Home "Improvement"

[GaryF]

On 3/7/2024 at 11:29 AM, tony@CIC said:

Well it finally got to be that time - remodeling the guest bathroom in our Florida condo. As background, we bought the condo in 2020 from its original owner (actually from his family) and hasn't been updated since it was originally built in 1992. Typically, I do all of the remodeling with the last project being the kitchen. However, two lessons learned from that project: removing tile, especially from a concrete floor is a miserable job, two; I'd rather be golfing. However, there are things I can easily do between rounds, like demo. So let the project begin and hopefully no big surprises! 

We knew the old vanity was not only out of date and way too low but surprised that the particle board had warped and, in some places, started to disintegrate from moisture (leaky faucet?). 

A hammer made quick work of the manmade stone countertop and cabinet. But the huge 3X5' mirror was a challenge. We got it into the back of our small suv but it did break on the way to the county dump. We knew we had wallpaper but didn't realize it was painted over and oh by the way that was put on top of another layer of wallpaper. I was good - I kept all of the swear words under my breadth as I was removing decades of old wallpaper from UNPRIMED walls which came off with some of the drywall paper

! 

At the same time, we (she) decided we needed to upgrade the fixtures, including those in the shower. That in itself was a separate journey trying to get an upgrade to the existing shower faucet - of which there is only one model available that looks like the old one. Think - new rough in valve plus the rest of the assembly. Since it had to be done in concert with the tile guy (he's replacing the old drywall in the shower with cement board - yeah they used drywall in back of the shower tile ) - I decided to farm that project out as well. 

More updates coming next week - stay tuned folks. 

Good luck with the project!  I think I would have done it myself and also gut the shower and put in a new pan.  During the Covid spring, I finished our upstairs bonus room and bath and staircase that was roughed in when we built the house a couple years earlier.  I had never done that before but was well worth it.  With all the trouble you had with removing the wallpaper etc, I would have just removed the sheet rock and replaced it. That would also help with running any electrical if that was needed.  

But, I get it about wanting to play golf, but I can only golf so much and I like doing ‘building’ projects.  What I save with diy, I can spend elsewhere.  For my bonus room & full bath, my builder wanted $60K and I did it for $27K.  

[tony@CIC]

14 minutes ago, GaryF said:

 What I save with diy, I can spend elsewhere.  For my bonus room & full bath, my builder wanted $60K and I did it for $27K.  

Yup - I get that! Typically,  I do all of the house projects, the last one was replacing all of the kitchen cabinets plus removing the tile floor (off of concrete). The tile removal convinced me that I never want to do that again. Our tile guy had the ceramic bathroom floor and wall tile demoed in less then a couple of hours. 

[Shapotomous]

Took advantage of some nice weather today to do some yard cleanup around the putting green and stream.  So i take full blame if the mid atlantic gets a late winter blizzard in the next two weeks since i even brought out the ballwasher.  Flags and sticks need some paint.  Some think the color scheme is john deere green & yellow because thats where the spray paint came from but to me it looks like Augusta colors!

[TSauer]

10 minutes ago, Shapotomous said:

Took advantage of some nice weather today to do some yard cleanup around the putting green and stream.  So i take full blame if the mid atlantic gets a late winter blizzard in the next two weeks since i even brought out the ballwasher.  Flags and sticks need some paint.  Some think the color scheme is john deere green & yellow because thats where the spray paint came from but to me it looks like Augusta colors!

Dang… I’m jealous! I wanted to do something similar in my back yard but I’m afraid I’d mess it up and waste my money. Is there a lot of maintenance to keep things looking nice?

[skraeling]

Welp it was pricey but my word… what an upgrade.

quieter more efficient overall just better.

[Shapotomous]

1 hour ago, TSauer said:

Dang… I’m jealous! I wanted to do something similar in my back yard but I’m afraid I’d mess it up and waste my money. Is there a lot of maintenance to keep things looking nice?

Maintenance on the putting green consists of painting the flags and sticks once a year, using the leaf blower for less than 5 min on a frequent basis, but we live in a state forest so leaves are a plague.  I do get some weeds creeping into the fringe but a few times a year maybe 10 min to pull them out.  If it starts rolling too fast I will take a push broom to it for maybe 15 min to make the blades of fake grass stand up a bit to slow it down.  It has been a great backyard practice spot for the last 15 years.  We paid to have it put in by a certified SW Greens installer and they did a great job, worth every $ to me.

The stream / waterfall was necessary for SWMBO to OK the whole project.  Maintenance is to add a bit of bleach to the water a few times a year.  Adjusting the rocks in the stream bed has to happen after each visit from a little kid as they love to play in the water.  But I don't stop them because I remember how much fun it was to do that as a kid.  Leaves need to be picked out frequently.  The water feature was designed and installed by us.  Shaping the stream bed and hauling tons of rocks was my fitness membership for a summer.

We only use potted plants around the green so they need to be watered frequently in the summer heat, usually every other day.  For me that's a worthy trade to weeding a garden bed.  And the plants need to be sprayed with deer out every two or three weeks to keep the deer from eating them.

I think its the kind of thing to do if you know you are in the house for the long term.

Edited March 17 by Shapotomous