Big Girl Room

So as most of you know, the Mrs. and I are expecting another baby girl!  Cora Angela will be here late Feb. - early March 2015!  Great news....... except we only had two dedicated bedrooms.

The way the Little Old Parsonage was originally updated, we had a master bedroom downstairs with a master bathroom.  The other downstairs bedroom has its own bathroom, and then we have a half bath near the kitchen.

The upstairs was "finished" with a large bonus room, a loft area, and two closets.  Luckily, a 3 inch drain pipe and water supply lines were run into the attic by the previous owners.  This finished attic bonus room is going to be our other daughter's new big girl room.  Just need to add a bathroom and a closet.  Easy right?

Step 1.  Take out the wall, plumb everything. (sorry didn't get many pictures during this phase)
The first thing I had to do was run the plumbing for the bathroom.  My plumbing experience from working construction consisted of an old man named Pokey telling me "hot on the left, cold on the right, shit flows down stream".  Simple enough I suppose.

As I mentioned before, the previous owners had the forethought to go ahead and run drain and supply lines to the attic. (thank God for that!  They really did think of everything!)  Behind the original bead board wall was the original coal heat chimney, and behind that was the plumbing.  Overall I had about 4 feet between the wall and the existing plumbing to get 1 inch of fall (1/4' per foot according to modern construction code).

The first thing we did was mark about where we wanted everything to go.  We used tape on the floor to give a rough estimate of where the tub, toilet, and sink were going to go.  Looks about right, TAKE OUT THAT WALL!

Demolition is my specialty, whether I mean to destroy it or not, I'm good at it.  I took the bead board off of the wall the length of where the bathroom would be.  This opened up the attic so we could see what we were working with.  We discovered there was a support beam running behind that wall, a big one, the kind of support beam you don't cut.  Great, how are we going to run plumbing through that beam?


The answer was kind of tricky.  I opted for an American Standard Yorkville model rear discharge, pressure assisted toilet.  This way the big toilet drain pipe would go over the beam. It actually was really easy to set and slid right in to place.  For the tub, I set it on 2x4's to lift it about 3 1/2" off of the floor, allowing for just a small notch in the support beam that would not compromise structural integrity.  My father in-law helped me hook up the diverter valve, set the tub and tie everything together, It actually looked pretty good.  The sink was easy, it was going on a back wall and we just had to round the corner and tie into the drain pipe.  We ended up getting better than the 1/4" per foot of fall required and got more like 1/2", no sitting water!  From there we ran supply lines with PEX pipe (hot on left, cold on the right) and turned the water on.  NO LEAKS!
Sometimes its better to be lucky than talented.  I like to think between my father in-law and myself, we have a pretty good combination of both.

American Standard, Yorkville Toilet

After everything was set in, I pieced the usable parts of the wall back in place (good at demolition) and was ready to move on to the framing.

Looking at the Bathroom 

From the entrance of the room

The bathroom

 Step 2.  "Not so fast my dear, I want a custom vanity"

 I was all geared up and ready to start framing the room.  I figured a pedestal sink, or run of the mill vanity you purchase from big box store would be fine.  My wife however had different ideas.  After looking at the big box stores, each vanity we saw just seemed "meh".  Nothing was jumping out at us.  Off to Craigslist I went looking for a vanity.  One day at work, when I was being especially productive, I found this cool old changing table and got the itch to just build a vanity.  Not one to turn away from the project buffet, even if I have a full plate, I took the little red truck and $30 later loaded this beauty into the back of it.

Changing table when I picked it up

 Pretty sweet huh?  This thing was made of solid wood, no veneer or crappy plywood, straight pecan.  Sure it had scratches, deep ugly ones, was missing a door, had sharpie all over it, but what a canvas!  I bought a sink at big box store and got out the jig saw.  Made some crude measurements and cut a hole.

Hole cut, sink set

 I made some serious noise in the driveway that evening.  My neighbors love me!  (The less they talk to me the better right?  Have you ever met my neighbors?)  Next up sanding.  Probably the most important part of any furniture re-do is sanding.  And I spent about 3 days sanding this bad boy.  Finally it looked like this.

Sanding

 Looks pretty good right?  Nope, more sanding. (pardon the dirty shop)

 More sanding

 Finally I was satisfied, and decided if I sanded any more, I was going to drown in saw dust.  It was time for paint.  I ended up taking two colors I already had (dark grey and white) mixed them up and painted her!  But not the whole thing, I left the top bare wood and ended up staining it a dark brown, mainly because torturing myself is a general hobby and this thing did not want to be two colors, it took lots of steel wool, high grade sand paper, and several touch-ups but it finished out OK.  I built a door for it (always fun) and the final product ended up something like this!

Sanded, painted and stained

Step 2.5 Finally some 2x4's and just a chop saw.... and jig saw.... and insane angels..... and crazy pocket doors.
After completing the vanity, I was finally able to start in on framing the bathroom and closet.  The Mrs. and I decided to use pocket doors that slid into the wall.  The shape and set-up of the room just did not allow for swinging doors, just wasn't practical.  I got them upstairs and was ready to set them in place when what do you know, the pocket doors were too tall for the room.  I had to cut the top off about 3 inches to get them to stand up, and after some finagling I was able to get the bathroom framed on a Friday night. My dad came down on a Saturday to help me frame the closet.  This was probably the easiest part of the whole project.  The most difficult part of framing was the angle of the ceiling.  This took some trial and error, and we were able to use some scraps to figure the angles on everything.  After that Saturday, we were all framed in.

Bathroom Framing

All Square and level

Completed framing of closet and bathroom

 The Mrs. found some antique solid doors with those awesome crystal knobs that they used back before I was born.  (Seriously, who decided not to make crystal knobs anymore?  that guy should have been fired!)  After a Sunday of sanding... and more sanding (notice any trends here?) I was able to paint them and hang them in the pockets.  Somehow, this worked perfectly and I only broke 1 small piece that had to be replaced.  I love the way the pocket doors slide in and out and the way they look with the original knobs.

Step 3. Drywall and trim and electrical
The next step was setting the drywall.  Luckily, there was not much that needed to be put.  I think I bought 5 4'x8' sheets of drywall and was able to cut them and hand them in an evening.  The good thing about drywall is the mud.  Your original cuts don't have to be perfect because you are going to cover and gaps and holes with mud anyway.  Needless to say, I was not overly concerned with lining the drywall up perfect, and I didn't, but it wasn't an awful job.

Drywall up

I am horribly at using drywall mud, I'm not too experienced at it, and was really just not looking forward to it.  Luckily my father in-law has done it before and while he will tell you he isn't that good at it, I think he did a fine job.  He showed me some tricks and we were able to get everything sealed up and looking acceptable enough to keep the ladies off of our backs about it.

One thing I opted to do instead of traditional drywall and corner bead is case the walls.  By case I mean use wood to define the corners and edges.  That is how houses were built back in the day and the way much of the downstairs is done in the house.  Seeing as the house was built in 1906, I thought it only appropriate to use this method.  I cased both corners, the top and the doors.  Again the hard part was the angles on the ceiling but it turned out to be OK.  This looked better than I thought and motivated me to make the trim and molding myself.  I got the router out and started shaping. And Shaping.  And Shaping, and creating the biggest pile of sawdust I have ever made  Seriously, it was a big pile of sawdust and shavings.  I then went and started hanging it.  Hanging any type of molding is complicated, with angles and hiding your cuts etc.  Add to that a changing slope wall and it becomes nightmarish.  Needless to say I made lots of poor cuts and re-cuts but it all worked out in the end and it all looked good enough for me.

Trim and molding up and on the wall.

I have some experience wiring electrical outlets and lights, I built a shop in the house we rented in Savannah and had to wire some up down there.  This part went pretty easy.  In the Bathroom I installed a GFCI outlet above the vanity where the little one can plug in a hair dryer when she gets older.
 
Step 4.  Tile...and an honest look at my framing
With the drywall up, it was time to get back in the bathroom and start finishing it so I could paint.  Let me say I have never done Tile before, no experience at all, but how hard could it be?  The Mrs. Cousin has done quite a bit of tiling, and insisted I use a water barrier membrane that helps protect the framing behind the cement board.  At $50 a quart, it ain't cheap, but I wanted to do this the right way.  I painted the membrane on the cement board and let it dry over night.  My goal was to set the first row of base tiles, and let them dry so everything else could rest on top of them.  The one thing about tile is it makes you take a good honest look at your framing skills and how square everything was.  Nothing was setting right, like nothing.  I took out the framing square and the level just to check and everything was square, except the original walls.  Well OK, the house is over 100 years old and when it was built, it likely wasn't exactly square, so I just had to deal with it.  The first night I got the base tiles in.

Base Tiles

The next day, my father in-law came over to help me finish the tile.  It is so much easier when you have two people when laying tile.  One person butters the back of the tile with the mortar while the other one sets it.  We finished tiling about 3PM that Saturday and while definitely not perfect, we thought it looked pretty good.  After letting it cure overnight, I went to check on our work and guess what, they all stuck!  Not one tile came fell or came loose!  Even on the ceiling!  Talk about a confidence boost!  That afternoon I mixed up some grout and filled in all of the gaps (some larger than others) and called the hard part done!

How bout' them apples

Step 5. Caulk, and Paint......and Repeat

This house is 108 Years old.  I am pretty sure the bead board walls and ceilings are original to the house, meaning there are some blemishes and cracks on and between the boards.  I took the caulk gun and ran down each joint, filling the gaps with caulk and then running my finger down each joint to remove caulk.  This was important because the house used to be heated using coal, meaning coal ash is in the ceilings and roof and walls and generally everywhere.  Whenever a heavy train passes, the ground shakes a little bit and this coal ash comes through any hole or gap there is.  Caulking these holes and gaps is about a weeks worth of work from 5-10PM.  There was a LOT of caulking that I did but was finally able to get all of the gaps filled up.

I then went to get some paint.  The Mrs wanted the bead board and trim painted white.  Do you know how many shades of white there are?  There is "Piano Key White" and "Elephant Tusk White" and "Antique White" and "Angelina Jolee's Teeth White" seriously, lots of white.  I chose "White".  Yep, plain old White not mixed or anything, just White.

I painted the bathroom first, as a test to see if it would roll on, and it did!  I then painted all of the trim and wall casings.  Three coats worth of brushing it on.  Hey this is starting to look like a room!
Next I painted the bead board ceilings and walls with three coats of WHITE.  Trick to painting beadboard, roll it on THICK!!! Then follow it up and run a foam brush through the natural cracks.  It was starting to look pretty sharp!

Step 6.  Closet for a Princess
The next thing I had to do was the closet.  Up to this point it was pretty much an empty shell. I got some 1x12 pine boards and went to the shop.  I had a basic vision in my head of what I wanted the closet to look like, but until the sawdust stops flying, and the glue has dried, you really don't know what will come out of my shop.  I wanted some shelves for bulky clothes, some shelves for shoes (she is a girl after all), hanging racks for her clothes, and a taller hanging rack for dresses and things as she gets older.  I built the first shelf and took it up and set it in place, looked pretty good.  I then built the shoe rack.  Now the shoe rack was going to have to fit between two walls, like a perfect fit.  (This is where I thank the carpentry Gods and do a happy dance)

After everything was set in the closet I locked it in place with molding and painted it white.  Now I have said how much white there is.  It needed to be offset with something.  Given that almost everything in the room was custom built out of NC White pine, I decided to do some staining.  The shelf that runs the length of the closet and serves as the top to the two shelves I stained a dark stain (same as bathroom vanity) and set them on top.  I also set one above the tall rack in the closet, and made a hook rack where she can one day hang her jackets or pocketbooks or whatever girls hand up in closets.

Shoe Rack 

Other shelf and a swiffer!

Step 7.  Pretty Pink
Yep that's right.  The outside drywall is pink.  Now I am not an interior designer by any means, I leave that nonsense to my better half.  We waited to decide what color to paint the drywall until after she chose the bedding for the room.  Guess what color was in the bead spread?  Yep Pink.  So I did the good husband/daddy deed of painting his princess' walls pink.

Pink walls

 Step 8.  More Furniture Re-Do
The Project is almost done.  Since there is another girl on the way, it doesn't make much sense to move all of the furniture upstairs.  We needed a dresser, a headboard, a book shelf, some night stands and some toy storage.

The Mrs.' grandmother had an old (really old!) small dresser that she no longer had any use for.  Another great piece that was solid wood.  I was able to sand it down and stain it a dark brown color.  The mirror needed some minor repair that I was able to do and sand it down and stain it as well.  Overall it turned out very nice and although small, fits perfectly in the room

The Bathroom Mirror was another one of the family finds that I was able to just stain and touch-up.  It fit perfectly over the vanity and really stands out among all the white in the Bathroom.

The little ones cousin has outgrown much of her "play" furniture from when she was a little girl, and naturally it made its way into our basement.  One of the items was a small desk that was painted white.  I sanded, and sanded and sanded until most of the white was whatever pressed board it was made of would take a stain.  I put the same dark stain as everything else and let it sit.  Because the material does not have any grain, I had to make some grain in it so that it would at least look like it was real wood.  Easier said than done, especially because of all the small nooks and crannies and my complete lack of enthusiasm for sanding it.  It turned out good enough but definitely won't be a piece that stays out of the fire pit forever, but for now it works.

The last piece is a bookshelf that my mother in-law found at an estate sale.  When we got it it only had 1 shelf and was really more of a bench with tall back on it.  I added two more shelves and re-painted it white.  It fits perfectly in the corner and will be a great place for the little one to keep her favorite books and toys until she gets older.

The only things we have left to do are find and finish a headboard and some night stands.  The little on is ready to move in to her "big girl room", and in the next week or two, she will!

Special thanks to everybody who passed along ideas and advice while doing this project.  Special thanks to my Dad and my Father in-law who provided tons of support and physical labor.

There is still some decorating to do, but again, I will leave that to my better half and let her post the final pictures over on her blog at http://scottandbrookkincaid.blogspot.com/

Operation Kitchen Hutch

So the Lady of the house really wanted something for the kitchen. A functional coffee bar with storage cabinets under it and a hutch for cook books and "knick knacks" (you will find as you follow our home we are "knick knack" people). I am not one to spend hundreds of dollars on a "new" piece of laminate particle board furniture that will have to be replaced in 5 years. I like the old stuff, the older the better. I like scratches, nicks, signs of life and use.  Off to craigslist we went!


After days of searching we couldn’t find the "right" piece. Then one day when we were about to give up, we came across this!

I saw immediate potential, and called the seller that night! I drove down and looked at it the next day, and after $80 loaded it into the little red truck. This thing had seen years of abuse. The owner’s mother in law purchased it in the 60's at an estate sale, and used it on the porch to store random junk.  Since she had died a few years ago it sat in a garage collecting dust. It was pretty scratched with some serious gouges in the top. This was no problem, since it was made of solid pecan, there is no laminate on it at all, the sander was able get everything even and create a smooth, fine finish.

Once sanding was completed, I figured we would need to raise the hutch up at least 4 inches so the coffee maker would fit under it. We wanted to do something that looked like it belonged to the piece and definitely didn't want any ends showing. I took an old book case that we had in our house when we lived in Savannah, and started cutting it up. I made two 4 inch legs by cutting the pieces at 45 degree angles to create a solid base for the hutch to sit on that would not show any end grain of the pine.

After the Boxes were built, I sat them on the top of the base and then positioned the hutch on top of the boxes. Once it was centered, I nailed the hutch into the boxes and made a back panel to fill the gap. In the panel I cut two 1 inch diameter holes to run power cords.  Finally I ran trim along the base to make it easier on the eye and tie it all together.

The next step was the hutch itself. The piece had an old 50's style cardboard backing to it. This is cheap flimsy stuff that just screamed "take me off".  I obliged and replaced the back with wainscot board that maintained the paneled appearance, but was much more appealing to the eye and more durable.

After I got the back on, it was time to attack the glass doors. I liked the two outside glass doors but the one in the middle just did not suit.  I knocked it out with a hammer and screw driver to open the space up. After removing the middle piece, we had to build partitions for the remaining two doors. This was done easy enough with 1x12 white pine. Somehow I cut one of them with the grain going horizontal instead of vertical, no idea how this happened, but it did and I was out of 1x12 so I had to make it work. I slid the partitions in, notched the tops to fit the magnetic door latch, and nailed them in place.  Once they were in, it just didn’t look right, something was missing. I took a scrap piece of left over book shelf and cut it to fit between the partitions. I then drilled 5 one inch holes evenly spaced in the middle, and then ripped it in half, creating two identical arch pieces. Put them both on the router to give it some shape and then nailed them into place.

Finally it was time for paint. One last attack of 220 grit sand paper and she was ready to paint. I matched the base color with the cabinets in the kitchen, sprayed it down, and let it set up for a day. After drying, I stained the base top with "Kona", a dark stain that would stand out and contrast with the light paint color. I sanded some paint off of the edges and around the handles, did a quick stain and wipe on the entire thing and let it dry. This gave it a nice distressed look that turned out way better than I anticipated. A little bit of poly-urethane on the top and it was ready for the kitchen. 

Total Time < 10 hrs
Total Cost < $100!

Welcome to our Home!

Welcome to the Little Old Parsonage!  We moved in to the house in January 2014.  This Blog will keep everybody up to date with the goings on at the house, updates, maintenance, parties and life in general at the Little Old Parsonage in Cramerton NC.