Upstairs remodel

[Snipe Hunter]

We're staying till we find a house we like better. We'd really like to get back into a rancher. Neither one of us has ever lived in a colonial, not sure why anyone would like stairs. We don't. I like doing this stuff so it's no skin off my back but I do need to recover or profit from it when we sell. What it does is make the house sell fast but not necessarily at a profit. When the house is one, we'll start looking for a rancher. When we find it, we'll try to make an offer contingent on selling this one. We need to be in a good position on this one to move it quickly. I'm afraid to make it too nice for the immediate market area. We don't want to over build... we still need to do a kitchen.

[Snipe Hunter]

A little progress. The plumbing is roughed in. There will be a shower head at left end of the shower and a hand-held sprayer at the other. The three way valve is on the way. It looks like a regular shower valve but has two handles along with a volume control. I still have to run a pipe to the other end of the shower from the valve to the sprayer but won't do that till I have everything in hand. Not only don't I like plumbing, I like it less when I have to do it twice. Since I have laminated floor joists and since there's a floor on it, all the plumbing needs to be in the walls.

The floor is in under the shower. It's 3/4" Advantec. Rock solid. The shower walls and threshold will be glued and nailed on top of it. Ideally, if anything in a shower moves, everything should move together to prevent leaks and issues down the road. I'll start the shower walls tomorrow. I had to replace the studs on the back wall. They were so twisted that I couldn't work with them. Decent carpenters block their studs.

Once I get the walls up, I'll start wiring. Once the wiring is done, I'll patch the ceiling. Not a fan of overhead sheetrock work.

I need to take pics when the sun is still up.

[Snipe Hunter]

Field office

[Stwood_]

Lookin good.
 

I'm also not a ceiling fan.
  My neck is usually screwed within 30 minutes when doing ceiling work.


Hey yer office shelves should be wider. Maybe make something portable to lay on those studs.

[Cooler]

Lookin good.
 

I'm also not a ceiling fan.
  My neck is usually screwed within 30 minutes when doing ceiling work.


Hey yer office shelves should be wider. Maybe make something portable to lay on those studs.

My mom had a leak in the 2nd floor bathroom which is directly above the first floor bathroom.  It damaged the sheet rock ceiling.  Mom called a handyman (I live 120 miles away).  He took a bunch of measurements and then came back the next day with a pre-cut piece of sheet rock which he screwed in place in 10 minutes.  He spackled the screws and then came back the next morning to paint.  

That's the way to do ceiling sheet rock work.

Note:  This was a half bath probably 40" x 60" or so.

[Snipe Hunter]

That's pretty sharp. Not many out there who can knock something out like that.

Here's an update. I got the shower walls in. Supposed to have foul weather on Friday so I'll be home and pulling wire.. not a fan of attic work either. I went back up to put nailers between the trusses to attach the tops of the shower walls which all fell between trusses. I've already marked the wires to be pulled back up into the ceiling. There's four breakers feeding the room... four if you count the outlet next to the old sink which also feeds the microwave... what were they thinking?? I'll try to pull it out but it's at a real low spot in the roof so I might just have to put a GFCI on it and leave it there. All splices and terminations need to be in accessible locations. I really don't want to leave it there but I might have to unless I can find the wire running to it nut I doubt I will, I think it's in an exterior wall. The other three will feed the ceiling van location, lighting and outlets.

Look familiar?


I put in five of these between truss rafters.


A stealth appearance from the Harbor Freight nail gun.

[Snipe Hunter]

Yet another stealth appearance from a Harbor Freight reciprocating saw


Glued and Screwed curb. It's ready for mud... but I'm not. Another thing I'm not a fan of.

[Snipe Hunter]

I haven't been able to do much lately but I was off this afternoon. I was (and still am) dreading the ceiling repairs because I know it will be messy. Everywhere I took down a wall, I have to patch the ceiling or the connecting wall. To make it look like a new job, I'm cutting out any old mud-work and drywall to the next truss or stud in the walls. This way, I'm not trying to but up to old mud work, it leaves an ugly hump. I'm starting with the ceilings. This is inside the bathroom.

The top plate of the old wall:




Everything cut out to the next truss: That insulation fell out about 2 seconds after I took the pic.



I filled 5 big trash bags with insulation. I'll put it back up in the attic when the drywall is up.
This is only about 1/4 of it. The fan is blowing out the window. I had to clean the screen a coupe times. Nasty stuff.

[Snipe Hunter]

I'm putting up 1/2 sheets of drywall so I can stuff insulation close to the eves. I can't get to that area in the attic because the roof is too low.

[Snipe Hunter]

Only two more sheets. This is a messy pain in the tail... Vent the room in 32 degrees, cut out the old drywall and wall supports, let all the insulation fall. Put up new sheetrock (not easy by myself), bag up the insulation and haul it back into the attic and spread it. Even with long sleeves and a mask and a hat, I still look like a chimney sweep when done. It least it's blown in cellulose and not blown in fiberglass.