Tag: renovation

I’ve run the idea of using linoleum (the eco-stuff) by my contractor twice. And on the second try he gave a strong ‘no’ and “I’m not putting that in”. I’m not going to battle with him over the bathroom flooring as we have other disagreements I’d rather spend time winning.
Worse comes to worse I have tile options picked out already at Home Depot and Lowe’s, but they aren’t the kind of patterns I have in my head that I want. They are close enough. I know I want a black and white pattern for the floor and a white subway or field tile for the walls.

I’m shopping for stuff for the house. Not furnishings but things like the tub, sinks, tile, etc. Things that reflect my tastes and budget. And that means running around to Home Despot, Lowes, and IKEA for some things and the Brass Knob and Community Forklift for older home items.
For things like clawfoot tubs and radiators I compared Brass Knob and Community Forklift. Brass Knob wins the beauty contest, but with my budget I’m looking at CF. Clawfoots at the BK start at $450 for the ones sitting outside and at $850 for the nice re-glazed ones. At CF all the tubs sit outside and range from $200-$400 depending on how dinged up they are and if they have feet. The one pictured here had $400 taped on it and came with feet. It didn’t have any dings in the tubby part of the tub, the feet weren’t rusty and really there wasn’t a lot the tub needed. There was another tub that had a ding or two on the lip and had rusty feet and it was listed as $250 with feet.
It has been a while since I priced radiators at the BK. Off the top of my head they were something like $9 a fin. I did get a price from CF which was like 1/2 that depending on size. Plain was @ 19″ high $4 per fin, then 26″ $5 per fin and 36″ $6 per fin and the fancy just add $4.50 per fin over the plain price.
Unlike BK, CF had insulation, the denim kind. If you need more the fellow working there said he had more in the back.

My contractor has one of those smart phone things, so he can be overly communicative in various ways. He sends me text messages, email and will call, a lot. The problem is, I don’t think he reads the email till later. He’ll give voice mail and texts an immediate response, so if I’ve emailed him on something and then he later calls about the same subject, there is a chance he hasn’t read it.
The subject in this case, wiring. Electrical wires, phone wires, cable wires, and Ethernet wires. In the email, I said I wanted one bedroom to have several electrical outlets, phone, cable and Ethernet and the other bedroom to just have electrical and phone. Nope, the 2nd bedroom is getting cable and Ethernet ’cause he thinks it’s best. Okay, whatever. Then on the phone he says something about running a phone line in the 1/2 bath. Um. Something seems oh so wrong about that.
I had a bit of a struggle with him on the Ethernet. He mentioned how everything is going wireless. Well, yes, but I want it hard wired, because these houses are small and thin and I really don’t want to have a neighbor’s wireless dohicky interfering with my wireless doohicky.

The floors are now level.
The exact layout of the upper floor has been figured out.
There is framing.
All is right with the world.

….bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
Got my first bill from the contractor. Yikes!! We are going with the system of labor and materials and labor was a majority of the expense. Because they kept finding crap. Crackhead crap that had to be addressed. Like the window sill whatever thing that was dry stinking rotted because it had a slight tilt that when it rained, water was led towards the house. The wood to replace the dry rotted stuff, pennies. The guy to fix it, not so cheap. The nasty hole in the wall. Bricks, got ’em all over the place, no problem. The mason to fix it… yeah. The contractor has a small crew of guys, guys who have to be paid.
So maybe the week coming up we will get to the fun part, designing and framing. I haven’t given much thought to the fun part or designing the bathrooms. All I know is I like the tiny white tile for the floor. And I really, really need to get out to the various building supply places to pick out what I want before it gets chosen for me.
This would be more fun if I had a bigger budget. Which I don’t have. I have to figure out what can be changed out later for higher quality stuff and what is more permanent, where I have to do it right the first time around.
No new pictures this week till I get batteries for the camera.

In my renovation plans and drawings I’d planned to put in a shower. Well that’s bit the dust.
Mainly because I’m really concerned about keeping the costs down and all these hidden surprises cost money to address. The new find, located under what was my main bathroom floor, joists that were seriously gouged. One of the joists looked as if there was just 1 inch of wood keeping it together.
So, I’ve decided is to keep enough space, in what was to be the 3/4 baths, to put in a shower later. Yes, I know I will save money by putting it in now. However, in the here and now where I only have X amount of dollars and when I run out of X amount, that’s it. No 3rd mortgage. No selling of the kidneys. So I’m cutting out the shower and before this is over I’m sure it won’t be the only thing cut out of the plans.

I’d been thinking about what Justin B. said to me some time ago and he restated it again when I emailed him yesterday in response to his mass “we’re OK” email. He said that you don’t know if your house really has good bones until you’ve gone through your crawlspace and looked at them. Basically, the line ‘these houses have good bones’ is a crock unless those bones have been examined. Don’t assume that just because your house has been standing for 100 years it isn’t itching to self destruct in the next few years.
I’m now afraid to get calls from my contractor. I swear every time he calls, he’s telling me he’s found some fresh new horror. And we’re just starting. Yesterday’s find was more missing brick behind drywall. He’s amazed at how whoever did it chose to hide the problems rather than fix them. Then later he says we need to ‘talk’ about the windows.
I just wanted to move the bathrooms around. Maybe have a nice wood floor, that’s all. Some insulation here. A new door there, and I’m done. Instead I’m addressing whatever emergency endangering the structure of the house because in the 130 years the blasted thing has been standing, it hasn’t occurred to anyone to do more than the odd crappy patch job. Bathroom floor rotting? Cover it with tile! Massive hole in walls? Cover with drywall! Sagging joists? Water damage? Cracked plaster? Hide ’em all with drywall.
Yeah, I’m bitter.

The contractor is concerned about the party walls. I’m not too keen on them either, as it seems I could remove the mortar with a toothbrush it’s so sandy. The walls won’t be a problem he guessed in the next 20-30 years. But after that, who knows. How the heck do you fix a wall you share?
I really don’t believe this house was built that well to start with. There have been a couple of problems I found that I’m not sharing on the blog, for various reasons, that relate to the fact that mine was built for poor laborers by a single landlord. There were shortcuts made evident when walls were exposed. There are other things that make me wonder if the 1870ish landlord got these houses built fast and cheap.