The Continuing Saga of the Wood Paneled Shower

I don’t know too many people who have bothered to refinish a bathtub. I’m one of the few, slightly crazy people who have tried, apparently in my attempt to rid the bathroom of the wood-paneled shower. Mission accomplished!

I got the idea to try to reglaze a five-foot long cast iron claw foot tub we found on Craigslist from, yet again, Nicole Curtis on Rehab Addict. In addition to seeing her repaint many a clawfoot exterior, she also refinished a pedestal sink during her restoration of the incredible Minnehaha House and it seemed like a good way to stay on budget in mine.

The tub was in decent shape but super dull on the inside and a flat tan color on the outside when I got it. Considering it was made in 1921 though, I’m impressed!

I started off by wire brushing off any chipping paint and spray painting the outside a flat black. It took me about 2 cans to get the full coverage needed.  The paint is still wet in this picture and it looks so much better!

A few days later, The Roommate and I noticed that there was a weird, white film splashed all over both the pathway in the backyard as well as one side of the tub. We’re pretty sure some dirty water from one of the other projects in the house got splashed over there. So I wiped the tub down and repainted the affected areas.

Following the dirty-water incident, I decided that I wasn’t going to refinish the tub just to have a bug land in it or a leaf fall on it while it was wet, ruining the finish. The Roommate and my friend Todd helped me get it into the porch.

While The Roommate was out, I read the reglazing instructions cover to cover no fewer than 4 times. I scrubbed the tub with the solution provided, rinsed it and fully dried it 3 times. Then I went to check the instructions again for the next steps. They clearly stated that I was actually supposed to scrub, rinse, dry, steel wool in a small, circular pattern, rinse and dry again then repeat that 3 times. Rather a large mistake in 95 degree heat and Isthmus House isn’t air conditioned. I’ll let you extrapolate the outcomes.

Here's how it looked just washed 3 times:

And how it looked when steel wooled:

Since I’d already done 3 rounds of scrubbing, I only did 2 rounds of the full, steel-wool-included scrub-a-dub that night. I waited until The Roommate was out again a few nights later to resume the project, starting with another round of scrubbing and rinsing. After that was all done, I had to make sure that the surface is clean of any steel wool residue. That is easier said than done with 15-20 square feet of surface and it took me somewhere around 7-10 rounds of rinsing and drying before I was convinced it was ready for the epoxy. This is definitely one of those jobs to be positive you’ve done all you can to get the prep right or the epoxy doesn’t adhere properly - it probably took me about 4 hours start to finish.

Let me tell you, it's really, really clean in this picture!

After I taped off every bit of the fixtures, I started the spray-painting around 10pm and the first coat took less than 15 minutes. It’s supposed to look a little patchy and it doesn’t look a thing like porcelain when you start. Despite following every instruction to the letter, my spray can spit paint like crazy and I had drips that I was running over with my paint brush constantly.

While I was painting, it was spitting so much lacquer my fingers got stuck to the nozzle and it came off when I tried to let go of the can. This is how they looked post lacquer thinner scrubbing: 

I got a decent first coat down and waited the recommended 15 minutes before applying the second coat (if you wait more than 90 minutes, you have to wait 72 hours).

The second can also spit epoxy drops everywhere and, again, I brushed them through with my paintbrush. Eventually, I was able to get long enough drip-less periods that the finish looked clean, smooth and dripless all the way through. I had opened almost every window on the first floor, but those fumes are intense and my mother got a good laugh at my accidentally-high-as-a-kite narrative via text that night and my little sister was very sad she missed it.

I couldn’t have been happier with how the tub looked and went to bed happy. The next morning, I went to check on the tub and the porch doors I’d been wondering how I’d get off fell off the hinges and onto the tub edge, gouging the not-yet-fully-set epoxy. The Roommate came to check on me having heard me yelling across the house.

Not to worry, there were already a few chips yet to fix and those got added to the agenda and repaired following the 72-hour mandatory dry time (I gave it more like 5 days due to travel). The total cost for all of the supplies and the tub itself came to about $450 - not bad! Here’s the final product, a beautiful, gleaming, period-correct claw foot tub that I love and can’t wait to get installed! What do you think?!

The Saga of the Wood Paneled Shower - Part III

Several people have asked me how the downstairs bathroom rebuild has been going and I'm here with an update! Before I continue though, let me say that this blog is now weekly. I'm posting every Thursday with the occasional special edition. It lends a nice feel of consistency and therapy and a good shot that I've done enough every week to give an update on the state of Isthmus House.

We left off in that last installment of the saga of the downstairs bathroom with new cement board, greenboard and some RedGard over that for waterproofing.

As I mentioned in that post, my sister and I also pulled the floorboards in hopes of having it to patch and feather in a few places around the house. All in all, we probably salvaged about 15-20 square feet. I'll take it!

Once the floor was up, we also found that the subfloor sloped about 1.5 inches in some places and we didn't stand a chance of laying tile over it without it cracking, even with underlayment. That meant a new subfloor needed to be poured. Here's how the process went.

First, we laid out thick plastic (Or, as my mother would say, Visqueen. I have no idea if I spelled that right.) and stapled it down. When the stapler stopped working around midnight, we got creative and folded and taped down the spots we were nervous about (this part isn't shown in the photo!). We also built mini walls using left over cement board around the hole I needed to leave for the tub drain and plumber. Pretty, no?

Once the plastic was firmly down, we mixed 5 40-lb. bags of self-leveling subfloor. It was a little pricier than the rapid-setting stuff but I was worried that we wouln't be able to move it quickly enough before it set.

It turns out we needed 9 bags to get the subfloor fully spread out and truly level. We didn't find this out until about 1:30am so it was a 2-day process. That said, we were really happy with how it turned out after cutting away the excess plastic around the edges with a utility knife.

I chose subway tile for the shower surround for several reasons the best of which are that it is period correct and cost effective at about $2/ sq. ft. Subway tile acquired its name having been used in the Heins and LaFarge architectural design of the New York City subway stations when they opened in the early 20th century and have been a mainstay in period restorations as well as coming back into popularity relatively often ever since. 

  

Laura and I started subway tiling the window wall about 8 hours after pouring the rest of the subfloor. I'll admit that my side drooped a little bit. We were about 4 rows in on the window wall when she noticed and fixed it since I just couldn't take it at that point.

We ended up applying thinset to both the wall and back-buttering (putting thinset on) the tiles themselves. As you might imagine, that takes a while and we finally called it a night around 2 am. 

I think it looks brilliant. There's a little detail surprise you can't see in the photo and it's not grouted yet, but that's coming soon. Stay tuned for another update as the Saga continues!





The first buckets of color

Over 4^th of July weekend, I made a trip back to my beloved Detroit for paint. Well, technically, I was really there for my family, but paint was part of the weekend.

About an hour from my parents’ house is a town called Jackson. Jackson is home to the closest Seven Paints store by far and Seven Paints is pretty much the only place that carries California Paints. For comparison purposes, the closest one to Isthmus House is 144 miles away in Oswego, Illinois.

My mother and I took a field trip over to the store and spent about an hour and a half choosing nearly all of the colors for the first floor of the house. This is particularly challenging because every room will be visible from every other room when I reopen the foyer to the kitchen. That means all of the colors have to transition nicely but also define the spaces.

We definitely got enough paint to give me something to do for a while!

The foyer is going to be in the beautiful soft Sleeper’s Entry with a Mid-Century White ceiling (along with all of the ceilings in the house). We’re going to be reopening the vaulted ceiling in the foyer since it’s poorly drywalled and paneled over. Really, who does that?

From there, I’ll transition into the living room once it’s drywalled over in a pretty Clamshell grey with Ivory Cottage in the porch. The buttery Ivory Cottage will need go directly over the paneling once it’s sanded – don’t worry, there will be pictures for the whole thing!

The dining room will be a soft sage color called Sea Oats before we reach the kitchen in a beautiful Garden Terrace.

So, when we’re done, the transition between the rooms will look like this (a little lighter and brighter maybe, depending on your computer’s graphic properties):

With all Relative White trim, the house should go back to looking clean and pretty with just a few hundred dollars and some time. Photos to follow as we finish room by room!

Update: These plans changed dramatically when I opened a can and was all ready to paint and it was way off from the desired colors a while later. I can't say whether or not that's typical but we made some last minute changes at Isthmus House!

The Heaviest Piece of Furniture I Own

For those of you who have helped me move the lockers, you know that they’re quite a bear.

A little back story: A few years ago, I found these very large, vintage, rusty, green lockers at a local antiques store and immediately fell in love. I offered $200 cash and took them home a couple of days later. At the time, I lived on the first floor of an apartment building with relatively large doorways and a friend and I were able to get them into my bedroom as console table-like extra storage.

Here’s a picture of them the day I found them

Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve moved three times, twice into second floor dwellings but with elevators both times. It’s a miracle, however, that my friends keep me around – and keep offering (agreeing?) to help me move.

At some point in there, I decided it was a good idea to start sanding them down. I’m sure this was because of the rust but it didn’t really occur to me that an inconspicous test patch was necessary. I started with a door face. In my apartment living room. On a Saturday afternoon. That was the only door that ever got sanded. Attractive, no?

When I moved into the Isthmus House, I asked my friends to please leave them in the driveway (with a tarp around them!) because I knew I had some work to do on them.

I was hoping to use them somewhere in our floor of the building but they’re just too big at about 21 inches by 6 feet. So, instead, I came to the troubling decision that I could either sell them or adapt them for use in the upstairs kitchen.

I spent the majority of a weekend afternoon sanding down all of the straight edges and doors outside in my driveway because The Roommate was out for the day and I feel like you’re allowed to be a little louder in your yard on a weekend afternoon.

After about 2 and a half hours I'd made it this far:

Once the edges and doors were all sanded, it was pretty obvious that The Roommate and I weren’t going to be making it up the narrow stairs with these on our own so I called my friend Joe, who is probably the most understanding and reliably helpful person on the face of the planet.

We decided it made the most sense to get a small piece of particle board for directly under the lockers so that they could sit in the  upstairs kitchen where I’m making them into extra “cabinetry.” The move upstairs wasn’t a ton of fun (deadlifting 100 pounds on stairs isn’t usually) but the rust is gone and the insides of each locker have a fresh coat of shiny, white paint. All that’s left is a countertop, which I’m working on.

Now that they’re in, the lockers look great in the kitchen and give an unexpected industrial feel in a pretty traditional home (picture to come!). It took 4 moves, about seven dedicated hours and a ton of muscle but I’m glad we were able to rework and repurpose the lockers and find them a place in my home. And I’m sure Joe and friends are glad they won’t be moving again for a very long time.

Update: I used these in my workshop for quite a while after this post and they worked beautifully. When I pulled everything out of the upstairs workshop to move it to the basement, these went into the garage sale due to lack of space. I think that was the right decision but I don't think I made the right decision sanding the faces of them. I wish I'd left them alone. Do with that information what you will but remember that original is best 99% of the time and this wasn't a good exception.

The Saga of the Wood Paneled Shower - Part II

In The Saga of the Wood Paneled Shower - Part I, out came the paneling in the shower, the walls, etc. Now, the downstairs bathroom is fully gutted minus the sink. That means the tub, mold, walls behind the shower, fixtures, door, hardwood floors, everything. Here's how it went down.

First, the mold remediators came in. They taped and plastic’d everything up and sprayed, vacuumed and sealed all of the mold into submission, ensuring it won’t return. I can’t say enough good things about their work, even if it did cost me $1000!

I got back to work once it was clear and I called in a contractor to hang the cement board and greenboard in the bathroom since the walls weren't plumb. Cement board goes behind things like shower enclosures and is “superior mold protection.” The greenboard (pretty much treated drywall) goes above the shower enclosure and is mold resistant. While I can’t say that I love the work the contractor did, the good part is that I then had insulated exterior walls and we managed to save the plaster in the rest of the room so I can just paint it.

Once the walls were up, my sister and I also worked on pulling the rather un-level hardwood floor out in the hopes that I can use some of the ¾ inch spruce or hard longboard pine to patch some of the floors in the rest of the house. They really don’t have hardwood like that anymore – it took over an hour and several specialized blades in an oscillating saw to get the remnants out flush to the wall. There was smoke in the air from how hard the boards were on the saw blades.

My dad mudded, taped and sanded down the seams (see my last post for more about how he’s a magician with those supplies), and managed to get us a surface we could lay tile on that would actually stick.

After that was all finished up, Laura and I waterproof membrane’d the heck out of those walls using a product called RedGard. You brush it on hot Barbie pink, it dries to a bright red and it blocks water. Have I mentioned that I never want to see a hint of mold in my house again?

So, that was the extended demo of the bathroom all the way down to the studs and the subfloor. Up next – the rebuild!

A twist in the story - two units become one

The family has come and is on their way back to Detroit and the Isthmus House is looking better! I didn’t have a spare minute to write on here so thanks for your patience and get ready for a shower of posts this week (small pun unintended).

The bathroom is still in progress. I know, it’s a little bit of a teaser right now, but I promise it’ll be worth it. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway!

Something that was done this week though is… drumroll please… the downstairs living room/porch!

Now, if you’ve been reading to this point, you know that the porch was my bedroom.  That's changed and I’m making Isthmus House a single-family home now instead of in a year. If you’re wondering why, well, I have plenty of reasons.

#1 - I’m an introvert (true story!) who likes just a little of her own space – and who doesn’t like a little more living space for everyone?

#2 - the cost to make the porch private enough for a bedroom was roughly equivalent to a month’s rent from the upstairs unit. Broken down over the year, it wasn’t a big difference financially to just rent out the remaining bedroom instead.

#3 - We’re going to have to renovate the kitchen in the next 6 months to a year and it’s a major hassle to not have a kitchen – and I doubt The Roommate would appreciate that much. This way, we can use the upstairs kitchen during that time!

There are other reasons, but I won’t bore you with them all. Getting back to the point, I moved upstairs so the porch is now open except for my box spring that was not going up those stairs without being sawed in half. That might be a project for this weekend but we’ll see.

With the shared space now being more important, the living room also got a face lift. First, my little sister, Laura, dad and I replaced the ceiling fan with minimal cursing and throwing of things like brackets (I’ll take credit for both). Fancy, no? It even has a remote!

 My dad pretty much finished the rest himself. He’s incredible – especially with joint compound, a putty knife and some paint – and he really wanted the living room done this weekend.

While the extra light switch, vent and thermostat where nice, open doorways with casings belonged were problematic, the bigger issue was the severe damage. As I suspected in my last post where I pulled off the paneling, the damage from the paneling or that it covered on the walls was pretty bad.

Around a vent, we found smoke damage. That's not surprising since my neighbors told me there was a dryer fire about 18 months ago but it would have been good to know before I signed on the dotted line. The original baseboards were apparently ripped off, taking large amounts of plaster with them and there were large cracks elsewhere.

On the bright side, we also figured out when the paneling was put up – somewhere around November 1963 – the oldest piece of mail we found behind it! I loved getting a little glimpse into some of what Isthmus House held before this.

After about twelve hours of spackling, taping, patching and sanding he got them to the point where they could be painted for the time being. It’s not quite irreparable - it'll just take lots of time and sanding - but my dad took it most of the way and they certainly look good enough for now. Check out the new “delicate pearl” color. It’s so much lighter and brighter than the paneling and navy and it’s still just temporary!

Isthmus House is coming along – slowly but surely – and my family’s trip was a super productive, much appreciated step along the way! Stay tuned for more on what the family accomplished while they were here!

Off with the walls! Or at least the paneling...

As many of you know from our guest blogger (Mom, aka Sita) on Sunday, my family is on their way into town to give me a hand around the house so I'm taking the rest of this week off starting today. Since my circular saw decided not to work as soon as I started the day's initial project, I began pulling the paneling off the walls of Isthmus House's downstairs living room instead. More on the downstairs bathroom tomorrow!

To be fair, the paneling in the living room wasn’t dreadful. It’s just dark in a room that only has one small window. Here’s what it looked like before I got started.

The wood was pretty easy to pull since it was just nailed in to wood slats attached to the plaster. I tried to save as many pieces with both the tongue and groove as possible but only salvaged a few. Behind the paneling was dust. Not mold! But, holy cow, a lot of dust.

Interestingly, it looks like the top portion of the wall was white at one point, then lime green, then white again and now, of course, navy blue. I have to wonder how it did with the lime but I suppose it would have been lighter and brighter than navy. The bottom color is a kind of pinky beige.

 

I vacuumed as much of the dust off as I could, but the room will definitely need a good scrubbing in the next couple of days before anything else happens.

Here’s what I’ve got now that the paneling’s down. You can see exactly where the baseboards used to be (the dark area). I wonder if they were ever painted.

Since the family's around, it seems like a good time to consider adding beadboard or a panel wainscoting all the way around the room in white – what color do you think the top portion should be? Leave me a comment - we're probably going paint shopping tomorrow!