My home, my castle: Living room renovation - update #8

With the living room construction done, the decorating has begun. FLOR carpet tiles are going to be used in lieu of an area rug and have been ordered. The lounge chairs and black-out window shades are also on order and will be arriving soon.

Ultimately I'd like to replace the glass-top coffee table as it's not the safest to have with kids in the house, but that's not in the budget now.

Over the weekend I picked up enough 18" travertine tile for the fireplace surround, but the color was too light. Fortunately Atlanta has some great sources for tile. I'll probably end up getting it from Floor-Stone (yes, their website sucks) where I purchased the bamboo several years ago. I've found that their listed prices aren't always firm, and they're much more open to haggling than other retail flooring stores.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Weekend update #7

One thing I've learned after doing the living room remodel: I suck at measuring, cutting, and installing crown molding. Fortunately my wife is great at using wood filler and caulk to hide my mistakes.

The room was habitable by Monday morning, and by the end of the evening, most of the finishing touches were done to the room.

I still have some things to do along the hallway between the living room and kitchen as well as tile around the fireplace, but the project is 90% complete and looks fantastic. I can't believe this is the same room that was dark and felt cramped; the room feels huge, and getting rid of unnecessary doorways along the hallway and leading from the foyer has made the living room so much brighter.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Weekend update #6

The flooring will be down by the day's end, which means the living room renovation should be finished by Sunday night!!

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - update #5

Whereas many homes have a single layer of plywood, OSB, or planks, my builder saved a couple of bucks and used 1/2" particle board over 1/2" OSB. Because I'm going to be nailing down bamboo flooring and because the particle board is warped (it absorbs moisture & then expands), doesn't hold nails, and generally sucks, it was removed.

The original flooring was nailed down, so I walked the floor to locate squeaks and then used about 4 pounds of 1-5/8" decking screws to secure the OSB to the joists. Voilà, no more squeaks!

An uninsulated two-car garage is under this room, so I decided to put a layer of 15# roofing felt over the OSB (I glued and hammer-stapled the felt down). For the top layer of subfloor I could have installed 1/2" OSB on top of the bottom layer, but I prefer plywood. I "glued and screwed" 15/32" Plytanium plywood as the top layer using 2-1/2" deck screws.

To be sure my screws were finding their way into joists, I located the first one by measuring approximately 16" from the outer wall (my joists are 16" on center) and then drilled using a 1/8" bit. When my first attempt didn't "feel" like I was hitting solid wood all of the way through, I moved 1/2" closer to the outer wall and drilled again... that one hit the joist. I then marked off every 16" from that point across the floor and drilled to confirm I was hitting a joist. I repeated this process on the opposite wall and then struck a chalk line (seen in red in the photo) to mark where the joists were across the floor, which made the process of screwing down the floors much faster.

Next up is to hammer-staple 30# roofing felt over the top of this plywood and begin installing the bamboo flooring!

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Weekend update #4

Some problems with my digital camera (actually the SmartMedia card reader) have kept me from posting pictures of the progress on my living room remodel, but a few blasts of compressed air fixed the problem.

Some of the things that have been accomplished since the last update: walls textured, ceiling repaired and textured, trim painted, doors painted, walls painted, ceiling painted, Decora electrical outlets installed, thermostat moved, top layer of subfloor removed, and bottom layer of subfloor screwed down (to eliminate the squeaks).


Items remaining: finish installing new subfloor, install new bamboo flooring, install trim molding (base, windows, and crown), install outlets for surround sound, install speaker mounting brackets, install concrete board around fireplace, install tile around fireplace, install fireplace mantel.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Weekend update #3

Last weekend was another one spent doing drywall & electrical. I insulated the chimney, framed out the wall so I'd have something to staple insulation to, re-ran the electrical for the outlet in the mantle, and put up a 4'x8' sheet of drywall.

Not much progress happened this week as I needed to do yardwork on the vacant rental house, but I should have the walls textured this weekend.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Weekend update #2

A long Saturday was spent sanding & applying additional coats of mud in an effort to get the walls ready for applying knock-down texture.

I also opened up the fireplace to learn that a live electrical switch that is designed for a fireplace blower instead runs to just an outlet... the builder or fireplace installer didn't include the blower. I'll now run that electrical line to an outlet that I'm going to flush-mount on the fireplace mantle for Christmas lights.

And in going through the debris left by a vacating tenant at one of our rental houses, my wife had to bring this spray home. We'd be tempted to spray it through the entire house if Money House Blessing Money Pine Spray containing genuine 9 Indian money pine oil didn't smell like body odor.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Weekend update #1

While I spent the week out of town for work, my wife sanded the wood doors so that they're ready to paint. This weekend I finished installing the corner bead and then taped and applied the first coat of mud bed to all of the drywall seams (and corner bead). My goal is to have all of the drywall work done by next Sunday night.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 8

My effort to use plastic sheeting as a barrier to try and keep drywall dust isolated was in vain. Dust is everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It even got into second floor rooms where the doors were closed.

I ran out of drywall at 5:00am, so I got a few hours of sleep Saturday night/Sunday morning. I then made the trip to Home Depot for one last 4x8 sheet along with some corner bead. I finished hanging the last of the drywall in the TV nook and then installed its recessed light. I also screwed down some plywood over the hole in the floor so as to not lose any children to the void of the basement.

The rest of the day was spent clearing out the room, cleaning up, and preparing for the family to come home.

While I didn't get everything on my list accomplished this week, I'm very, very pleased. And more importantly, so is my wife! We'll finish the rest of the project during evenings and weekends.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 7

After too many 16-20 hour work days, my back is killing me (in addition to my hands, wrist, and forearms) so I'm chewing ibuprofin like it's candy. I wonder if Jesus felt like this when he arose on the third day? Call me a heathen, but I always skip church on Easter to make room for visitors. Andy gets me the other 50 weeks out of the year (North Point is closed one Sunday around Christmas/New Year).

Fortunately the living room is moving closer to livable. I grew up knowing this term. For those who haven't been exposed to my family's quirks, you probably won't find our definition of "livable" in Merriam-Webster... by livable I mean, "it's going to look like we're living in squalor, but there is a plan and we're working on it."

So the flooring will get done... just not by Sunday night. The ceiling and walls will get painted... just not by Sunday night. The walls will also get textured... just probably not by Sunday night. The drywall work (repair, patching, corner bead, and sanding) should be finished by the time my wife and girls return home.

So here is the niche I've been working on. And yes, the hallway light is going away in lieu of a recessed light fixture.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 6

Things always take longer than expected, so while I accomplished a lot yesterday and stayed up until 3:00am, I'm not going to get the bamboo floors down by the time my wife and girls return from a long week to Texas. I worked out some technical snafus with the niche that involved taking up some room in the closet, but the problem is solved & the lighting is wired.

The hallway from the living room to the kitchen now lacks the two narrow doorway openings at either end.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 5

I hate plumbing. Usually it has something to do with Home Depot and leaks, and while it didn't involve a leak this time, it did involve the Orange Monopoly. Despite the fact that Home Depot owns Apex Supply (now called Home Depot Supply), one of the largest plumbing supply companies in the southeast, Home Depot's retail stock of plumbing supplies is in desperate need of better inventory control management. Their stores always seem to be out of a "must-have" part, as was the case today. Fortunately Home Depot has almost as many retail locations in Atlanta as McDonald's, so there's always another store 5 miles away.

I capped off the hot and cold water lines running to the former wet bar, but the sanitary T proved to be a pain in the ass. Though the side outlets were threaded, whomever plumbed this house decided to use an epoxy to seal the threaded PVC connections. This left me no choice but to replace it, which prompted my trip(s) to Home Depot.

Five hours later, it was finished.

I then did a lot of electrical work and also ran speaker wiring for the surround sound. I'm almost finished with a niche I'm building, and those pics will be up tomorrow.

Today's plumbing snafu put me a day behind schedule, but I can make it up if I'm able to put the bamboo flooring down in a day (hey, anything is possible)!

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 4

Today I'll show two of my bloopers... the first is the hole in the subfloor created when several hundred pounds of bricks from the fireplace came tumbling off the wall, only inches from the gas line running to the fireplace.

The second blooper is when I removed the 2x4 at the top of the header from what was the wet bar, only to find that the builder nailed a 2x8 on top of it so that the ceiling would have something to attach to. Needless to say, the ceiling over the wet bar came falling down as well.

Four hours of the day were spent between Lowe's and Home Depot getting drywall, cement backer board, drywall mud, recessed lights, insulation to go around a noisy drain pipe, faceplates with RCA jacks for the surround sound being installed, and a few other things. I've got more drywall work to do tomorrow and will update with more pictures. So far I'm on schedule, though tomorrow is critical.

I have 4 days to complete the following: finish the drywall work, texture the walls, paint the molding & doors, paint the ceiling, paint the walls, install the bamboo flooring, install molding, and rehang doors.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 3

Today was more of the same: widening of passageways (i.e., tearing down drywall removal and removing 2x4s, hoping they're not loadbearing!) along with the diversions of a trip to Home Depot as well as a hail storm.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 2

90% of the brick & mortar is out of the living room & drywall was removed in preparation for widening the passageway into the hallway as well as eliminating the former wet bar seen on the left.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation - Day 1

The brick fireplace is no more, and thus the goal of today was accomplished.

My home, my castle: Living room renovation

This weekend another remodeling project started: the living room. The plan is to turn a former wet-bar into part of the room, remove and replace the brick hearth and wall around the fireplace with beige travertine tile, rip up the carpet and pad, wire the room for surround sound, texture and paint the walls, repair the subfloor, and then install bamboo flooring.

My wife has already ripped out the wet bar and removed the chair molding. I was able to remove the crown, base, window, and door trim/molding, and then the fun really started: trying to remove the brick hearth. I guessed the hearth would be brick over a plywood box, but I was wrong. The hearth is nothing but brick & mortar. The goal is to have everything done by this time next month, but it's not starting out well....