RETRO-RENOVATION: The Deck

Long before we ever tackled the bathroom (really only a few months prior), we upgraded one of the finest features of our house: The deck.

Here's what it looked like when we moved in:





























There was nothing wrong with it. Quaint, rather large, and pretty enjoyable. But you know us Harrises. We don't do well with "nothing wrong." We quickly realized that the stairs were small and that we couldn't enjoy it in the rain. Plus, there's a certain brown man who doesn't like being wet, but didn't have anywhere to hide. That just won't do. We realized pretty quickly we were going to have to cover it.

It took about 4 weeks (and Chad and Spencer) to get it here:















After that it was an exercise in tedium. Lots of screws... especially to shore it up with the brick-patterned cross-beams:















At this point, Otis was really loving it. He had shade when it was hot, and a shield from the rain.















See? Happy, dry puppy.















We left it this way for a while. Then we moved and rebuilt the stairs and stripped and stained the whole thing so it would be the same color. But you'll have to take our word for it, because we can't find those pictures. Oops. But I promise it was awesome.

Bathroom Part 9 - Can You Smell It (the end)?

Slowly but surely over the last couple months, we've been working on the cabinet area. You could be more up to date with this process, but trust us, you'd be really bored by now. We're just going to show you a before and after. We're really happy with how it turned out. It might be less storage than we had before, but it sure is prettier. And it's SMARTER storage, too. They told us that on HGTV. We're no Clive Pearse and Lisa LaPorta, but if we do say so ourselves, damn, we're pretty good.

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

Here's what the whole room looks like, from the hall, minus some of the paint and trim work:

So there you have it. Bathroom (almost) finished. Stay tuned.

Bathroom Part 8 - All Together Now

Now that the toilet's back...:

... It's all downhill from here. The finished product is looking quite nice, if we do say so ourselves. Here's a detail of the grout:

Having running water in our beautiful new pedestal sink is also a plus:

Sit tight for more finishing touches...

BACON AND WINE BREAK

Bathroom Part 7 - Mr. Slate

Remember Fred Flintstone's boss?

What a jerk. Always yelling and stuff. I mean, give the poor guy a break. He has to lift rocks using a DINOSAUR'S HEAD!

Speaking of slate and lifting rocks... that's what we've been doing. Laying a natural stone floor is like trying to make a statue out of dry sand. The only blessings in the whole exercise are that it's on the ground, so gravity's not involved, and our space is really small. 32 square feet was all we needed. Which was good, because we broke about 20 square feet worth of tiles.

Here's how it works:

First you have to clean every tile by hand. We did this in the bathtub and then spread them out to dry in (where else?) the dining room.

Then you have to seal both sides with something that smells like nail polish remover. And let it dry overnight. Then you're ready to lay it down. Be sure to wear an old fraternity shirt and look dead sexy when you attempt this. Slate only responds to sexiness:

So after a solid afternoon of buttering the floor and squashing the squares on, it looked like this:

The other fun part about laying the floor is that you can't walk/touch/breathe on it for about 2 days (including the grout setting process). Now, some might wonder... "Where did the Harrises use the restroom while their toilet was out of the equation?" After a few trips to Target to use their facilities, we had a great idea and set up a "Ladies Room" on the deck:

The "Mens Room" was a quaint little corner of the fenceline. Otis didn't take very well to that.

Bathroom Part 6 - Tile and More Tile

Time to tile! In all the books, it seems relatively easy. And it really is. Once we did one section it kind of came naturally. But man was it slow. Really, REALLY slow. It took us an entire day to get the shower tile on the walls, and another day to grout them. Probably the most difficult (yet most rewarding) job yet. This is something in which we can really see the fruits of our labor. And pretty soon, we'll be able to shower without tarps on the walls! Check it out:

We had to screw these boards to the wall so that gravity didn't work against us.

No one floats grout like this girl. She's a natural.

The finished product... nice, eh?

Bathroom Part 5 - Texturized!

There are about 4 brillion ways to texture drywall. I think texture was invented to cover up mistakes that amateurs (yours truly) make in taping and bedding. Regardless, we're thankful for it. We got to learn 2 new skills in one day – the "California knock-down" texture technique, also called "Skip Trowel" looks like this:

We put that on our ceiling. For the walls, we used a much more interesting and fun method called "Spanish Knife." We like it because it sounds like some kind of fighting style. It looks like this:

SPANISH KNIFE ATTACK!

Bathroom Part 4 - Sweet Gypsum Sheets

Drywall is important. That's why it's so heavy.

Here's a snapshot of what it looks like screwed to the studs:

Now fast forward to FOUR DAYS LATER, and here's what it looks like when it's taped, bedded and primed:

We couldn't believe this took so long. What a ridiculous exercise just to have straight, flat walls. Half of TeamHarris had to take vacation from work in order get this done. That's a LOT of manpower. What a great word. Manpower. We just like to say it. Manpower.

Bathroom Part 3 - Insulation Station

Meet our newest friend in the tool family – our pneumatic nailer. This insulation literally went up in minutes. Thanks Mary!

Now we'll have warm, happy hineys, year-round.

Bathroom Part 2 - FLOORED!

There's nothing on God's green earth that feels better in the morning than fresh, cool... Plywood?

The trick here is to get to know your jigsaw really well. To make this stuff as snug as possible, you have to be pretty precise.

Or not at all... We plan on filling the gaps with foam insulation later on.

The Bathroom.

It's where you get clean. It's the last room you see before you sleep. It's usually the first room you see in the morning. We've been told that the average person can spend up to 3 years in the bathroom during his or her lifetime. We've also been told that if you have a BlackBerry with BrickBreaker on it, that could actually be more like 5 years. But that's a discussion for a different blog.

This is where we get clean:

Our house was built in 1952, and you can really see it in the bathroom. Okay, so you can really see it all over, but we decided to start in the "water closet," as they say in every other English-speaking country. We know that because we're smart.

Here's the shower:

As you can see, it works, but it's not going to sell our house any faster.

And you know what TeamHarris does with rooms that won't sell? That's right, we beat the hell out of them with hammers!

There, that's better:

Okay, so that really took a day. Okay, 2 days. Here's what you can expect when you demolish a bathroom:

1. There's a lot of dust. It gets in your eyes, mouth and lungs and it tastes like a heap of boiled rubber bands wrapped in aluminum foil.

2. There's a lot of debris (see below). It piles up way faster than you can get it out. 15 minutes of banging on things equals roughly 30 minutes of shoveling stuff.

3. Underneath the tile there's this mesh stuff, which if you're on the receiving end of, you'll end up looking like the unfortunate product of a confrontation with a blood-thirsty badger. Wear sleeves.

4. If said bathroom is your one-and-only bathroom, be prepared for what a total pain in the posterior it is to remove and replace the commode every day.

5. Have every tool you own handy. The dining room table makes a GREAT place to lay them out.*

*denotes sarcasm

So, with day 2 out of the way...

... it was time to start on the floor. Here are the fruits of our first attack:

I have a message for all those people who told us "Oh yeah, the tile should just chip right off!"

In reality, which is apparently not where all those people live, the tile is supported by about 2 inches of concrete, followed by that annoying mesh, followed by waterproof sheathing, followed by the subfloor. In other words, it took us about 45 minutes with a sledge hammer to break up roughly 6 square inches of floor.

It was time for drastic measures:

We asked Otis if he would chew on the floor for a while, in hopes that he could break it up faster that we could. After all, he chews on everything else, right? Right. Just ask our garden hose. But he was busy barking at squirrels the next day, so we called in the big guns. A trip to Home Depot with Spencer for a jackhammer.

We had the floor out within 2 hours. It was AWESOME. Only one question now - Where does the toilet go when there's no floor?

The answer: Nowhere. Time to build a floor. By the end of day 3 it looked like this:

And at the end of day 3, since it was New Year's Eve we looked like this:

On the 4th day, we rested and saw movies. That was a good feeling. Getting out of that room felt like the last scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, when all the kids run out of their prison in the mine, arms over their eyes because they haven't seen the sun in years. Remember that? Didn't think so.

P.S. If you're ever feeling TOO manly from a day of jackhammering, we know of a great movie to lasso you by the testosterone and jerk you back into sensitivity:

Sit tight... More to come!