remodeling for geeks

One Sheet Wonder - 55 Gal. Aquarium Stand

My son needed a stand to get his fish off the floor. The fish  tank is 48 1/2'' x 16'', across the bottom. It also weighs around 700 pounds when filled with stuff.
I built the stand in two parts. The cabinet and the base assembly.
This stand is 48 1/2'' wide by 16'' deep and 16'' tall with base.

The cabinet is 48 1/2'' wide, 16'' deep, and 12'' tall. I used 7 ply Arauco AC Sanded plywood as this is going to be painted, and the prep work after assembly is minimal. The base is 48 1/2 ''wide, 12'' deep and 4'' high.

2 16'' wide rips provided the material for the carcase,  2 4'' rips made the base pieces.
Off fall from the remainder of the 16'' rips provided the brackets for the back of the case and the screw plates for the base.

I build the base unit separately to allow for the base to be attached after the location is made and before the tank is placed. This allows the base to be attached with space at the back for clearing trim while allowing the tank to rest next to the wall. The brackets at the back of the unit allow it to be attached to the wall for extra safety.

I used a number 6 pilot hole drill for my screws, and number 7  1 5/8 Deck screws to hold it together. Deck screws are frightening in their holding power. I used ZAR wood putty to cover the screw heads. Great Stuff.

33 bucks for plywood, 2 bucks for screws and a couple of hours cutting and assembly. A one sheet wonder.

To Do List

Like the story of the shoemaker whose kids have no shoes, so it goes here at casa lemurzone.  Am wrapping up the current phase  of my  clients project, being the  guest  bath,  and having  the usual situation, being time and no money, I am working  on my  To Do list. Good thing I have lots of pencils and paper. Yes I may have 4 computers and 7 monitors, a bunch of drafting software, I still draw stuff on paper.

As I have been enclosing and extending the footprint of the casa, natural light has become a bit of an issue. For example, the new temporary workshop #2, turned my kitchen into a cave.

I did install a small window in what will become my new office, between the media room and the laundry.
Makes quite a difference in the room. Even helps the kitchen. See didn't I tell ya it was a real cave?
This is why I will be installing a solar tube in here. Yes those are night lights. I am night blind and would break my neck otherwise.

Because so much of what I do is on the fly, I am moving the doorway 6'' west, so that I can mount my DVD shelves on the wall between the media room and the living room. I will get 2 units to the right of the doorway and three to the left. I already have some thin florescent fixtures for  lighting. 
Plus I have to make a trip to  to get the old shelving units out of here. So this is how I will spend my summer.

It's a dry heat. Tales of the Anti-Destination League.

Phoenix had it's first day over 100 yesterday. This week is looking to go down in the record books in triple digits.

I have mentioned before that remodeling is biblical in nature. One project begats another. Your idea is simple, replace some drywall and install a sink. Removing the drywall points out that the plumbing needs work, fixing the plumbing needs to have some carpentry, which means moving the electric, and so on. You get the idea.

The star player and cosmic trickster in remodeling is the Anti-Destination League. This occult organization is the single largest reason that time and budgets get blown out of the water. The ADL does things like making you have to go to the parts store 10 mins. before they close, and gives you red lights all the way. The material you have been looking for is mysteriously out of stock. The phone rings when you are on the ladder with one foot on the ladder and both hands full. You get the idea. Murphy is an agent of the ADL.

Of course, the Anti-Destination League had other plans. First up was the A/C unit which did not fire up. Good News! It was a thermostat. Second up was taking the herd, Flo the slavering jaws of death, Walnut, and Blackie to the vet for shots. What should have been a couple of hours, turned into an all day marathon of shots and surgeries, and prescriptions. Why the hell can't they make dog meds liquid?

Moving on...

Having gotten my tax refund back, and having a little breathing space between Projects for Others, I am hoping to work on the casa.
Specifically the movie room. The movie room has been framed up since 2005.

The west wall is where I am mounting my 42'' HD TV. The window will be getting a stained glass panel. This is also the room where I am installing a 'coffered' ceiling. I am still not sure if I am mounting the TV to the wall or if I will build a popup cabinet to hide the TV that will cover the window when the TV is raised.

The north wall is probably going to be bumped out a couple of feet and the archway made opened up a bit, and the DVD Cases built in to the walls. The other day I designed and built a DVD case. I need at least 2.

I still need to figure out what I am using for a door or drape for this opening. Plus I need to run the speaker wire for the surround sound.

The hall wall will get a pocket door, solving that problem.

Meanwhile I am looking at a solar tube for the kitchen, since putting the workshop on the back, the kitchen is almost as dark as a coal mine.
I am also learning how little space 10' really is, when you have a table saw and are cutting and ripping 4x8 sheets of plywood.

DVD Storage

I own lots of DVD Movies. Storage is an issue for me. I don't like what passes for storage in the stores. So I decided that I would build my own. I measured my DVD's which are taller than paperbacks, shorter than VCR's and have their own widths.

This unit is 83'' high, 23 1/2'' wide and 6 3/8'' deep. 9 shelves, it holds 324 single DVD's. 38 singles per shelf.

It took 1 sheet of 18 mm. 8 ply birch faced plywood, 1/2 sheet of 3/8'' sanded ply for the back.

The sides are 6'' wide, the shelves are 5'' wide. The DVD's stick out beyond the shelf edge by about a 1/2 inch. Finger tip access. I did this so that I have very little horizontal surface for dust to collect. I have three dogs, two double dog doors, and a lot of dust in my hood.

It is raw and unfinished. It is a proof of concept. The production units will be dadoed so that the back is flat to the sides. 50 bucks in materials. 4 hours to build. It is screwed together with 1 1/4'' deck screws. I drilled pilot holes with a countersink bit, to prevent splitting. I have two 5 inch rips for shelves, one 6 inch side, and a complete back left.

I will play around the width to see if a 30 inch unit will use material better.

The New Temporary Workshop Episode 8

Work continues at a slower pace, as I am working on the client Master Bath Project. However I managed to get some stuff done around here.

This is the East wall, which I covered with 1/2" 5-ply plywood. I used 5 ply which is more expensive, but much more stable for mounting cabinets and holders of various sorts I have been collecting over time.
This is the wall between the shop and the alcove for the reefer and the utility room. It is insulated as well.

The majority of the taping and sanding is done. The north wall and it's soffit remains open as I have not switched the electric circuit around.

The kitchen window is wrapped as well as the temporary pocket door is installed.

Priming took place the other day with KILZ2 primer. Walnut the wonder dog could care less.

I built a 'airlock' door for the dogs out of 2 petdoor flap sides. I saw one in the store, but I balked at the 75 buck price tag, and the idea that I would need to remember 2 sizes and types of flaps. Lazy I am, for sure. Dogs like it.

I am also experimenting with trimless openings. I used "L" bead around the door. "L" bead and Corner Bead on the windows. I am still muttering about the floor.
On the left is the famous electric outlet featured here

I installed the outlets at 48'' off the floor because this is a workshop, and having the outlet above your benches is a good thing.

I have a break Wednesday, as the client has stuff to do, and the Master Bath Project will be at a resting point with the rest of the solid surface going in. Hopefully, my son and I will get the electricity moved, and get the soffits buttoned up. Plus we need to get materials for a gutter job on the other side of town.

Maybe get some of the cabinets moved, and installed on the walls. Thursday may be a down day as the Caravan needs to go to the shop to have the brakes repaired.

The New Temporary Workshop Episode 5

Having gotten the tar paper up, my son came by and gave me a hand roofing the new workshop.

Just in time, as the rain arrived and pointed out two things.
1. A 1/4'' per foot drop is fine for driveways for water runoff, but is a disaster for shingle roofing.
2. Coffee Cans are real handy.

So I ended up re roofing.

Water runs off much better now.

Bathroom Pocket Door 4 - Semi-Final

The Bathroom Pocket Door Project has been semi-final for some time. Life happened.
Here are the Previous Episodes: Bathroom Pocket Door 1 Bathroom Pocket Door 2 Bathroom Pocket Door 3
So here is the semi-final...
Hall View

Here is the door from the hallway. Door is in, trim is done on the right, the left is still open as there is still stuff in the hall and rooms beyond to address. Semi Final as when time and money permit I am replacing this slab with one with rippled glass in it. Hallway is dark.

Corner View

Here is the door from another angle. This shows a little more detail, although the rounded cornerbead doesn't show up all that well. And for the most part it is trim less. I have trim in the living room.

On the right is the top of my new linen cabinet. Yes it is a 5 drawer full suspension Lateral file cabinet. 75 bucks at the local Habitat for Humanity store. They retail for around 600 bucks. It is a legal depth cabinet so the big towels and sheets sets fit just fine. It's called recycling.

Detail View

Here is a better view of the round cornerbead in action. I liked installing, mudding and the final result enough that I am going to round bead this side of the house as I remodel the rest of it.

In smaller houses or even in bigger houses, pocket doors give you more space. The hinge lobby can make coat hooks:)

Corner Tricks

I recently remodeled a kitchen stubwall in a condo for a client. They were looking to replace the formica counter with granite. This is one of those weird designer deals where the designer should be forced to sleep and eat on this useless design choice. This is the wall. As you can see it is about 42'' high with a 7'' deck.

What makes this particularly annoying is that the lip into the living area is about 2'', which means that you can't get a stool underneath it, let alone using it as a breakfast/dinner/party surface. It's not like they didn't have room as the living area is about 20' deep.

This is a shot of the before detail. Typical Formica top, with backsplashes. The finished wall between the top of the backsplash and the 'counter' is a magnet for moisture and dirt behind the sink. And yes it is another textured wall surface, being Heavy Orange Peel.

The plan is to rip out the countertop, cut the stub wall, re-plate to make it level for the granite counter.

Top's Gone
The first order of biz is pulling the upper top off. Having done that, we see that they drywalled, beaded and finished the top of the stub wall. Unless they needed the practice, this was about a hundred bucks extra in construction cost.

Having unplugged the disposal, disconnected the plumbing, removed the top, and cut the drywall out on the kitchen side,(you want to see what is in the wall before you go nuts with a sawsall), snap a line and cut the drywall on the living side, and remove the old stub wall top plates, and see your surprises. In this case, we have the romex for the dishwasher and disposal, the grey wire on top, and the romex for the outlet on the living wall. The grey romex holes are right at the level of where the new top plate is going to go. So we will cut slots in the studs to push the romex below our plate line. As you can see our corner is going to present us will a couple of challenges, having an outside corner, and a small flat patch area.

In order to create a level area for the new counter, we need to cut the studs 1 1/2'' below the tops of the base cabinets in the kitchen. This gives us enough room for the new top plate and provides extra backing to fasten the cabinets. One of the other surprises was the loopback vent for the kitchen sink, which came to within an 1/8'' of the top of the new plate. Here I just notched the plate, as the entire area is getting a 5/8'' plywood deck for the new granite counter.

Insulation and Sound Interlude If you are contemplating a wall like this, whether it be a remodeling or a new project, let me suggest that you insulate it. Remember on the other side of this wall is the sink with a garbage disposal and a dishwasher. All of which are noisy, and face the walls with the rest of your appliances and cabinets. Living in an open plan has it's perks, but noise travel is one of the disadvantages. You will thank me for this later.

Here is the corner with the living room drywall in and the corner patch dry fitted.

Since we have an outside corner, we install a small piece of cornerbead over our corner patch. We are using mesh tape for our seams. The bits of crap between the two colors of white are caulk from the counter and backsplash. We remove them with our trusty drywall knife.

Here is our corner with our first coat of speed set. A couple of light coats feathered out and we will be ready to texture.

I have bagged the cabinets for the rest of the mud and texture routines. Painters 1 mil. poly and my favorite blue tape. What you don't see in this photo is the 'L' bead that I put on the top of the stub wall on the living room side.
Having finished the mud and sanding, I am using texture in a can. There are a couple of varieties on the market, this is the petroleum based kind. No I am not out to greenhouse the planet, but time and product suitability is a concern. Also don't believe the coverage on the cans. It is nowhere that good. After the texture dries, you will need to smooth it down a bit as the existing walls already have a number of paint coats on it already, and you want it to blend and be invisible.

Here is the finished wall ready for the granite top.

None of this uses hard techniques, just take your time, and have fun.

Bathroom Pocket Door 2

In my last episode of replacing my bathroom door with a pocket door, I had ripped out the closet, slashed open the ceiling, removed the old bathroom door, stops, and trim, leaving the frame from my current bedroom door. This gave me enough room to fit the door into the opening I had created, and to find any surprises.

I decided to put the door in the hallway as there is the light switch, tp holder and a covered switch from the swamp cooler that had been mounted on the roof. That would have been way too much work.

Moving on.....
I nailed up some 1/2'' plywood strips vertically over the drywall and into the studs behind. This allows me to screw the horizontal frame members into the plywood. I then moved my door into position and checked it for plumb. The original wall was out of plumb by 3/4'' from top to bottom.
(Plumb is important in construction just to spread the load as it was intended, and even more critical in doors. If your door is out of plumb on the hinge side, and depending on how it falls off, your door will have a tendency to swing closed or to swing open. If your door is plumb, you can move it open 5'' and it will stay there. If not it will try to move. No ghosts, just bad carpentry.)

So I attached it at the bottom, and then shimmed up as I fixed the door frame into position. I screwed it all together, as it is a better method of fastening, and you can usually get a screw in places where a hammer cannot go.(Coarse thread Drywall screws)

Here is a better view, showing the detail. On the left is the original door frame where you can see the last guy took out the original door which was smaller, as he just bent the nails over from the orginal header, and only used one nail to attach the new header. Next is the 1/2'' drywall, then my 1/2'' plywood shim and finally a piece of 3/4'' pine that I salvaged from the old closet.

On the back side, I recycled some more of the old closet and screwed 'nailers' between the pocket door's horizontal frame members. I could have done without this step, but I don't want my work to come apart or have some other remodeler show up and post photos of cracked corners. As you can see, the last guy wasn't too concerned about the walls either.

Because I installed the pocket door outside of the bathroom the jamb side required a little creativity as well. I removed the bedroom door, (it's okay, it's just me and the dogs, and none of us are especially modest), added 2 2x4'' studs to the bedroom door frame and attached the jamb. This wasn't nearly as far off as the jamb wall is concrete block. The guy who originally built the house back in '52 did own a level and knew how to use it.

So here we are with the new pocket door in place and closed. Which ,until I cut it open for a piece of frosted, fluted glass, is probably the last time it will be closed until someone modest stops by.

Now I will finish the drywall patching in the bathroom, tape and mud the drywall and skim coat the interior of the closet until I figure out how I am going to build the new storage closet.

Bathroom Pocket Door 1

I love pocket doors. They are an elegant solution to partitioning space in any home, but even more so in smaller houses. Hinged doors are a waste of space on a number of counts. When you look at the square footage they suck up this becomes a stronger argument for pocket doors.

Consider a bathroom door which is typically 30''. With the hinge side of the door and trims, you are typically up to 36" in linear area with when you consider the sweep of the door, renders 9 square feet of your livable floor area unusable. When you take into account the standard 80" height, the wall behind the open door has a very limited useage as well. You loose roughly 17.5 square of wall space as well. On the other hand a pocket door uses only about 1.5 square feet of your floor and gives you back your wall.

Yes it is more expensive. A pocket door frame set is about 70 bucks and another 30 bucks for a door slab, but a hinged door set is not much cheaper when you toss in the knob set and trim kit to match your existing house, unless of course you are building a ''home improvement style'' house.

In a typical bathroom in older homes the plumbing is strung out in a line, shit, shave and shower, or toilet, sink and tub. The bathtub is usually the determing factor in bathroom size. A 5' bathtub means that your bathroom is 5 foot wide. With a toilet and sink your other wall is usually around 8', giving you 40 square feet of space to cram in all of the stuff that normally goes with personal hygiene, like soap, shampoo, towels, bum wad, and the toilet and shower cleaning products.

I am putting a pocket door in my bathroom. Since I have a small bathroom, and tools, I can do this. My hallway has this storage closet which was an afterthought by the guy who remodeled this house.

Particle board and 1'' pine. Don't get me started on particle board.

The resultant hallway is 32" wide and a little over 7' high, due to the duct work for the roof mounted HVAC unit. They mount them on the roof here in arizona and drop the ceilings to conceal the ductwork.

First thing is to slash open the ceiling to see what I have up here, and to ensure that I can get the frame and header in. Remember that pocket doors require a header that is twice the length of a hinged door header as the track and framing are twice as long as the opening.
As you can see, this was a birdshit closet, and there is enough space to install the frame.

After opening up the rest of the ceiling that I needed for the header and removing the old bathroom door and trim, I dry fit the door frame and check it for fit.

This is a pocket door kit from the home improvement store, which has the track and header preassembled, which is a real time saver. It is also a light duty model, as is most of stuff you get at the home improvement stores. Not much of an improvement in most cases, but that is a rant for another post.

I decided to put it next to the existing wall rather than cutting up the bathroom, and installing a new header to tuck it into the existing wall. As luck and a little planning would have it, my pocket frame will allow me to have a clean detail in the new archway.

I will be using a either a wood panel or standard hollow core door(depending on what I find at the remodeling salvage yards) that I will be cutting out to install some frosted glass to provide light in the hallway as well as privacy, which at this point being only me and my dogs is not all that big a deal. I may get lucky someday and then it will come in handy.