Lego and Sawdust

It’s actually Day 24 since the project began, but Halloween costumes and other life-type things interjected. For instance I was ready to start the tiling yesterday, but we had a dinner to go to in the afternoon and Jennifer and the kids were out shopping for last-minute Halloween costume parts so I was looking after the puppy. I also had a few last minute costume parts to work on myself. Such is the way of being a handyman and a dad.

The drywall is now (beautifully, thanks Jenn) done, and I nervously set out to begin the tile. The tub is just under a quarter inch off-level, so I decided to start the tile one row up and fill in the bottom row later (because some of them will need to be trimmed slightly). I made a ledger board out of a very straight piece of laminated pine that I had in the shop, and I cut half-circles out where the tile joints would be, so I could fit the plus-shaped tile spacers in. I screwed the ledger board to the wall using normal drywall screws, making sure it was perfectly level.

You can also see that I put a large dropcloth in the bottom of the tub, and then taped a shower curtain dropcloth to the wall. I don’t want to get mortar all over the tub, or to chip the tub if I drop a tile or a tool.

Mixing the mortar was a challenging start, because I had to figure out how to reduce the mix of “50 pounds of mortar powder to 1.5 gallons of water” to a more manageable size. I wanted to work in smaller pieces. I also didn’t want to have to weigh out the powder each time, I’d prefer a volume.

It turned into a nice coincidence that two empty soup cans full of mortar powder weigh exactly two and a half pounds. A bit of math helped me figure out that one and a quarter cups of water plus two cans of powder were the perfect mix. That amount is about enough for six or seven tiles. It fits nicely in an old honey bucket and is easily mixed by hand with a paint stirring stick.

Lesson: Spend the time to find an easy repeatable recipe for your mortar so you don’t have to weigh or calculate every time you want to use it.

I took a deep breath and started tiling. Things went just great. Exactly as planned. I have watched dozens of videos on Youtube, as well as read a number of articles and how-to’s on this, so it all seemed to come together nicely. It seemed to be a bit messier than the professionals in the video (I have little bits of mortar everywhere) but for the most part things are going great.

The size of the batch of mortar means I mix the mortar, wait ten minutes for it to slake (a chemical reaction that helps it harden), put up a half dozen or so tiles and then go wash off my tools and start again. My tools never build up dried mortar, I get a ten minute break to have a drink or consult with a child about a costume, and then I get back to work again. Perfect.

I worked for about 4 hours, with time in between to go to Walmart for some yellow tape for stripes on Wolverine’s jacket, spray paint some rubber boots white for Dr. Horrible, and a few other odds and ends. All in all I was pretty pleased. I have a half dozen tiles left to go and I’m finished the back wall.

Animated progress gif!

Near the top there were a few tiles that wouldn’t sit properly. There was a very minor correction (a gap was a 64th of an inch too wide so the spacer was loose) and the tile would slide back out of place when I corrected it, so I used electrical tape to hold the tile in position until the mortar set. It’s fine now. I used electrical tape because I had some on hand. Masking tape would have done fine.

The almost finished wall at the end of the day:

(Those tiles at the top are all the same colour, it’s weird lighting and me holding the camera at a weird angle to get the whole wall in that causes some shadows, making a few tiles look darker.)

Next comes cutting the half tiles for either side, and then the end walls. Yay! I’m so happy. So far (knock wood, cross fingers) things are much easier than I expected.

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Cost for this Post:

None!

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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Is is now technically Day 20, but there has been only one activity going on in the bathroom: drywall.

Jennifer has been going crazy in there. She is mudding up a storm. I didn’t give her the easiest job, what with seams from concrete board to normal drywall, horizontal butt joints for the 6 inch piece of drywall across the top of the tub enclosure, and the rest of my mediocre drywall installation. She has been doing a great job though and she is almost finished. We’ve been taking our time to let the drywall mud dry properly, and she’s been going back to do more coats to make sure it’s perfect.

It has reached a point that if you close your eyes and run your hand down the wall you can’t feel where the seams are at all. She makes me look so good.

I broke a piece of drywall right beside the door so there ended up being a patch about 18 inches square right at eye level around the electrical socket. She’s done a brilliant job of making it blend right in.

She says she has one day of final work to do and then I will get in to do the tiling. I’m still nervous, but I spent some time working out a plan (you can see the lines pencilled on the concrete board in the top photo). One end of the tub is just under a quarter inch lower than the other, just enough to make the tile lines look wonky if I put the tile flush to the tub. So, I’m going to lay the second row of tile first, sitting on a ledger board nailed perfectly level 8 inches up from the tub. After the tile is dry, I can fit the bottom row into place, doing any trimming I have to to get the small side in place.

I bought a pair of tile nippers for cutting the hole for the faucet, and I bought a carbide wet tile saw. The nippers are nice, but the tile saw is pretty cheapo. I tested it out on a couple of tiles to see if I could trim them to fit level on the bottom row, and it’s pretty cheesy. The fence isn’t square to the blade at all, so each cut requires me to clamp the fence in place after measuring the front and the back. The only thing I will need it for is trimming a few tiles in half and skimming the bottom off of a couple of tiles for that bottom row, so I’m not too concerned. The next level up of saw was at least a hundred dollars more than this one.

This is about the point at which we usually start to slack off and leave a project “mostly done”, but I am quite ready for a good shower in my own bathroom. I’m also quite ready to not have the only toilet in the house be in our bedroom…

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Cost for this Post:

1 trip to Home Depot

– $20.99 – Tile Nippers
– $79.99 – Tile Saw
$113.10 – Total with taxes

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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The last day before I went back to work. I finished the drywall installation, after making a few notes…

I make a habit of leaving love notes to my wife and family inside and major construction that I do. I like to think someone in later years might see them and smile if they ever renovate again.

Initial fill-the-screw-holes coats of mud are up, and now starts the process of taping the seams. I think I’m almost lucky to be going back to work…

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Cost for this Post:

None.

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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My son decided he wanted to be R2D2 for Halloween and it fired up my creative streak. Here’s the finished costume:

It started out with a $6 collapsible laundry hamper from Walmart. I looked at a number of photographs of R2D2 on the ‘net and used basic algebra and ratios to map out the lines on it. (If the one on screen is 3 inches across, and this line is a half inch in from the side and an inch long, and my hamper is 28 inches across then…). I used masking tape to lay out a single line then I’d trace along the edge of it with a black or blue sharpie, then peel the tape off and lay out the next line. It bled a little bit because of the weave of the nylon material, but not enough to worry about it. It was difficult to keep it all straight because the hamper is so soft and collapsible, and it’s also not square. The top is at an angle when it sits normally. I had to kind of fake it to try to make the panels not look too wonky.

For the dome, we covered a yoga ball in plastic wrap and then covered it in paper mache. It took a lot more paper mache than I thought, but I wanted it to be sturdy. When it was dry enough to hold its shape we let the air out of the yoga ball and removed it and the plastic wrap to let the inside of the dome dry. This took a few days, even with a box fan blowing on it all the time, so make sure to give yourself enough time to get it done.

When it was dry I cut the bottom straight with a Dremel tool and a cutoff wheel, and then painted it with white primer.

R2D2′s eye telescope thing was made out of styrofoam insulation. It’s cheap, sturdy and easy to cut with a knife or small saw. I mounted it with hot glue.

I then spray painted the whole thing silver. Don’t make the same mistake I did: SPRAY PAINT EATS STYROFOAM. The Telescope tube thing is bumpy and textured because of the paint. I didn’t bother replacing it because it was glued on pretty solid and it didn’t look that bad from a few feet away. Still, if you do this, attach the foam bits afterwards.

I used the same “ratio of screen picture to my model” method to lay out lines for the dome, then I painted it using normal craft acrylics.

I drilled two small holes in the top of the dome and used zip ties to attach it to the top of my son’s bike helmet. With a few adjustments it held perfectly and was easy to take on and off and was comfortable for a long period of wearing.

I cut the legs out of green styrofoam insulation, and then painted them with plain white drywall primer.

I added some pieces of wood that I got from my scraps pile to add the technical-looking bits. Note that there was a rabbet notch cut along the bottom of the styrofoam to allow them to fit together if you’re putting them on the wall, and I didn’t pay attention to that when I started decorating the legs, so one is on the inside and one on the outside. “A man on a galloping horse won’t notice” as my Mom used to say.

Some sharpie and blue paint made the legs look more recognizable:

I attached the legs by cutting small slits in the side of the hamper on either side of the wire spiral, cutting two holes in the foam leg, and feeding a zip tie through them both around the wire in the hamper. The top hole was through the wooden disk decoration so that was stable, but the bottom attachment lined up on plain foam. I didn’t want the zip tie to pull through the foam so I added a small bit of wood to support it.

You can see in the photos at the top of the post that Jennifer added two shoulder straps made out of bias tape just sewed right to the hamper.

And voila.

If I had had more time I would have added the copper coiled pipes at the bottom of the legs, but I’m quite happy with it as it is.

It was a good costume for here, because Josh could wear a warm coat and gloves under the costume and a hat under his bike helmet. He was perfectly comfortable while we walked around. It was a bit inconvenient to get in to the car to go to trick or treat at Grandma’s house, but that’s what minvans are for, right?

See also: Making a Han Solo Blaster Pistol

Thanks BuildLounge!

Well, that was better.

I added some shims to the wood blocking behind the faucet. It ended up being an extra piece of 1×4 behind the main faucet and an extra piece of 1×4 and a piece of quarter inch plywood behind the pipes. Sorry, no photo of the blocking (I was so happy I forgot) but here’s the newly-moved faucet. Note the difference between this picture and yesterday’s.

I didn’t want any more surprises, so I tried putting the faceplate on and attaching the handle, with a piece of tile to judge the right thickness. It worked like a charm.

Then I managed to get the rest of the Durock concrete board up around the tub. Note the six inches of space at the top. A tile will overlap the seam between the Durock and the drywall by about 4 inches so there will be a two inch (or so) bit of drywall showing at the top, that will be painted. This allows us to use just full tiles, no cutting partial tiles. Much simpler to lay out.

Lesson: The tub box is designed to be used to cover the tub during construction. I didn’t find this out until a couple of days into the reno. I added two fence boards (they come conveniently five feet long) as a sort of scaffold from corner to corner. I can now stand comfortably on the tub to do the work without fear of damaging the tub finish if I drop anything.

We stopped at Rona to pick up some more drywall to replace the stuff I ripped out yesterday, and to pick up a few other things. One of the important ones was Alkali Resistant fiberglass drywall tape. Apparently normal fiberglass drywall tape will get eaten by the alkali in mortar and cement board, so you need special tape to do the seams in cement board. The clerks at McDiarmid Lumber had never heard of it, and tried to sell me some special acrylic glue to spread on the board before I tape it to protect the tape, then some special chemicals to add to the mortar and then I just left. Rona had special Durock tape sitting right out with the normal drywall tape. Sometimes I wonder how McDiarmid stays in business. If it wasn’t a couple of minutes from my house (as opposed to 15 minutes to Home Depot and Rona) I’d never go there.

Lesson: This is a big one. GET A DRYWALL DIMPLER. A proper one. I think my “issues” with drywall are directly the result of having never heard of this. I used a normal screwdriver bit for a while, and had all sorts of trouble. I bought one of these:

It was no better. It wrecks the screw heads and wears out in a very short time. It still rips the paper much of the time. (Okay, *I* rip the paper, but I wow, hate these things). Today I was in Rona buying some more drywall and I saw a proper dimpler.

It was $20, but it was the best $20 I have spent in a long time. I actually laughed with joy the first time I used it. You can drive a screw at full speed on the drill, and it goes “WHIRR CLICK” and pops off the screw and you have a perfectly set drywall screw with a nice circular divot around it. No worn screw head, no torn paper, no babying the screw for the last sixteenth of an inch. ZIP, WHIRR, CLICK and it’s done. I got the drywall around the bathtub up in minutes. I actually called Jennifer in to show her, I was so excited. It sounds kind of silly, and it might seem obvious to some who read this, but the difference is mind-blowing. I can’t imagine the amount of time I have wasted doing mediocre drywall work in the last few years because I simply hadn’t seen a $20 tool. Arg!

If you have any drywall to do, YOU MUST GET ONE OF THESE.

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Cost for this Post:

1 trip to Rona

– $20.99 – Dimpler
– $1.99 – Knife blades (cement board and drywall are hard on blades, buy extras)
– $3.96 – spare drywall bits for the dimpler
$30.18 with taxes
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$20 — Durock fiber seaming tape
$70 — 5 sheets of moisture resistant drywall

Total for today: 120.18

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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Some major setbacks today. I was pretty depressed by dinner time. There were a few successes, but I’ve got some extra work to do.

I started putting up more drywall this morning, and when I stood back and looked, I realized that it just wasn’t very good. I talked to Jennifer (who is going to be doing all the mudding) and she was of the same opinion. There were too many gaps near the corners, a couple of ugly butt joints and it simply wasn’t up to scratch.

We then sat back and planned drywall together. We’d never really worked out exactly what the plan was for tiles and where the cement board should end and normal drywall begin. I got out the tiles and a handful of spacers and laid out a few rows on the dining room table. This gave us specific measurements to use. We also learned that we should overlap a half a tile from the concrete board onto the regular drywall, which means that the transition between the two needs to be placed properly. Apparently the concrete board is difficult to get smooth enough to paint. We’re also going to have a small gap at the top of the wall between the tile and the ceiling, so I’ll have to have a strip of regular drywall at the top of the wall above the concrete board.

Lesson: Lay out a row of tile with your spacers and get real measurements for your tile install, and plan around that rather than trusting that your 8 inch tile is 8 inches exactly and your 1/4 inch spacers are exactly 1/4 inch. Small differences add up to measurable amounts over a number of tiles.

Lesson: Read up on drywall installation to make mudding easier. This book is brilliant and I read most of it just before dinner and it will help immensely.

So I pulled out all of the drywall I’ve installed so far, with the exception of the ceiling. I’ll have to head out and buy some more, but hopefully I’ll feel better about the end result. Drywall makes me feel useless. I regularly miss studs and have multiple empty holes all around some screws, no matter how well I try to measure. Sigh. Ah well, at least the plumbing is going fine.

I wanted to put the concrete board up first, so I can fit the drywall around it. The first board went up just fine. It’s nice that Durock comes in sheets that are exactly the length of a standard bathtub so there’s no cutting for the back wall. The second sheet was a bit more difficult, because there ended up being a lump of concrete on the back of the board that I didn’t notice until I was on the very last screw and it wouldn’t lay flat. I had to back the whole board off again and scrape the back smooth.

Lesson: Check the concrete board for smoothness on the back before putting each sheet up.

I got the long wall of the tub done, the back wall, and then prepared to put up the front wall (where the controls are).

I measured and drilled a hole for the tub spout, and then placed it up in order to measure the location of the faucet. It was then that I noticed that the tub spout pipe was only sticking out a very small amount. Of course! I’d looked up the needed length and measured a pipe and soldered it on, but I’d forgotten that the measurement was from the FRONT of the FINISHED SURFACE. I just made the pipe that long, but it starts a good two inches behind the wall, so it was far too short. Luckily it only took a few minutes to sweat the short one off, cut a new longer pipe and put it on instead.

Okay, problem solved. Back to the concrete board. I marked the location of the handle, took it outside and cut out the circle with a jigsaw. It fit perfectly. I decided to see what it looked like with the chrome face plate on. There is a plastic piece of trim that goes on under the chrome, and it says on it in big letters “IMPORTANT! THIS PIECE MUST BE FLUSH WITH FINISHED SURFACE”. And as I watched in slow motion, it pushed deep into the hole, past the concrete board. So, add the tile thickness and it means that the faucet fixture is plumbed in about 13/16 of an inch too far back. It will have to be moved. I mentioned earlier being a bit lost in the directions on exactly how far the fitting had to be from the surface. The diagram looked nothing like my faucet. I should have stopped right there and checked. Sigh.

I was ready to give up at this point. After pulling out two days worth of drywall and fixing the tub spout, to find out I had to move the faucet that I was so proud of installing was heartbreaking.

I spent some time cleaning up and organizing tools and then had dinner and a glass of wine. Then I went back to the tub and removed all of the pipe straps that kept the faucet in place. With just the pipes supporting it, there is a lot of flex. I am confident that I will be able to simply add some shims behind the existing wood blocking and it will be fine. Disaster averted, but still more work to (re)do.

Tomorrow is Friday and I go back to work on Monday. So it looks like I might get to a “drywall done” point by then, but no further. Tile will have to be done evenings. Jennifer expressed that it was worrying her too, because she was sure that the mudding will take her a week to do and dry completely. The plan now is to get the drywall up and get the seams on the concrete board mudded so perhaps I can start tile while she is still mudding the regular drywall. Then it’s just a matter of painting, flooring and fixtures, all of which we’ve done multiple times before.

So close. SO CLOSE.

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Cost for this Post:

– My pride.
– A few days work.

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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It started out as “Drywall Day”. I was going to get the entire room drywalled except for the tub front. The taps hadn’t arrived yet, so I was going to leave that wall completely open. We were ready to completely finish the room except for that wall if the taps didn’t arrive in time.

We ordered them from HomeDepot.ca online. The store said it would be three to six weeks to get a faucet ordered, and the website promised five to seven working days and free delivery.

Once I ordered the faucet, I got confirmation from PayPal that I had paid, but nothing else. That was on the 4th of October. I phoned Home Depot on the 9th and asked what was up. The lady there said the order was processed and she gave me a UPS tracking number. The UPS tracking number said that the item was DELIVERED to a town in Michigan. Another call to Home Depot confirmed that this was the Moen warehouse, and they often hold up shipments until they have enough to send in a truckload to Canada. They had no idea when it would actually ship.

I called again on the 11th, and they had no more information for me. I did find out that my gmail’s spam filter had caught my initial order confirmation from them, so I was a little less upset that I had been when I thought they hadn’t sent me anything.

I was pretty angry, but there was nothing I could do about it so I went back to drywall I got one sheet up:

And then the doorbell rang. It was UPS!! It turns out that the tracking number I had was just for one part of the delivery from the factory to the warehouse. The shipment from the warehouse to my door was a different shipment, and I never got that information. I thought it was just sitting on a dock somewhere (because the tracking number said so) when it was actually on its way to me!

Here it is, a $281 lump of cast brass and IKEA style instructions, the Moen 3285 faucet:

Actually, that’s just the guts, the part they call the “Moentrol”. It holds the cartridge, a pressure balancing valve, some built-in-water shutoffs and the shower diverter. We wanted the diverter on the wall rather than the tub faucet for durability.

It was pretty intimidating, looking at all these littler parts and springs and cover plates and instructions, but I looked around on youtube and found some good videos about how it all goes together. Terry Love’s plumbing forum is also a fantastic source of help for these sorts of things. There are a number of very patient professional plumbers there who are great at helping DIYers. Chances are anything you want to know has already been asked anyway, and you can search it without having to ask and wait for a response.

The only thing I couldn’t find was exactly what kind of blocking was needed behind the control. I put the faceplate on and held a piece of drywall up to the stud face and put the faceplate flush to the drywall as the instructions say. That gave me a rough idea how far I had behind the control and what I could use for bracing.

I cut the pipes and removed the old faucet after I figured out roughly where the new one would go.

I was VERY nervous about soldering this unit, because it’s quite expensive and I didn’t have much luck with the brass water shutoffs earlier. I watched a number of youtube videos (seeing a theme here? youtube is GREAT for home reno projects) and decided to try it. I marked the location on the wall as per the directions, and then roughly laid out the plan for the pipes. I counted up the fittings I’d need and then made a trip to McDiarmid Lumber to get them. I also picked up some toilet and sink faucet connectors because I know I’ll need them soon.

I dry-fit all the connectors and little pieces of pipe to make sure it would all go together. Then I took them all outside and soldered them on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to have to stress about singeing the drywall or causing a fire or worrying about soldering a brass connector on the bottom of the Moentrol. Doing it outside allowed me to lay the fitting on its back and put each piece in perfect placement before soldering it. It was much easier. The soldering went just fine. I was definitely burning the flux in my earlier failed attempt. I did it once on the controls, but I just painted some flux over top of it and tried again and it worked like a charm. This is actually some of my nicest solder work. I’m quite proud.

Note that in this picture, I have re-installed the cartridge and knob and diverter. To solder the faucet all of the non-brass parts MUST BE REMOVED or they will be destroyed.

I let the work cool, and then took it inside and soldered the last fittings to connect it to the water lines. It was quite wobbly, because the water lines are pretty flexible. Some copper pipe straps and some 2×4 and 2×6 blocking took care of that. The Moentrol is lumpy and oddly shaped, so you can’t just put a 2×4 straight across the back in a 2×4 stud wall. From what I can see (and I really hope it’s right, because it will be a huge pain to change later) a 2×4 behind the source water lines is just the right thickness to mount it properly. It’s rock solid in there now, as I expect it will take some abuse in its lifetime.

Time for the test!

Lesson: The very important first step, according to all the plumbers forums, is not listed in the instructions. turn the water on without the cartridge or shower head on. This flushes all the pipe crud and solder bits and flux lumps and things out of the lines and faucet without gumming up the works of the cartridge or the balancer.

I flushed the lines, then installed all the parts, turned the water on and filled the tub. I checked all the solder joints. No leaks. I checked the tub from below the floor (in my wife’s sewing room in the basement, I’m in the doghouse if it floods). It held, no leaks. I drained the tub to check the drain piping. It held, no leaks. I refilled the tub and splashed water up onto the overflow to test it.

It leaked like a sieve. Arg!

Water was pouring out all over the floor of the sewing room, and into the light fixtures and dripping out through the roof boards. When I had pushed the tub drain back to get it to fit properly, I moved the overflow pipe a smidge out of place so the rubber gasket didn’t fit tightly enough. A good sized lump of plumber’s putty in a ring between the tub and the overflow pipe solved that issue. I tested again: no leaks. Whew.

Not one to waste a good tub of water, I made use of it to rinse off a couple of days worth of drywall grime. It’s tough to renovate without a shower. Jennifer and the kids went swimming today, not in small part because of the free showers. It felt good to clean up, but even better to do it in a tub I installed myself.

After all that was installed and tested I managed to get a couple of more sheets of drywall up before dinner, and then relaxed and wrote blog posts for a while. Having the tub faucet in and working is a huge load off my mind.

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Cost for this Post:

1 trip to McDiarmid Lumber

– $3.70 – All the copper elbows and couplings
– $3.29 – Brass elbow for the shower pipe to screw into
– $1.29 – 1/2 inch copper sweat to brass thread adaptor (the faucet pipe screws into the Moentrol, not solders, for some reason)
– $2.49 – New decorative cover for the shower pipe (one was damaged in transit)
– $8.79 – New right angle shutoff for the toilet
– $21.79 – Sink faucet install kit that includes shutoffs and braised steel hoses
– $6.99 – Braided steel toilet hose
– $3.85 – 11 copper pipe straps
$58.45 with taxes

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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The day started with an early morning trip to Home Depot for insulation. I was planning on leaving this step until last, but Jennifer convinced me that it would be nice to have the closet in the master bedroom back. Once I get the insulation done I can close it up and reinstall all of the closet organizers and get rid of the piles of clothes on the floor.

I was quite confused when I got to Home Depot, because the only insulation they had for ceilings was 24 inches on center or larger. The very large stuff is for laying over top of the joists, but I wanted batts that would fit between my joists which are 18 inches on center. I ended up getting 24 inch width and trimming them down. It was pretty simple, given that the size of the area I was covering was 5 feet by 7 feet. I used on e package of R20 batts, and got one layer in between the joists and one layer laid crosswise over top. R40 is far better than anything else in the rest of the ceiling, so I’m okay with that.

I also picked up a trouble/work light to work up in the attic because I was tired of having to use a flashlight while working. Much nicer. It ended up being quite useful in plumbing the tub as well.

I got the outer wall insulated and vapour barriered:

It was time to get the tub. Yet again my young helpers came in handy, and we hauled it from the back yard into the bathroom.

It wasn’t that heavy, because we have decided to go with an enamelled stainless steel tub. We have heard many conflicting reports about acrylic tubs and how they deal with scratches. We use the tub for things like washing the furnace filters and washing the dog, so we wanted durable material. The tub that we removed was enamelled stainless steel and it was in beautiful shape (except for being fleshy peachy pink), so we decided to stick with that. This tub is a bit wider, but also a bit shallower. It will be easier to use for cleaning because the sides aren’t so high, but it is definitely not a soaker tub.

The tub needs a 2×4 across the back wall for the long edge to sit on, and it needs to be level. There is a conflict here, because the tub also has a large styrofoam block on the bottom that needs to sit flat on the floor. If the back ledge was level, then one end was at least one inch further off the floor than the other, but if it was to sit flat on the foam block, it wasn’t level. I managed to lower the 2×4 enough that the low corner was supported enough to be level and the block was flat on the floor, but it took at least 4 tries. I had to squeeze the tub into place (it fits by about a quarter inch, and the door frame sticks out more than a quarter inch, so getting it in and out is difficult) and then remove it to relocate the 2×4 at least 4 times. It was getting frustrating, but it finally happened.

It looks like I made a small error in preparing the drain piping, because the drain hole was a bit offset from the tub hole.

Luckily, the piping was all ABS, so the entire piece was flexible enough to fit into place with a little pressure. I watched a number of youtube videos on installing drain fittings, so it was straightforward.

Lesson: The drain tool I bought was an incredible help. I can not imagine tightening the drain properly without it. It’s totally worth the 8 bucks. Get one. It paid for itself in just the installation, it would have been even better to have had it for the demolition too.

And so, the tub got installed.

I don’t have the taps in yet, so I can’t test it for leaks. We’ll see when the taps get delivered…

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Cost for this Post:
1 trip to McDiarmid Lumber
1 trip to Home Depot

– $7.38 – 2 tubes of acoustic caulk
– &7.99 – 1 roll of Tuck Tape
$17.22 subtotal with taxes
—————
– $63.64 – R20 insulation (20 batts)
– $16.98 – Work light
– $3.09 – 50 watt “Rough Duty” bulbs
$93.76 subtotal with taxes
—————
$110.98 total

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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I’ve been a bit frustrated at how slow things are moving. I think things are moving at a good place, but the end of the week (and the end of my vacation time) is coming up quickly.

The ceiling got drywalled today. This is where having kids is really paying off. I had one holding screws and handing them to me one at a time, and one on the ladder holding drywall up on the ceiling while I screwed it to the joists and the blocking that I had installed yesterday.

I even managed to get the hole for the fan cut properly! As I mentioned before, I have a habit of needing to correct holes by an inch or so, or retry with a new board. I’m actually quite happy that that hasn’t happened yet.

Vapour barrier around the fan is quite difficult. It has to go over top of the fan mechanism, seal tightly around the vent pipe, and still make an airtight seal with the rest of the ceiling vapour barrier. Lots of acoustic sealant, and some Tuck Tape. The tape isn’t part of the seal, but it keeps everything in place until the drywall goes up.

Lesson: Humitek (green water-resistant drywall) is significantly heavier than regular drywall. I eyed the lightweight stuff at Home Depot, which was cheaper, but we had a mildew problem in the ceiling when we moved in (before I installed the exhaust fan) so I decided to do the whole room in Humitek. It is much more difficult to load into the car, bring up the stairs and install on a ceiling than normal drywall. Get help.

This was about all I managed to get completed today, because it was Canadian Thanksgiving. We hosted my parents-in-law and my wife’s great-aunt for a full dinner and some wonderful wine and discussion. That was all after, of course, I had the dining room table flipped over on the floor, replacing two stretcher bolts that had broken and made the table wobble badly. And, of course, I didn’t have any dowels the rights size so I had to mill some 1/2 inch dowels down to 3/8 to finish the job, because all the hardware stores are closed. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another…

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Cost for this Post:

None. Stores were closed! :)

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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The day started with the finicky job of fitting subfloor. There will be vinyl flooring going on top, so it needs to be seamless and smooth. I measured it out a couple of different ways just to make sure, and then I went into the backyard and started cutting.

One sheet, perfect fit:

Then the second sheet. This one had the toilet pipe hole and the air vent hole in it, so I was nervous. I had a history of measuring very carefully, cutting electrical box holes in a sheet of drywall and then having the hole be inexplicably a foot off from where it should be. But, this one fit perfectly too. Maybe I’m learning. A quick trip to McDiarmid for some more screws (I ran out of flooring screws with a quarter of the last sheet to go.)

Then things got interesting. Jennifer lay down for a rest. I don’t know why… she’s only been looking after the whole house and the kids and a stressed out husband and a brand new puppy that cries to go out every three hours around the clock.

Anyway, I wanted to keep working, but I wanted her to get some rest even more, so I moved into “do all the quiet jobs” mode. I plumbed in the toilet, which was a bit of an exercise in patience getting all the pipe lengths correct when working up in a corner joist space. I used various children as “gravitational helpers” to stand on the flange up above so I could test fit pipes.

One problem I ran into was that my toilet flange was built with a 3 inch inside diameter, when I needed one with a 3 inch outside diameter. Easily rectified with a 15 minute trip to McDiarmid.

I gathered up the kids and we took a trip to Home Depot to pick up some studs for blocking because it was a good way to get everyone out of the house to let Mom sleep.

I then spent some time getting ready for drywall. I cleaned up the studs a bit more, and checked for high spots and nails. I then measured where the drywall seams were going to be and screwed in some extra blocking. I also have a habit of ruining the edges of drywall trying to get screws near the sides, so I decided I’d add an extra 2×4 to the studs where I would have seams, just to make it easy. The blocking in the ceiling that the edge of the drywall attached to had pulled away some, so that needed repair as well.

With that finished, I put up vapour barrier on the ceiling, sealed with acoustic caulk. We’re ready for ceiling drywall.

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2 Trips to McDiarmid Lumber
1 Trip to Home Depot

Cost for this Post:
$5.92 – ABS Toilet Flange (McDiarmid)
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– $6.99 – Plastic Wood (for filling subfloor screw holes)(McDiarmid)
– $15.38 – Drywall screws to last (hopefully) the entire job
– $9.99 – Floor screws
$36.25 – Subtotal with taxes
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$11.66 – 6 studs for blocking (Home Depot, because lumber stinks at McDiarmid)

Total Cost for Today – $75.13

Bathroom Renovation Main Page

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