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1958 Ranch Home, Full of Character - First Home, First Major Project

169K views 519 replies 24 participants last post by  Arlo 
#1 · (Edited)
Charming Central California Ranch Home

I've been lurking the site for quite a while. Recently registered to ask a few electrical code questions, and to try to answer a few myself (with mixed success). I've been enthralled reading Coco's story in BC - now up to page 40 - and decided I might like to start showcasing my own project.

I'm a California native, though not to the small Central Valley community where I now own. I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, I've lived on a 36' Kris Kraft on the coast, moved around the Wine Country, survived in Reno, came back to the Sierra Nevada foothills, and then moved off to college in the Bay Area about 10 years ago. I had come full circle.

In 2009, I got married to my girlfriend of 5 years for all the wrong reasons and moved to Oregon to be closer to my wife's family. Much too close. I found myself shortly in North Carolina, staying with a friend. I must say that I'm not very fond of the weather in the Southeast, or the food of the South. Go figure.

I enlisted, was rushed off to Texas, then Mississippi, and by chance was stationed back in the Central Valley of California. It feels good to be home, less than 2 hours from every place I mentioned living when I grew up... though all in different directions.

While I was in North Carolina, I fell in love. I've since dragged her all the way back across the country. We both joke that we've driven the 3,000 mile moving trip for each other. It's been a couple of years now for both of us, and we're ready to give marriage another shot. Wish us luck!

One last thing before we start on the house: when I was growing up, always moving between apartments, rental homes, boats, RVs, campers, etc I set the goal of owning my first home by 25. I'm glad to say that I made it, but just barely, by about seven weeks. :cool:
 
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#315 ·
Got all of the rest of the polyurethane coats done yesterday. Feels like a weight has been lifted now. While I was waiting for coats to try, I chiseled out the slots in the shelf fronts for the LED strips in the other four carcasses. Here's the first (and ugliest) one I made.



And with LED strip in place, shown facing backwards for the photo.

 
#316 ·
A major milestone has been reached now that the center unit carcass is together!

Boy, was it difficult gluing this one together. I went from having 15 clamps big enough to clamp across the face to only 3 clamps because of the increase in size. Lots of clamp-shoot-unclamp-move-reclamp.



And now we enter the face frame phase of construction.

 
#317 ·
The wife's clearly happy to have her entry way, dining room, seating and table back. Sorry about the overexposure... the camera didn't like this one particular lighting situation. No idea why.



I took the 4 sawhorses to the shed, as well as several totes of materials. Some items were moved to the laundry room to clear this space back up (for now ;)).

 
#319 ·
A long way into a ton of unfinished projects, maybe! ;) Before any new projects start (to include picture frames :(), I'm set on getting everything wrapped up, including floor transitions. It's going to take a while.

The hardwood came with the house. It looks to be the original flooring, and appears to have been refinished once. It was a fairly major selling point for us. It could probably use refinishing or replacement again, but there's not much point while we're still renovating.

If you're only as far into the thread as your quote suggests, I think you'll be pleastantly surprised to see how far that room has come... :D
 
#321 · (Edited)
You know, the same thing happened to me, actually. And that was after I'd already bought one!

The product name is actually "300 Lb. Capacity Mobile Base". Not exactly the first thing that came to my mind either.

http://www.harborfreight.com/300-lb-capacity-mobile-base-95288.html

Note that you only get the four black corners. You need to supply and size your own wood down to 1¼" x 1¼" (or use steel tubing). It doesn't come with the stand in the picture.

They're $40 ea everyday price, so take a 20% off coupon from the Sunday paper with you if you can find one. Or, getting the $30/yr membership drops them down to $25 ea if you bring the Inside Track Club coupon from the January mailer: http://slickdeals.net/f/1276399-Harbor-Freight-Coupon-Thread
 
#322 · (Edited)
Not a whole lot got done yesterday. I'm taking the last test to complete my CCAF degree today, so I spent much of yesterday studying and will continue this morning. With a 30% pass rate, it has the lowest pass rate of any test I've taken so far for this degree. But again, it's a class I took in college and have some real world experience with, so I'm not terribly worried about failing... just getting a crummy score.

The carpenter finished building the mobile bases. There's now four installed: planer, large router table, radial arm saw and band saw. Everything's now easy to move into place and clean behind.

I spent a good few hours cutting a few fiddly bits of molding. You know those short pieces that take forever and don't add very much? Yeah, those ones.







Also pumped out the first tube of caulk behind the chair rail. This was a bit of a shortcut because when I started I had neither a table saw nor a router and did not have access to a traditional wainscoting cap. Thus, the chair rail was installed flush on top of the bead board and the gap filled with paintable white acrylic-latex.

(Please excuse these pictures... the flash washed everything out, but when I tried to turn it off, the camera refused to focus on what I wanted)







Used the last couple gobs to re-caulk between the bathroom tile and the bath tub, as well as along the bathroom baseboard. Will certainly need to pick up at least one more tube today.

Also cut a few pieces of quarter round (for inside corners) and L-shape moulding (for outside corners). Don't think I'm going to cope each profile like I tried last time... just too damn time consuming!
 
#324 · (Edited)
Miter saw set at 45º. Used a Miter Box previously, and those cuts came out looking like garbage... I mean... it's yours for $25.

Edit: Obviously joking. It cut decently, but after the entry, living room and dining area, I was about to throw it out the window. Spent $50 at the Big Blue. Still sharp. Then I went on CraigsList and bought a Craftsman Miter Saw with new blade for the same price. Ugh, thinking about how much time I wasted...

I could have done a better job, if I wanted to protractor each corner, then compound each cut. No thanks. I'm just fine using caulking and spackle, thanks.
 
#325 · (Edited)
Yesterday was a long day. Spent most of the morning studying, as predicted. Played some Rocksmith to keep calm. Took my test, and passed with a 70/80. Once those credits evaluate, my AS requirements will be completed.

Also dropped some MDF pieces back off at Lowe's, picked up 76 ft of moulding and two tubes of caulking, took a busted sander (that took over two weeks to ship to me) back to Home Depot, got some card stock & cover stock from Staples, and shopped routers. Pretty sure I want a big 'ol 3+hp beasty, but still might go with a nice 2.5hp.
 
#326 · (Edited)
Alright thanks! Wife is getting upset because I want to start another project while waiting on the kitchen. My buddy is flying in tomorrow night while he's on R&R as well, and we're going to go extremely hard on the kitchen.

Home Depot is coming Tuesday to talk about refacing, the staining looks good, but I'm moving to Ft. Hood like 2 months after I get back, so I need to get the kitchen done.

So, my next question is, I'm looking at patching a decent size hole I did in the laundry room on accident, if the dry wall is crumbling as I replace it, I told the wife I should just redo the whole laundry room with new dry wall. How hard is it exactly to put new dry wall up? Screw them in, mud over the cracks and screw holes, then paint?

My next question is, how hard is tiling? Also, the room you tiled was it your laundry room as well? If so, do you need a drain just incase of washer flooding?

After pulling up the laminate tiles off the floor, there is a lot of adhesive left. I'm debating to remove most of it, then just lay cement floor down for the tile.
 
#327 · (Edited)
Ok, let me try to tackle those. Normally, I'd use a drywall patch with a steel mesh for large holes (door knob size or larger) or without the steel mesh for smaller holes. But if the area to be patched is in poor condition, then a patch kit like that won't do much good. Before you rip down all of the laundry room, you need to realize that hanging the drywall is not the hard part! Between mudding it up and spraying texture, it's going to take a whole lot longer than you might think. Plus, I for one don't have a texture sprayer (and don't want to pay for one), and the learning curve has got to be horrendous.

The easiest solution, IMO, would be to cut the hole back to the center of the adjacent studs, then make it roughly square. That'll leave you with a hole approximately 16"x16". A 24"x24" piece of drywall can be found at the Big Blue or the BORG for maybe $4. Cut it down, screw it in, mud it up, and spray on some texture in a can (orange peel or knockdown texture to match). If the sheet is still garbage when you make the hole that big, then you're pretty much hosed into replacing the whole thing, and then yes, probably the rest of the drywall to match. That puts you square back in the realm of having to retexture the whole room.

I strongly suggest you consider hiring out mudding and/or texturing if you want a professional-looking job. Your first attempt will look like dog barf and eat up your R&R for little impact. The kitchen project is a much better place (and better return on investment) to put your time (and money). More directly, yes, it's as easy as you think it is, but it's terribly time consuming.

One last thing to consider on that drywall patch... I avoided having to texture and was able to hide my first attempt at mudding by putting up paneling. I just used the MDF beadboard, but Lowes/HD both have real wood and tileboard alternatives (though I've never worked with tileboard).

As for tiling... it was far easier than I thought it would be, but I also had the easiest setup imaginable (small room, tiling directly onto the slab). A straight 12" grid is about as simple as it gets. I have a tendancy to throw a ton of extra detail into my projects, and it adds considerably to the time. If I had just done 12's on a grid, I could have been done in a day of cutting, a day of mudding/laying, a few hours of grouting and a few hours of sealing. My 12's on diagonal / course of 6's / 12's on grid pattern took 25ish hours of cutting (cheapo tile saw), 30ish hours of dry fitting / laying, 2 hours of grouting and 2 hours of sealing. That's a lot for a 120 sq ft area.
 
#328 ·
Already cut my hole out, doesn't seem to bad, so I'll easily replace it.

As for tiling, already bought all my supplies. Our laundry room is about 50sq ft., and I bought 3 boxes of 13x13 tiles. I'm going to do the straight method. My buddy told me use complete tiles in the most common entry ways, then towards the least walked through area which is near the back of the machines would need to be cut of course. I hear so many different methods, guess it doesn't matter which one I pick.
 
#329 · (Edited)
Your buddy seems to be steering you in the right direction.

It seems a lot of these simple DIY instruction get overly detailed when the pro's get into the mix. Their methods, while valid, are geared more towards a system where time is worth far more than the materials, and we tend to operate an opposite realm. Especially so if we're doing it because we enjoy it, not because it has to be done right now. There also seems to be a pretty big Holmes-on-Homes-syndrome going around, where anything that isn't 100% technically correct is automatically considered 100% applicably incorrect. What we're really talking about here is using wet mud to stick a piece of baked mud on to a slab of cured mud. If it lays even, doesn't crack and you can walk on it, how much can there be to it?

I will say that I wish I had used a better saw. I didn't save myself any money going with the cheapo saw, because it took way longer, made me freehand all of my cuts (the fence was worthless) and caused me to lose a $25 bag of heavily modified thinset, the $5 bucket I mixed it in, and (almost) the $10 stirring tool too. Plus the dump fees to dispose of that brick. And added a ton of stress, making much of the process less than enjoyable.
 
#333 ·
You don't really need them, no. But they do help a whole lot. I only used two chalk lines and my pattern ended up kinda parenthesis shaped (1/4" over 4' I think). Can't tell visually, but I know it's there.

Do you really need a table saw? No, but a circular saw with a clamp-on guide gets teditors in a hurry. Heaven forbid a hand saw...
 
#335 ·
That's good advice. I went 1/8". Like the look, but wish I'd gone 1/4" so my 12's line up with the 6'a.

Assuming tile is square is folly unless you paid out the butt for rectified tiles. You can't trust their squareness.
 
#339 ·
What a long two days. Where to start... yesterday I finally got a day off. Much needed. Got in touch with a guy an hour and a half away with some things I was interested in. Got almost there, he emailed me his address, and it was an extra hour farther. Ugh, ok, fine. I've been keeping an eye out for a deal on a 3hp+ router to spin some massive bits, and I just couldn't pass up this guy's deal.



Rockler table top, leg set, wheel set and fence. Hitachi 3¼ hp router (M12V). Woodpecker's lift. Custom wings, shelf, back, bottom and drawers. Wired with independent switches for shop vac and router.



Came with plenty of extras too. 11 rings, pin, tons, and two cranks for the Woodpecker. Custom bent wrench. Three feather boards, plus extra hardware to make a few more. Base plate, handles and hardware for the Hitachi. Six auxiliary fences. Several push blocks. Several setup blocks for the same rail/stile bits I have.

Tried to talk him down to $300, but we ended up at $400. Easily $800 worth of stuff here.

Left to go check it out just before noon and didn't get home until 7ish.
 
#340 ·
As luck would have it, the router bits arrived at the same time as I picked up the router. They arrived in a mish-mash of containers... three wood, one aluminum, two different brands and logos, one unbranded, and two separately in wax.



They're larger than I expected they'd look in real life, but dead on the dimensions they said they'd be. Well, most of them. Some claim an overall length or carbide height that isn't quite right.



Had to wait until this morning to play with them.
 
#341 ·
First up, the glue line bit. This suck weighs over 2x what the next largest bit I own is. ¼" shaft bits just don't compare to these ½" shaft bits. The ¼" bits flex when you apply enough pressure and I'm afraid they're more prone to catastrophic failure.



This was my third attempt. The first two were rejected only because they didn't line up within 1/128". This is where the Woodpecker shined... I was able to adjust the height, from above, in a fraction of the time it would have taken me with the old Craftsman routers, and with much greater precision. It's fairly easy to adjust within 1/64th of 1/32".

Mechanically, a very strong joint. I just wish it had a bearing... if you don't get the fence depth perfect, you'll end up with a potentially unsafe situation and a very uneven joint. A bearing would alleviate this.
 
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