Crown Molding Part Deux

When I was purchasing the crown molding for the original attempt, I had seen some decorative corner pieces that are sold individually. They're basically decorative blocks that go in the corners, against which you butt-joint the molding. Even though it's obviously used for those who don't/can't install the molding correctly, we were faced with no option other than to use them.

Here's what they look like(used without permission from the source...shhhhh):



The problem with these, we discovered, was that since we were using the oversized molding, the matching corner blocks made to fit were HUGE. The inside pieces weren't all that bad, but the outside piece was at least 12" square...WAY too big and obnoxious for the small bathroom. After some discussion, we decided there was a good chance(after seeing how much space the big molding covered) that we could get away with a smaller size of molding. We decided to try out the 3.5" stuff instead of the 5.5 stuff I had original bought. A nice side effect of this decision was that we could use a different kind of corner pieces than the really huge decorative ones. The second type is just a prefabricated corner made out of the same molding, with a slot behind it for the actual molding to be inserted. The effect is much more subtle than the decorative pieces...basically you end up with a double-thickness of molding in the corners, which when painted, don't stand out that much. Not a perfect solution, but definitely do-able at this point. So we purchased everything and off we went.

Luckily, we were fortunate that the smaller molding fit. That, combined with the "cheaters" corners, made short work of the task. All of the molding was installed within an hour. Whew....I wish I had tried this to begin with...it would have save us a ton of grief and the cost of the oversized molding, which was now useless. And I think it will turn out pretty decent.










After getting this up, I turned to installing the towel holders and finishing touches. All of these installed with no problems, and I got the doorknob on the closet.








We're on the home stretch now. Just a few minor details remain. I need to get a little bit of grout and touch up a few spots I thought would be obscured by trim that aren't. The joint between the tub and the wall need to be caulked. I plan on filling the gaps around the crown molding where the ceiling gets crazy with Spackle. Pretty much all of the nail holes are filled, but I have a little bit of scraping to do. I also have to install the cover for the heating vent that's in the room. After that, it's just another coat of paint and we're done!

I wanted to share a special thanks to my mother-in-law Linda for all of her help over the last few weeks. She did a ton of work doing a lot of the yucky jobs, like filling/sanding nail holes, re-hanging the door, fixing drywall, stripping old paint(and the whole door!), painting the chifferobe that's going to be the "cabinetry"...etc. Without her help we'd still be FAR away from finishing. Here's an action shot of her working on the furniture:



Oh, and here are the poor, neglected, mis-treated, abused, dust-covered, sad, lonely mountain bikes who've had nothing to do but hang around and watch everyone have all the "fun" these last few months. Don't worry, fellas, we're almost finished and the nice weather is on its way!




I don't know about all of you guys, but we're ready for this thing to be finished!

Crown Moulding Part I

Well, it was too good to last.... The crown moulding turned out to be a complete failure. Because of the large gap between the ceiling and the walls, I bought very large crown moulding. This complicated things, because it was hard to cut the moulding, even on the large saw. But that was really the least of the troubles. First of all, the ceiling is very uneven. Second, the walls are not completely square. These factors added together spelled doom for my crown moulding attempts.

I started off trying to do it the "right" way. In this method, you cut one side of the moulding square, and butt it against one of the walls. For the second piece of the joint(inside corner), you cut it at a 45 degree angle, and then use a coping saw, guided by the angled cut you just made, to cut the countour of the moulding. The cut you make with the coping saw is supposed to fit perfectly against the piece butted against the wall. In THEORY. Obviously, it didn't quite work out for me. I had a hard time cutting the correct angle on the saw(holding the board in the correct position, and keeping everything from moving while cutting), and I also had trouble positioning the pieces on the wall at the correct angle. There are "flats" on the back side of the moulding that serve as guides for the correct angle at which to attach it to the wall and the ceiling, but they're far from positive, and any deviation in this angle manifests itself in the corner joint. After doing one, I realized not only that the joint I just completed was NOT acceptable, but also that I really didn't learn anything in the process to help the second attempt come out any better. So I switched gears. Here's a pic of the failed attempt(with another pic of my cruddy outside corner as well):






The next technique involves simply cutting the moulding on both pieces of the joint at a 45 degree angle. I thought it probably wouldn't be perfect in the end, but it should be better than the coped method. I knew that the angles of everything would be of utmost importance if the joints were going to line up, so I used an angle gauge to create a guide for me to use in positioning the moulding in place on the walls, and I also bought a cutting guide for use with a miter saw, that both tells you how to make the cuts for the joint you're constructing, and holds the workpiece in the saw at the correct angle(for repeatability). All looked very promising, but again, no luck. The joints didn't look any better than the first go 'round. Argh! Everyone was giving me a wide berth that day, for fear of stepping in the path of flying tools and pieces of moulding... I don't blame them.

The next day, after calming down some, we thought it over and decided to cheat.

Baseboards

Well, an easy job at last. Baseboards. Nothing much to this one really other than my having to rent a miter saw from HD in order to cut everything. The basebaords in the rest of the house are the oversize stuff, and we wanted the bathroom to match. The moulding is 7 5/8 inches, which exceeded the limit of the 10" chop saw my Mom loaned me. I decided I'd just rent one of the big 12" sliding deals for the day, and hopefully knock out both the baseboards and the crown moulding(more on that later). The big saw made cutting everything a snap. No problems whatsoever.

The girls had made quite a bit of progress on the moulding, so we decided to go ahead and start working on the trim. This mainly consisted of hanging the entry door, the window trim, and the closet trim. Of course, nothing was as simple as nailing the trim back onto the wall.

First, the window. The window was on the exterior wall, which, if you remember, is now 3.5 inches thicker(new stud wall) than it used to be. The window trim was nailed directly onto the brick and plaster exterior wall originally, so now something had to make up that new space. I decided I would fill the gap with some 1x pine and just paint it. Not too difficult. I basically had to rip the strips to width(thanks again, Allen...table saw), install some supports underneath so it didn't sink, nail the new pieces up, and finish with the trim. Turned out pretty nice. Here you can see the spacer material..it's the unfinished pine:



Next was the closet trim. Here I had a similar problem, in that when I hung the new door, I didn't space it properly in relation to the painted drywall, so I had a small gap to fill. Linda came up with a great idea to just use some of the plastic shoe moulding I was using for the baseboards...it fit perfectly! I forgot to take a detail shot of it, but you should be able to see it in this pic. It's the piece directly behind the face moulding, sandwiched between the door casing and the moulding. It's also, from this angle, the piece right behind the brass hinges.





The entry door was not as easy. I've tried to describe it before, but it's hard to verbalize. The door itself is not hung by any structural members...the casing is sandwiched between the interior and exterior pieces of moulding, and then the door hung from that. Needless to say, it was very difficult to get the door at the right height, plumb, and square at the same time. I fussed with it for a few hours, and after hanging the door, found out that it was far from perfect. There was a huge gap underneath the door, the door was cock-eyed in the frame, and because of this there was a large gap on the knob side of the door. It was just ugly. At the time I was very aggravated and didn't feel like messing with it anymore, so I was prepared to just leave it that way. But the next day, when I was out of town, Linda REHUNG THE DOOR! By herself! And she did an amazing job...I don't know how she did it, but when I got back the door was perfect. It met the floor at the correct height, it was square, and all the corners lined up perfectly. Amazing! Here's the result:








Next up, baseboards and crown moulding.

Update

Well! Long time no update. Sorry it's been so long...lots of stuff going on.

We've made quite a bit of progress over the last couple of weeks, thanks in big part to some great help.

So let's see...where were we. I suppose we left off with just getting the fixtures installed. That was a nice milestone...we had a working bathroom again.

Unfortunately, the long period of disuse took its toll... My wife and mother-in-law, after working for a few hours outside stripping old moulding, came inside to find the bathroom floor covered with water. Now what? I racked my brain trying to think whether I might have done something to cause a drainage backup. If you remember, I didn't do anything to the waste lines, other than remove the old tub trap and install a new one. Since that was at the END of one of the waste branches, I didn't think that could have done anything. The only thing I was able to come up with was possibly dropping a large piece of debris into the large toilet line during demolition before I covered it.

My wife and mother-in-law called a plumbing service who came by rather quickly. They were very nice and very helpful. The pulled the toilet off the flange in order to get the snake down into the waste pipes, but could not make a sharp turn in the pipes to reach the blockage. After a couple of hours, they gave up and left(they also "hand sculpted" the wax ring I had installed, as it was slightly too small and was allowing a little bit of moisture to seep).

The next day, my wife was out of town, so my Mother-in-law, Linda, was kind enough to take care of things in her absence. The second plumber tried the same thing and couldn't make the turn either, so he ended up digging a hole in the yard next to the existing "clean-out" so that he could just tap into the pipe underground. Eventually, he got there and pulled out a football-sized ball of roots. Argh... When he finished, he(finally!) put a clean-out pointing towards the house so that I can clean out the section that's been currently inaccessible. The root problems should be over.

So, after that delay, we're back in business. As I'd mentioned, Linda had been visiting us for a few weeks, helping my wife strip paint from the old moulding, and pitch in wherever she was needed. She worked hard! I'll continue in the next post.

Well! I spent most of the day today installing fixtures. Got both the toilet and the sink installed, and installed the shower curtain rod as well. We now have a fully functioning bathroom again at last. The fixtures turned out great, I think. The sink looks really nice. We decided to buy a new toilet, instead of re-using our old one, mainly because the top of the old one was in pieces. Apparently it's really difficult to find tops for old toilets, and when you do, it's very expensive. The cost of the new toilet versus a new old top was $50. Tough choice.

Only things remaining are some touch up and the trim work, which includes hanging the entry door since it's actually hung from the trim. We'll see how that goes shortly.

Tile is finished!

After a long hiatus, I finally was able to get back to work on the bathroom. This session went very smoothly. Last time, I had gotten all of the tile laid out and all the cuts made, with the exception of the one surrounding the toilet flange, a large circular cutout. I had destroyed about 5 tiles trying to use the tile nippers to cut the circle before I gave up and decided that just wasn't going to happen. I really didn't want to rent a tile saw just for one cut, so last week my wife took the tile to Lowe's where we bought them and they were able to make the cut for us. They did a really nice job too. Luckily they got it on the first try too, because that was the last tile in the 5 boxes we bought.

So this weekend I only had to set the tiles and then grout. Everything went off very smoothly. No surprises, no hassles. I set the tiles saturday morning which took about an hour from mixing the thinset to cleaning everything up. Then sunday morning I grouted, which didn't even take that long. I was glad that something worked out for a change...was getting sick of the nasty work(drywall).

Here's the result:









Not too shabby, we're both really pleased with the colors of both the tile and the grout(actually the grout will turn out quite a bit lighter...it's wet in these photos...will post pics when i get a chance).

Almost there!! This weekend I'll be installing the toilet and the sink. The room will be usable again, woohoo! After that, as time permits, we'll be completing the rest of the finish work. All that remains is to do some cleanup/scraping, patch some spots in the wall that I missed with drywall mud, probably one more coat of paint, and install the trim. We'll be finished soon!

Almost there!

Started working on the tile this weekend. I was hoping to be able to set the tiles on saturday and then grout and, if lucky, install the toilet and sink on sunday so that the room is usable again. Unfortunately that turned out to be a bit too ambitious.

Got a late start on Saturday. Most of the day was spent prepping the floor(getting all the paint and drywall mud scraped off of the subfloor), and then laying the backerboard. Cutting and fitting the backerboard was almost as much of a pain as hanging the drywall. The sheets are only 3x5, however, so they're a little more manageable. I'm using Hardiboard instead of Durock, as I read that it's a lot easier to deal with than Durock. I suppose that's true, and if so, I'd really hate to deal with durock. Only bad thing about Hardiboard is that it contains a lot of silica, which apparently has been found to cause cancer if exposed to a lot of the dust. Because of that they tell you not to use any power tools to work with it, nor anything that will generate a lot of dust(read saws). The good old score and snap was pretty much all I had to work with. That works well for 90% of the cuts I had to make, but there were a few places(around the closet) where I broke down and just used a saw to cut some of the L-shaped cuts to get around the wall. All in all, it wasn't TOO bad...just fairly time consuming.

By the time I was finished with that it was 6pm and time for the SEC championship. Awesome game, btw... If you didn't catch it, AR gave FL a good run for their money, but FL stepped up and showed them who was boss. Really interesting play calling too...Florida fakes a punt from their own 30 to convert a 10 yard 4th down. Completely unexpected. Lol, and it turns out that 5 people threw passes for big yardage, 4 for TDs. It was like they were seeing who could top whom for the most unexpected play. Really exciting. Normally I wouldn't care all that much about either of these teams, but since it turned out that UCLA upset USC(woohoo!!!!), FL would have a chance at the championships if they won the SEC. They found out around halftime, and at first it looked like the news kinda shook them up. AR came out of the locker room on fire and FL couldn't answer. AR scores 2 unanswered TDs to reel in the score, and their defense has completely shut FL's offense and Leak down. But then, after a lackluster drive by FL, resulting in a 4th and short. Apparently FL is reeling so badly, they don't know what to do and have to burn their LAST timeout(this is the middle of the 3rd qtr, btw) to decide. Cooler heads prevail and they wisely decide to punt it down inside the AR 10 where the AR receiver CHOKES and fumbles the ball! Florida recovers in the AR end zone for a TD. This completely knocks the wind out of ARs sails for the rest of the game, and FL is off to the races. AR never recovers from the loss of momentum, and FL wins convincingly. Pretty amazing game. However, the play of the day(or the year for that matter) was UCLA LB Eric McNeal making a game-saving play when he deflected AND intercepted a USC pass to stop the game-winning drive by USC with 1 minute to go in the game after USC had driven down to the UCLA 20. Clutch!

Heh, I digress...So, I got the backerboard down on Saturday. Sunday I was hoping to get the tile at least set so that the next session could be grouting and installing fixtures. Unfortunately, but as usual, it took me a lot longer to get the tiles ready than I thought. I decided, since the room is so small, that I'd go ahead and just dry-fit and layout everything before setting anything. Doing this took all of my time on Sunday, but it was worth it. I think I have everything fit perfectly, and now all I have to do is mix up my thinset and start laying the tile. Cutting the tile, for the most part, wasn't TOO difficult. 90% of my cuts were all straight cuts, which I did with a score and snap cutter I rented from HD. I decided that the critical area(i.e. Full tile) was next to the tub, so that's where I started with the layout. I got lucky and this worked out great. I only had to cut 6 tiles on the exterior wall, and 6 tiles on the entrance wall. The sink wall worked out to not need to be cut. Plus, I got lucky and ended up with a full tile right in the middle of the closet doorway transition so that looks pretty smooth as well. All of the interior closet tiles were straight cuts as well. The only tough cuts were the 4 tiles that touch the closet doorway(not bad as these are basically just corner "notched") and the tiles where the toilet drain are. Two tiles intersected are the toilet drain, one covering about 20% of it, and the other covering the other 80%. I was able to use my tile nippers and "sculpt" the smaller cutout, but the one where I had to make a larger cut(the 80%) eluded me. I destroyed 5 tiles before I decided to give up and try something else. As of right now, this is the only tile that isn't finished. All the other tiles have been cut and laid out. When I went to Lowe's on Sunday before I started, I noticed they had a tile cutter set up in the tile section(like they have the pipe cutters in the pipe section..etc). I'm hoping they might be able to cut this tile for me. It's going to be a pain, but it's only *1* tile and we've spent so much money there I don't really have a problem asking them to do it. I really don't want to spend 50 bucks to rent a tile saw to cut 1 tile. We'll see.

Here's how the room looks with the tile laid out. We're definitely getting there. I think my wife did another good job picking out the color. The first couple of pics was taken with flash to get the detail(notice the one tile with blue marking on it that hasn't been cut yet :P), but I took one without(the last one) that's much more accurate from a color standpoint. It's pretty darn close to the actual color of the tiles and the walls.














One for color:



So, next up will be setting the tiles, then grouting and sealing, and then finally installing the sink and the toilet. Once that's done the room is usable again, and we can actually use it while we install the trim and do all the little clean-up tasks. Almost there!

Progress

First let me apologize for the frequency of the updates lately. Lots of stuff going on right now and I haven't had a whole lot of time to work or update the blog.

Late last week I was able to finish up the painting. It looks like my wife did a great job selecting the color...it looks really great.

Once the paint was dry, I decided to go ahead and install the medicine cabinet and vanity lights to give a little more light to the room...plus the medicine cabinet she picked out is so cool we just wanted to see it mounted. I think it looks really nice. These are the only items in the room that are dark in color so they really pop.










The paint really does a great job of highlighting the awful job of drywalling that I did. I think there are one or two spots that I'm eventually going to have to sand and redo, but I'm going to save that job for after the tile/toilet/sink are in and the room is livable again. I also mis-estimated the width of the mirror trim, so I have one or two screw holes that I didn't finish, thinking they'd be covered. Oops.

Anyway, the room is starting to come together.

Overdue update

Well!

Sorry it's been so long since the last update. Busy times...

Lessee...where are we? Ah, drywall is up. Took me about 2 days to get all the drywall hung, with Allen's help. Let me tell you...drywall is, by far, the worst thing I've had to do yet. I don't know what it is about it, but I can't stand it. If you bump into it, it cracks. If you drop it, it cracks. If you're not careful carrying it and hit the doorway, it cracks. If you don't cover your mouth when you sneeze, it cracks. Ugh! You have to be careful when you're driving the screws or you'll go too far. AND the stuff weighs twice as much as a sheet of plywood. Need I go on?

Anyhoo, 2 days of wrestling wallboard and it's all hung.










Meanwhile, my wife has been busy stripping. Old moulding, that is. We want to use the old moulding around the doors and window to keep everything in line with the rest of the house, so she's been trying to get rid of the 50 layers of paint on everything. Doesn't look like an easy job. She uses stripper to take off the first couple of layers, and then a heat gun to get the rest of the ancient paint off. Not a fun job.





After all the wallboard was hung, it took me another 2 days to get it all taped an mudded. This part is just as bad as hanging the stuff, only messier. The mud gets EVERYWHERE. Also, I wasn't warned and found out too late that you have to be careful and not contaminate your mudpan, or you'll get gouges and lumps in your seams. Woohoo... Stop laughing...









Next time, the drywall is getting contracted out...

Finally, today I was able to finish up the mudding. After everything was dry I had enough time to put a couple of coats of primer on the walls, in preparation for the paint. Hopefully I'll be able to get the paint on tomorrow and can proceed to the tiling. I might go ahead and hang the lights and the mirror to give a little more light, and I won't be working up there anymore so I shouldn't have to worry about messing them up.