Master Bathroom update - Primer, finally!

I finished up the walls in the master bathroom yesterday. After the final sanding on the walls I caulked the cracks in the ceiling. I went through 5 tubes of the stuff.


John I feel for you man, doing this little bathroom ceiling was bad enough. I cant imagine having to caulk every ceiling in the house.

Once the caulk dried I hit everything with a coat of primer. The plywood is the base for the beadboard but being that this is a bathroom I primered it anyways just to be on the safe side.



Next I'm going to temporarily install the toilet then move on to the guest bathroom. I'm trying to get all the dirty work done first so I can get the floors done. then I'll come back and finish off the rest.

The guest bathroom needs a new floor, walls, and ceiling. The problem is the kitchen is right below it and there's no ceiling in the kitchen so I may have to install that first.

Automatic Fence Openers

Work is slowly progressing on the house. I've finished mudding the master bathroom but I still have to do the final sanding then prime it.


Our driveway gates started sagging so I had to add some bracing to them. I knew I would have to eventually do this when I built them but at the time the priority was just getting them up so we would have a fenced in yard.


The two diagonal boards greatly increase the strength of the gates. We're going to be installing automatic gate openers on the gates soon. Having to get out and open and close the gates anytime you want to go somewhere has become a major pain. Another problem is that when I leave I cant lock the gate from the outside so sometimes the gates blow open from the wind.

We're looking at the Mighty Mule system for the openers. We'll be buying the FM502 kit two extra remote control openers, two push button openers(for inside the house), and a digital keypad. The keypad is nice because you can give family and friends their own PIN number for access. The system is low voltage which is a plus. We'll also be getting two of the push to open adapter brackets since our gates open out.

The system looks like it will be plenty strong, our gates are well below the weight and length limits of the kit. Has anyone had any experience with this brand of gate opener before? Or the website I linked to?

The greenboard is finally up. I had a few other projects sidetrack me otherwise it would have gotten done earlier.



The second picture is the dresser that I'm going to make into a double sink vanity. A large antique mirror will hang on the wall above it with a sconce on either side.

One of the projects that sidetracked me was finishing up some wiring jobs. The wiring had to be run for the bathroom sconces. I also ran the wiring for the back hall chandelier.


I'm going to have to go with a larger canopy for it since the box shows. The chandelier is from the 1880's.

Today I'll start mudding the master bath, once the first coat is up I'm thinking of starting on the kitchen ceiling. It needs to get done before I start in on the guest bathroom floor, it's directly above the kitchen.

Here we go again

Every time I think I'm done with all the demo work I find something else that needs to be demo'd. The master bathroom walls were in a lot worse shape that I originally realized. Instead of wasting a ton of time fixing it I decided to just rip it out and put up greenboard.

Last night I got the plaster and lathe off the walls, went and picked up some greenboard, and partially insulated.

I love this shot, the sconces on the lathe remind me of a haunted house.

Today I'll finish the insulation (R19 on the outside walls, R13 on the inside), hang the greenboard, and start mudding.

Upstairs hall sconces

I finally finished the wiring for the upstairs hall sconces. It was no picnic either. I just hope the wiring for the sconces in the rest of the house goes smoother. All they need now are the candlestick covers and replacement crystals for the missing ones. Here are a few pictures of them on in the daytime and at night.


At night we dim them down very low and it's like having a night light in the hall, perfect for those 2am trips to the bathroom.


I got a really cool electronic dimmer switch for them from Lowes. It was $30 but well worth it. Instead of just turning the lights on and off it fades them in and out.


Today I'm going to wire up the sconces for the master bath and start repairing the plaster walls.

Master Bath ceiling is installed

I finally finished installing the master bath yesterday. I had run out of boards the night before and had to wait until morning to prep more of them. Here are a few pictures of the prep process.

This is my salvaged woodpile. I wish I had a shed to store this stuff in.

First the boards are laid out on the sawhorses to dry. Then I scrape them down to remove the loose paint.

I then spray them heavily with a bleach solution to kill the mold. After letting it sit for a while they get sprayed a second time then scrubbed with a scrub brush. they are then wiped down and allowed to dry.

Once they are dry they get primered on both sides and allowed to dry.

Once the boards were dry I brought them upstairs and finished hanging them.

R30 installed.

Ceiling installed.

Next for the ceiling I have to wood putty the larger cracks, then caulk and reprime before I can paint it. I'll probably take care of the walls first though.

Bathroom ceiling update

As is par for the course, the bathroom is not going as quickly as planned. The other day I went to prep the reclaimed 4" T&G for the ceiling only to find that it had a lot of mold on it. I'm having to store it outside since there's no room in the house for it. I had it covered with hplastic but obviously it didn't do much good. I set up some sawhorses and laid the boards out on them to dry for a day. Once they were dry I scraped all the loose paint off of them, sprayed them down with a bleach solution then scrubbed them with a scrub brush. After they dried I painted both sides with Kilz2 primer and let them dry.

Yesterday evening they were finally dry so I started hanging them. It's a really slow process, I have to juggle the board, hammer, hammering block, and the nail gun all at once to get it hung because the scaffolding is too far down to reach down to pick something up while holding the board in place.

R13 is as thick as I could go in the sloped area. R30 will go above the flat part of the ceiling.

This is as far as I got last night. I would have gotten farther but I had to go back and correct a screw-up. I forgot to measure from the beginning of the sloped ceiling to the break where it becomes flat and place the boards so that they matched up exactly with the break. The last board before the break ended up about an inch short. That's a little too thin to try to rip a piece to fit so I ended up lowering the flat joists an inch to meet the boards. It's not noticable and was a much quicker solution than taking all of my work down and starting over.

Once the ceiling is up I'll give it a light sanding, caulk the joints, give it another coat of primer, then paint. After that I can move on to the walls.

During the time that I was waiting for the boards to dry I rewired the sconces I mentioned earlier. Everything electrical had to be replaced on them, they were in sorry shape. I've ordered some pretty cool black and gold candlestick covers for them.


I still have to run the romex for all the sconces, it's not going to be fun for the ones at the top of the stairs. there's no room in the ceiling for me to run it there so I'm going to have to come up from the crawlspace below. We bought a really cool electronic dimmer switch for them, when you turn it on the light gradually brightens. I'm hoping to have them wired up before the weekend.

Bathroom and upstairs hall electrical

As usual I didnt get near as much done yesterday as I had expected. I've almost completed the electrical, the only thing holding me up is that I need to know the size of the vanity so I can install the boxes for the sconces. The vanity is a serpentine front dresser, that is 3 drawers wide and tall. It's between 5' and 6'. I dont know the exact measurements though because it's up at my moms house right now. I'll be installing 2 sinks in it and a mirror will go on the wall above each sink. there will be a sconce on either side of the mirrors for a total of 3 sconces.

Of course this has a domino affect, since I cant install the sconces I cant patch up the walls, I cant install the beadboard until I patch the walls... and on and on.

Anyways, here is some of the electrical I did yesterday:

The box on the left will hold 2 GFCI receptacles.

I ran all new wiring all the way back to the sub-panel in the attic. this required that I install a new junction box up there also. The sub panel only has room for 8 breakers, they are now all filled. I'm going to have to buy a larger panel to complete the rest of the upstairs wiring.

Since I was at a stand still on the bathroom we decided to test hang the sconces for the upstairs hall. They are really cool art nouveau pieces we found on Ebay. They're going to need a bit of work though, like new wiring, sockets, candle-stick covers, and crystals. Some of them have their original glass crystals, for the rest I'm going to have to find them on Ebay.



We'll probably put a large mirror between these two, once we do that and put the crystals on the sconces it shouldn't look so bare. We're planning on putting a Victorian settee on this wall.

Moving on to the master bathroom

I've decided to start on the master bathroom. As I mentioned in the comments section of my last post, the antique toilet in the main bathroom is having some problems. The wooden tank has split in the front, pulling some nails out. This has caused it to start leaking. I'm going to have to tear the tank apart and rebuild it, this will take some time so we're going to need another bathroom. The bathrooms are also the worst part of the upstairs left to do.


Last night I started rebuilding the ceiling. As mentioned before I wanted to raise it up a foot. The addition that holds the bathrooms has a shed roof. This doesnt leave much room for the upstairs ceilings. They were pretty low and I didnt care for them at all.

Here's a shot of the original framing for the ceiling:

Here's a shot after I removed it:

Here is the new framing:

For some reason in the picture the boards dont look straight but they are. As you can see the majority of the ceiling will be flat with a part of the left side sloping down. this gave us an extra foot of headroom and really does a lot for the room. It makes it look like a much larger room. I'm going to have to use foam sheet insulation for the sloped part of the ceiling since standard insulation wont fit. R30 will go above the flat part.

Today I'll install the electrical (light switch and fixture, GFCI outlet on the left wall, and a double gang box with 2 GFCI's to the right of where the vanity will go), and start on repairing the walls. If I have time (yeah right!) I'll start installing the wood ceiling.

Where to now??

Now that the upstairs hall is complete as my last post shows it's time to decide which disaster area I'm going to tackle next. there are 4 rooms left to work on upstairs, the 2 guest bedrooms, and the 2 bathrooms. Here is each room with what needs to be done with each:

Guest Bedroom 1

This has been my work and storage room for a while now. This room needs moderate work. There is a LOT of grease on the upper walls (the guest bathroom adjoining the room was a kitchen during the houses apartment life). there is heavy stipling on the ceiling that will have to be sanded off. There are some cracks and chipped paint on the walls that will have to be patched. The mantle needs to be replaced with one of our spares as it's nothing more than a few 2x4's and thin plywood (no idea what happened to the original). then of course I have to sand, primer, and paint.

Guest Bedroom 2

This room is in a lot better shape. The ceiling was replaced with drywall at one point, it's in good shape except for the poor mud job done to it. I'm going to skim just the joints. The walls are in relatively good shape, not much chipped paint or cracks in here. The only other thing to do in here besides the ceiling is a light sanding of the walls then primer & paint.

Guest Bathroom

The guest bathroom needs a lot of work, starting with the floors. the floors are sloped so I'm going to have to take them up. From prior experience in the other 2 bathrooms the floor boards wont survive this, they are just too brittle. So a new floor needs to go down. I need to tear out the plaster on the bottom half of the walls and install beadboard. The rest of the walls have to be patched. I need to install a GFCI outlet near where the vanity will be and rewire the lighting. The ceiling is in rough shape. I really want to take it out anyways because I want to raise it up a foot. If I do this I'll have to decide what I'm going to replace it with, T&G wood or greenboard, not sure yet. Then of course I have to sand, primer, and paint.

Master Bathroom

The master bathroom needs moderate work. I've actually already removed the plaster from the bottom half of the walls and installed the plywood base for the beadboard but I didn't have a picture of the room from after that. So, in here I need to re-frame the ceiling since I'm raising it up a foot in here just like in the guest bathroom. I've already removed the beadboard from the ceiling because some genius decided to stiple it at one point. I'm going to try to clean it up and reinstall it. If it doesn't clean up I still have a lot of regular 4' T&G wood left over that I can use for the ceiling. In here I also need to install a GFCI outlet near where the vanity will be and rewire the lighting. I need to patch the walls, hang the beadboard on the walls, then sand, primer, and paint.

In both bathrooms I still have to sand and paint both tubs and install all the plumbing fixtures. Plus I still have to build the vanity for the master bathroom. All that will be done after the floors are refinished though. So those are my options, still not sure where I'll start. I guess I'll find out when I go upstairs and just see where I end up.

Upstairs hall painted... finally!

Well once again it's taken me longer than expected to finish a project. I really am happy with the results though. Remember that dramatic change I was talking about?



There is still a lot left to do, the painters tape is still on the walls because I need to put one more coat up to finish the paint. I have to strip and refinish the stair railings and doors, and the floors need to be refinished.

The upstairs hallway was one of the grungiest rooms of the house so I'm glad to get it behind me. Now I only have the 2 guest bedrooms and the 2 bathrooms to finish up so the floor guys can do their stuff.

Here's a few more pictures of the hall:

Upstairs hall nearing completion

I've been working on the upstairs hall for the past few days. It's been rough going. After finishing up hanging all the drywall patches I started scraping the ceiling and walls. the ceiling had a really thick coat of stilping on it. I scraped most of it off and what was left I sanded down smooth. I then skimed the entire ceiling with my mud/sand mix. then I skimed all the rough areas of the walls.



Though you cant tell from the pictures, it has come a long way. today I'm going to sand everything, hopefully I'll be able to primer by tonight. That is when the dramatic transformation should take place.

These next pictures are close-ups of what was once the worst areas:


I still need to build some type of frame for the attic stairs out of trim.



I scraped some of the paint off the top of the stair rail to see what the wood looked like underneath. The grain looks great!



The paint came off surprisingly easy. I'll probably end up using amber shellac on the railing, I haven't decided on the stairs yet. I'd like to use garnet shellac but it would take too long to get the dark color I want and it's not all that durable. Depending on how the wood looks when it's stripped I'll probably use a red mahogany stain and poly.