Finishing the stairs starts with skirt boards. These are the trim pieces that run down each side of the stairs and to which the treads and risers abut. There are books with lots of fancy calculations for determining dimensions, which I used, but when I swung the ungainly pieces into place, they just didn’t fit [...]
I’m having a little post-traumatic-stress just considering this post.
This was probably the most complicated planning effort required in the basement remodel. I knew that the basement would have a new hot water heater (HWH), new bathroom, new laundry area, and new wet bar. I also wanted to run water up for a future refrigerator upgrade [...]
The water main in my house enters in the basement roughly underneath the front door. Below is a picture I took of it in 2002. There’s a hose bib near the front door that, in 2002, had been leaking for a some time. Coincidentally, that’s exactly how long I’d been ignoring it. My thought process [...]
If you need to catch up, click here to read “stairs” part 1: stringer structural stupidity.
A few years back, when I was framing the basement, I had a large load of 2×4s delivered from Smoot Lumber in Springfield. Some of them were warped beyond usability, and I set them aside in my junk pile. My [...]
Many parts of the basement renovation project have induced angst. Only the stairs, however, had the power to produce such constant long-term fretting. As I begin to document that part of the journey, the stair work is done, and I’m reasonably happy with the result. Reaching that result, though, was…
First, a look at the original [...]
The sink comes with a hole in the back right corner for the faucet, but the hole for a soap dispenser is optional, and must be punched out by the installer. That’s you. The sink cost a few hundred dollars, and now you have to smack it with a hammer. The underside is scored for [...]
A notched trowel spreads the tile mastic. A bullet level and a 2-foot level help to make sure everything is… um… level.
I wanted tight grout joints. 1/16″ spacers do the job.
I didn’t want to edge tiles pulling the top tiles out of whack, so I let the top tiles dry for a day before I [...]
One battle still to be fought is finishing the bathroom. The custom shower pan is half done. The first mortar bed was laid long ago (by an actual plumber), then the CPE membrane (rubber liner) was applied. I now need another layer of mortar on top of the CPE membrane to finish the pan. This [...]
It’s only a few tiles on a small counter top. You’ll think it’ll be a quick job. You’ll be wrong.
You won’t get the hose ready for cleanup because it’s cold outside.
You’ll grab a way-too-small container in which to mix the grout. You’ll spill the dry grout everywhere. But, you’ll demonstrate some sense by putting your [...]