Bathroom pt 4

 I was able to finish up most of the ceiling, and I put down self-leveling concrete in the shower pan.  However, self-leveling is a bit of a misnomer.  It looks really smooth and level, but it isn't 100% level there is probably at leave a 1/4 to 1/2 difference in some places...

I put some glue on the fins of the shower pan, but it didn't fix it entirely and the pan will squeak a bit here and there.  I may try to spray some foam under it, but it will probably not work well, since there are fins in the way...  If I could start over I would put down a bed of mortar, or make sure it was really level.

Bathroom pt 3

 As I was waiting for the concrete to dry, I started working on the ceiling.  Greg has a bunch of cedar he had planned to use for a sauna, but it worked really well as the ceiling in the bathroom as well.

I would end up regretting just putting the wood in there like that, as they were not easy to remove.  However, they did get the job done.

Bathroom pt 2

 I was eventually able to get the old plumbing out, I tried heat, that didn't work and probably wasn't too healthy...  The I used a reciprocating saw and cut off the trap, so I could use some drill bits and drill out the lead/oakum.  Eventually I was able to wiggle it out.

That is a lot of years of built up hair in the drain, amazing that it worked at all!

There is a rubber gasket that goes into the iron pipe, then this goes in and we start the looping.

I thought about putting the trap coming right out of the iron drain, but the guy at Ace said it would be best to have it right under the drain and it worked well like that.  Overall very happy with how it all turned out.  It seems to be draining well, and hopefully will be for a long time!

To redo a basement bathroom at the Cabin

 I am writing this on October 30th, because I wanted to finish the bathroom before I posted about it.  It is somewhat done at this point.  We did the demo on this day.  We had been up since Friday, but had played a lot!  Leading up to this, I had taken out the toilet, sink, drywall, and rewired for the new location of the switches.  But we had held off on the shower till now, since it is the only one!

That is the before.  We accomplished quite a bit that first day!

Then I saw this!

New Radon Fan after 10 years

 The radon fan in the garage has always generated a low hum, but lately it had been getting quite bad.

So I picked up a new one and installed it today.  It is amazing quiet!  I can't remember if the old one was ever this quiet, but it hasn't been in a long time.

Shower Door for Kids

We have been talking about putting in shower doors in the kids bathroom for awhile.  The shower curtain pole would fall down and water would come out if the curtain wasn't positions just right.

We purchased a tub shower door kit and I was able to cut the threshold piece and put that down.  Then when we put the jambs on noticed that we would almost hit our head walking into the shower.  So it was back to Menards to get the full sized door.  I guess out tub is very low.

I put the threshold piece from the full size kit back in the tub kit and returned the tub kit to the store.  They weren't sure they wanted to take it back w/o going through the box, but laziness took over and they took it back w/o too much issue.  Though I can certainly understand why they would want to be careful.

Our shower has a trim piece that goes around the top, so I have to take off the little ridge that is on the back of the jamb.  It looks bad here, but you can't really tell once it was installed.  The install would have gone very quick, except for this and cutting the threshold and top piece.  I used a Dremel and the results look nice, but it took awhile.  And a lot of cutting wheels!

I tried to use a titanium bit to drill into the tile, but it wasn't working well and I was nervous to do it...  So I picked up this set and they work amazing well!  Glad I waited and used the right tool.

Very happy with the finished product, I would do these everywhere but they are about $600.

Ice Maker

 When we went to CO this year to vacation we used the countertop ice maker that Jason has and really liked the nugget ice that came out.  So we decided to get one and I wanted it to have a more permanent installation and with less maintenance for me!

We used it on the counter for awhile then moved it into the pantry where I was able to hook it up to a water line.  That worked great, but I also wanted to be able to clean it without having to move it around, so I attached the drain lines to some valves and ran them into the basement.

We have been using it about a month like this and I finally got around to cleaning it.  Manual recommends once a week cleaning, but it seemed OK.  So we will see.