|
|
Before and After
Here is where we started and here is where we are finishing.
 Before and After
In our last episode I was working on the access panel for the jacuzzi. Having sorted that out, I spent time finishing up the skim coating and priming and painting in anticipation of the solid surface.
Tuesday Morning.
 Morning Light Painting is done on the soffit ceilings and the walls up to a few inches behind where the solid surface will go.
Here are a couple of the lads from Pro Tops Inc. setup and cutting the large side panel.
 ProTops lads assembling walls On the left is a portable swamp cooler as the temperature was over 100. With the canopy it is a pleasant place to work if you have to work outdoors in Arizona in the summer.
The big panel has been installed and they are building the template for the back panel. They built the sides of the three glass block openings and attached them to the panel before installing it. Slid Right In.
 Long Wall installed. The lads are building the template for the back wall. The templating system that they use consists of 1/8” luan ply and hot melt glue to measure for the panels. Works slick. When you are working on material that has no room for error, it is important to get it right.
Here is the finished product.
 Finished and done
Here is the access panel for whoever may have to work on this in the future.
 Finish Access Panel It is mechanical and all mechanical things break down eventually. The guy who will have to fix this years down the road will thank me. So will the client not having to tear up the bathroom to fix a pump or leak.
My previous posting showed skim coating prep for inside corners. If you have outside corners they need to be fixed also.
Here is the soffit over the vanities at the Lightyear Sunken Bath Project. We are cornerbeading it to create a smooth job.
 Cornerbead installation for skim coating Cornerbead is available in 8′ and 10′ lengths most places. When you have a run that is longer, and need to butt two pieces together you bridge them. Bridging is using a small piece of bead behind your outside corner. This allows you to butt the next length to it and have a smooth line to tape and mud.
 Bridging Corner Bead
Now that the corner bead is installed the skim coating continues. Here I have skim coated the the walls of the soffit, but without running the beads. This gives a smoother area to run your knife against when filling the beads and the inside corners. A little work now saves a lot of work later.
I am using USG Dust Control Mud here as it works so well. Sands like a dream and clumps together for clean up.
 Fill coat before running the bead Here is the corner with the next skim coat applied.
 Here is the soffit and ceilings with the corner bead filled and second coat applied. Here is the soffit area where we installed the bridging at the top of the post.
 Here is the other side of the soffit with the opening into the utility room.
The particleboard bathrooms are now in the history books. After removing the wallpaper, scraping and sanding the walls, mold removal, stain blocking, skim coating, sanding, priming spot spackle, sanding, priming,and painting, removing tape and red rosin paper, wiping down and re-caulking, these rooms are done.
Here is the hall bath.
Here is the Master Bath looking in.
Here is the Master Bath looking out.
The weirdest thing besides the obvious is that they used 3/8″ particle board for these. The only plus to this is that you can hang towel bars just about anywhere and be relatively assured of having solid blocking for for mounting them.
Don’t get me started on towel bars that are built on no known centers, with really birdshit mounting plates. Towel bars are one of those items that should really be used to beat the designers over the head until they understand what on center means, what secure mounting means, what sufficient plating and attachment mean.
Probably one of the biggest education challenges is that most designers don’t have children, so secure mounting means nothing to them, they have been bought off by the washcloth size bath towel lobby, and they bathe in car washes rather than using inside plumbing like most regular folks.
Don’t get me started….
It was a simple condo repaint job. Patch the holes from picture hangers, remove the wall paper and repaint the two bathrooms. 2 Bed, 2 bath, no real oddball features until I started removing the wall paper in the first bath. I pulled the medicine cabinet and was greeted with this. Particle board.
I thought that this was an anomaly until I went around the room. The entire bathroom is sheathed in particle board. Stapled to the studs, a smear of compound to cover the staple holes and wallpapered over. No primer, no sealer, just particle board and wallpaper. The first bath was relatively easy to strip as they used a fabric type wallpaper that came off easy.
The detailing behind the wallpaper at the corners was very good however. The are a couple hundred condo units in this development so the builder got it down to a science.
The second bath was a different animal having a paper wallpaper. Here I stripped off the face and then softened and scrapped the paper back off with water. About 4 hours of mess.
Skim coat, Primer, and Paint. Particle board walls? Another entry in the Weird Construction Techniques category, for sure.
Drywall is one of the most important materials in housing. It literally defines your interior spaces.
An article in USA Today says that a Chinese drywall manufacturer, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin produced defective drywall that is releasing gasses that are corroding copper pipes and wire.
"Homeowner lawsuits allege that the drywall has
corroded air conditioning and refrigerator coils, microwaves, computer
wiring, faucets and copper tubing.
Tests paid for by Lennar say the drywall appears
to emit sulfur gases that can damage air conditioning coils, electrical
plumbing components and other material.
In one test, copper pipe turned black after four
weeks when placed in a sealed container with a piece of affected
drywall, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 30 by Lennar against Knauf
Gips of Germany and its Chinese affiliate, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin,
and others. The pipe then started to corrode, Lennar says."
According to the article up to 60,000 homes with the majority in Florida are affected.
"Lennar and Taylor Morrison, a home builder based
in Arizona with a dozen affected Florida homes, say they're absorbing
the expenses of relocating residents for the several months it can take
to repair affected homes.
Lennar says it used the Chinese-made drywall in
a small percentage of Florida homes built from November 2005 through
November 2006. It's not being used in new homes, it says. Lennar and
Taylor, both of which build homes outside of Florida, say they're not
aware of homes outside of Florida being affected."
Source: USA Today
Not a very good deal on something that accounts for a small percentage of a construction budget, yet defines a house. One more reason I use USG Drywall.
Google Search Results.
Shopping for Remodelers
With the holidays around the corner, giving gifts is one way of expressing your feelings to your significant others, friends, and comrades in arms.
Remodelers are strange folks. You cannot buy them ties or fruit baskets. They will use the ties to mop up spills, and the fruit baskets will get covered in dust.
To a remodeler, nothing says love quite as much as remodeling stuff. Tools, Hardware and Fixtures is how you will be remembered. You may ask a remodeler what they would like for the holidays or birthdays, and they will tell you, in excruciating detail. Most of you who know remodelers probably think that they have been possessed and are speaking in tongues. Relax! There is no cause for alarm or calling for intervention.
They inhabit a world where sheets do not go in the laundry, getting nailed and screwing are not bedroom activities. What to do?
Filthy Lucre
Show your love, get them a gift card! By now you have already figured out that buying a traditional gift for a remodeler is harder than buying a present for a second cousin twice removed whom you have never seen.
You can however spread holiday joy with an Amazon Gift Card
Using this link, not only spreads joy to the remodeler, but I also make some money as well! Which I will use for my remodeling projects.
Having hung the cabinets, I built the counter for that wall. 16 feet of counter. It is 3/4 plywood with angle brackets for stud wall mounting. Building 16 feet of anything in a 22 foot shop is challenging.
But with careful measurement, it mounts quickly. The counter is designed to hold a number of rolling carts underneath. The brackets are designed to screw through the wall into the studs behind making it strong enough to sleep on. The brackets stop short of the floor to make cleaning the area easy.
Here is the wall with the cabs and counter in place. I also installed 3 more glass blocks above for more indirect light.
Here is a view from the other side.
My own projects take a back seat to clients projects, which is why my media room is still unfinished despite building the new temporary workshop in the back.
Rummaging around in the building salvage yards a few years ago brought me this window which I installed for light in the media room. Double glazed commercial window I picked up for a song. Light with low heat gain as it is a west facing wall.
The view sucks. The neighbors swamp cooler is not my idea of a view. My side eave is not adding a lot either.
I had thought about stained glass here, as I was looking for light over a view. I have enough windows to tell me what the weather is like.
I have decided to bubble it. Having lived with the bubbles in the laundry room, I really like the light I get through these blocks. It is one of those happy things that happen that I will be able to get an even number of blocks in the opening.
 This block only comes in one size. 8×8''. I wish they came in a 6×6 size as I have a window in my bathroom that would look great with these.
Bubbles Bubbles Bubbles.
Right now I just have them stacked in the opening while I do other things. I am thinking about various framing options. Bubbles Bubbles Bubbles.
I need light, am not buying anymore windows, and will not install skylights. So I am gonna shove bubbles in my walls.
Glass block is an intriguing material. I have wanted to play with them, and have been circling around them for some time. I finally found a pattern that I liked. This is a pattern called Seascape, made by Pittsburgh Block. This photo is poor but you get the idea.
I built a series of frames for the blocks. The frames are 3/4'' plywood just big enough to fit around the blocks. They are deep enough to go through the wall completely. This is the inside of the frame. I have glued these in here with GE Silicone II XST which is supposed to be a paintable silicone caulk. Says on the tube that it will do everything but have your children. We will see.
The outside has a face frame of plywood, whose inside dimension is just a little smaller to act as a lip for the block and provide a surface to caulk to. Since this is an almost pure silicone, I am letting it dry before I trim it.
I am also experimenting with Elmers ProBond Wood Filler. I won't use it again. You can see where it has shrunk back. after sanding. I didn't have any ZAR handy.
Tommorow I will punch some holes in my walls and mount these.
|
|
![[Google]]( http://www.lemurzone.com/rfg/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/google-light.gif)
Recent Comments