How to Repair, Reuse and Move a Door to a New Location

I grew up in a home with one and a half baths. Honestly, for a family of four, that was perfectly fine. Turns out, that's not really sufficient for four unrelated people living under one roof. That's a little squishy.

It's not that The Roommates are hard to live with, it's more that it's not quite as kosher to be in the same bathroom with all of the bathroom-y things happening at the same time when you're not immediate family.

That meant, with two new Roommates moving in within the last month, that we needed more than one bathroom - pronto.

We left off in the bathroom upstairs with a shiny "new" vanity that has running water, storage, and lots of counter space - especially when compared with the downstairs pedestal.

Now it was time for yet another door!

Since I know we talked about doors last week (I really do have quite the collection - the original Roommate aids and abets this addiction - I mean, collection - with some regularity), I'll skim over the door a bit for you all.

We had to entirely reframe out the bathroom doorway when we pulled permits to move the wall between the bathroom and bedroom a few inches. The city feels that a second floor bathroom should be accessible so it had to become 32 inches instead of the intended 30 inches I really wanted.

Is it the end of the world? No. Is it a little vexing? Yes, because I couldn't reuse the existing door. That one went into my collection.

Instead, I stole a door from the downstairs living room that divided it from the foyer since I think it was added when Isthmus House was converted from single family to a duplex. Why do I think that? It was signed and dated!

To get the door ready to move upstairs, we had to prep a little. After taking it off the door frame leading into the living room, I pulled off the board covering it up just like the door we exposed in the kitchen. That's when I found the nifty signature above. 

There was also a modern doorknob hole that was both unnecessary and unwanted - large holes are generally frowned upon for bathroom doors.

Filling in a hole in a door is super simple. First, lay the door flat on a work surface. If you're anything like me and a little too lazy to bother getting out your sawhorses, at least protect your floors.

Next, use wood filler to fill the hole - leaving it slightly concave. I used wood weld - a product designed to be a quick filler for wood repairs. You just knead it for a couple of minutes - it smells awful - and then squish it to whatever you need to fill.

It dries really quickly (about an hour) and is rock hard once it does.

After it's all dry, a quick fill with joint compound levels it out.

Since I hate hanging doors with a fiery passion, my contractor took care of that part, complete with egg and dart doorknob and fleur de lis hinges to match the rest of the original doorknob hardware around the house.

So now we have a bathroom door - it even has a lock!

Only one update left before the final reveal! Can't wait!

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 Saga of the Wood Paneled Shower - Part I

I love Rehab Addict, the show on DIY Network (and Thursday nights on HGTV) that details Designer/Real Estate Agent/Restoration Expert Nicole Curtis’s journeys through restoring houses like mine to what they once were.  


To get to the good parts though, you’ve got to get through the rougher ones. In my case, that means demoing the vast majority of a bathroom. It turns out that isn’t nearly as fun or therapeutic as it looks on TV.


Let’s start with how this bathroom started when I bought the Isthmus House.

In my opinion, the worst of it was the wood paneling in the shower… and on the walls… and on the makeshift wall and “seat” between the shower and the toilet. And no exhaust fan. Did I mention that among all that wood there was also a window in the shower? Or that the 60s ceiling tiles (please, don’t be asbestos), trim and grass cloth wallpaper were still intact?

This is how it looked when I started. You can see a bit of the paneling under the window on the left.

I started by trying to pry off the paneling from inside the shower because I assumed there was mold immediately behind it. Turns out, the wood paneling was new and had been recently nailed and glued down. To get the paneling off, I had to chisel between the panels to get a claw-hold before prying.

After prying off the paneling, I was pleasantly surprised that there was new cement board underneath and no apparent signs of mold or mildew despite it being obvious no one had even tried to waterproof. Reread my “before” paragraph above and you’ll understand my surprise. Feeling relieved, I took down some plaster above the window to see if any moisture had gotten around the edges and into the walls.

Here’s a pic of the newly exposed lath by the window in the shower. You can see the edges of the new cement board underneath as well as some of the paneling. Both were silicone'd in. 

I had to go on a business trip the next day so I let it go for a week or so while I worked on some other things around the house before digging back in.

This past Sunday, when The Roommate was gone for a bit, I decided that the rest of the bathroom should come down and out while I could make plenty of noise. Back on went the respirator, safety glasses and gloves and out came the plastic to protect the rest of the room along with my claw, hammer and screwdriver.

I got through some more plaster and taking down the towel racks when I realized that the pieces of paneling I was removing along the wall adjacent to the shower were coming out awfully easily and seemed kind of soft. If you just said “oh, no,” you guessed it. Water had been seeping from the edge of the tub into the wall and wicking along the drywall that had been installed creating mold and plenty of it.

Since I was wearing a mold-grade respirator and was well-protected (and The Roommate wasn’t coming home for a while), I kept pulling. And pulling and pulling. There was mold under the drywall and that brand new cement board and well embedded in the wall and lath. It went all the way into the beams and through the wall to the lath on the kitchen side.

After assessing the damage and coming to the conclusion that this had seemingly been covered up by whoever had done the work, I called a local company and asked them to come out for a consultation for remediation services before I could leave on yet another business trip. While they made it out for the consult, I learned that the middle of June is the busiest time of year for them so I’ll be waiting until next week for them to come out to take care of this mess to the tune of a cool thousand bucks. For reference purposes, that’s about equal to the entire tile budget that includes a marble basket weave floor.

I figure there are a couple of lessons learned here and a couple of reminders worth noting.

1.   It is not okay for anyone to cover up things that can affect a future resident’s health. This includes black mold and potential structural damage.

2.   If at first you don’t see mold when you expect it, keep looking until all potentially affected surfaces are checked.

3.   It doesn’t matter if building code says you don’t need an exhaust fan in the bathroom because there’s a window. No one opens a bathroom window after a shower in January in Wisconsin. Install an exhaust fan – and don’t vent it to your attic.

4.   Your contingency fund matters. I put aside a little more than 20% contingency in the budget for this bathroom for when issues came up. They did and I’m glad to have “planned” for the just-in-case.
5.   You never know exactly what's behind your walls until you open them. I found this little surprise! Looks like the workers might have left it in the 40s or so!

This is the part where the road bumps happen but we get through them so that y’all can see my new bathroom within the next few weeks. More on the saga of the soon-to-be-clean bathroom to come!