Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We took a few days off for the holiday and are keeping warm and playing with the puppies. We had a good chuckle after I put on some festive socks and then played catch with Pogo and Wiley with their new holiday toys. My socks are a perfect match!!!

Hope Everyone Had A Safe and Wonderful Day.

Ho Ho Ho,
Jake and Sue

Yo-Ho Yo-Ho, A Plumber's Life for Me

Time keeps on flying and we are way behind on our updates. Jake has been the champ with the tasks happening lately so here is his rundown of the recent up until Christmas:

Thursday Dec. 17
Sue stayed home today to help out. Although we could also begin furring the bathroom, plumbing the copper supply supply lines is the main job for today.

I used to do a good bit of sweat soldering in grad school, but it has been about 15 years, and I don't have fond memories of the efficacy of my technique. Also, the architect suggested using soft copper on a roll to avoid having to cut and solder small pieces of tubes to fit between the joints--that sounds really smart. Also, our friend Mike likes Sharkbite connectors over soldering; they are connectors that push-fit on to the tubes and make crimp-like connections--that sounds really smart, too.

I begin the day by going to the local plumbing supply, suitably named Nutley Supply. Imagine the bar from Cheers, and you get a pretty good idea of the peanut gallery seated at the shop counter--kind of like a bar, but no booze. I don't know why there are seats at the counter, but there are. I ask if they have the rolled copper tubing. Nope. The gallery says "use PEX" (PEX is a plastic tube that is flexible).

I return home to search the interwebs for PEX procedures. It turns out that the Sharkbite connectors work with both PEX and Copper tubes. I call the plumber buddies who are doing our drain, waste, vent work (DWV) and inquire about using both PEX and Copper with Sharkbite fittings. Apparently, that would pass inspection but good old copper is the "preferred method." I return to Nutley Supply and buy PEX. Then realized run to Home Depot to get Sharkbite connectors. Unfortunately, their stock was, lets say, depleted. I rent a right-angle drill for the joists and head home. Sue heads to Lowes to see if they have these Sharkbite connectors there.

By about 3pm, we are ready to begin, and we have Copper along with a plan to use PEX and Sharkbite for whatever contingency we may run into. I ponder the concept of Analysis Paralysis.

Sue is still at Lowes. They don't have enough connectors at this location but they have some in stock in Patterson. Sue heads to Patterson.

I drill holes in the joists for the copper tubes. While I begin soldering, Sue is roaming the lovely streets of Patterson (no, wait it is not lovely at all, it is very very un-lovely) as she gets totally lost and is driving around some industrial slum. She finally finds her way back to the highway and gets home with sharkbites/gatorbites/whatever.

We have dinner and then back to work. We realize though that we have the wrong elbow joints. Sue returns the drill to Home Depot and then goes on a quest back to Lowes for more correct elbows (that makes a total of 3 Lowes visits, 2 Home Depot stops, and 3 Nutley Supply Visits in one day, phew).

By the end of the day, we have a bunch of short lengths of cut copper tubes in the garage and enough random plumbing parts to open a plumbing supply shop.



Friday Dec 18
Copper pipes again. Just a lot of cutting and soldering. It isn't as bad as I feared; simply cutting and dry-fitting is arguably more work than the actual soldering.


Saturday Dec 19
More copper tube work. Sue nails in some 2x4s to fix up the framing, and discovers the virtues of the palm nailer. It's a small gadget that's powered by the air compressor we recently bought, and it drives nails kind of like a woodpecker drills holes. Once you buy a compressor, pneumatic tools seem to multiply.

Sue is unsure about doing the furring by herself, but wants to be productive. "What can I do?" she says. "Go whip me up some beef stew" is my facetious response. Sue gives me a look that I will not soon forget and stomps off to the kitchen.

By the end of the day we have a few pieces of the sink supply assembled and a very tasty beef stew.

Sunday Dec 20
A new task gets added to the calendar by way of a lovely snow storm and Sue heads out to shovel snow. More copper tube work.

Monday Dec 21
More copper tubes. On paper, this job looked like a cinch. In reality, I'm now a full-time newbie plumber.

Tuesday Dec 22
Rough-in inspection is scheduled for tomorrow, so today is "get ducks in a row day." The end of the copper tubes work is in sight--ten joints to go. I run out of solder with two copper elbows to go. Fortunately, the plumbers stop by to a give a pre-inspection check and spot me a couple of feet of solder. Copper is done.

Now to turn the water on, and see if my sweat soldering is sweet or fail. Fingers crossed... no leaks! Copper done!!!! (Now what am I going to do with all this unused PEX and Sharkbite connectors?)

The last remaining task is to frame a door for the closet. This shouldn't take too long. There is some contention about how deep into the closet to frame the door. So, I cut the framing for the door so we can play with it after Sue returns.

Wednesday Dec 23
6:50 am Ow, I am sore, tired and cold. We decided where we want that closet door, so I put it in there, and we're roughed-in.

9:00 am Plumbing and electric rough inspection passed. Yay!

Time to write blog. I'm pondering how it took me five days to get the copper supply tubes in... Maybe that's why the plumbers wanted mega bucks to do that part...

We can call it a BATHroom again!!!!

Monday, Dec 14
Jake blocked in the supports for the electrical boxes in the morning (and then tore them out and did it correctly in the afternoon). Our electrician is well under way finishing the rough-in work.

Tuesday Dec 15
Today Jake is framing the tub alcove wall. (notice in image, there is a wall there now) Our bathroom is so tight that fitting that 32" tub in there requires nit-picking over fractions of an inch. He figured out the best dimensions for the alcove wall, envisioning the detail trim that will fit at the front of the tub at the end. We don't want the finishing trim details to look crappy after all this work. It's amazing how many of these first steps have big ramifications later if we screw them up.

Those carpenters are busy guys. They fit us in by the end of the day and fixed up the remaining subfloor issues. They temporarily screwed the alcove wall to the existing wall. Now, the plumbers can finish up the waste lines and vents tomorrow.

Wednesday Dec 16
The plumbers are here bright and early. There's a lot of work to do putting drains through all those sistered joints. I'm glad that somebody else is doing it. The tub is in place (Horray!!!), and that temporarily screwed-in wall needed to move a little. I'm glad we left nailing it in until later.



The electrical inspector must be psychic. He is here before we even called him. Rough electric inspection passed! Yay! Woot!!

The fire inspector is here bright and early, too. He must be psychic, also, because we didn't know we had to involve him. Fortunately, under "rehab" building codes we don't have to install wired smoke detectors in every room in our house--our battery ones are OK, though he gave me a pretty strong look when he seriously recommended doing so. We would consider it, except the electrician gave a pretty strong look when he said "That is going to cost you."

What's this: mail from the code enforcement office. How sweet that they would send us a holiday card. It's yellow and looks like another permit card for electrical modifications. Should I be worried?

Plumbing drains are almost all the way roughed-in. We can start drilling holes in those 6" thick joists and running copper supply tubes ourselves. Jake likes working outside when you can no longer refer to H2O as "water."

Could we possibly dare to hope we can rough in copper plumbing for inspections Friday? Only time will tell.

You Gotta Love The 'Depot

Another Weekend has passed and the room still doesn't resemble a bathroom as far as I can tell. I feel a bit like Cortez burning his ships after reaching the new world... there's no goin' back now.

Here is the weekend recap:

Saturday, Dec. 12:
Friday afternoon was hard work--lots of crawling around on the subfloor driving screws. We own knee pads, it was unwise to decide not to use them. A slight complication is uncovered that one corner of the new subfloor doesn't meet up flush with the existing floor. We sure can't tile over that! So, we'll have to get the carpenters to fix that on Monday.

Today we are getting off to a slow start. We go get the remaining tile products from the distributor and, after we return, we split up, and Jake researches exactly what type and number of nails we need to properly block in the tub alcove (ESR 1539 is a fascinating read, if you LOVE nails), and Sue heads to consult the "Tool Oracle" at the Home Depot tool rental.

What we are looking for is to rent a pneumatic framing nailer that fires common round head nails. Home Depot doesn't have the right nails. Well they do have the "right" nails but the quantities will supposedly cost us "hundreds of dollars." saith The Tool Oracle. He advises hammering all the nails by hand with a look that says "What, are you a wimp?". Two hammers and some boxes of ten penny common nails later, Sue is on the way back home, and we're ready to go.

It's 5pm, and we start blocking. We each drive a nail into the side of our first block. Five minutes later we have two nails in. Forget this! We're cranky, Sue's hand hurts and we are done for the day.

We consult our carpentry catalog McFeely's and here we read: 1600 nails of the correct type cost $50. It looks like we got hood-winked by the "Tool Oracle" and we probably could have just gotten the nails and nailer after all. Hey, we are new at this, but fool me once....


Sunday Dec 13: Geesh, are we ever going to get a day off!?!?

Getting off to a slow start again, we design the final dimensions of our tub niche (where the soap and shampoo go). Ironically, this "icing on the cake" is the first construction task that we need to do; it may have been divine providence that we had some time to think a little before getting started. The first task is to slice a stud in half.

Amazingly it took three different saws to get through that stupid stud. In the end, we cut the stud "perfectly" to the dimensions of the niche cut out. Now, to put in the header... Whoops.

...Turns out, you need to cut the studs not to the size of the niche opening but bigger so there is room for the frame that goes around the niche. Our niche will only fit tiny little hotel shampoo bottles at this rate. Here is a candid shot of us cutting the darn stud a second time. We cut the stud perfectly again to the dimensions of the niche cut-out plus the header and the bottom shelf. That's better.

Now to block in the area where the tub gets mounted, but first these hammers and nails are going back to the Depot; we're going to have to make do with what Home Depot can rent to us. Or not... fooled me again.

We are back at the rent-a-tool and there is my buddy the "Oracle" with a look of disappointment, his eyes saying "yep, you are a wimp". It turns out that the nail gun he was going to rent to us wasn't even going to be the right one after all so I guess it is karma or something that we didn't go down the rental road.

But we are still without a nailer and, as the "Oracle's" eyes indicated, we are wimps. So, we suck it up and buy a new framing nailer (we already have a compressor) and the one box of round head nails that actually work with the gun and that they have in stock (of a quantity less than 5000) . Cost of Nailer: $200, cost in nails: $15, Home Depot: priceless... Its noon, and we start blocking. Eight hours later we have the niche and most of the blocking to mount the tub in place. We are not pros, but darn it we're going to save a buck if it kills us. We are frustrated with our slow pace, but this bathroom is our Great White Whale...

Plodding Along

Another week has passed. This whole joist debacle gave us a good hit to the schedule but we are back on track now and making progress. Since nothing too exciting happened last week, we are just going to give you guys a quick summary. I am sure more fun will come now that things are moving forward again.

Sunday: We left off our last posting with us cutting out the old nasty subfloor. By the time we got it done, we were pretty tuckered out and left the actual removal to Sunday. It's time to rip the darn stuff out. I was so exciting to start banging out the old floor. But then, as I balance over two joists with hammer in hand I make the dreaded mistake and look down (see image looking down the floor). Beneath me in the garage is a pile of old rotted wood, sharp rusty nails and as I imagine looming tetanus or death. Turns out that is enough for me to freak out and leave the tough stuff to Jake. He's my hero.




So, we now have the floor out and have cut the new subfloor to a perfect fit. We cant actually attach it to the joists yet since we need to do all the joist work first, but we have done what we can.







Monday: Our favorite Irishman stops by in the morning and takes the tetanus tower of trash away so we can keep working, Jake gets the plans approved by the code enforcement office so we are good to go.

Tuesday: The plumbers and electrician show up and take out the plumbing that runs through the joists and we get a couple carpenters to stop by to look at the work. We are waiting for their bids.

Wednesday: By 10AM we get our estimates and with some back and forth, we have picked the winner. With a moment of sanity, we enlisted them to just take care of the entire garage piece of the project. That will save us from having to hang double layers of drywall on the ceiling and single layer on all the walls as well replace the steel door. I think this decision just might also save our sanity.

The electrician comes by and starts doing all the wiring in the garage. While we are at it, we add a couple sconces to our exterior which will be nice since we have such a puny little light by our door an that's it. I am very excited about that.

The carpenters show up and bang bang bang, boom, crash, bang bang (with a background of bark-bark, bark bark bark bark, bark-bark-bark). We get our joists fixed up nicely. Just a little more work to do tomorrow and we are ready to attach the subfloor and keep things rolling. We are very excited. Here's what the joists look like now., much improved.


Thursday: Wake up with a chipper mood, things are moving forward. Just need the carpenters to finish things up and we are rolling. I go and buy some doughnuts and coffee for the workers, ready to roll... uh... not so fast... do dee do... do dee do.

Turns out the carpenters arent quite available to wrap things up today. Very frustrating but they promise to be here first thing in the morning.

Meanwhile, the electrician Lenny wrapped things up in the garage and will do the bath electrical next week.



Friday: As promised, the crew returns in the AM and the joists are now done. Phew. It's time for Jake to glue and screw in the subfloor. I should mention that today it is approximately 25 degrees outside (feels like 11) and Jake is not very fond of the cold weather. But, he is a trooper and gets the job done.

Coming up this weekend, blocking in the tub.

We don't need no stinking floor!

Today's commentary brought to you by Jake:

Thursday Dec 3rd Addendum - Wobbly Bobbly Potty
It should be noted that, on top of all our primary bathroom remodelling, the 1/2 bath toilet that is keeping us "relieved" has popped a nut off its mounting screws... that's bad. It is now more of a tilt-a whirl than a toilet. After another Home Depot run and an hour and a half cleaning out the bolt grooves in the closet flange that is under the toilet caked with plumbers putty that was installed when Eisenhower invented the Interstate Highway System. Problem solved, though it makes for a sour end of the day.

Saturday Dec 5: See Ya Later Mr. Floor.
Our architect saved the day by dropping off a set of drawings that should bring our joists and framing up to code (for the technical folks, we are seeking to stiffen the floor up to a deflection of L/720 so our floor tile won't crack). It looks like we're in for a trip to the Code Enforcement Office on Monday.

Although the framing issues have definitely set us back on our schedule, it means a more leisurely pace for us... instead of roughing in copper water lines this weekend, we are ripping out and replacing the subfloor. We'll be gluing and screwing like crazy tomorrow. That, of course, is not a euphemism...

Oh, on a side note, the reciprocating saw is a powerhouse. Using the saw for the first time, I knocked out the demo of our bathroom closet in a little under an hour. I don't know if we could have removed our subfloor without it. The saw kicks like a mule and is kind of scary, but it eats through wood like a champ. The saw is priceless.

Also priceless is accidentally sawing one's way through the recirculating water system that our baseboard heaters use. Fortunately, we turned the heat way down after we pulled all the insulation out during the demo. I'd rather be given a cold shower than eat a face full of boiling water.




** SUE INTERJECTS HER COMMENTARY HERE **
So we are sawing away at the subfloor and hit the radiator pipe. Thankfully I am wearing two layers of clothes today. As the water is spraying to our ceiling, I pull off my sweatshirt to stifle the spray and run outside to try and catch the water in a bucket as it dumps into the garage.

I don't believe that it dawned on me until the water was turned off that I might have run outside topless if I hadn't been wearing something under the sweatshirt. Boy oh boy, that would've been a show.

Also worth noting, we got our Christmas decor up outside, our little Army of Snowmen (not sure if the picture does it justice, will have to post another picture when they are lit).

Oh, and did we mention that we got snow today? Looks like about an inch or two.

** END OF SUE'S COMMENTARY **

Jake Commentary Continued: We've got the hole cut for the first piece of new subfloor, and we're calling it a day.

As another noteworthy event, our tape measure must have eaten some reindeer hay and flown away and that means another Home Depot run. Was it reindeer hay or magic corn? I don't recall, but something has caused our measuring tape to take flight from the house and we can't find it anywhere. Hey, it could happen.

Have you ever enlisted an architect? Ya have now...

It has been a full week since the demo and, although things move slower than we would prefer, they are moving along.

It's a bummer because I have to go into the city every day when I would rather be banging hammers and operating power tools. I'm looking forward to pitching in over the weekend.

Here's what's been happening:

Monday: The week starts out with another early rise on Monday to get to the Home Depot by 6AM to pick up the stuff we couldn't carry home on Sunday. Plumbers come and start to repair the waste lines with the dogs barking the whole time (like the good guard-dogs that they are). Things are progressing nicely.

Tuesday: We now have our trial-period gym membership so we can stay smelling pretty. I did my first visit to the gym at 6AM. I figure I should actually exercise since I am at a gym but I am not much of a morning person. Just imagine me having to exercise before getting any coffee in me... not pretty.

I might not have mentioned earlier but, after the demo we had found some pretty interesting water damage and tom-foolery with the joists. The picture to the left is one joist that has been hacked at with an axe (or so it seems) and used to have the tub waste link jammed into it. Pretty ridiculous.

So, we want to review our plans with the building inspector and make sure we are doing things correctly.

The inspector comes and drops the bomb on us that he thinks the damage to the joists is extensive enough that they need to be completely replaced. How the heck do I replace joists?!! And to make it even better, the joists run further into the house than what we have demo'd which means we will have to pull down the ceiling in the mudroom hallway.

The Bombardier (aka inspector) recommends we talk to an architect. He leaves us with a name of someone to contact. The new architect stops by and, thankfully, disagrees with the inspectors assessment. The plan as of end-of-day is for the architect (my new best friend) to talk to the Bombardier and convince him that sistering the joists is sufficient.

Wednesday: Good news from the architect. He got the okay to go with the sistering plan but the Bombardier wants to see the plans first. Those should be ready for review on Friday. Meanwhile, Jake has fun with the Sawz-all and takes out the closet frame and we are about ready to put in the new subfloor.

Thursday: More plumbing work going on, We can't quite proceed with everything full throttle yet because we don't have the joist issue straightened out. Taking care of other stuff, busy busy busy.





Friday: Electrician Lenny comes by to get that rolling. We are getting ourselves ready for a busy weekend of sub-floor, framing, furring. I didn't even know what furring meant until this week:

fur·ring

1. the act of lining, trimming, or clothing with fur: Furring this coat will take several weeks.
2. the fur used: What kind of furring would you like?
3. the formation of a coating of matter on something, as on the tongue: A heavy furring could mean a high fever.
4. Building Trades - the attaching of strips of wood or the like (furring strips) to a wall or other surface, as to provide an even support for lath or to provide an air space between the wall and plasterwork or the material used for this purpose.

I am learning new stuff every day.

More to come with weekend adventures...