Posts Tagged stairs

No More Stairs

After all the adventures in plumbing, the next project in the queue was taking out the crappy stairs down to the basement. For reference, here’s a photo of the stairs:

Basement stairs, looking north. Headroom is 58"

Step 1: Knocked down the existing stairs. Pretty easy work with a hammer and a prybar. I really did this simultaneously with step 2, since it was easiest to install most of the joists while sitting on the stairs, but the last two had to be after taking out the stairs and lifted over my head. (Have I mentioned that I have biceps for the first time in my life?)

Step 2: Sister the cut joists with fresh 2x8s. I had to use pressure-treated wood since there is no sill plate on top of the foundation and the joists would be resting directly on concrete. And since I didn’t trust pure sistering, I cut them long enough to sit on the girder in the middle of the room. I followed Mike Holmes’ advice and glued and screwed them to the existing joists and toe-screwed them into the rim joist. This is where having the One Drill To Rule Them All really came in handy.

Step 3: Put down the subfloor. This step is a little out of order since I had to get it done before the in-laws showed up that evening; I would have rather done all the blocking first. I forgot to use adhesive on the joists, so I doubled up the screws to 6″ apart throughout.

Step 4: Take out the half walls around the edge. Easier said than done, because although each wall had only about three studs in it and could be wobbled by hand about an inch either way, they were put together with a really excessive number of 3″ screws.

Step 5: Insulate the rim joist using doubled-up pieces cut out of a 2″ thick Foamular 250 board for a total of R-20, and seal the edges with expanding foam. I made sure to take photos of every joist bay to prove to the inspector that I insulated, since you wouldn’t be able to see it after the next step.

Step 6: Install blocking around the edge of the subfloor patch to support the edges. Because of where the main water pipe runs under the old top of the stairs I couldn’t maneuver in notched 2×8 blocking, so I put in 2x6s against the subfloor and then cut and hammered in 1″-2″ pieces of the pressure-treated board to fill between the 2×6 and the foundation. It’s a little squishier than the rest of the patched area but well within tolerance.

Step 7: Cut a piece of birch plywood to act as a finish floor until we can afford to have the hardwood patched in and refinished by a contractor. I tried really hard to get an exact fit — I taped paper over the patch and marked the edge of the hole by crayon rubbing, and then cut out the template and transferred it to the plywood — but since I don’t have a jigsaw and it’s really rather difficult to match a wandering line with a circular saw, the patch is off by up to half an inch. Sigh.

Step 8: Rearrange furniture to suit.

And that’s where it stands today. There’s still a whole bunch of debris in the basement I haven’t lugged out to the ever-growing junk pile. And I’d like to stain the plywood “oak” color to match the rest of the floor, but I am stain-illiterate and I’m worried I’d make a huge mess for a crappy result.

Eventually, I’m going to build a new set of stairs where the old front entry/current walk-in closet is, but that’s going to require a hell of a lot of structural work, with steel posts and concrete saws and LVL beams and so on, not to mention lots of exacting finish carpentry. I have a good book on the subject, and I have a Google Sketchup model about halfway completed, but it’ll still be after next year’s tax return before I can even think of taking it on.

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Some Progress Lately

The treehouse is down. Went up on the ladder with the sawzall a couple of weekends ago and made pretty short work of it, considering that it was fairly sturdily built — except of course it was built of non-treated lumber so the roof was bowed in and the 2x4s were soaking wet. It’s really amazing how big the pile of junk lumber is from such a small building.

No more treehouse!

The absurdly large debris pile

The bathroom shelves are up, or at least two of them are since for some reason the middle shelf didn’t fit. I’m not terribly happy with how they came out, but at least there are shelves there and we can start using them for storage. When I have a few bucks lying around I’ll go get a sheet of birch plywood and do them better. I figure if I construct the shelf and the braces in one unit and attach it to the wall all together there will be fewer gaps.

The bathroom touchup painting isn’t done, but all the holes are filled and sanded. I now know that putty has to be applied pretty thickly because it shrinks as it cures. Hopefully I can finish that next weekend, and paint the door and window jambs where the old pink paint is showing through.

Last, I demoed out the wall in front of the old basement access door, and removed the plywood covering the stairs that gave us so much trouble with the underwriters last fall. Apparently, Nate is a big do-do head crap’r, whatever that means. Once I get the door freed of its very thick layer of silicone/rubber/whatever-the-hell-it-is caulk and get a padlock installed, I can move forward with taking out the existing stairs and filling in the living room floor with a temporary plywood patch.

Oh, those wacky previous owners!

I also have a good quote from an electrician to upgrade the service to 200 amps. Now I need to figure out what the schedule is for inspections and for Seattle City Light to hook up the new mast, and then I can schedule the electrician. I’m moving the location of the panel to the foundation wall, so I can remove the plastered-over stud wall the current panel is attached to when I completely gut the basement.

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Lots Of Progress, or, My Wife Is Awesome

The Baby Gate

Since we have a little one who will be bipedal any day now yeesh, Jen’s been after me to put up a baby gate at the top of the stairs. The instructions said it needs to be installed into a solid if not structural elements, which presented a problem. The staircase has sidewalls, but they have about three 2×4 studs each — you can wiggle them about an inch either way without even needing any effort — so I couldn’t install the gate into the obvious opening. There are structural columns at the top of the stairs which are in place of the original outer wall of the gable cottage but which now form one of two arches from the addition on either side of the fireplace — one into the stairwell and the other into the living room. But they’re too far apart for the gate.

So I built extensions, I guess you could call them, that anchor into the columns and make the opening narrow enough for the gate to fit. They’re not particularly pretty (I learn a lesson about carpentry every time I pick up a power tool: in this case, don’t try to drill a perfectly perpendicular hole without one of those mini-drill presses you attach to your drill), but at least instead of having bare ends of 4×4 posts sticking up I covered them with little fence post caps.

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And, since they don’t meet the stair sidewalls or the fireplace, the cats can get around them but even a bipedal baby can’t:

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So it’s nice to have one project completely done with and checked off the list.

The Bathroom

I got the floor down a couple of weeks ago, but it’s just been sitting there mocking me ever since.

As you can see in the photos, it’s an octagon-and-dot mosaic tile, and I really should have used a smaller-notch trowel. Pretty much every joint has thinset squidged up into it. That is to say, every one of the thousands and thousands of little tiny joints has thinset squidged up into it, some halfway, some to the top. Scraping them out with a utility knife is going to take forever.

I’ve been working slowly on finishing the drywall — it’s not that it’s particularly difficult, it’s just the first time I’ve done it so I’m figuring out my technique as I go along. But the bathroom absolutely must without fail be all the way done by Thanksgiving, so I took the day off work today to get as much done as possible. I spent the morning doing second-coat on the drywall, and then Jen called and said she was taking a half day and would be home to help.

So we decided to attack the walls. I mixed up a bunch of thinset, set up the borrowed laser level along the reference lines I’d already marked, and then Jen went to town setting all the field tile while I worked on making all the odd cuts and fits. The result: we have walls!

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There are two reasons we didn’t completely finish: I can’t do the ends of the shower walls because the end-bullnose tiles are on order, and I can’t do the top row of tiles until I’ve skim-coated the drywall (since there will be a bit of overlap). The bottom row of black tiles is just going to be an evening of cutting and fitting, and we were both tired after working all day, so that’ll have to be another post for another day.

And here’s why my wife is awesome: not only did she do almost all of the work to get the tile up, she actually got it up a lot faster than I would have done. If she hadn’t taken a half day off, I’d probably have gotten one wall done and maybe two, instead of all of them. And that doesn’t even mention all the work on the rest of the house she’s been doing while I’ve been putting all my energy into one room. The fact that this place looks like a home instead of a box and tool storage facility is all due to her.

Update:

So you’ll remember the missing drain hole for the sink. I’m happy to say that it was pretty easy going in through the linen closet, since it was faced in particle board, not the 3/4″ tongue-and-groove of the bedroom closet, and my measurements were pretty darn close:

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(Yes, I’m aware that it’s not centered. The sink, shelf, and medicine cabinet aren’t centered on the old pre-existing drain line, mostly because of having to mount both sconce lights into studs and find a center point between them.)

Now I have to figure out the best way to interface between the 1-1/2″ ABS and the 1-1/4″ standard sink drain and P-trap. I guess the trap escutcheon is going to have to cover a lot.

Oh, and here’s a photo I forgot to put up months ago.

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Moral: don’t try to pull eighty-year-old framing nails out of eighty-year-old wood with a little bitty finishing hammer.

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What The (Insurance) Underwriters Want, The (Insurance) Underwriters Get

At the same time as the work in the bathroom, I’ve also had another project foisted on me by our home insurance policy carrier. Apparently the insurance inspector took a little tour around the grounds and had some issues he wanted fixed or they would CANCEL OUR POLICY!!

  1. Remove the rubbish pile.
  2. Cover the basement stairs or put in a handrail.
  3. Put a door on the garage.
  4. Scrape the moss off the garage roof.

To which my responses were:

  1. Um, we’re remodeling. Do you really think (a) there would be no rubbish pile, or (b) that we weren’t already planning on getting rid of it?
  2. You’ve got to be kidding, right? Fine, I’ll put the damn cover back on.
  3. You just want to block access? Will an OSB slab do?
  4. The garage is about two years from falling over by itself. And you’re worried about … moss. O-kayyy.

I think most of the concerns were of the “attractive nuisance” variety. Like kids are going to wander into our fully-fenced property and play around in the backyard. What. Ever.

A couple weeks ago we had a company come and get the rubbish ($cha-ching). Last weekend I powered through the rest (half the time in the pouring rain). Here’s the evidence:

No moss on the left

No moss on the left

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No moss on the right

Look, Ma, no more rubbish!

Look, Ma, no more rubbish!

It's a big piece of wood with hinges -- that must mean it's a door

It's a big piece of wood with hinges -- that must mean it's a door!

The stairs covered back up -- attached with screws this time

The stairs covered back up -- attached with screws this time

(Getting that door on single-handed was a bitch and a half, I tell you.)

I’ve sent these photos on to our agent, who says the inspector never comes back to check in person. She’s forwarded them on, so we’ll see if they’re satisfied or if there’ll be more work to do, um, tomorrow night.

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What the Underwriters Want, the Underwriters Get

The sellers moved out on Monday, and we got access yesterday and today to do the work the underwriters called for. We had Bob the Handyman for the professional guidance and lead on the work, but Jen and I put in a whole lot of physical labor ourselves.

Here’s what we got done:

Jen went up on the roof of the kitchen porch to scrape and paint the bargeboards where apparently the previous owners ran out of aluminum flashing to cover them after covering all the other ones. The electrician has already removed the knob & tube wiring extending from that gable peak over to a hanging receptacle box in the pergola.

Jen on the roof

Jen on the roof painting the bargeboards

Here's the bargeboards all painted

Here's the bargeboards all painted

We decided that merely replacing the rotted floor of the kitchen porch was the path of least resistance, as opposed to demoing the porch back to the original roof projection (that Jen is on above) and concrete steps. Bob the Handyman knocked out the rotted supports and replaced the base plates with pressure treated 2x6s. He cut the plywood and I screwed it in — I’ve never had a drill that could actually countersink a screw; even my corded drill doesn’t have that kind of power.

Frame and plywood floor to replace rotted ones.

Frame and plywood floor to replace rotted ones.

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The underside of the kitchen porch showing the new frame.

I built this railing at home on Sunday, and happily I measured everything correctly and it screwed right into the jamb. As it turns out, that door is not nailed shut and only has a little pushbutton lock like you’d find on a bathroom door. Great!

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Jen cleaned off all the green gunge from this wall that had come down from the missing downspout. Along the way, she cleaned all the moss and dirt (it was like potting soil) from all the gutters around the house.

No green gunge!

No green gunge!

No gunge on this wall either!

No gunge on this wall either!

Jen and Bob demoed the entire patio deck. The supporting frame was okay, but some of the planks were falling in. Bob suggested just patching the falling-down part, but we wanted the thing gone anyway. I was off doing something else, so I don’t have any photos of the demo.

Apparently it’s very difficult to find vinyl siding in less than whole-house lots, so getting some to patch where the deck was wasn’t possible. Instead, we installed aluminum flashing, which you can see behind the steps in the photo below. We flashed the back corner under the hanging door as well. I called our mortgage broker to confirm with the underwriter that flashing in lieu of patched siding was okay, and not only the underwriter but her manager as well approved the plan, so we’re good on that item.

It turned out that the staircases off the deck were still pretty solid, so we salvaged one of them and put it directly against the house off the back door with a couple of bags of gravel to level the ground. I took this photo late in the afternoon when the first stick of the handrail was in place, but Jen and I were too tired to continue at that point so we went home.

Salvaged stairs

Salvaged stairs

We needed to replace the basement stair handrail. I found a handrail the basement, but it turned out not to be long enough, so Bob and I went to Home Depot to get a new one (along with the rest of the supplies for all the other projects. This recounting isn’t strictly chronological). Before we got to install it, I had to run to McLendon’s Hardware for some lag bolts for the porch stairs, and while I was gone Jen found the original hiding in the little channel between the stairs and the wall. (Why that channel is there instead of the stairs butting up against the wall is a mystery.)

We also fixed the stairs themselves. What we had thought was a loose tread turned out to be the left-hand stringer split all the way across. (Why the previous owners thought that was okay not to fix I don’t know.) Bob cut a couple of 2×6 braces to push the stairs up and close the crack and a patch to bridge across the split and bond the upper and lower pieces together. The space was too cramped for me so Jen got her hammer on and nailed it all up but good. We’ll still want to replace and/or move the stairs later, but for now they’re way safer than they were.

Basement stair handrail

Basement stair handrail

At that point, we’d been working from 8:00am to 5:00pm with a short break for lunch, so we quit for the day. Both of us were very sore, but luckily we had already scheduled massages for both of us that evening.

Bryan is full of ow

Bryan is full of ow

Jen too

Jen too

Jen went back to work today, but I took another day off and went back to the house at 8:00am again. Bob built the handrail to the patio stairs while I held the level, but I got to use the nail gun for the last few bits.

Completed handrail on the patio stairs

Completed handrail on the patio stairs

Bob and I put up the new downspout and angled it so it wouldn’t drain into the basement stairs.

New downspout

New downspout

Bob checked the plywood roof of the kitchen porch extension and discovered that although the edge was rotting and looked bad, the rest of the sheet was perfectly sound and quite well attached. He then screwed clips in where Jen had noticed that the gutter was loose.

At that point, we’d run out of jobs that we needed his help on, so he went off the clock, but was perfectly happy to gab for an hour about our plans for various parts of the house and all the systems, about which he had lots of very helpful suggestions. We may very well be re-hiring him to get the upstairs bathroom done as quickly as possible after I do all the demo.

Bob took off and I went and got lunch. I decided that next I’d pull up the plywood cover over the access stairs. I figured the plywood was at most maybe anchored into the concrete in few places. Nope. I went to pull it up and about fifty pounds of stuff came with it for a couple of inches before I dropped it. I cleaned it off and took a closer look and discovered a nail head about every four inches all around the outside and across the middle in a few places.

I set to pulling them all, which involved basically chiseling out the top layer of the plywood to get at them with the wrecker bar. An hour and a half later, I finally had the plywood up. This is what was underneath it.

Under the "unsafe soft" plywood

Under the "unsafe soft" plywood

So basically, the only soft edge was where the 8-foot sheet butted up against the 2-foot sheet between the closest two braces. The rest of it was probably good for another five years or more. But, we were planning on opening up those stairs anyway, so it wasn’t a waste in the grand scheme — I just wish I’d been able to put it off and not have to rush through it.

Then I thought that if the green gunge on the back walls was a problem, then the green gunge on the side wall might also be one even though the appraiser didn’t mention or didn’t notice it. Turns out it just needed brushing and rinsing; no cleaner was required. Tony the neighbor was very accommodating about letting us cut back his holly tree so it didn’t touch our house.

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The last task on the schedule was dealing with the crawl space under the addition. Bob had already cleared out all the insulation from the access window in the basement and strapped up the duct running through it so it wasn’t in the way.

I put on the tyvek coveralls and the respirator mask and got to work.

Before crawling in the filth

Before crawling in the dirt

First, I pulled out all the existing plastic and loose insulation. The plastic wasn’t thick enough and I was afraid because there were rodent droppings on the part next to the access hatch there might be more on top of the plastic further in. Turns out that I was wrong — the droppings were only at the front, probably because rats had at one time nested in the loose fiberglass insulation around the opening.

I had to crawl in and go all the way to the back to get all the plastic, loose insulation, and assorted wood scraps left over from insulating out of the whole thing. That was bad enough, but nothing compared to what was to come.

Along the way I found absolutely no rot in any of the joists, beams, or posts. The wood looked like it came from the lumberyard yesterday. There was a little bit of a ditch around the outside next to the footings, and the insulation wasn’t just stapled up but strapped with furring strips, so I suspect that quite some time after the addition was built a previous owner had professionals come in to insulate the floors. (It’s a pity they didn’t have professionals do the rest of the work too.)

Next I filled up five big garbage bags with the cleanup. I kept the respirator mask on for this since I didn’t want to breathe in any of that dust at all. Then a break for drinking a whole lot of water, since those coveralls theoretically breathe but I was already very hot and tired.

Instead of pre-cutting the new vapor barrier sheets, I decided it would be easier just to roll the plastic out as I went along and then unfold it. I may have been wrong.

Two hours later, I was done. There’s no photo since black plastic in a dark crawlspace would just look like a whole lot of dark.

That was a job that I’ll be very happy if I never have to do again as long as I live. It’s very difficult to do hard physical labor when you have to lay on your belly and can’t even get up on your hands and knees. About every fifteen minutes I would have to take a break and basically just lay there and hyperventilate to get enough oxygen to keep going. By the time two full sheets were down (out of three) I was exhausted and ready to stop, but just had to power through and finish.

Bryan after crawling in the filth

Bryan after crawling in the dirt

The respirator and coveralls were entirely worth the money and then some. I was soaked in sweat but hardly dirty at all, and my lungs are fine instead of being filled with dirt, dust, and fiberglass.

At 6:00pm I was all loaded out and finally able to head home. Four ibuprofen, two bowls of chili, and one of Jen’s Flexerils later, I’m feeling a lot less stiff and sore, but I make no guarantees about how I’ll feel in the morning.

Tomorrow, the appraiser goes back to sign off on all the items on the underwriter’s list. Saturday we meet with an escrow officer and sign documents and give her a cashier’s check. Hopefully the underwriters will expedite approval so the loan will fund Tuesday, and then we can close Wednesday after the escrow records the transaction with the county.

Then our realtor hands us the keys and the house is ours!

(Apparently the big meeting where everyone sits around and signs stuff and at the end the keys are handed over only happens on TV, or at least not in this state.)

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