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Home stuff 🏡 Home Improvement

Doohickie said:
Got some good work done on the ceiling. Primed the rough area with Zinsser B-I-N shellac based sealing primer. Awkward to work with since it's much thinner than latex paint, but the result looks pretty good. Used joint compound to fix a couple of cracks and skim coat the area. Sanded it a bit and need to fill the low spots some more. It's starting to look pretty good. A bit more skim coat to the uneven areas and it will be time to prime (probably another coat of B-I-N followed by a coat of KILZ water based) and paint. It seems like the B-I-N provides a pretty durable surface. Since it's kind of a glossy finish though I want to put a coat of flat on it before the ceiling white.
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The only thing more trying than floor work is ceiling work. You get my applause.
 
Update time. So far I've:
  • removed popcorn from ceiling
  • taken down two of four "decorative" fake beams
  • removed paneling from two walls, including the "bump out" at the bottom where previous owner pushed the paneling out a little, put a shelf on top, and ran electrical wires through the space created
  • replaced janky 1950s amateur hour wiring with modern wiring
  • replaced drywall on one entire wall due to old water damage
  • repaired drywall on another wall to clean up where the electric wiring was run
  • installed new light fixture over windows
  • repaired (as best I could) about half of the ceiling where there was old water damage. Of that, about half is ready for paint and the other half still needs another coat of mud to smooth it out
  • replaced ugly-as-sin 1990s swag light fixture with recessed can lights
I got the can lights installed today. I've taken the week off from work and trying to knock out as much of this as I can. The can lights should have been easy; just reroute the wire from the old fixture. I rerouted the wire this morning while the weather was cool. Then when I tried to hook it to the first can light I found there was NO GROUND in the wire, which is weird because wiring going to old fixture did have a ground; I checked it and it seemed connected. I couldn't pull the wire; it was stuck, so I just cut it. It came out of the ceiling through one of the fake beams (really, really janky) and my guess is inside the beam I'll find another cheater ground where the ground wire was just connected to the neutral. It makes no sense because the old fixture didn't have have a ground to connect too (it was just two-conductor lamp wire running through a swag chain). So I ended up having to go back up into the attic after lunch in my "PPE" of long jeans, a flannel shirt and a baseball cap. In the attic I found that there were three wires that came up from the switch (switched hot, neutral and ground) but where it came into the attic it ran into a junction box and connected to a two-wire with no ground cable that went to the light. We had the house rewired when we moved in, except for this room. The electrician put a dimmer switch on that switch though (part of the package was a number of dimmers) and I think they needed the ground for the dimmer, plus that circuit powers other ceiling lights in the house, so they apparently ran a hot-neutral-ground to the switch, ran it back up to the attic, and then connected it to the old ungrounded wiring for the light.
TL;DR: Had to correct even more janky wiring.

Work still remaining includes
  • getting the other two "decorative" fake beams down
  • rehabbing the ceiling on that side of the room
  • removing paneling on the last wall and rehab/repair/replace their
  • prime/paint the ceiling and walls
  • remove carpet
  • install plank flooring and baseboard trip
  • install IKEA cabinets for my wife's kitchen overflow storage (the cause of all this fuss)
  • install IKEA organizers/shelving for my stuff (this room is my work-from-home office and mancave).
The wall where I replaced almost the drywall (except for the little spot next to the fireplace) and installed new drywall.... also this is where the ceiling is pretty much done except for paint. This part of the ceiling had the worst water damage.
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Can lights installed. This part of the ceiling still needs some skim coat to feather in the joints I taped. The wall to the left is an interior wall and never had paneling, just a dorky sponge paint job. The wall on the right had paneling, but mostly just needed nail holes filled. The odd looking thing hanging from the ceiling is a fan with the blades removed to make it easier to work around. The hole is an HVAC vent; I repainted the grate and haven't put it back on yet.
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Still to go... take the beams down, rehab the ceiling, take the paneling down, fix the drywall behind it. There's a second HVAC vent there; you can see what it looks like. One of those funky 1950s round ones that has a pull chain for open/close/adjust. I'll put one more can light by the sliding doors, but he beam is in the way right now.
1744860317619.jpeg


I've developed my drywall skills significantly on this project, and I've also gotten pretty good with fish sticks/fish tape for fishing wires through the walls and attic.

fringe said:
The only thing more trying than floor work is ceiling work. You get my applause.
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You're absolutely correct. Working the drywall on the walls is a piece of cake compared to working on the ceiling.
 
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Partially removed beam.
1744989229351.jpeg


This is how they wired the swag lamp. There was two conductor wire (no ground) coming through the ceiling into the box of the beam, then they connected a length of two conductor + ground to a hole in the beam and wire nutted it to the fixture, then screwed the faceplate of the light fixture (the part that would attach to a junction box) into the beam itself. I thought they had done a cheater ground (connected it to neutral) but I was mistaken. When I first found this a couple years back I guess I just assumed the ground was connected to something. But who needs a junction box when you have a wooden enclosure? What could go wrong? :grimace:
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When someone says "popcorn on the ceiling" what year comes to mind?
 
I'd say 1974 was the apex of the popcorn ceiling's popularity. You saw them less in the 80's and are near extinction now.
 
My list so far of what I need to get done this spring:
  • Trim lilac starts in front
  • Dig out bushes in front of lilacs
  • Trim bushes on west side
  • Till garden
  • Level tree holes
  • Rake out leaves
  • Trim crabapple shoots
  • Clean out shed
  • Clean out garage
  • Cut down spruce
  • Clean out window wells
  • Replace sprinkler heads
 
Maister said:
I'd say 1974 was the apex of the popcorn ceiling's popularity. You saw them less in the 80's and are near extinction now.
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Yeah, there were a lot of homes here built in the mid 2000's that have/had popcorn ceilings.

My last house in Maryland had it on the high part of tray ceilings in the master bedroom and the dining room. Honestly, aside from the messy cleanup it's not that hard to get rid off. I just used a sprayer to thoroughly wet it down, used a large taping knife and scraped it off. I had plastic over the entire floor and then just gathered it all up. The key is to use enough water and not dig your knife into the sheetrock so you don't have to patch.
 
We have "Fancy" front doors that the previous property owners installed. Instead of a single door with an overhead transom and side lights, it is two large doors. The mechanics of these is crazy with these bars that spring out from one door and into the next door, and into the lower sill and header. About 2 months ago, my middle son was trying to get the doors open, and trying to open the door that is mostly stationary. He was hard enough on both handles that he messed something up inside.

After contacting the previous owners, we contacted the company and found out that the doors were still under warranty. They came out, messed with them a bit and informed me that the mechanism needed to be replaced, and that while they were under warranty and there would be no charge, it would be at 6 weeks to get the new parts in. Today they arrive to install everything and the guy works on it for about 45 minutes and informs me that they didn't need to swap anything out, that something inside came out of alignment. He played with it a couple of times to show that it was fine, and it started making a strange grinding noise.

So now he is swapping everything out like they said they would.



EDIT... I think he ran into an issue... he can't get the old assembly out of the door. After 60 minutes of working on it he is no better off when when he started. I think he realized this when he started and wanted to find a way to get it so he didn't need to replace the hardware.

EDIT 2... It took 2 1/2 hours from the time he arrive to when he left, but it is fully operational and operating way better. I am glad that I didn't accept the 'fix' that they provided at first.
 
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We're having our three bathrooms renovated. Our house is about 20 years old and we just decided we were done with the builder grade stuff we have now. They are almost done with the main 2nd floor bathroom, and will be starting the downstairs half-bath this week. Master bathroom comes last after the holiday.
 
btrage said:
We're having our three bathrooms renovated. Our house is about 20 years old and we just decided we were done with the builder grade stuff we have now. They are almost done with the main 2nd floor bathroom, and will be starting the downstairs half-bath this week. Master bathroom comes last after the holiday.
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We're trying to renovate some bathrooms, plumbing and electricity. So far we've talked to about 7 contractors. Four didn't want to look at it. Of the three that did, no one will give us an estimate. I think there's too much easy work to take on a project that is going to take time.

I spent the weekend ripping up old carpet and exposing the original hardwoods. The downstairs floors had a lot of dark spots. The upstairs floors are pristine. The house smell so much better with the carpet out.
 
DVD said:
I have to do blown in insulation in the attic. Mine is old and compacted. It's not as much money, but it sure is as unexciting.
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That's our next home improvement project. Our current insulation is basically non-existent (and what is up there is very compacted). I'm hoping to get it done around the end of summer/early fall. We have a whole house fan that the motor crapped out on recently (it's probably 70 years old, just like the house) and I want to see if I can get the fan working again before we do the insulation. If I can get the old motor out of there on my own, I'm pretty sure a buddy and I can repair it (well, I'm pretty sure he can repair it while I stand over him pretending to be helpful), I just need to work up the motivation to actually begin the work.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
That's our next home improvement project. Our current insulation is basically non-existent (and what is up there is very compacted). I'm hoping to get it done around the end of summer/early fall. We have a whole house fan that the motor crapped out on recently (it's probably 70 years old, just like the house) and I want to see if I can get the fan working again before we do the insulation. If I can get the old motor out of there on my own, I'm pretty sure a buddy and I can repair it (well, I'm pretty sure he can repair it while I stand over him pretending to be helpful), I just need to work up the motivation to actually begin the work.
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I miss our whole house fan in our last home. It was so nice when the humidity wasn't too bad. I didn't know if you can have it in an attic with loose insulation.

My attic is a lovely 115 right now. We've had a somewhat mild and wet summer. It's usually in the 120-130s by now. When I replaced some canned lights last year, I waited till midnight to give it time to cool down. I still felt like I was going to fall out. I keep asking experts about it, but they just say its an old unconditioned attic and its doing what it's supposed to. We had a dry hot summer last year and found a squirrel that was desiccated in the fall.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
I miss our whole house fan in our last home. It was so nice when the humidity wasn't too bad. I didn't know if you can have it in an attic with loose insulation.

My attic is a lovely 115 right now. We've had a somewhat mild and wet summer. It's usually in the 120-130s by now. When I replaced some canned lights last year, I waited till midnight to give it time to cool down. I still felt like I was going to fall out. I keep asking experts about it, but they just say its an old unconditioned attic and its doing what it's supposed to. We had a dry hot summer last year and found a squirrel that was desiccated in the fall.
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From what I've read, a whole house fan can still be used with blown-in cellulose insulation as long as the frame around the fan opening is sufficiently high enough. If you've got 18" of insulation you should have a ~24" frame to act as an insulation dam.

They picked a couple of the hottest days of the year (so far) to work on our roof last week and I got curious about how hot it was getting up there. The day before they got to work, I took a watch with a thermometer up into the attic and it was about 135º in the afternoon while it was around 92º outside. We have pretty good soffit ventilation but the ridge venting was never really cut in properly and the ridge vent shingles that were up there were so old and deteriorated that in the areas where the plank did have sufficient gaps along the ridgeline there still wasn't enough flow to actually let the hot air escape like it was supposed to.

I haven't been back up there to take another measurement yet but laying in the hammock looking up at the roof now, I no longer see the heat just radiating off the roof in waves anymore, so that's a good sign.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
I miss our whole house fan in our last home. It was so nice when the humidity wasn't too bad. I didn't know if you can have it in an attic with loose insulation.

My attic is a lovely 115 right now. We've had a somewhat mild and wet summer. It's usually in the 120-130s by now. When I replaced some canned lights last year, I waited till midnight to give it time to cool down. I still felt like I was going to fall out. I keep asking experts about it, but they just say its an old unconditioned attic and its doing what it's supposed to. We had a dry hot summer last year and found a squirrel that was desiccated in the fall.
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I laugh at your 115. It's 115 outside. You don't want to know what the attic temp is. We don't go up there in the summer. I'll have to do my insulation work in the winter. Then again most houses here don't have a big attic, it's just the space between the ceiling and the roof.
 
DVD said:
I laugh at your 115. It's 115 outside. You don't want to know what the attic temp is. We don't go up there in the summer. I'll have to do my insulation work in the winter. Then again most houses here don't have a big attic, it's just the space between the ceiling and the roof.
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I assumed your attic is either fully conditioned or can double as a pizza oven.
 
Nope, pizza oven. Although we do have a storage area above the garage that cooks the christmas decorations until winter.
 
Working on a little project & I'm at trip #7 to Lowes for stuff. Incredibly 2 of those trips involved returning merchandise.
 
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