Rub a Dub: Working on the Tub

Has Spring finally arrived for your neck of the woods...or plains?  It certainly has here.  The rainy season brings a cycle of thunderstorms every week or so.  The rain doesn't bother me, though with a hole in the side of our house, it did put some pressure on Jared to get the bathroom wall rebuilt.  I've taken a lot of pictures over the last week, so I'll just get right to showing what's been going on.

That's a pretty big hole.  It's really more of a chasm.  Ok, maybe I'm being a little over dramatic.  Still, with the rain that we've been having, Jared has been working almost every evening to get this wall fixed up.

It was strange to view the bathroom from this angle.

The support beam under the window had enough damage that Jared needed to replace a portion of it.  Being a cause for future structural problems, it was imperative that this job was done correctly.  Jared got some good advice from a local carpenter before starting on the project.

Going back inside, Jared had managed to completely tear up the sub floor.  I think I took this picture on a later day, though, because at the base of the wall opening, you can see the new beam that Jared installed!  Woohoo!  This was the start of the rebuilding process, so it was a pretty big deal.

The next step was framing the wall/window and rebuilding the exterior wall itself.  Though he knew the theory behind setting a window, Jared had never actually done it before, so this was partially new territory for him.

Let's move to another topic.  Jared did some research and found an industrial sand-blasting plant that was willing to do the exterior of the tub.  Since they work on the industrial scale, they could only do it on a specific day because their machines were too expensive to fire up for just our tub.  When we picked it up after sandblasting, it just happened to be the RAINIEST DAY EVER!  Luckily, we had some good tarps and avoided causing any rust to develop.  Jared primed the surface before actually painting it, which is what you see here.

I wasn't able to take pictures, so this and the previous photo were taken by Jared.  He managed to paint the exterior in a day, and the finish looks great!

On Saturday, we decided to tackle the inside of the tub.  This was the first time I had seen the thing since being sandblasted.  I was blown away by the transformation!  The color was great, and the FEET!  They're amazing!

The tub looked great on the outside, but Jared and I were a little wary about the inside.  We found a refinishing kit at Lowe's, but the instructions were quite complicated and slightly intimidating.

Though in fairly good shape, the porcelain finish had a few issues.  At one point in time, it must have been resting on the rim in a semi-wet environment.  A ring of discoloration ran around most of the rim.

The drain was one of the more damaged parts of the tub.  Luckily, there wasn't any chipping of the porcelain, which is a more difficult problem than just a little discoloration.

And then there were a few other spots that needed attention.  I'm just glad that the glaze itself wasn't chipped terribly, as that would require a very expensive reglazing process.

So after carefully reading the directions on the box (more than three times), Jared followed the instructions to begin the refinishing process.  First, though, the prep required a round of cleaning with a solution of water and chemicals, rinsing, rubbing the entire surface with steel wool, and rinsing...three times.  After that, the spray-on product was a simple application.  We covered the exterior to avoid spraying any of the finish where it didn't need to be, and Jared applied the finish.

And it looks BEAUTIFUL!!!  I was amazed at the transformation.  The finish required 72 hours to fully dry, provided the humidity and temperature are favorable, so it's still sitting in the garage at Jared's work.  Hopefully, it gets to come home soon and has a place to live as well!

Jared and I are both very pleased with the way it turned out.  The best part is, now we know the basic process of refinishing an old tub like this.  I'm really glad we found this gem, and I really think it will be a great piece for the bathroom.

Which brings me back to this!  Jared impressed me again in his ability to get things done.  After only a few weeks, the exterior wall was fixed, the wall studs were framed, and the window was almost set.  Though not completely finished, I know that this is a big step towards finishing the bathroom.  Jared has done such a great job, and I know he can pretty easily do the rest of the project from here on out.










I'm increasingly exited to move along with this bathroom.  The finished product should be very nice!  Hopefully it won't take too much longer to get this whole thing done, we are definitely on a deadline.

The Reno Continues...

So who else, besides me, can't believe that it's the end of April?  If you're like me, wrapping your head around the passage of time has become slightly difficult.  Just thinking of what's coming these next months makes me hope and pray we get everything done with this house!

The bathroom renovation, though slow, has been interesting.  Jared has been continually working on the demo of the room, which probably would be done by now, but for the water damage that has plagued this house.

The damage as seen here was mostly to be expected, albeit not pleasant to find.  As Jared continued his demo of the bathroom, he found that the damage seemed tamer than it was.

However, the rest of the walls are perfectly fine, if done slightly strange.  Structurally, the interior walls are fine, and other than some plumbing, are pretty much good to go.

Something I forgot to mention: with the help of one of his work buddies, Jared managed to get the massive, heavy tub out without damaging anything!  This monster was made out of cast iron, so it took a lot of work to get it out.

This is as far as they got the tub, and it will probably stay there until we can find a new home for it.

After the removal of the tub, Jared wasted no time getting rid of the old flooring.  Under two layers of stick-on laminate tiles, the old hardwood floor looked pretty sad.  The future holds a lovely tiled floor for this space.

Even though we exposed the window, Jared determined that the whole wall needed help, so he took out the window in anticipation of refitting it at a later date.  It was a better plan than keeping it in and risking it falling out.  On the plus side, the sweet gum tree in the backyard looks great!

Unfortunately, the more Jared poked around at the rotted wood, the worse it seemed to be.  Also, though he was fairly confident in his ability to do the main repairs he assumed would be necessary for this bathroom, Jared knew he wasn't really sure about repairing this kind of damage.

And though the sub floor seemed to be only significantly rotted at the base of the window, what was found underneath the floor was worse than we had anticipated...

Jared opened up the space and found the support beam on top of the cinderblock foundation rotting away too.  This was a problem we discovered on the front of the house, and luckily, that was one thing that Pete managed to fix correctly.  Though Jared may be skilled enough in carpentry to do the main things, this was something we hoped we wouldn't encounter, as he's not qualified to deal with something of this magnitude.  When it comes to the structural integrity of the house, this project is not something we can half-fix.

He's been working on this wall a few times, but the siding has posed a problem.  Being asbestos siding, Jared hasn't really wanted to mess with it very much.  However, in his efforts to work on the exterior wall, he's had to remove a few pieces of the siding to avoid breaking them, and even then, some of them have been cracked.

Luckily, Jared managed to find a tarp to put up, as the spring weather has a tendency to be wet.  Hopefully we can start making some progress on rebuilding, so we don't have to have an opening much longer.  This week's forecast is looking rather stormy!  For now, Jared's biggest hang up has been figuring out what to do.  Feeling lost, it's been difficult to know how to proceed with the damage seeming a little overwhelming for a one-man job.  But Jared being the resourceful guy that he is talked to the guys at the local hardware store and got some numbers for some people who could help give advice, if nothing else.  The other evening, one of the suggested guys came over and discussed things with Jared, so he seems to be a bit more confident at tackling this big project.

Remember this beauty?  We have made some progress in this department.  Jared made an appointment at a sandblasting company to have the exterior done.  We'll have to paint it ourselves, but that's a simple matter of buying the correct spray paint (which we did today).  We also found a nifty little kit at Lowe's that refinishes minor imperfections and stains on the interior.  With some elbow grease, this thing will be good as new!





The next few months will be crazy, to say the least.  Jared has plenty to do in the bathroom (renovation related...you know what I mean), we're going to work on getting the claw-foot looking nice, and then we've got our summer trip home coming up in June.  After we return from visiting home, Jared suspects he'll have a lot of free time because his workplace has scheduled block leave.  Since we won't be taking block leave, and because need for staff members at the Academy will be low, he's hoping to have plenty of time to work on the house.  After this summer, it's full steam ahead on getting this house finished before we move!  Hopefully no unforeseen hiccups throw off any of our already stretched plans.

A Stroke of Luck...and a New Project

Sometimes things don't go as planned.  When we bought our house, the renovations were only supposed to be three weeks long.  As we came to find out, that was just not going to happen.  Several months later, and we finally got the contracted work finished, yet with a lot more DIY projects on our plate than we had planned for in the beginning.

But then, sometimes a stroke of luck comes along and gives you exactly what you're looking for.

I can safely say that along with my sometimes crippling clumsiness, I have also been cursed with a fair amount of bad luck.  Yesterday, however, proved that even one such as myself can be blessed with a bout of good fortune.  With the start of renovating the main bath, Jared and I had discussed plans for the finished product, however far away that might be.  A dream of mine has always been finding an old claw foot tub for the space, though I never really thought it would be a possible feat.  With all the new renovation shows on HGTV and the DIY Network, claw foot tubs have gained a huge following.  As I found out while I perused the net the last few days, brand new tubs are astronomically priced, and restored antique tubs are pretty much right up there as well.

"Oh well," I thought.  "It was only a small chance."  But then there's always Craigslist.  We found all of our appliances there, why not a claw foot tub?  There weren't too many entries, but there was one reasonably priced, advertising an antique tub in fair condition...in Pembroke.  Jared made contact, and yesterday evening, we checked it out.  Listed for $300.00, the tub was indeed antique, and really quite beautiful, if a little rough around the edges.  The catch?  It needed some refinishing.  So we didn't commit to buying it until we had found some more information on that whole process.

A few calls, some discussion, and a negotiation of price later, Jared and I went right back to the tub man and had ourselves a deal.  Not only did we talk him down 100 bucks, we got a fabulous, if in need of some love, brand new vintage tub!

The outside is clearly in need of a good sanding, but there are no major dents, scratches, or otherwise impossible issues with it.

It didn't take long for Loki to be intrigued by the tub.  The inside is in almost perfect condition, which is incredibly lucky, as that is the most difficult part to get refinished without spending a fortune.  I've been doing a lot of reading online about cleaning up the inside.  There aren't any scratches, and the glaze seems salvageable, so the exterior is really the only issue, as far as condition goes.

When buying antique tubs, it is always a possibility that it will be missing some or all of its feet.  These beauties were all accounted for!

And probably my favorite part.  It has the original faucet!  Not a bit of rust touched the fixture, so I'm considering keeping it up, so long as it works. All in all, a very good find!  I do wish I could tell how old it is, but I think the tub will make a wonderful piece when the bathroom is done.









We're really hoping that we can refinish the exterior without having to take it to an expert.  As long as the interior glazing remains intact, the exterior can easily be done at home, so I'm crossing my fingers that we can do this ourselves.  Even though it was a fabulous steal for the price we paid, Jared and I are on a very strict budget for the bathroom renovation.  In the end, I'm just counting my lucky stars that we found such a great piece, even if it means a little extra elbow grease.

Let's just hope whoever occupies this house after us appreciates the vintage touch as much as Loki seems to!

Motivation Inspiration

Hello there!

I don't know whether it's the slightly warmer spring air, or the fact that our window of time to finish this house is getting smaller, but I've been gearing up for some major changes around this house.  My mom came to visit for two weeks, which was lovely, but it really made me think about all that there is yet to be done on this house.

Luckily, when it comes to motivation, I've got some tricks up my sleeve to get me going.  My choice method is getting some rad tunes going.  Not just any tunes, though.  There's something about the music my mom always put on when it was cleaning day around the house.  So if I need to get my butt motivated to do anything, I invariably put on Ken Medema's album, "Flying Upside Down."  Something about the 80's album lights a fire under me that leads to a clean house, finished project, or at least a started project.

This song in particular helps motivate me, in all it's nostalgic glory.  Of course, when I was younger, I didn't really understand most of the meaning behind the lyrics.  Over the years, however, I have gained a greater understanding of what this song is really about, which motivates me even further.

But I didn't decide to make a new post on just this, oh no.  It's much more than that.  My real purpose for this post is to show the progress that has been made, and all it took was a little motivation.

If you recall (or if you don't), the main bathroom for our house was in need of some work.  That work, however, was not to be done by the contractors, but Jared decided he would take on that project himself.

Before we moved in, this little bathroom was completely functional, though ugly, cramped, and not without a few issues.  When we had the water to the house turned on, we discovered that the bathtub faucet leaked quite a lot, so the lines were capped off with the knowledge that we would have the master bath shower to use.  So despite the non functioning tub/shower, the rest of the bathroom worked fine, and we kept putting off the demo of the room.  Luckily for my mother, we put it off until she had come and gone (you'll see why).

So yesterday, Jared decided to just go for it.  He pulled down the trim around the ceiling first.  At this point, I was nervously standing in the doorway thinking, "Oh jeeze, what are we getting into here???"

I also pointed out to him that it might be a good idea to take out the cabinet, since we plan on keeping it.  That was a pretty easy job, but once gone, the space seemed so much bigger.  If only we could NOT have a sink in there!

Then came the layers.  The tub surround was a preformed vinyl and particle board thingy, which was glued to a sheet of pseudo paneling which was attached to the drywall.  Just like the kitchen floor, the bathroom had layers aplenty, though not nearly as many as the kitchen.

With the layers coming off, it became more apparent that there had been a moisture problem in this bathroom for a very long time.  When the house had no central heat or air,  I can only imagine how stuffy and humid that room got in the summer.  We knew there used to be a window that had long since been covered, but without that, there was absolutely no ventilation in this bathroom.  All that moisture definitely weakened the adhesive of all the layers that had been put on the walls, so Jared didn't have too much trouble pulling them off.

The original drywall is exposed!  One down, two to go.

This wall was a source of worry for us before we started the renovations.  When we discovered the leaky faucets, we assumed that there was a lot of water damage behind the wall, but other than some silly carpentry work, everything was pretty sound.  At this point, I decided to stop hovering with my phone out, so I let Jared do his thing.

And came back to this!  DAYLIGHT IN THE BATHROOM!  I really don't know who the idiot was that decided to cover up this much needed window, but I very much disapprove of their decision (in case you couldn't tell).  However, as excited as I was/am about exposing this window, I would be lying if I didn't say I wasn't worried about the wall surrounding it.  Throughout all the other renovations we have done on this old house, we have encountered our fair share of water damage under the windows.  We expected no different from this window, especially because of the visible cracks in the seal on the outside, and the way it leaned in a manner that was not quite right.

Thankfully, the damage was not NEARLY as bad as we had anticipated.  The window needs resetting, and there are a few spots directly underneath the right side that have gotten bad enough to expose the layer of tar that should be between the asbestos siding and the actual wall.  Even with this amount of water damage, most people would be freaked out about what they see here.  For Jared and I?  We've put it in perspective with the rest of the damage to the house, so this is a cake walk...sort of.  Jared is pretty much on his own this time, so it's up to him to figure out how to fix this.

Compared to the rest of the water damage that was found in the house, this is pretty minimal.  All things considered, I'm more excited about having the window opened up than the damage.  Of course, this is only the beginning, and Jared and I have a lot of work to do before this bathroom is going to be functional, but we can do it!  All I need is my Ken Medema blasting on the stereo, and I'm ready to go!

In other news, Jared's been working on getting the front room paint ready.  Other than some sanding, this room is almost there.

Since taking this picture, the rest of the wall has since been given another entire coat of spackle, and just needs a light sanding to be paint ready!  I've been insisting that we get a proper covering on the floor before attempting the sanding process.  We spent an agonizing amount of time waiting for these floors to be redone, I'm not having them ruined again.





So now that spring is here (well maybe not for my family in other parts of the country), I'm ready to get crackin' on this house and make some serious progress.  I'm already dreaming of paint chips and tile colors for the bathroom, premature as it may be...but we'll get there, as long as we keep up the motivation.  With the bathroom in it's current state, it's hard to NOT get motivated by it, so I'm gathering inspiration left and right.  In any case, we've passed the point of no return on it, so it's full steam ahead!

The State of Things

Hello, everyone!

When last we met, I was proclaiming my upcoming hiatus from the blogging world, looking forward to the Christmas season with a sense of home.  I am perfectly aware that my hiatus took a turn down Procrastination street and settled on a nice corner cafe drinking coffee and watching the Christmas decor go up, then down, and finally the new year rolled around.  During this time away from my blog, I had hoped to have so many fulfilled projects to post about that I would returning from my stint away triumphant.  However, as things like this tend to go, that is not the case, though I do have some news about the house.

Let's backtrack a little, shall we?  Just days after Thanksgiving, Jared and I had to prepare once more for the floor crew to come back.  After only about a week of having a real living space, we packed up our new couch and put everything away.

It was with a lot of trepidation that I allowed the floor crew back into my house.  The first time around, they didn't sand the floor enough to get down to the bare wood, used the wrong stain color in the front room and dining room, applied the stain so horribly, and then sealed it all with such lack of care that the streakiness made the floor impossible to keep clean.  Round one was a devastating failure, and I was NOT about to go through that again.  However, after much discussion with Glenn, he agreed that the least he could do was supervise the new(ish) crew as well as demand that the crew's supervisor attended every session they did on the floor.  Though it took a bit of complicated communicating, the guys rented the floor sander they should have used the first time, and in no time, the wood was getting stripped down to it's raw state.

This heavy duty sander was NO MATCH for the pathetic belt sander they used the first time.  It was loud, and it shook the whole house, but it got the job done.

Ullr was none too pleased about being cooped up in the bedroom again (I wasn't thrilled either) but he made the best of it!

With the sanding done, I got more and more nervous about them staining and sealing the floors.  Taking comfort in the knowledge that Glenn and the crew's supervisor would be there, I tried to relax as they proceeded.

Luckily, the staining went without a hitch.  They used the right color, applied it the right way, and then we just had to wait for it to dry.









Of course it just wouldn't be right if they didn't sort of get it wrong again.  The crew came back and sealed the floor, but even though they used the correct technique, something just didn't seem right about the texture.  We had Glenn look at it, and we all came to the conclusion that they just needed another layer of sealant, but that also involved a light sanding.  Through all the hiccups and problems, we FINALLY had proper floors literally one week before Christmas.

Jared and I enjoyed our Christmas; being able to put up our decorations was a great way to finally feel like the house was ours.  Even though we had lots of plans to get stuff done over the break, very little, if none of it happened.  I, for one, was just content to lounge on a comfy surface for once, and not having a couch for five months will do things to you.  Mostly I just felt that things were finally going back to normal, so I was NOT about to rock the boat.

So here we are.  It's the end of January and Jared and I have plateaued.  Partially due to finances, and partially due to lack of motivation, we haven't done much since putting our Christmas decor away.

Jared's next big project will be this horrid bathroom, but until the money genie grants us our wish, we'll just have to deal with it like this.  Jared is eternally confident in his ability to tear it down, but putting it back together could be a challenge, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well.

The spare room has become somewhat of a catch-all, that desperately needs to be organized.

But at the heart of this giant project is still my home.  It might be missing some paint, trim, and style in a few rooms, but when I walk around these rooms, I know it's mine.









Perhaps this new post will spur us on to make progress with our house.  This weekend, however, Jared and I are going down to Jekyll Island to celebrate our third year anniversary!  After that, though, it's high time for me to roll up my sleeves and get some stuff done around this house.

Sarah