Yes, i could put into garage but we dont have a lot of room in there right now AND we discovered that the electrician cut power to garage and garage door doesnt open (Ican probably wrestle that manually) AND kitchen door from garage into kitchen is too small and they will have to be cared around front of house , up the stairs and into kitchen area.
I would prefer that the delivery guys do it since i paid for delivery into house
Well…it’s only 6:00 ish there. Hope they get there…soon.
Gee, why would the electrician do that!
Could you get some nice view shots for your portfolio, while waiting?
At 6:15 I started calling Sears Outlet. The guy ran around the warehouse and said that the 2 big items were not there so they had to be on that truck. He said he would call delivery guy and call me right back.
7pm, gave up and mounted the front door back on and came home. Called Sears again and the guy said “Oh, I couldn’t get a hold of delivery guy, sorry I didn’t call you back. And, no one can find your refrigerator and oven”. I told him that I was no longer accepting a delivery and please re schedule for Monday. Hope they find the dang appliances by then!
It was a really beautiful day today - crystal clear to La Jolla. I had to spend the day taking front, side and back view pictures for City Historical Review. Any property over 45 years old has to be submitted for review with a DVD, printed photos, forms, etc. There is just no freaking way this house is historical, what a waste of everyone’s time. 60 seconds looking at the house on Google and anyone could figure that out 
It was not fun trying to climb down the back slope and take a picture of the back of the house
cb, post those photos, please!
Flickr running slow this morning - I’ll have to post the photos up late this afternoon. Off to help my D search for her first off campus apartment at her new college she transferred to. Never a dull moment!
Meanwhile, have crew working today insulating all open walls and putting up green board and special Dens Shield stuff for the bathrooms to get ready to tile first thing Monday morning.
Now it’s working. Was able to load some of the exterior photos of house to the Flickr group
No wonder no one was there when DH and I drove by one our way home from Mission Bay last night! If you can get a panoramic picture of your view the way it looked last night - right after sunset, horizon still glowing orange, sparkly lights everywhere - that would be a great selling point, more than fireworks IMO. From the glimpses we got between houses it looked magical - since virtually all showings will be daytime, it would give potential buyers an idea of what they can see every night.
cb, I’m curious to see your neighbor’s terraced gardens. Can you post a pic or two for us to review?
cb, do you have issues with the large scale tile on floors and walls? I have a house that was built in 1966 and we know the floor is not level due to water spillage over the years. I’m wondering if in an older house, smaller tiles would allow more “breathing room” vs. having large tiles crack. And how, oh how, do you keep grout from cracking and coming up? DH is terrible about water on the floors and I worry about the grout holding up (or not) when we finally remodel our MB.
There is a big issue with just trying to lay down the large tile. A floor has to be perfectly level because the tile is taking up a wide space. They are very difficult to line up so that the tiles are not higher/lower than the next one with a lip. It takes a lot of extra thin set to try to level large tiles. Because these tiles are on the upper floor, they are on the wood slat sub floor with a layer of hardibacker board under them. We don’t have any problems with moisture coming up. We add a special additive to the grout that blocks stains (similar to epoxy grout) but also provides a bit of elasticity for minor movement.
That’s what I thought, cb, thanks for confirming. We have 4x4 tile on the floor now (prior owner installed it) and the tiles are coming up/cracking all over the place. It looks like the current tile is directly on the subfloor, and I would be surprised if there’s backerboard. Same folks put in a shower with drywall behind it.
When we redid the bathrooms in our house, the floor tile had a layer of cement under them about 2" thick. That tile wasn’t going anywhere.
That might be an old-school method though, the house was built in the 60’s. I don’t know if that is still done. The same people, though, didn’t use cement board or water resistant sheet rock, or any other kind of waterproofing behind the showers. So eventually the sheet rock rotted and the tiles literally fell off the wall. Maybe they didn’t have cement board or whatever back in the 60’s.
Otherwise, beef up the framing to remove any flex in the floor, use that orange membrane stuff underneath the tile to remove any chance of leaks, and rest easy.
Also, if the previous homeowner installed the tile as a DIY project, chances are he didn’t do it right, and that’s why you are having problems now.
It is very interesting that different regions of the country have different ways to waterproof showers.
Here in Southern California, the old school accepted way is a Hot Mop (tar) applied to the plywood shower floor and wood backing that goes up about 12" from floor. This costs about $250 for a standard 5 x 3 shower. Younger guys use membranes or other.
For the walls, the old school guys have green board, then hardibacker cement type board and then do a cement/chicken wire thing. I hate the cement/chicken wire thing because it is expensive labor cost and time consuming and starts encroaching on the size of the shower.
So, I have discovered a product called Dens Shield. It is a very hard 1/2" fiberglass wall board that comes in about 4x5 size. It goes straight onto the studs like drywall and then you tape all the seams. Next you spread Red Guard goo all over it for complete waterproofing. It is very stiff to prevent tiles cracking. I love this application because it gives extra room in the shower area - not losing valuable inches. The key is that you have to make sure that the Dens Shield walls are perfectly level - which is easy because you can shim behind them as you screw them into the studs.
You still have to do some cement/chicken wire along the bottom of the Dens Shield to tie it into the hot mop floor because you are never allowed to screw or nail into the hot mop area of the floor. Then you still have to do the deck cement stuff on shower floor in order to slope it perfectly to the drain
I am intrigued by the whole shower membranes, but I have had only one experience with them. Some tile guy insisted he knew how to do it and I let him put one in. Day 1 of buyers taking a full shower upstairs and the dining room ceiling below filled with water and almost collapsed. That was a $4,000 mistake - had to pay someone to go rip everything out, re tile the shower and fix the dining room ceiling. Of course that tile guy was nowhere to be found when it happened and I wouldn’t trust him to fix anything anyways.
BUDGET UPDATE
Well, we are just screaming along spending lots of money and not much to show for it. So far I have
3/4 of a roof installed - the guy still has not shown up to finish the roof.
All rough plumbing done
Electrician claiming he is completely done upstairs but he has some circuits off that are driving us crazy (like the garage). I’m guessing he has these circuits off because there are some bare wires in wall boxes that still need outlets or switches installed. So, he’s not really done
Plans being revised with Structural Engineer requirements. Then they have to go back to Engineer on Monday for ‘stamping’ and signature from Engineer. I have an appointment to submit plans on Tuesday at 3pm, hope we get everything together by then. We are hoping that we will pass a ‘desk review’ and the only thing I have to wait for is Historical Review which can take 2 weeks.
All drywall patches, sanding and mud done on the holes on the walls
Bathrooms insulated and ready for tile guy on Monday morning
All vents - plumbing, heating, kitchen range and bath fans punched through roof with proper vent tops installed
new attic vents installed
Downstairs completely demolished and ready for construction
Foundation repaired by foundation company and warranty letter ready
AC intake thing re routed to side of house (it had been installed to go through an old giant aluminum pipe through roof - really weird)
Niches built in showers
SPENT TO DATE = $26,500
Demolition = $2,725 (includes dumpster, but not the overage ton fees I am going to incur)
Framing and Drywall Patches = $3,000
Plumbing = $3,900
Electrical = $2,100
Kitchen = $3,675
Roof = $5,000
Remainder is tile, bath vanity, foundation repair ($2,500), permit and plan costs and general stuff
That budget doesn’t seem too bad. Then again, it’s not my money.
cb, do you expect to stay on schedule? I don’t think you’ve had any huge surprises to date.
Shhhhh…VH!
This house is going to be terrific when completed. I’m going to start buying my lottery tickets now…I would love to live there.
To be honest, I’m not really sure what the schedule is going to be. We are hoping to finish all major work upstairs in next two weeks (but, of course I haven’t had a chance to go out and order all the kitchen cabinets yet!!!) But, there is still an unknown regarding the following, how long it will take, what is required, and how much it is going to cost
Deck
Shear Wall and structure changes
Sewage Sump Pump and install
Lead time for windows and doors (don’t dare order them until plans are approved)
I’m really interested in what the structure for the deck will look like, i.e how big the columns will be, where they will be placed in relation to that downstairs bedroom window. I’m also interested in what you will do with the patio “parking space” to make it read as an outdoor living space ( and not driveway). Can’t wait to hear details on those two parts of the project!!
I received some preliminary drawings. I took a cell picture of the deck details and the staircase details.
There are some notes at side of stair detail that state we are at 6’ 8" head clearance as we go under the floor
Loaded to Flickr