Magnolia House

Downstairs Bath and Butler's Pantry

We finally finished up most of the downstairs bath. We still need to paint the outside of the tub, and the floor vent, but, hey, I'd use this room.

This room was pretty much stripped. We tore up the floor and found evidence it used to have a claw foor tub that was replaced probably in the 20's. Crazy to think they remodeled to get rid of the claw foot, and we remodeled to add one upstairs.

Now with the old fiber glass shower gone (that was covering part of the window), the original tub (as we found it) with a shower added,   all new plumbing and electrical, a tile floor, and some faux paneled walls, it's a pretty nice place.

The cabinet in there came from the thrift store and fits perfect.

 

 

Also finished now is a counter top in our butler's pantry and some paint on the walls.

We put the counter in at bar height (42"), only to realize it just didn't feel right. So we lowered it four inches and cut the legs off the chairs.

Cynthia reminded me only to cut off four legs on each chair.

Our butler is especially appreciative. He sits here in the morning with his Macbook and surfs the net for cool recipes and cleaning tips. 

We still have flooring to replace in the pantry, kitchen, and laundry room. We're debating all the various options...

 

Dust is settling

I want to say the dust is settling here in our three generation household  on Magnolia Avenue. I'm optomistic. It's really still pretty dusty.

Here are two of the generations surviving the great home remodel of 2011 on the left. Cate, Simon, Finley, and Chris.

The last couple of weekends we have worked on smaller projects to rest our bodies a little. 

Like cleaning up the yard, installing drapes, hooks, shower curtains, towel bars, stuff like that. I used a magnet and picked up about five pounds of rusty nails and other junk from the back yard left behind from our demolition, so the kids can play more freely back there and have a wading pool.

All the specimens from the Allmen's rock hounding days are in a single pile of  raw materials for  future projects along with the bricks from the old chimney and fireplace. Inside, the downstairs shower is done, and all that's left is prep and paint.

 

 

 

 

 

Downstairs bathroom, a toilet is a nice feature

This weekend the family blasted through the wainscoting in the downstairs bath so we could get the toilet and sink in place. 

Today a toilet.

Tomorrow a sink.

Then on to shower tiling and trim work.

The bathtub and shower should come back to life over the next week.

Running out of steam, but getting closer...

Cynthia is off to Portland to prepare for our daughter's wedding. 

We made it pretty far before this weekend, which was our deadline.  We are some wainscot and paint away from assembling the upstairs bathroom.

Downstairs we have a tile shower and wainscot to do as well.

We have our living room and dining room set up downstairs, and all the rooms upstairs set up.  They have paint, but need trim work.  We're getting close to the completion of phase 1!  Whew!  The kids move in next week, ready or not!

Three days closer...

Here's a chunk of the drain plumbing from our house.  100 years of plugging going on. 

Pretty much all the electrical and plumbing are now replaced!  We worked away through the three day weekend and made some great progress.

We reconnected the kitchen sink, and rebuilt the laundry room wall with new tongue and groove boards to cover up the demo'd wall that gave way to new utility sink and washing machine plumbing.

Today, Cynthia set up our bedroom upstairs.  We have just one room all cleaned up.  The others are still works in progress.

Oh, we connected the bath tub downstairs too, so we both took hot baths in a bathroom under construction.  A hot bath is a hot bath, whether you're staring at tile or studs.

The upstairs drywall is also almost done, but dust is still flying everywhere.  Our bedroom will be our "clean room" and get sealed off during the day.

If you touch it, you repair it

Today's chore was getting the downstairs bathroom ready for some remodeling.  I pulled down some of the wall to make room for new shower plumbing, and removed all the exisiting plumbing.

Under the house I was removing pipes that would be replaced, including the bath tub drain with a five foot run of 2" pipe to that rotted waste piping I talked about earlier.

As I gave one of the fittings a twist with my pipe wrench, the whole pipe came crashing down in the darkness behind the furnace ducting...  I saw chunks of cast iron pipe laying in the dust, and I prayed "Please God, please let the main line still be in tact.  The weekend's over and I don't have time to completely replumb the waste pipes now..."

I crawled under the ducting, through the dirt (it's about an inch deep of dry dusty dirt under the house, alternating with mud where the pipes were leaking before).  Doing my army crawl I rounded the bend to see everything still in tact.  "Whew!  Thank you Jesus."  The piping had broken off upstream, and all I need to do was some grinding and install a rubber cap pasted full of roof sealant to keep the plumbing working.

As I was putting all the tools away, I thought of the expression you see in some shops "If you break it, you buy it."   My expression for this wonderful old house is "If you touch it, you repair it."

I'm still having fun.

Water falls, with or without pipes

This morning before church, I was poking around, and decided to open up the wall in the bath room with the upstairs plumbing running through it.  YIKES!!!!  The drain pipe was totally rotted out, and every time we took a shower upstairs, water was basically pouring down the pipe, inside and out, some going to the sewer, and some under the house.

A whack with a hammer and the pipe came tumbling down.

I spent two hours extracting the pipes from the walls; these thigs are HEAVY. 

The rest of the day I figured things out, made a Home Depot run, and then  went about replumbing the drain, since we only have the upstairs shower to bathe right now.

We're moving the toilet, so I got to use smaller pipe, which in turn, allows us to rebuild the wall to original (it had been boxed out around the larger drain pipe). 

All better. 

Water inside the pipes. 

Air outside.

Duct Tape and Bailing Wire

This weekend, we have been surveying the house for the various electrical and plumbing work that needs to be done, both for repairs and for relocating some things.

I went under the house for a while, as well as in the attic.  Common theme:  duct tape to patch drain pipes that have rotted through.  The drain system will need to be totally replaced from top to bottom.

The supply plumbing goes every which way, and add to that abandoned pipes from a solar hot water heater.  I followed one pipe to the far corner of the house to figure out where in the world it was going, only to find it connected to another pipe and headed back. 

 

The inlet plumbing will be a total redo as well.  Cynthia is using a hose to fill the washer... (sorry Cynthia).  I like doing inlet plumbing a lot, so I'm actually excited to tackle this.

Today I'll try and commit this all to paper, so we can visit the city for permits.

Shower by Sears

The first thing that needed to go was the shower in the first floor bathroom. 

It's a free standing modular fiberglass shower made by Sears.  We'll be adding a shower to the exisitng tub and using the new real estate for counter and cabinet space.

Cynthia started unscrewing the pieces today, and tonight we finished the demo, revealing the old location of the second vanity mirror light and some raw wood work around the window. 

And...

...the outline on the wall of the previous counter and cabinet space!

It will be fun to come in behind this with some restoration.

Here's what it looks like now...