Finishing the Bedroom Subfloor

This morning, I got an early start (and good thing lol) on removing those two sheets of plywood (a whole sheet and a cut sheet) to fill in the spaces underneath part of them with shims. Just removing the screws became an adventure in and of itself. A couple of the screws wouldn't come out, and a third came partway out; all three became stripped with the effort of trying to remove them. Well, that certainly wouldn't help in trying to get them out! All three of these were on the smaller, cut sheet (the first one I was trying to remove). It took a while, but I managed to get the plywood off by chiseling out one of the screws, while the other two had already bitten so deeply into the plywood when I screwed them in that it was no problem getting the plywood over them.

Of course, now I was left with three screws sticking out of the original floor! For one of the screws, I was able to gradually get it out by removing the screwdriver head (these floor screws have a special head that fits onto them; a flathead or Phillip's won't fit) from the drill and attaching it to my handheld interchangeable screwdriver, and putting some muscle behind it. The other two, however, were way too stripped for me to get them that way. I attempted using a pair of pliers to remove them, but they wouldn't budge. Other options came to mind, but the only one that seemed like it might work was the hacksaw. Of course the frame of the saw was too big to fit down on the floor level (where I needed it) to get cut those screws off flush with the floor, so I had to remove the blade and use it free-hand (with a glove on, of course!). After almost 10 minutes, I had barely made a dent in that screw. So much for that idea!

So, after an emergency phone call to the friend that's been helping me with the house, he suggested I try a pair of channel lock pliers. I didn't think that would work, since the regular pliers hadn't, but I was willing to give it a try. My backup plan was to drill holes in the floorboards next to each screw to wiggle them out if necessary. Fortunately, however, my friend is a genius and the channel locks worked fine. It took a little while, since I could only turn the pliers a small way each time (the screws, of course, were next to the wall), but I eventually worked them out.

Now I still had the other full-size sheet and a tiny filler piece to remove. The filler piece came out with no problem; after I ran into resistance with the full-size sheet, I realized I didn't really need to remove all of it, or even most of it; I just needed to remove enough screws to be able to lift the section that bowed down so I could slide the shims under it. And that's what I ended up doing.

Then, I needed to determine how thick the shims would have to be. I had figured a piece of luaun, or even a piece of plywood (1/8" for the luaun, 1/4" for the plywood) would be sufficient. It wasn't. For the far section, right along the bathroom wall, I ended up having to stack a cut 1x4 and a piece of luaun! Now, granted, the 1x4 isn't really an inch thick; it's really 3/4", but this all added up to 7/8"! I had no idea the floor sloped that badly from the next-to-last joist to the one under the bathroom wall! In any case, I built that shim up, shoved some shims under the end of the full-size sheet, and then gradually worked my way back to the joist; the next one back was just a piece of plywood with a piece of luaun on top of it (the picture below just shows the plywood before I realized it would need the luaun as well).

There are still a couple of very small places under the plywood where it will bow down a bit if you step on it, but considering along this wall is either going to be a dresser or a bookcase, and thus no one will be walking on it, it should be fine. I was so thrilled when I finally was able to add those pieces of plywood back in place!

And that just left the closet. So, I measured that space, the cut out the appropriate size from the last sheet of plywood, and lo and behold, it actually fit into the space! That just left the door threshold for the closet. I had considered doing a single piece for the closet floor and the threshold, but figured why bother wasting time trying to get the dimensions just right when I could just do it as two pieces, which would be easier to get into the closet anyway? So, after measuing and cutting the threshold piece, I then discovered I'd overlooked something: The hardware that holds the bottom of the louvered door in place. At this point, I ended up outsmarting myself. I measured back to front to see how much of the board I should leave; then measured from left to right for how much to cut off. When I ended up cutting, I got confused and used both measurements for cutting off. So, when I put the piece back in place, I saw I had a much wider gap between the hardware and the end of the board. Oops!

Oh well, it's just the subfloor. When we do the laminate tomorrow, we can always stuff something in that little hole if necessary lol. The rest of the day I spent cleaning up the backyard a bit. And then updated this blog. And now, I'm about to go get ready for the auction tonight. It's Saturday, after all. I have a reputation to uphold! ;)

Concerning a Bedroom Floor

Good evening, my readers - all both of you lol. Anyway, today I worked on my bedroom floor. I've decided, after having decided once upon a time to go with carpeting for the bedroom, to go with wood laminate flooring. Why? Well, easier to keep clean for one thing. And much cheaper than carpeting for another! Plus there's the added fact I can lay the laminate, with help, whereas I'd have to pay to have the carpeting laid down in order to have it done professionally. In any case, laminate's the way I'm going to go. As such, I needed to put down plywood over the current floor, since the gaps between the boards allowed too much airflow from outside, and this winter, that wouldn't be a good thing at all!

So, to begin, I pulled up the tack strip that I'd left on the floor. Next, I pulled off the baseboards (yes, after painting them lol).

It's very interesting seeing what's in the walls of this house. Or maybe "interesting" isn't the right word. Perhaps disturbing is?

In this last picture above, you'll note the old wallpaper on the right and the old netting used to mount the old wallpaper. Evidently, as in the bathroom, the paneling was just put on over the old wallpaper. In all the pictures, you'll notice the dirt, cobwebs, and other stuff hidden in the walls. I swept and vacuumed as much as that stuff out as I could.

After getting the baseboards off, I then faced a problem with the closet door trim. It reached down to the floor itself, and I didn't have any desire to remove it from the wall just to try and shorten it. So, I attempted a couple of different methods of sawing it off. I started with a handsaw, which just wasn't, no pun intended, "cutting" it. Then I tried a Fat Max blade, but it's more intended for plastic or metal. I considered the hacksaw, but, again, it's more intended for metal than wood. So, I decided to improvise and used the jig saw at an angle. It worked out fairly well.

At one point, I also made a discovery of an old note hidden behind one of the baseboards. It was evidently from or to a teacher, and was written in 1973 (I would guess, based on the two dates mentioned in the note). I wonder at what point it fell behind the baseboard?

In case you can't read it, it says:
"Enclosed are reviews requested -
     1. Brazeale - regular review was to be due 7/10/73
     2. Mike Parker - regular review to be due 11/28/73.
This is why the performances are marked Special. They are on an annual basis - Thanks. Peggy McQueen"

Anyway, I then proceeded to lay down the plywood sheets. Four of them were able to be laid without having to cut them, except for one occasion when I had to drill a hole for the cable coming up through the floor - and then had to cut a channel through the plywood to the hole with the jig saw in order to get the cable to it.

I impressed the heck out of myself by being able to measure the hole correctly. The channel I cut after the fact, but it wasn't a big deal at all, even though I cut it too narrow the first time and had to go back and widen it afterwards lol. But, it's done now!

I wasn't sure exactly the best way to lay the plywood; I knew I could lay four of them before I'd have to start cutting them up into pieces. So, I just started as I thought would be best.

And then I started cutting pieces to fit between them. Wasn't too bad, really, although I was limited to using the jig saw for the cutting (I had access to a circular saw, but had too many people telling me not to use it lol), so my cuts were anything but straight! Can't tell that too much in the above pictures, but in these next two, it's pretty obvious!

But who cares, right? I mean, this is subflooring. And even if it did matter, it's not as if the house is at all square, which is why there are small gaps between some of the full sheets and some of the walls. But anyway, I persevered, and managed to finish laying the plywood on the entire bedroom floor (minus the closet - haven't gotten to that just yet, as it's going to be pretty interesting cutting the plywood for that space).

The closet floor has some markings on it that look like they might have come from either the original walls of the closet (since it's most likely this closet was added at the same time the bathroom was carved out) or perhaps some sort of built-in cabinet that might have served as the closet, or some other purpose entirely. Whatever it is, it's pretty interesting to see things like this from who knows how long ago.

The outline's pretty clearly defined in the above picture. Notice it goes under the current back wall of the closet, of course. It'll be interesting to find out, when I can get to the closet in the front bedroom again to rip out the carpeting, if it continues over there (I'm fairly certain it does). Now, as it turns out, I'm not quite as finised with the plywood as I thought.

For some reason, I didn't notice the "hump" over by the bathroom wall. It appears the floor slopes down between the joist in the bedroom and the one under the bathroom wall, at least where we added in the new 1x4's. So, tomorrow I'm going to have to remove the screws from the smaller piece in that corner and from the end of the larger piece and see if I can use some sort of shims to prop that part up. After all, the laminate floats on the floor, so it won't follow any depressions like that. It's gonna need something underneath to support it. It's typical that every time I think I've completed something, I discover (or have pointed out to me) that I missed something or have to redo it for whatever reason lol. Oh well, live and learn!

On a final note, I love this view from my bedroom window (the west-facing one). It's so nice to look out of my window and see trees, grass, anything but asphalt and drug dealers! Although that big piece of paneling out there, which will someday be attached to the wall to cover up the tub plumbing, does sort of detract from the view!

Solo Adventures in Plumbing

Some things are simple and don't take any time at all to do. Others are complicated and take some thought and time to accomplish. Then there are those things that should be simple, and generally are when other people do them...but when I attempt them, a "simple" fix that shouldn't take more than an hour becomes an all day affair.

My day began very early, since I made an appointment with the Southern Pines Spay and Neuter Clinic for Maverick for their "Tom Cat Monday" special - get your tomcat neutered for $20, and get him a free rabies shot to boot. Only catch was I had to have him there by 7am, and would have to pick him up at 3pm. No problem, I just got up at 5:30 this morning instead of 6:30, and he spent the night in the house (he's really an outside cat, although he loves to be indoors and, hopefully will make that transition easily), so I didn't have to track him down. In fact, he spent the night in his carrier (with the door open), so he was very used to it.

Anyway, I got him to his appointment, and then had a decision to make: Sand the outside of the cabinets, or fix the small leak in the outside spigot. I elected to do the leak, so that I wouldn't have to worry about my water bill going higher than it should. I figured I'd have plenty of time later to do the cabinets. (Such grandiose ideas always are doomed to failure.) I began by digging up the ground in front of the spigot, where the little trickle of water came out of the ground, to see just where the leak was, how big it was, and what sort of equipment I would need. The leak appeared very small, coming from a coupling that joined two pieces of pipe together, so I figured it shouldn't take long to fix at all.

I figured just get a length of pipe, two couplings, and I should be good. However, as I looked more closely at the pipe, it sort of looked like it had cracks in it going down the sides away from the leak. So I excavated more if it, and more, until I realized they must just be scratches in the pipe, not actual cracks. So I went ahead and cut out a largish piece of pipe (just to double check to make sure they were scratches and not cracks), and then decided to take the piece of pipe with me to Marvin's, since I thought it was 3/4" pipe, but wanted to compare it to be sure.

So, off to Marvin's I went. I found the length of pipe (it was indeed 3/4"), and found I had two choices - Schedule 40 pipe or some other kind. The Schedule 40 is 400psi whereas the other was only 220psi, so I figured the higher the psi the better. And then I selected two couplings. Just two. I mean, how many could I possibly require? (This is a literary technique known as Foreshadowing. Just FYI.)

Well, I got back home and set to work. I cut off what I thought I would need from the 10 foot length I'd bought at Marvin's, cleaned the end, cleaned the inside of the coupling, put glue on, and stuck them together. Then I did the same with the other end, then put one end on the pipe still in the ground (the pipe to the right), and then discovered that I had no idea how I was supposed to get the other end attached. It was too snug to fit over the end, and the pipe would not bend to give me some room to get it on there. Well, I figured it would just have to go, so I went ahead and applied the glue, laid down on my stomach for better reach, grabbed the two ends, and pulled...something in my side. Now, to set the scene, I was lying not just on the ground, but on the mound of dirt I'd dug out of the hole. And I was lying a bit on my right side while trying to do this. So it's probably not really surprising that pain shot out of my side, in the region of my lower ribs, when I was applying all this pressure. I'm still not sure if I pulled a muscle or cracked/bruised a rib. It could go either way, but I ain't worrying about going to a doctor to see. Whatever it is will heal just fine on its own. However, I now had a problem - the glue had dried on my pipe ends that were not connected together. So I tried puzzling that out, and concluded that I just needed the pipe to be a bit shorter so I could attach the ends. However, the glue was dried, and it doesn't come off (at least not so it would seal in water any more), so off to Marvin's again.

This time I bought 6 couplings. I figured there was no way I'd use all 6, and at least I'd have extras just in case my plan didn't work out. So, since I had one coupling attached just fine to a length of pipe, I just cut that on the left side of it (leaving the coupling attached to the new and old pipes), then cut out the part of the right side that had dried glue on it, cut a new length of pipe, stuck a coupling on each end, made sure they all fit together, puzzled out how to get them attached, then glued them and got them together. Voila! Surely this would work! So I waited for the glue to dry, then went and turned on the water, came back to check - and had 3 spewing leaks, one from each of the three couplings. Oy vey!

So, I had a problem - three leaks instead of just one. Cut off the water again, assessed the situation, cut out all three of the couplings (which now made a very long section of new pipe!), got all set up again, glued everything, or thought I did, waited for the glue to dry, then checked - and realized I hadn't glued the coupling on the left side. However, it was too late; the pipe was too snug for me to pull it apart to glue it. Well, what if I glued the outside part? Surely if smeared enough glue around it, it would form a water-tight seal, right? So I gave that a shot, then turned on the water. When I returned to what was now a trench, it had only a small leak where I had forgotten to glue it, so I figured, what if I put even more glue on the outside? So I switched off the water again, smeared it with glue, then decided to let it dry longer. I came inside and prepared lunch (yes, it was now lunchtime lol), then noticed it was raining! (A very rare event around here lately. Much appreciated and desired, yes, but...not necessarily when I want glue to dry on pvc pipes!) I ran outside to turn the water on, then went around to check the plumbing, but the rain was pouring down so hard that the trench was filled with water by now! So I had no idea if it was still leaking or not.

So, I just came in, washed off a bit and ate lunch, then went outside after the rain had stopped to check. I could see at the surface of the puddle where water was spraying out of the pipe. Well, I couldn't worry too much about it right then, as I had to worry about getting completely cleaned up so I'd be ready to go pick up Maverick. So, after doing all that, I wondered if I should just wait until Wednesday when my friend would be in town and could possibly figure out what I was doing wrong, or if I should just go ahead and continue tackling it. I decided I would just continue beating my head against the wall. Why not? :)

So, on the way home, I stopped at Marvin's to pick up some more joints. I had an idea of possibly using elbows so that I could snuggly fit the sections together without having to worry about it being too snug to get it together, or having weak spots, etc. I left the truck running so Maverick would have air, and went in, only to find the box that contained the 3/4" elbows was empty! Undeterred, I took the box over to someone who was working on a computer and asked if he could check to see if any more were in inventory. I hated bothering him when he was obviously in the middle of doing something, but I hated the idea of going all the way back to Home Depot even more! Fortunately, I discovered there was a whole unopened box of them, so I decided to get 6. After all, how many could I possibly need? (You'd think I would have learned by now!)

So, I got home, got Maverick set up in the laundry room (he has to remain in his carrier until 9pm, and is supposed to be somewhere he won't be stimulated), then changed into my work clothes, went out, set about using the elbows to create a section of the pipe that would bow out, curve back around, then curve back into the other section of the pipe. This probably would have worked, too, except that I made the section of pipe between all the curves too short. *sigh* I tried to make it work, though, since it was all glued together. I forced the curved sections to spread out a bit, glued that last bit together, and used a broken piece of concrete to hold it together. I let the glue dry, then turned on the water, then went to check, and discovered that the pressure had shot off the section that was too short. The trench had quickly filled with water.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I went inside to get my wallet and go back to Marvin's yet again. When I walked in, I found that Maverick had escaped his carrier, had found the bag of cat food, and had literally torn the bag to shreds. I was more upset that he had gotten out and was running around that I was over the torn bag (and the cat food all over the floor) since I was worried he was going to tear open his stitches. I picked him up as well as I could (he's gotten big, and I didn't want to carry him as I normally do, since that would put his stitches, or at least the area around them, in contact with me). Anyway, I took him back to the carrier and couldn't immediately find how he'd escaped. Then I saw he had managed to unzip one side and pull the zipper up just far enough to squeeze out. Clever cat! Odd, since he was supposed to be all "strung out" on drugs at that point! Anyway, I got him resituated, grabbed my keys and wallet, and went back to Marvin's and got 8 more elbows. I was determined I was going to make this thing work!

And I did! This time, I made the central pipe between the elbows slightly too long, so the pressure helped keep it in place. Whew! Just in time too; by now, it was 5:20pm!

An innovative idea for a complicated solution? Probably not, but it worked for me (after 8 hours from the time I started lol). Thank goodness for the pvc cutters my friend left!

And look at all the pvc debris lying around the trench!

And although you can't really tell how dirty I am in this picture, I was covered in dirt from head to toe! But I'd washed my hands and arms so I wouldn't get my camera dirty before taking this pic. ;)

The scary thing is, I wore these work clothes on 2 of my Marvin's excursions! I didn't wanna take the time to change into "street clothes" when I had to go try to salvage what didn't work lol. Oh well, I'm sure they're used to this sort of thing at Marvin's! If they weren't, they are now!

Bathroom wall and window - plus more

So, it's been a whole week since my last update. Not a whole lot has gone on. Most of this past week has seen me outside working in the yard. I bought some plants and potted them:

So that they can add some charm and beauty to the front of the house. Of course, I totally forgot to remove the bag of potting soil from the front of the house before taking this picture!

Other than working in the yard, I also sanded some of the kitchen cabinets Friday. They were a bit of a mess to begin with:

But they became a bit better to look at after some sanding:

I still have more to go on them, and will be doing that this week. My efforts are to save these cabinets so that I don't have to replace them! They appear to be made from birch, which is supposed to be a very good wood for staining, although I don't know at this point if I'll stain 'em or paint 'em.

Today, some breakthroughs (and a problem) occurred. We managed to get the missing bathroom wall up, along with the window in the wall. Talk about a relief! Only bad thing is, now it gets pretty warm in the bathroom without an AC vent or any other type of ventilation. Who knew a missing wall would be so nice to have!? The wall actually went up pretty easily:

The pics above show the first stud in place and the window lightly nailed into place as well. Once the first stud was there, we then added a horizontal stud (which ended up being 2 pieces because of limited on-site material lol) and two more vertical studs to hold the horizontal one in place:

Once that framework was in place, we went ahead and nailed the window in place:

Next, we went into the bathroom itself to put the luaun up. And, of course, ran into a couple of minor problems, the first being that it was pretty tricky getting that sheet into place behind the commode (not a lot of room to maneuver in that 5'x8' space) and then the issue of the toilet water pipe having to go through that luaun sheet at an as-of-that-time-undetermined place. So, it was a trip out to the water meter to turn the water off, then disconnect the toilet water line, then put the luaun in place, then drill the hole for the pipe, then reconnect it all. Whew! Small wonder carpenters and plumbers get paid so much! Anyway, at least the last sheet of luaun is now in place!

Not only that, the window's in place as well! Painting it will be on the agenda before too long. Not sure what color for the bathroom side just yet, but it'll be Peanut Butter on the bedroom wide, to match the rest of the trim.

Now, we didn't want to put the paneling back up on the bedroom side, because I have two small issues with the plumbing in the tub/shower: 1) the cold water leaks, dripping constantly no matter how tight I close off the knob; and 2) the hot water will randomly just turn itself off when turned on, unless turned up extraordinarily high (and therefore scalding me). Not really sure what was going on here, we decided to go ahead and replace the old faucet:

With a new one:

Unfortunately, the new one is slimmer than the old, and doesn't fit into the drilled holes that well. The nipple going from the center of the brassy area to the actual tub spout was too short (I guess because the pipes in the new faucet are slimmer than the ones in the old faucet), so I had to make an emergency run to Marvin's before they closed (it was 5:30, and they close at 6:00), where I purchased 2 nipples of slightly longer length (the original was 2", the new ones were 2.5" and 3"). The 3" one worked - but just barely and may need to be replaced with a 3.5" one. Now, the hot water doesn't just randomly turn off (at least not during the test), but...the cold water wouldn't turn off at all!

While trying to figure out what was going on, we made a weird discovery - the middle knob, which switches from spout to shower head, also is controlling the flow of water into the faucet. Unless the middle knob is turned just right, the cold water won't switch off. It can be increased or decreased, but not closed off altogether. The hot water won't come on or off until the middle knob is turned just right for it to come out. However, it was time for my friend to hit the road and get home, so I'm just gonna have to live with this little problem until Wednesday. Tomorrow, I'm going to pay a visit to Home Depot and ask the plumbing guy (if he's working) that has helped us a lot what he thinks might be the problem. We're thinking now that it might be the stems were just inserted into the wrong places when it was manufactured, and perhaps switching the middle stem with the cold water stem might, uhm, "stem" the problem. ;)

I do like the new knobs that came with the faucet though. At first, I thought they were kind of cheap-looking, but I've since changed my mind:

Nope, you're not seeing things, the cold water knob isn't currently screwed down. It doesn't really do a whole lot right now anyway, so it's no big deal.

So, I'm now several steps closer to having a completed bathroom! And that means several steps closer to having a completed bedroom as well, since once the plumbing issues are resolved, I can put the paneling back up (after cutting out for the window), then finish putting up the trim, and finally get a finished floor in there! I just have to decide if I want to go with carpeting (which I was leaning heavily towards) or laminate (which I can get at Home Depot for 68¢ a square foot, along with the padding for another 25¢ a square foot). The laminate would be so much cheaper! But we shall see!