It’s my first diary! My screen name comes from a recurring character in a series of Neal Stephenson novels. It's implied that he's immortal. I can’t make that claim; I’m really just a guy who lives in a Detroit suburb and goes to work every day like most everyone else.
I'm still trying to process the election results — We’re living in dark times. But, since this is supposed to be a home improvement blog…
Our house was built in 1965, and we bought it in 1988. After 50+ years and two separate families raising their kids and pets in it, the place can charitably be described as “lived in”.
The downstairs half bath has been in need of attention for years — Bad grout, a crumbling vanity, a toilet that leaked around the wax ring, a shower door that wouldn’t stay closed, a shower head that dripped constantly, and just generally scruffy looking overall.
In August, I finally decided to do something about it. My goal was to keep the cost around $1000, so that meant doing it myself. On the left, here’s what I started with. I’m no fan of the green tiles and floor, but replacing them would have blown up the budget, and except for the grout, they were in generally decent condition. So I decided I had to work with what I had and make the best of it.
First, the walls. They were covered with painted-over wallpaper paste, so I spackled, sanded them smooth, and painted. Next, the grout. This was the most tedious part of the job — Every seam had to be scraped to get rid of excess grout and clean out broken/cracked grout. Also, the prior owner had made some half-hearted repairs to the shower stall that had to be undone and fixed. I used a Stanley knife and wore out four or five blades (I know, there are special tools for this, but it's what I had, and it actually worked pretty well). Then repairing the areas where the grout was missing or cracked. The shower stall near the floor was in the the worst shape and consumed the most time. Once the grout was repaired and prepped, I used a grout dye/sealer called Grout Shield. They were able to match the color with what I chose for the walls from a paint chip I sent them. I used the sealer on both the walls and the floor.
During this process, I removed the old vanity — It was rotted out at the floor from 50 years of overflowing toilets. The sink was still in good condition so I cleaned it up and installed a new faucet. It’s a Corian sink, so wet sanding, polishing compound, and some car wax and it looks like new. I picked up an inexpensive vanity from Home Depot and installed it. The exhaust fan still works well, so I just cleaned out the dust and painted the plastic cover.
The medicine cabinet was in decent shape, so I removed it, dis-assembled it, and repainted it. I bought a new LED light fixture and installed it above the medicine cabinet.
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Now it’s toilet time — Installing the new one actually went smoothly, except for the T-bolts. While I was at it, I put in a new shut-off valve because the old one was frozen open. Long un-used shut-off valves are a pain — This one made the toilet job wetter than it should have been.
Finally, I cleaned up the old shower door, re-installed it, adjusted it so it would stay closed, and installed new valves and handles in the shower. I’m done!
Rough costs:
- Toilet $400
- Vanity $150
- LED light fixture $75
- Heat register $80
- Paint and grout dye $100
- Sink faucet $40
- Valves and misc. plumbing $75
- Wall art $180
Total — Around $1100. Not bad, only about 10% over budget.
The whole project took about two months to complete. I was in no hurry — Most days, I’d spend an hour or two after work scraping grout, painting, applying grout dye, what have you. I will say that most of the time was taken up by preparation. Painting the walls and ceiling only took about an hour, while prepping them for paint took several hours. Same thing with the tiling, flooring and everything else. Preparation and details are key.
I haven't gone into much detail about all the stuff that went wrong along the way like the leaky or frozen shut-off valves, the multiple trips to the hardware store to complete a seemingly straightforward task, digging out the rusted-in T-bolts on the toilet flange, that sort of thing. But all that's to be expected when you take on a project like this. Overall, I'm happy with the result.
Next up: The kitchen. This’ll be painting only so it shouldn’t take me two months. Until then, I do have a couple more rooms I’ve finished and I’ll write those up for future blogs. Long term, my plan is to go room by room until the whole house is re-done. At this pace, I should finish up sometime in 2019.
Post-election update: I’ve put my Bernie sticker back on my car, because fuck this shit...