 2 Pipes