Year: 2021

Stair Cladding

November 16, 2021 / Matt / 0 Comments

I built the first floor stairs quite a while ago, back in August of 2014, actually. They’re a combination of LVL and OSB, and the intention has always been to skin or clad them in wood. We debated a bit whether to do all stained or white risers and skirts with stained steps, and we finally settled on the latter, since the underside of the stairs is drywalled, and the stairs up to the attic are also drywalled since they’ll have carpeting, plus they don’t stock red oak plywood locally. With the hardwood flooring going in, now’s a great time to get this project into gear.

Framed Stairs (also hardwood flooring being installed)

I ordered pre-made stair treads that are routed to fit our stairs. The stairs are open on the right side all the way up, so this means we have an overhang of the tread bullnose on that side as well as the front. The retro treads are unfinished red oak, just like the floors, and were made (fairly) locally in Goshen, Indiana. After some back and forth with the company to confirm the specifications, they made them and shipped them over along with the newel posts. With stairs up to the attic and hallways overlooking the stairs, there’s actually quite a few newel posts.

I picked up a cheap Wen track saw, which is awesome. I’ve wanted a track saw for a while, since they’re great for cutting large panel goods in straight lines, much easier and more accurate than trying to manhandle a 4×8 sheet through the table saw along a fence. I went with quarter inch veneer plywood for the risers, because they’re just going to be painted, so there isn’t any need for them to be particularly thick. The OSB behind it is already 3/4″.

After vacuuming the steps and removing a kazillion staples from when the spray foam installers put plastic over everything (and then continuing to find stray staples throughout this process), I started from the top, gluing and stapling the plywood to the risers. All of the riser pieces I cut slightly shorter than the height of the risers themselves because the tread will overlap at the top and cover the edge at the bottom. That simplified the sizing, since I have at least a half inch of “fudge”. I did a test fit with the tread and realized the top step needed the depth padded, so I had to scrap my first attempt. I added some hardwood flooring scraps and the second try worked better. When I got to the side skirt, which covers the side of the stringer, I cut a strip the correct length, but then mistakenly cut too much off the end to make the angle where it meets the second floor. Oh well, I was going to have to pick up another sheet of plywood anyway.

I went to Home Depot after it stopped raining and picked up some additional supplies, including another sheet of quarter inch veneer plywood, which I wratchet-strapped to the roof of our hatchback. Not 500 feet from the store, a gust of wind caught the leading edge and ripped about three feet of it off, pinwheeling over the car and landing in front of the car behind me. I quickly pulled over and shoved the ripped off piece into the back seat. Fortunately, the tear happened in a spot that I could still use it. With the additional sheet back at the house, if in pieces, progress continued more smoothly. I was able to cut the remaining pieces for the risers, and then the skirting for the larger run.

One of the things that I neglected to mention is why I’m doing this project in the first place. After all, we hired out the rest of the house, right? People have shown up to do siding, the roof, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, spray foam, drywall, tiling, build the front and back porch, tile the bathrooms, lay the hardwood flooring, so why am I working on stuff at all? The answer is, not surprisingly, money. Our GC quoted us $22,000 to clad the stairs and install railings up to the attic. Material costs for all the treads, newel posts, balusters, rails, plywood, etc. is several thousand all told, but it’s not anywhere near that, so I asked what the cost for labor would be if we bought all the materials ourselves, and he said $11,000. My problem is that I know roughly how to do these things and how much time and effort is involved. In my opinion, this wasn’t anywhere near eleven grand in labor, so I told the GC I’d do it myself. So here I am, installing the stair cladding and eventually newel posts, railings, and balusters.

Now, in fairness, I did need a lot of tools to do this work. Just for this project, I used a shop vac with dust extractor, scraper, needle nose vice grips, mini pry bar, track saw, allen wrench, jig saw, miter saw, router, channel locks, impact driver (with three different bits), a pneumatic stapler and accompanying compressor, putty knife, measuring tape, angle finder, combination square, pencil, gluebot, shop light, utility razor, hammer, straight edge, and two different chisels, and that’s before I got to sanding and painting. I could have done it without the track saw, but since I was already saving money and I knew I’d get more use out of it down the road, it was easy enough to justify buying. All of the other tools we already had, which is part of why we sign up for these projects.

With the riser cladding attached, I first rough cut to the steps with the jigsaw, then followed up with a flush bit on the router. Since it’s only quarter inch plywood, this went fairly quickly, with just a couple spots the router couldn’t get into and I had to use a razor blade. I added outside corner trim to the bottom edge to transition to the drywall underneath, which involved some fancy cuts that actually turned out pretty well. Once everything was glued and stapled, I went over every staple and joint with Drydex, a kind of spackle. I’ve read that for painted wood, Drydex is a better choice than wood fill. I started out using a putty knife, but quickly switched to my fingers like an overgrown pre-schooler playing with Play-Doh.

I came back a bit later and sanded everything smooth, reapplying a couple of spots and hitting a few more proud staples with a hammer. The thicker joints were still pink so I decided to leave it overnight. The next morning I sanded and reapplied a couple of the corners again. The one downside to the Drydex is that it’s a little too easy to sand, so I wound up taking too much off and then having to add it back on again. Eventually I got it smooth enough to put on the first coat of paint, of course finding new spots that would require touch ups. After this cycle repeated for a bit, I finally reached the point where it either looked good enough or I didn’t know how to make it look better, and I rolled a couple coats of finish paint on.

The last step in the process was to install the treads. I was concerned about using a brad nailer, since I don’t want any squeaks, so I decided just to use PL Premium glue. There are a total of fifteen treads, so I bought a couple tubes, which turned out to be woefully inadequate. I started from the top and worked my way down, cleaning each rough tread and then squeezing on an even pattern of glue before pressing the finish tread into place. I ran out of glue, ran to the store and bought two more tubes, and then got the rest of the finish treads in place.

Then I had to clean up all my tools since the hardwood floor guys were coming back the next day, which unfortunately meant I needed to take a lot of stuff upstairs. I made the mistake of thinking this wouldn’t really affect the glue set up, and by the time I was done several of the treads were loose. This meant I had to go to the store again and buy more glue, so I could reattach them. Then, because sometimes this is how things go, there were more loose treads than I realized, I used up both tubes, had to run to the store again and buy still more glue, to finally finish things up. The next day when Sarah and I tried them out, we discovered one of the treads squeaks.

The hardwood floor guys are back and they’re going to finish the treads along with the floor. When they’re done, I’ll most likely pry that tread back up, scrape down the glue, and re-glue it. The good news is I think I still have enough glue left.

Getting Things Done

November 4, 2021 / Matt / 3 Comments

After the whirlwind post I did almost a month ago, I was planning to be better about posting more frequently to keep up to date on everything, but that didn’t happen. So here we are again with a whole bunch of updates to get you current. The good news is that this time around there are some things that are actually finished.

We’ll start with tile. The tile installers didn’t show up on Monday, but they did show up later that week and got to work. I bought twelve 50lb bags of thinset (8 modified, 4 unmodified) based on some square footage calculations, but that was apparently insufficient. I had to run out and buy another ten bags of modified, then six more bags on unmodified. Ultimately, there were three left over (this is really sounding like a math problem). I also had to run out and buy more grout, and some random extra tiles, and then return some extra tiles. In short, I made a lot of trips to the store through the process, which was a bit over a week.

When they were done, we noticed a couple of issues and we had to ask them to come back. The powder room on the first floor was uneven, and they didn’t make the shower drain opening big enough to fit the drain, but they came back and got everything fixed, so the bathroom tile is now complete. The kitchen backsplash has to wait until cabinets and counters are in.

Meanwhile, work on the back porch continued. We had a bit of a back and forth on color. They originally told us we could paint it whatever color we wanted, so we said white, since that would match the front porch and the trim. Then they forgot about that, and started bringing some items pre-painted black. We asked about the color and they said it was fine, then later said white would look bad “like hospital”. I suggested the stair and railings could be black and the frame could stay white, but then they said they would pain the inside of the frame black regardless, so finally we said just to paint it black. We’re actually fine with black, and if they had said at the start it had to be black we wouldn’t have minded, but it was a bit frustrating to be given the option and then basically not given the option. The famous quote of Henry Ford “any color so long as it is black” was literally our experience here.

On the other end of the house, the front porch is done! I had mentioned in a previous post that they hadn’t finished the roofline, the fascia, soffit, and gutters. They did most of the front porch work back in July but said they needed materials to come in that would take about a month. It had been a few, so I contacted them and they were surprised to learn it wasn’t finished. Unfortunately, that’s fairly typical of our experience with contractors. Fortunately, they did come back out and the front of our house finally looks done.

Finished front porch! Also, Halloween spiderwebs and skeleton.

The back porch was finally completed yesterday, along with some adjusted concrete footings. It was just eight and a half short weeks after they told us it would take about two. On the plus side, it does look really nice, and it includes angled sheeting under the second floor to drain water. We may add a gutter and downspout down the road.

We also started work on the cabinets. My sister Jessica came up from Indiana for the day to help assemble the upper cabinets for the kitchen. We figured we could install those before the floors were done. Because we’re putting in a hardwood floor that will be sanded and finished after it’s installed, we don’t want to put the base cabinets in first, so we didn’t want to assemble them either. I learned some tricks with the cabinet assembly, including the importance of sanding some of the dovetail edges so they go together a bit more easily, using enough glue so they stay together, and also how to staple without it popping into the back of the cabinet, something I wish I’d figured out before I did so in a place it will be visible.

Painting work continues. We realized the “light gray” color we had for the hall and stairwell was more “light blue” and we didn’t like it. At the same time, the taupe we had in the kitchen and living room seemed a bit too dark and a bit cool for the cabinet finish, so we repainted all of it with a light taupe called “Mocha Light”. We haven’t finished repainting the living room, but we may get to that tonight. Sarah started on the den, the only other room we have left.

Upper cabinets mounted… just 2″ too high

With help from our friend Dan, we hung the upper kitchen cabinets (except for one that gets attached to a full-height floor cabinet). We had debated whether to hang them 54″ or 56″ above the floor and finally settled on 56 to give us a bit more height above the counter. Unfortunately, I later realized the aforementioned floor cabinet is 114″ tall, and the upper cabinets are 60″ (uh oh, another math problem), meaning we needed to hang them at 54″ after all. So, we’ll have to take those down and re-hang them. That’s honestly not the worst thing in the world, since a couple of gaps had opened up between cabinet edges, so a second try at getting everything tight will hopefully resolve that.

With word that the hardwood flooring was going to be installed, we had to get everything cleared off the floor, meaning our freshly tiles bathrooms and the attic became dumping grounds for all the cabinet parts, stair parts, light fixtures and plumbing fixtures still in boxes, assorted tools and other construction accoutrements. With Dan’s help to haul the AC condensers up the stairs and out onto the second floor deck (where they’ll be installed), as well as moving the bathroom vanity this morning now that the glue is dry, we were ready, and as I type this, they’re going to town. I’m terrified that they’ll puncture a radiant heat pex line, but they said they’ve installed over this before, so hopefully it will go smoothly. Allegedly they’ll be done Saturday, so we’re planning not to be here for the smelliest parts of that. It’s getting a bit cold outside to air the house out.

Once the floors are done we’ll go full bore on the kitchen cabinets and the stair cladding. Hopefully the AC installers will be out to finish that up, and the trim guy can start work not long after that. We need to get the shower glass lined up, pick out countertops, and get the painting done. Things are starting to feel like we’re closing in on being able to live upstairs. A big thanks go out to Jessica and Dan for helping out!

Smart Switches

October 14, 2021 / Matt / 0 Comments

Among our many recent purchases for the house was light switches . I’ve been a fan of smart homes since before they really existed. As a kid I read an article in the September 1990 issue of Popular Science magazine about the “world’s smartest houses” and have been incorporating automation and remote control ever since, first with “Plug’n Power” controls from Radio Shack (a rebranded X10 implementation) and eventually Z-Wave switches, a SmartThings hub, and Google Home assistants.

We have lots of holes in the walls like this

Smart switches and controls have gotten a lot more common in the past decade, with their technology typically falling into one of several wireless categories: WiFi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, and Zigbee. WiFi is fairly ubiquitous and you don’t need a hub, but the more devices you add to WiFi, the slower it gets. Bluetooth can create a proper mesh, but a lot of the implementations don’t and it has some range limits. Zigbee and Z-Wave are very similar protocols where they can create a mesh network from one device to another, but they both need a hub and aren’t inter-compatible. I have a SmartThings hub that can do both Z-Wave and Zigbee, but my existing switches and other devices are all Z-Wave.

After reading that Amazon was adding Zigbee hubs to new Alexa devices, I wondered if the writing was on the wall for Z-Wave and I should switch up. Ultimately I decided that I’d invested enough in Z-Wave already, and that having a mix would make a less reliable mesh. I also found that even if SmartThings goes away (a real risk, as a lot of companies stop supporting their devices after a while), there are open source solutions I can build that will work with my Z-Wave devices without needing a company behind it.

The obvious solution was to buy more of the HomeSeer light switches we have in the basement, except for a few things. First, they don’t dim as low as I’d like when they’re used with LED lights, which we have exclusively. Second, they don’t make them any more. They were replaced with a new version that probably solves the first problem, but they’re quite expensive and now have programmable RGB lights on the side, which seems like a feature I really don’t need for money I really don’t want to spend.

I expanded my search and found that there were several different companies selling switches, but it turns out most of them are the exact same Jasco switch just branded differently. The reviews on those had some notable shortcomings, but the only other actually different model I found on Amazon had other shortcomings. Buzzing sounds, reliability problems, slow response, any number of annoyances that I don’t want to deal with when I’m paying ten times the price of a normal light switch.

Then, finally I came across Zooz light switches. I actually have some other Zooz Z-Wave devices and I know that they have both good company support as well as custom handlers for SmartThings to enable all their features. Best of all they were reasonably priced, especially compared to the HomeSeer switches, and in the case of 3-way and 4-way, you can use a regular light switch at the other end, where most similar devices have special companion switches. I walked around and figured out where we want regular switches, where we want smart switches, smart dimmers, fan control, and I even picked up a scene controller so we can have a switch by the door that can control a bunch of different lights and scenes. The order arrived a few days later, but we’ll have to wait until the electrician comes back to get this all wired up since he hasn’t put the circuits into the panel yet and while I could do that myself, I’m already paying the electrician so he may as well finish the work.

I’ll report in once they’re install on how they’re working. Just the pairing process will take a while, and we’ll have to figure out which switch is which. Eventually I’ll get scenes built in SmartThings and integrate triggers from the security system as well.

Not Much Finished, but Lots of Progress

October 10, 2021 / Matt / 2 Comments

I haven’t updated in a while, which isn’t all that uncommon, but in this case there’s been a lot going on with the house, we just haven’t finished much. There’s something about writing a blog post about something that we’ve made progress on but haven’t actually completed that is neither satisfying to write or to read. However, enough time has gone by and enough has happened that I feel we should get up to speed on where things are, so settle in for a whirlwind post.

Back in the beginning of August, when I last wrote, the drywallers had just finished and we had primed all the walls and ceilings. The drywallers came back and touched up a few things they’d messed up, mostly around the stairwell and we sent them on their way to get paid and not break any more of our stuff.

Work was finally scheduled to start on the back porch, so we started prep by cutting back some sections of the concrete patio that would be difficult to remove later. Ultimately, it was too thick to remove without assistance, but Dean came to the rescue with his SDS Max rotary hammer and chiseled it out for us. We got the rest of the back yard cleared out and everything was set for the back porch construction to begin.

Work started on the back porch, and I was told it would take “two weeks” which sounded pretty absurd at the time and proved to be completely so. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Money Pit, it’s also especially comedic. Nevertheless, with that work ongoing, we started focusing on the interior. Sarah and I started tile shopping and picking paint colors. I used the sprayer to paint two coats of white on all the ceilings and closets, and Sarah started painting a first coat on all the walls from top to bottom. This was mostly on weekends and took a while, since it’s a pretty big house. Honestly, it’s still ongoing.

We bought all the tile and brought it home in two car trips (with the shocks of our hatchback straining under the load) and loaded it first into the back yard, then onto the incomplete back porch, and then carted it into the house, and finally carried it up the stairs. It was something like three thousand pounds of tile, so this was a real effort. Some of our wrought iron balusters arrived, we started picking out and ordering light fixtures, looking at cabinet hardware, and painting continued. I cut the hole for the outlet that will be in the floor of the kitchen so we can have power in our table/island, but can’t install the box or outlet until we have flooring.

Dean came back out and helped me finish cladding the front porch columns. The contractors had decided back in July that cladding the portion from ground level to the bottom of the porch was somehow not part of our agreement and rather than pay them more to do it, I elected to do it myself, especially since they had left enough material behind to do it. They still need to come back and finish the fascia, soffits, gutters, and one side of the stair cladding. He also helped by using his drywall zip tool to cut the openings for the solar tubes back so I was able to complete the installation of both of those.

Getting the back porch contractors the fifty percent complete payment through the bank draw process was an unexpected frustration that took nearly a month and slowed progress considerably. The porch was quite a bit more than originally quoted, and the GC put the new amount and the new company on the draw paperwork, which complicated the lien waivers the bank required, and then I had to wire them the difference (well over ten thousand dollars) even though there was enough to cover the first draw, because of course that’s how it works. Eventually they got their money and work continued, and I was told it would only take a week or so to complete the remainder, but that doesn’t look likely at this point.

I asked the GC about the front porch, since as I mentioned it wasn’t done and in July they told me it would be about a month before they came back, and it’s been nearly three. I also asked about hardwood flooring and tile. They sent out a hardwood flooring sub to provide a quote, which was again more than we have allotted, and the GC said he’d try to find someone cheaper. Later that day, our cabinets that we ordered twelve weeks ago arrived on six pallets and we loaded them all into the house, very aware that if the hardwood flooring needs to be installed, we’ll have to find somewhere else to put all of it. To further complicate matters, we decided we don’t like the paint colors in the first floor and stairwell, and are now re-painting them all with a lighter color.

I bought a cheap track saw and started work on the interior stair cladding. I ordered some treads and newel posts, but the risers and the sides are just quarter inch plywood that we’ll paint. I sliced up one of the sheets to make the side skirts, and the cut the risers using the table saw, which is better for repeatable cuts. Before I got any further on this project, we had to shift gears due to some developments.

The contractor called and said that the tile guys may show up as soon as Monday, since they’re also deck guys but they would come and tile on the days that it’s rainy. That doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence, neither does the fact I’ve specified Schluter Ditra for underlayment several times and they keep saying Durock. We decided we really wanted to do all the waterproofing ourselves to make sure it’s done correctly. I bought the Ditra and twelve sixty pound bags of thinset and this weekend Sarah and I finished prepping the tub and shower surrounds, including mesh tape and thinset on all of the backer board seams and screws and then covering all of it with waterproofing compound. We wound up using two different kinds because the master shower floor pan came with some and we bought RedGuard to do the main bath surround. After using both products, we prefer the KBRS ShowerSeal. Then we thoroughly vacuumed all of the floors, which were covered in drywall mud and dust, and all three bathrooms are ready to tile.

That gets you all up to present. It’s been a busy few months. The back porch is coming along but it’s still not done, we may have tile as soon as this week, but hardwood is still up in the air. We have a ton of unassembled cabinets to put together, maybe they’ll show up to finish the front porch but it’s at least looking better with the columns done. We have still more painting plus repainting to do, and we’ll probably wind up having to haul a lot of the cabinet parts up to the attic to store.

Drywall and Priming

August 2, 2021 / Matt / 1 Comment

The drywallers put in some long hours, some evenings not wrapping up until after 7 pm. There was a week where not much progress was made after everything was hung while we waited for the GC to get a trailer to haul away debris, and then for the trailer to get emptied and brought back. However, as of Thursday afternoon, everything was mudded, taped, and sanded.

The GC had advised me that we wanted to prime right away after they finished because often you don’t notice drywall imperfections until after you prime. That was certainly the case in the basement where I did a lot of my own mudding and sanding, thought it looked pretty good, and then was disappointed after we primed. As a result, he didn’t want to pay them until we had primed and inspected, which made sense. However, he also let me know that they start asking for money the moment the job is done. In this case, that started last Wednesday when he asked if the priming was done and I responded that the drywallers were still there and working. He said they were already asking for their money.

With the pressure on to get the priming done, I picked up the paint sprayer I had lent to Dean Wednesday evening. I’d already picked up two five gallons buckets of PVA primer (recommended for fresh drywall) and a hand masker, a really cool tool that lets you put up masking tape and plastic over windows at the same like a tape gun. Thursday and Friday evenings after work I masked off outlets, can lights, vents, and windows in preparation.

Using the hand masker to cover windows (the noise in the background is Dean with the sprayer)

Saturday morning Dean arrived and we set to work using the sprayer. I’ve previously used the sprayer to paint the second floor as well as the ceiling of the basement, but it’s been over five years, so it took us a while to work out the best technique. We started in the attic, since I expected this and figured I’d rather have the mistakes happen up there. I did manage to screw up a couple of spots where it went on too thick, but we got the hang of it and made decent progress. We quickly realized that the ten gallons wasn’t going to be enough and Dean picked up three more five gallon buckets.

Unfortunately, we ran into problems as we got to back of the second floor. The gun started getting jammed, so I’d clean the nozzle and get back to it only to have it jam again on shorter and shorter intervals. We decided maybe we needed to clean the whole sprayer and pick it back up in the morning, so we got it all washed out. Sunday morning before Dean got here I set the sprayer back up and tested it, and it jammed immediately. We considered buying just a new gun for the sprayer, since the nozzles and filters aren’t available locally, but the price difference was such that Dean left to go pick up a whole new sprayer. I figured if we did get it working, we’d have two and be able to get everything done more quickly.

I did some more searching and found the solution was actually incredibly simple: you turn the nozzle around (from “fan” to “cone”) and blow the other way, which clears the obstruction. Then you flip it back and get back to it. It takes ten seconds! I called Dean back and we got back to work, quickly wrapping up the second floor while I finished masking the first floor and moving things out of the way.

With practice on our technique and better knowledge of the tool, we got the entire first floor done in record time, at least until we ran out of paint! I found a gallon can of primer in the basement that we’d been sitting on for five years and we were able to wrap up the back of the first floor. The new primer was much thicker and didn’t spray as easily, and even so there are some thin spots since we used that up. All told, we sprayed 26 gallons of primer to do the whole house!

I will say without a doubt that while the sprayer has a learning curve, it is so much faster than rolling and has such a good result (when you do it right). We’ll use the sprayer to paint the ceilings as well, and then use the roller attachment for the walls. After priming, we did find a few spots where the drywallers could have done a better job and they are supposed to come out and touch up. Actually, they were supposed to come this morning, so who knows? A big thank you to Dean for all his help this weekend!

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