Project 4: Redo the second bedroom, Part III

The weekend my grandparents were visiting they helped us install a new fan (actually the old Hunter ceiling fan from my childhood room in a David Weekley house similar in some ways to this house).



N and I picked out a color for the bedroom. We considered the artwork we wanted, the other colors we have selected in the rooms near it (green and orange), and our preference for bright, striking color. This shade of blue is Valspar's Enchanted Sea.

A couple of Thursdays ago N removed the remaining baseboards in the room, and I began taping off the moldings around the windows and doors. After sanding and texturing the patched areas of the walls, we began to paint every area except the patch from the previous door.

I decided to remove the plate for a telephone line that was run into the bedroom, and left it as is in the closet. There was a bundle of wire/cable that ran up from the electrical box through the closet ceiling and into the attic. I simply shoved the cable up the hole in the ceiling, and patched the bed room wall. There was no true electrical box: the phone line and cable were hanging out next to a two-by-four. I kind of made a mess of the wall cutting a hole to pull out a non-existent box.





N sanded down the wall patch (after a disastrous attempt at painting it - did not do a neat enough job with the MUD), and we spread out the patch significantly.







But, not enough. After N finished painting most of the room and everything dried, we realized that it was not as smooth as we had hoped. N sanded the area again, and then applied MUD. Less of the area needed sanding/mudding, which is a sign that we're getting closer to the right job. Here's a spot with a little of texture on (a different texture - the knockback texture without the knockback).



Pictures of the painted room:









Meanwhile, I sanded down the window sills and painted them with the good white alkyd paint. They and the door frames and doors will need to be painted completely.

Project 5: Fix the Upstairs Bath, Part II

In the second part of Project 4 I explained how my parents framed and patched the hole from the door that N and I removed a few weeks ago. In the bathroom we decided to buy beadboard to reduce the amount of wall space we would have to repair, texture, and paint.

The drywall installed:



The beadboard installed:



After my dad used the mortar to lay the tile in the half-bath, we came upstairs and removed the tile that was broken. Upon second inspection, the tile found in the upstairs bathroom cabinet did not match the tile in the bathroom. The tile left by McVicker was more peachy in color. One must assume that McV never knew that two boxes full of the correct bathroom tiles lay in the garage. Oh, boy.

McVicker's Tile:



The correct tile:



The two side by side (correct tile is on the left). Notice that the McVicker tile is smaller than the correct tile.



My dad cut off a nail head that probably made the tile uneven in the first place, and then laid down a new tile. Sunday morning before they left my dad mixed up a small amount of grout, and then my mom demonstrated how to grout on the single tile in the upstairs bathroom.



Also discovered in the bathroom this weekend: a plastic bag full of light bulbs for fans. Along with the receipt of purchase from the former Mrs. McV.

When we bought the beadboard we also bought chairrail to go on the top, and baseboard to go along this wall. I will paint the baseboard later, and N and I still have to install the remaining 12" of beadboard before we can nail in the chairrail. We also need to mark above the studs we found in the wall when installing the beadboard to make installing the chairrail easier.

While we were up in that bathroom for an extended period of time I noticed that the door of this bathroom (and some of the other upstairs doors) has been repainted - in places. I'm not sure it shows up much in this picture, but it looks like someone decided to use up a little bit of paint by painting certain parts of the door a brighter white. But it's been poorly done and I almost wonder if this was a trick that either the Wards or McVicker tried to pull in order to make the house look better for showing. At first glance it's hard to notice, but once seen, it is not forgotten.



The right hand side of the patched wall still needs to be built up some. When it is completely built-up and sanded, we intend to retexture the entire wall (and perhaps entire bathroom, minus behind the giant mirror). Overall, though, we are very happy with how things are shaping up! Doesn't the bathroom look much longer now?

Project 4: Second Bedroom, Part II

During my description of the second bedroom I stated that the next step was closing up the wall. And after procuring three 2X4s and two pieces of drywall, ta-da!



My parents framed the area on Friday afternoon while I was hammering out the bad tiles in the half-bath. They built up the floor in the hole, and then nailed a 2X4 at the base of the hole and another one at the top of the hole. They then placed a 2X4 on either side of the hole, and braced the entire structure with a 2X4 44" up the wall, which will be useful when we can install a towel rack in the room. I neglected to take a picture of the framed up hole, but imagine a wall with a hole the size of a door with pieces of wood along the edges and in the middle.

Friday evening after the French-door handle installation my mother taught me how she removes anchors from a wall. There were 32 anchors in the blue bedroom from the former bookshelves, and two or three other anchors around the room. Using a pair of needlenose pliers we wiggled on the fronts of the anchors until there was an edge to grab, then twisted off the face of the anchor, and finally pushed in the anchor body all the way through until it fell down the back of the wall into the attic. My mom removed the various screws and nails around the room that we had missed when painting the ceiling, and I removed the curtain rods to discover more screws that were painted over underneath, some in pink, others in blue.

The next day I removed the blinds from the window, anticipating that we will be painting this room before too long. My mom, the MUD genius, covered over these holes and other in the room. We have already bought and cut the molding for the baseboard for two of the walls in this room. We will paint the molding, paint the room, and then install the molding. But before we can do any of that, we must finish building up the MUD over the former door hole, prime, and texture the area.

We didn't have a chance to install a new ceiling fan. My parents still had the ceiling fan from my old childhood room. It's a white Hunter ceiling fan. Perhaps if we've been able to paint the room by the next time my parents visit we can install the fan and the faux wood blinds found in the attic. The blinds are cut to fit these windows perfectly. It's perhaps best that McVicker never found the time to replace these blinds, as he probably wouldn't have bothered to fill in the holes from the old blinds, or even repaint the room something less blue and glossy.

In my first post about the bedroom I mentioned that there were gray paint spots on the window ledges. Here they are in all their ugly glory:

Project 1: Redo the Half-bath, Part IV

My mother and father were able to help us resolve many of the difficulties that had sprung up during this (first) project.

I should first note that I had made a huge mistake that I believed affected the repairing of the drywall in the half-bath, and perhaps made the bubbling problem worse. I thought I had previously bought mud, and I believe at some point I was using mud to repair holes in the various apartments I've moved out of. But, when I reached for nail-filler this time, I instead used a plaster compound, whose packaging is very similar to the mud package and label. My mother helped me buy a five gallon thing of mud (joint compound) from Lowe's on Friday.





Once the mud was bought, a lot of the bubbles or rough patches could be repatched and 90% of them looked good after a sanding. However, where the side and back splashes were the paper was so bad, most likely from the glue used to adhere the splashes to the wall, that my mother ended up pulling the paper entirely off and then using mud to fill in the areas.

After adjusting for how rough-looking the walls are, the color of the paint looks good and I think the yellow with the now pure white ceiling will really pop!



I then started chipping out the row of tiles that had run against the vanity. This row had been cut down from 12" to 11", so they needed to be replaced when we tiled the area under the vanity. I used a grout saw to sand away at the grout between the tiles to be removed and the tiles to remain. My mom explained to me that this allows gaps that will prevent good tiles from cracking when the bad ones are hammered out. After the grout was sufficiently removed I hit the bad tiles with a hammer. This job was fairly satisfying, as it was quick, involved hitting objects and breaking things apart, and kept me out of the way while my parents were framing the wall in the blue bedroom (see Project 4 Part II, or Project 5 Part II). I did not think to wear gloves, though, and ended up pricking my fingers with jagged pieces of broken up tile. I did remember to wear safety glasses and earplugs, both of which were extremely necessary. When I was 90% of the way done my mom came in to give me a break and once the tile and the mortar underneath were chipped away the floor was ready for tiling.



Next my mother removed the baseboard in the bathroom, and discovered a bit of mold underneath. It seems that at some point in time the toilet in the half-bath probably overflowed. The mold was sprayed with bleach with chlorine and then left to dry.

N and I traveled to an Ace Hardware store roughly 15 minutes away to rent a tile saw (or wet saw, depending on the store/employee). Rental for four hours was $29.50 plus tax, with a $50 deposit. The saw came with a stand and an extension cord.

While N and I were acquiring a saw, my parents mapped out the area in the half-bath that needed tiling, and then marked the tiles to be cut. When we cleaned out the garage three months ago we discovered two full boxes of the tile used in all the bathrooms, as well as a full bag of matching grout. N and I arrived at the house and set up the wet saw on the patio. We watched my dad cut a few tiles and then each took a turn ourselves. The tile saw was a really fun tool and I'd be happy to tile the kitchen someday.









Once all of the tile was cut, my dad tested it by laying out the pieces in the space, and then he spread out the mortar and set the tiles into place. We then had to let it dry for the next 48 hours.





My mom cut the pieces of baseboard for three of the four walls. The baseboard for the wall on which the vanity will rest will be cut on their next visit once the vanity is installed. I labeled the back of each piece with its location on the wall and the order in which to install them.

N cut through the drywall near the floor of the wall where the vanity will be. I noted before that the drywall seemed to bow outward, and my mother and father discovered that this was due to the pipe for the sink coming through the floor too close to the drywall. Once a small segment of the drywall was removed using a special Dremel bit (a bit of help remembering the name, Mom?), two drywall screws were fastened into the drywall on either side of the section that was cut out. The drywall no longer curves, which should make the installation of the vanity easier.





At this point N and I need to finish sanding the areas that my mom mudded, using spray primer on these patches, and then reapplying texture to all patched areas as well as cover the wall closer to the ceiling. Then we can paint the final coats of paint. Poor N had done a very nice job painting the walls, but enough of the bathroom needed to be repatched that his work was wasted in the end. Although, I will say that it was easier to see the bad patches and any uneven areas of texture only the walls were painted.

Since my father laid down the tile on Saturday afternoon, N and I will next we grouting the area with the grout found in the garage. We will need to paint the baseboard pieces with an extra-white alkyd found the in garage (thank you, McVicker!), and reassemble the toilet. We may attempt to install the vanity, but it will depend on how much time we have before my parents come visit us again with their super energy and know-how. We are looking forward to attempting to do as much as we can on our own. And I've learned my lesson: Always use the right materials.

Project 1: Redo the Half-bath, Part III

After the mud dried, we sanded it down, and sprayed the texture on. I bought a can of orange peel texture from Lowe's, and using the fine texture we were supposed to get a maximum of 110 feet of texture.

We first tested the texture against the old vanity in order to get a feel for spraying the walls. N had much better control of the can, probably because he's done more spray painting than I have.

The orange peel texture is nice looking, but after the one can was finished, we felt that the walls needed more texture. We grabbed one of the cans that we found in the garage, and used that one up. The combination of the two actually looked pretty good. We decided to let it dry for a half-hour, and then we'd paint.

I should note - if I haven't already done so - that this bathroom is under the stairs, and therefore has no natural lighting. We had to turn off the power to the half-bath (which is connected to the lights and power in our master bath, and was marked on the circuit box as either "dining room" or "hallway"), and uninstalled the old, ugly light fixture, and now we are using a trouble light only to illuminate our work.

We decided to begin painting around the light fixture hole and the whole vanity wall so that perhaps we could later install the new light fixture and have better lighting for the remainder of the job. At first the job seemed to going okay, and then...





BUBBLES!

(The color of the paint isn't very vivid in these pictures.)

Another consultation with my folks, another rounds of sanding and then using mud. And yet more bubbles.

I read some online, and it turns out that not only are bubbles in the drywall when painting, priming, or using mud a very common problem, I couldn't find any true consensus on the preferred solution. Some swear by adding dish soap to the mud, others declare that the way of stirring the mud is important, and still others say that the problem doesn't exist if you use good materials, use multiple light coats of mud, and pressure down hard enough to make your arm sore. I've decided to listen to this last advice, along with the layering advice of my mom, and we have had reasonably good results.

We covered the bubbles in the areas that we painted with mud, got everything nice and tight, and then use a spray primer (KILZ) on all areas where we feel that the drywall may be prone to bubbling. We sprayed another round of texture on the sanded areas, as well as nearer the ceiling, which we had previously missed, and we noticed that the bubbles no longer seemed to appear. N has since applied one more round of KILZ, then another bit of texture, and has begun to paint the bathroom. Hopefully (hopefully!) when I get back to town the walls will looking good enough that we can move forward with the next steps.

Lessons learned: when redoing the master bathroom, which is also wallpapered, we now know that after removing the wallpaper we should prime the walls using an oil-based primer. Then we can texture and paint. I bought a water-based texture, which we put on the walls without priming them, and I think this aggravated the existing problems of the drywall. The water-based texture is marketed as less smelly, which I thought was important because this room doesn't have good ventilation. Next time, I will just live with stinky air for a few hours and run the air filter throughout the house.

Sanded, mudded bubbles:



Next steps: tile the floor, replace the baseboard, and install the new vanity. Oh, and get the new light up, new hardware installed, and hang the mirror...and replace the light switches and outlet with new white ones. And maybe rehang the door.