Bathroom Renovation - Week 4

So Andreas the tiler finally finished on Wednesday and even the plasterer said he'd done a great job. The delay was all due to waiting for cement and waterproofing to dry and there was no way we could have done it faster - tiling took about 9 days in total. The easy niche looks really good with the aluminium border. Andreas just had enough of the "urban green tea" wall tiles which was lucky as we bought all that were available at the end of the line. Steve spent hours deciding how to arrange the feature glass tiles and eventually settled on this arrangement. It reminds me of toothpaste.... The plasterer then came in. His job is to plaster up the lines between the gib board and the nail holes. Damon was a cheerful chap who was a bit nocturnal, showing up about 5pm to start work. He was pretty reliable though which is the main thing. He finished on Saturday at lunchtime and we then moved on to painting. We decided to paint now as it is much easier before the bathroom fittings are installed.

So mid way through the painting, the base coat is on, and we're onto the top coats. That's me getting more paint off to the right.

We'd chosen to use the colour of the wall tiles for a couple of walls and the red from the glass tiles for one wall and the ceiling. A brave choice, but we think it works....

This is an old chair I bought and repainted the colour of the other glass tile. Mum and Dad had the seat re-upholstered. Eventually this will be where you leave your clothes when you have a shower.

Finished paint job! It looks better in natural light, and as you can see, we are still waiting for our electrics.

We have the plumber lined up for Wednesday. With any luck this weekend will be the final one without shower, toilet etc. It will be four weeks since we started on Tuesday and we are getting quite fed up of living in a construction site. But I'm not counting on it!

Bathroom renovations update

Andreas the tiling man put down the levelling compound. It took a couple of more days to dry than he expected, particulary in one corner. Then he painted 2 layers of thick grey gloop called waterproof membrane, that smelt like fish. There's no way the water is going to get through our floor!!! 

By this weekend (20th and 21st March), the waterproofing had dried and Andreas came in to start the tiling. It felt like a landmark occasion. 

Andreas starts the tiling, The tangle of wires to the left includes an alarm which will go off if the underfloor heating circuit gets cut during the work. On the far wall is not a window without a view, but the Easyniche wall recess for putting shower stuff.

The tiles are laid, but without any grouting. On the right are the tap connector and water pipe for the bath - the tap controls and the spout will be mounted on the wall 

This week we hope to get the walls tiled, the ceiling plastered and the walls painted - all of which gets us pretty close to finishing. Perhaps a week more after that? Meanwhile we continue having showers wherever we can find them - work, sports clubs, the next door neighbour...

Bathroom Renovation - Week 2

So after two weeks the bathroom is starting to take shape. We came back from a weekend away to find that the builder (who'd promised to work all weekend) had done very little, but had drunk the beers we'd left for him! Anyway, he made good progress on Monday and on Monday night I was able to install the wall insulation. I actually bought roof insulation (R1.8, 95cm thick) as it was much cheaper than wall insulation - it only cost $100 to do the two walls we had exposed in the bathroom.

I had decided to glue building paper to the joists to provide a bit more of a weatherproof seal between the weatherboards and the insulation. This is not an orthodox procedure but can't hurt, and should provide a bit more wind-proofing. Only problem was the joists were so dusty the glue didn't stick so I ended up just wedging the paper in place.

For the most part the batts just stayed in the wall without me needing to fix them in there which was helpful. I managed to do the building paper and the insulation in about 5 hours (insulation alone would have been very quick).

Nearly finished!

Tom the builder then installed gib board over the insulated walls. He did a stirling job installing our easy niche - a feature of the shower which is fitted into the tiled shower wall. The plastic niche cost $200. Here you can see it fitted into the gib.
Tom spent a day renovating the existing sash window in the bathroom. It was pretty grotty before because the shower was fitted right into the window frame, which had led to rotten sash cords and mouldy frames. The top of the sash is painted in but it is so high off the ground we can't reach it anyway. The bottom sash now opens though.

This is the new window I had made for $400. Tom then said he could have done it for $200! Typical. But at least it no longer has louvres which let the wind and rain through.Both of the windows with new framing.
So Tom finished his gibbing and window-ing on Saturday (he was much more effective with us there watching and no beers on hand) and on Sunday we laid out the underfloor heating cable. This is not a difficult task but you can't cut the cable so you have to lay it out precisely to line both ends up with the thermostat lined into the wall. You tape down the corners and then the tiler lays a levelling compound (type of cement) over the cables to make a smooth surface for tiling.
This week: tiling. I think we'll have one more week of no bathroom facilities but with any luck should have a toilet and bath by next week. Fingers crossed....

Bathroom Renovations - Week 1

Sorry, I'm not very good at photos, you'll just have to bear with me.

So this week we had the bathroom rebuilding work starting properly, and the first thing that happened was that the bath, shower, toilet and sink all got ripped out. This is what is left...

On the same day, the plumber came in to install new fittings. Now the rule is, if you replace a bath with a shower (e.g.) that's fine. But new fittings require building consent. An analysis of the rules suggests that it's to do with creating new waste pipes. So the plumber had told us he'd "connect into existing waste pipes". All good, no new waste pipes, so no building consent required. The building consent (cost about $800) is a pain in the arse by the way, requiring isometric drawings of drainage and checks at three stages through the process, plus requiring you to install double glazing on new windows and smoke alarms throughout the house - needless to say we didn't want to do it. Anyway. The plumber came in and what we found is that he hadn't connected into the existing waste pipes at all, he'd made two new drainage connections by cutting holes in the weatherboards!

I was not amused, particularly about the pipe slung under the joists as long term we want to convert the basement and this arrangement means we can't install a ceiling there because there's a pipe in the way! The plumber is apparently not amused with us, either, but that's just tough. Our house is a dream to plumb with full head height basement, easy money for a plumber and they've taken the easy option as far as I can see, as connecting into existing waste pipes is obviously a bit more tricky, but we intend to get this fixed, so watch this space.

Anyway we obviously have no bathroom while all of this is going on. We do have a toilet, in the basement. To use it you have to go outside, down the stairs, unlock the basement, use a headtorch to get to it. Steve found a guest in there earlier....

This is a weta, a native NZ species. We were quite excited to find him in there.

A smashing Saturday

Back in the 1970s the owners of the house must have thought, we can't be bothered with a garden, and so they laid a concrete yard that they must have been very proud of. Some thirty years later, the yard is fractured, has whole meadows growing amongst it and is distinctly past its sell by date - time for it to go!

A lady in a big truck delivered a skip in the morning, and then we set about bashing the concrete with a big heavy crowbar, prising it up and carrying chunks of it out to the skip. Simple really. 

I show Roger the safe lifting technique

Paul "Punisher" Swain gives some concrete some hell

Jo misappropriates our recycling box

By the end of the day we had cleared the concrete. There is still some out of shot behind the steps. The far side will be a deck and lawn, as this is where the end of day sunshine is, with the near end being a vege garden. Paul and Sheryl suggested we use the bath that we take out of the bathroom as a pond (presumably sunken). 

Christmas Eve afternoon and all was still

Dave stripped one of the external walls today. A few days ago he took up the lino to reveal some nice floorboards underneath, but had the annoying job of having to take out a thousand rusty staples holding the lino on. We think the room is a lot colder with no gib on the inside, which should hopefully make insulation the walls very effective.

Leadlight No. 1

For the past 6 months or so I've had a new hobby: leadlighting.

Our house has a door with five windows around it (there must be a name for this kind of door but I don't know what it is and nor does mr google).

As you can see some idiot has painted the top window mud brown. (what is it with painting things brown in this house?!) And the two panels either side are not glass but chipboard (with holes in).

So I enrolled in a leadlighting course with an idea that I would replace the mud brown window with a leadlight. I hadn't got much further than that idea when I showed up and the first class was very stressful as I had to design my leadlight and didn't really like any of the designs I'd found.

Because of the diamonds in our existing hall leadlight (the one stained with nicotine) - see...

http://joandsteverenovate.blogspot.com/2010/06/few-cosmetic-improvements.html

I decided I'd go with diamonds as the main theme. Anyway, after my second week on the course I'd already decided one window wouldn't be enough and that I would in fact replace all five windows. You may recall my vision:

The leadlight teacher tells me it'll take me 2 years to do it all. I told him I was going to do it by Xmas 2011 (18 months).

Leadlighting is not difficult, but it is fiddly, with many different stages, which are, in summary

• Design (probably the most difficult) as so much potential to get it wrong early on and later have to fix it
• glass cutting (quite easy, but if you get it wrong you have to grind down to the right shape which can take ages)
• Leading (the lead is U-shaped and the glass fits into it, if that makes sense) - a bit fiddly as you have to cut the lead to exactly the right length
• Soldering the lead points together
• Cementing (very messy)
• Blackening (a purely cosmetic procedure)

So for my window, which is about 85cm *38cm, it has taken me two 8 week courses (and that includes some working at home). And here's the end result...

I'm still busy designing the other four panels but I'm thinking I'll do the two small windows at the top next (because I will get more skilled and it's best to leave the most visible sections to the end). I will get them all fitted together, aiming for December 2011.