RossD's Home Rehab

With inspirations abound for garage remodeling not only here but also on garage journal, I've decided to do a little build thread for the remodeling on our home. (Excuse my general lack of english skills, I'm an engineer.)

Bit of a back story, the house was built in the mid '70s, owned by my grandparents in the mid '80s until I purchased it as a young bachelor in March 2006. Now that I'm married with a son, things have got to change. One reason is so it looks like a family lives here, and the second reason is we plan on moving in about 4 years. My wife is a horse vet and she wants room for horses and there isn't any room for horses in our suburban home.

Here's the garage before much work was done to it. I had a plumber friend install a powder room in an old closet (on the other side of the wall, to the right of the white door), and decided to add a laundry sink and bit of counter top. Barely visible on the right hand side.

The back work bench was a disaster and was built by nothing but a nail clippers, hopes and dreams, and a dash of garbage. Some of my own doing, but mostly not.

I was holding off working on the garage due to not having a plan, even with constant pressure from my wife. But as life shall have it, another task became the priority. We had some water pooling in the back yard because of our mostly clay yard and our sump pump.

Well my uncle (I guess he's a general contractor ) had one of his buddies do some work on the house. The house used to have a field stone facade below the windows. This was removed leaving partially exposed CMU block at grade (I'll come back to this later). They install vinyl siding and vinyl deck.

I'm not happy about any of this, but my guess is the field stone might have been in poor shape. I don't like vinyl siding, and I hated the deck. What does all this have to do with my swappy sump pump problem? Originally the pump discharged to a hose that ran across the front yard to the ditch. When they install the deck, they rerouted the pump to the back yard...were the water has no where to drain to...

Why I hate this deck:

1. It's too bright
2. The boards are so close to allow water to drain between them. Yes they are water tight!
3. It grows moss and mold.
4. It squeaks and groans.
5. The railing feels like it's about to give up the ghost and send any unsuspecting person flying if they lean on it in the least.
6. It's a piece-o-E36 M3.

So what's the plan?

The plan 'was' to take off a couple of the boards and pipe the sump pump out the front. Rent a ditch witch and send it to the ditch.

It turns out the boards are a two piece design, presumably to hide the fasteners. They use stainless steel fasteners but the bottom board was a 'C' shape and held water. It probably wouldn't have if there was room for the water to drain between the boards, but anyways it rusted all of the fasteners.

At this point vinyl was breaking and most of the screws were snapping. Since my wife and I both share a hatred of this deck, I didn't even need to call her at work to tell her all of the vinyl was coming off and we would re-deck the deck.

That's after a days work of breaking E36 M3. The frame of the deck appears to be good for the most part. A couple of leveling issues but nothing a floor jack and recip saw can't handle. One of the surprises was that the old side walk was under the steps at the driveway leading to the front door. The old concrete steps at the front door look like they were partially demoed and used as 'fill'. So to get the sump pump out the front, I'd either go up and over, under, or through the old sidewalk. I picked over. Hopefully it won't bite me this winter.

4'x8' trailer full of junk!

The ditch witch trencher was worth the $100 easily. It took longer to get the run down from the hardware store worker than it did the trenching.

I don't think I took a picture of the piping but I put a cleanout at the turn from horizontal to going underground.

Somewhere around this time I had a moment at work to whip this up: One of the architects mentioned it might look better if I put three railing sections on the front. So my final design has an extra post. That helped a lot because I bought prefabbed railing sections that were the perfect length, they would have been too short other wise.

So after a couple nights of deliberating designs and watching an infant while the wife was out on farm calls, I heard a noise. It was my retired neighbor using a vice grips to get screws out. He's awesome. Time to start work again.

The exposed CMU block (cinder block) needed something to keep water from getting in to my basement. We previously tried to pressure wash the deck, and while it worked it also rained in the basement. So I bought some aluminum flashing.

I tried to put a corner in it but with it being 16' long it wasn't happening with the tools I had at hand. After talking with my dad, we decided it didn't matter. I used some of the concrete as ballast.

You can also spot the second piece of flashing above the box joist. Luckily I found a profile that fit up behind the siding nicely.

Since my dad was over helping, I gave him the task of widening the stairs at the driveway. This was a great decision. It really opens up the deck and makes it feel a lot bigger (16'x9').

Level a couple more spots by jacking up the boards, cutting nails with a sawzall, and shooting new screws when its jacked into place.

Cut some lattice with my circular saw and brad nail it up. And start throwing decking at it.

BOOM we have a deck. Now I don't think we need a railing per the letter of the law, but I think I'll be nicer with it.

I was a bit hesitant building these post. I didn't like many of the ideas of trying to get a 4x4 post through the decking and attached to the existing frame work. If I'd built all of it at one time, I've done something completely different.

I also wanted a bit of architectural flair. The boxes are made from two 2x12 and 2x10s. They are screwed to the frame on the front of the deck and down into the decking itself. Then I used some pressure treated 1x3 (IIRC) and framed it in. E36 M3, I got out my jack plane to get stuff flat and level. Fiddly stuff to be sure, but it looks good to me and hopefully to any potential buyers in ~4 years.

I goofed. I thought I'd be okay with a '2 by' board coming down into the steps. I wasnt. Once the trim would be on it, it felt like a tripping hazard. That's why the board and the trim stop level with the top of the decking. Oh well.

So I power through it and get the railings up. You can see the same bit of trim mishap at the 'grass' stairs. (I'd like a side walk again to these step or at least a stone stoop.)

Got all of the trim work done and got the house numbers up. I wasn't sure about the tops of the post. I was waiting for something to come to me, when it came to my wife.

Plastic flower pots wedged into them, and with mums! Easier than cutting wood!

I caught my neighbor with one of his corvettes while taking pictures of the deck.

We're up to ate on the deck. We are waiting for the wood to dry before any staining/painting. We are still not sure of the design.

Looks good.

I would have taking all that extruded aluminum to my local scrap yard. Probably get a few $ for it.

Thanks Ian F!

The only metal was a bit of galvanized inside of the old vinyl posts and the plate they were barely screwed to.

So we indiscriminately painted the garage a cream white. After doing that I realized the work bench was next on the chopping block. So lets tear it out!

The top was just particle board and the 'framework' holding it up wasn't much better. I'm talking about one of the horizontal runners from the back wall to the front of the counter wasn't long enough so they nailed a 1" long piece to it then nailed it in. Wow.

You might have notice the pile of spaghetti. That's because there is a duct serving the room behind the wall. When I bought the house, the bench was all enclosed with one big shelf, and sliding wood paneling for doors. The duct had it's own 'chase' and was filled with batt insulation. I found lots of mouse E36 M3 and dead mice when I pulled it all a part. Never again. So rather than doing something that made better sense, I got some two part spray foam and covered it. With a couple cans of Great Stuff to top it off. It works and I haven't seen any mice messing with it so its here to say. Whatever... hind sight.

I got it all ripped out. I removed the piece of flashing over the duct where it enters the other room. I don't know what it was doing there. I shot some more, sigh, great stuff on it.

I started the bench by nailing 2x4s to the walls, making sure they were level.

Did I mention I use my pockethole jig a lot more then I ever though I would. Here is the front face of the bench getting screwed together. I use a small chop saw to cut the boards. Also: Millimeters are way better than inches.

Secure it with a board to the back wall and screw a 2x4 to the bottom to locate where the shelf shall be.

More of the same.

I forgot something that I should have done before so I screwed the jig to the board and used it like that. It's a versatile tool.

This will be an open to the floor area to slide taller things in. It turns out my small air compress wheels into it nicely, and the floor jack fits along side the duct.

I went to HomeDepot/Lowes/Menards and bought the cheapest total of 16' of matching counter top I could find. Under $100. Done. I used the recip saw to take the inch or so off of one end. The '2 by' at the sides interfered with the lip of the counter top so I notched the counters with a hand saw. They are out there because there weren't enough studs to be attached within the length of the bench.

I painted the 2x4s and the rest of the wall while the wife painted the cabinets. I grabbed the cabinets off of CL for $15 apiece.

I grabbed another one from a yard sale for $2.

Here is the laundry sink I mentioned earlier. The $2 cabinet will be mounted above that. I think it will receive some shelves from the cabinet to the wall for some extra storage as the height between the shelves is quite short. Like "I'm glad my can of turtle wax fits in there" short.

I like my pellet stove. Luckily a buddy stopped by and he helped lug the 3/4 tons of pellets down stairs. Since we didn't use the stove too much last year, grabbing a bag from down stairs every couple of weeks is not a big issue (it's in the room beyond the back wall)

I started hang the cabinets using a temporary board screwed to the wall to set the cabinets on. Then just screw the cabinets to the wall. I ended up putting an extra board on top and using pockethole screws, adding some extra bracing to each cabinet; that 'sturdied' them up quite a bit.

Well it turns out I bought lots of cabinets with small shelf spacing. Well at least spray paint cans fit. I cut out the shelf in two and left the other two.

I used a recir saw and cut it close to all the way through. Then just hit it with a hammer and they popped right out, then pulled a couple of staples out of the back. Nice and easy.

I bought some 2'x4' sheets of 1/2" plywood and made some shelves too (ripped an inch off with a straight edge and the circular saw). The stereo wants to be up on the top of the cabinets but there's an issue. Once the display is above eye level, it completely disappears.

Confessional: Not quite perfect. Oh well. (Notice the air between the right cabinet and the level as well as the bubble.)

I've started to come up with a 'nothing on the floor but the lawn mower and vehicles..and the garbage cans' rule. So this shelf was in the garage and now it's going down stairs in the basement. Something I've learned over the years is that people don't know how to use these cheap stamped shelves. It's very easy to get a good sturdy shelf out of them if you do one thing: Screw them to the wall. Also if you don't have a guy for your diaper needs, I recommend getting a guy. I got guy.

Here is a progress shot. I still need to go through all the old wood and decide if any is worth keeping. My rule of nothing on the ground might get an exception below the sink. Le sigh. I could probably get that stuff under the bench...

I reused the wood I removed for a shelf between the cabinets. There wasn't a lot of material to screw to, so I used a couple of boards beneath the shelf for blocking.

Trying to utilize some existing storage.

Bought some more storage stuff.

My wife didn't like the gold trim on the window in the door. There was an $80 rebate on an entry door she liked, so we went a bought it. Turns out it's the exact same door but with a different window. Well almost the same. The old one was an out swing and with an almost 1 year old child, having a door that swings out and two steps down to hard concrete didn't seem like a good combination. So now the new door swings in. What started out as a 'beautification' project turned into a safety project.

The door was an easy project. Pop trim off on the inside. Take out a couple of screws, cut a couple of nails, and push the door out. Find the extra screws beneath the adjustable sill after ripping the sill off of the rest of the frame. Oh well, it's going to the Re'Store and it's still usable. The opening was actually tight enough, I was barely able to get the recip saw blade in there. There was no shims used previously and not used presently. We need to trim the brick molding with some caulk and some 1/4 round.

After someone on here bought some LED strips from Amazon for cheap, I bought some too. I grabbed an old AC/DC wall wort out of the bin the basement and a new PVC surface mounted box and light switch from HomeDeLowes. I did some soldering and wired it up. I grabbed two 48" power strips and mounted them up too.

That actually brings this up to date as I just did the door and LED strip this weekend. I'll start on making cabinet doors for below the counter top soon. I plan on using some thin-ish plywood set into some 1x4 using a dado blade and more pocket hole screws. It'll look sort of 'shaker' style.

Sorry about the blurry photos and spelling/grammatical errors. We are all friends here right?

Impressive. I like it.

About time someone did some quality work around here.
Nice job.

Thanks guys. The Grosh was/is some inspiration E36 M3.

Very good work. The deck (esp.) and the bench both look great.

nicely done. I personally like the deck better without the railing, but that's just me. I'm odd.

That may be the biggest pile of Great Stuff I've ever seen.

A bit of a break with the holidays and deer hunting season, but now I'm back to work. The cabinet doors for the garage have moved back in the stack of things to do and we are onto the 'storage room'.

So here is the proposed site of our storage room. The stairs come down to the basement on the right side of the photo and behind the camera will be a rec room. The other half of the basement is my shop and the laundry area. This storage room will get a door behind the stairs from that area.

Here's behind there stairs and the outlet that needs to be moved over.

This is the old light socket that stopped working (hence the thrift store '70s light hanging in the corner, groovy), it will get a light switch at the new doorway. I only had to rewire twice to get it all to work.

Outlet relocated, and mid-wire-pull.

With the light switch in, a quick cut with the cordless recip saw made short work of the new door way. You might notice that the bottom of the stud space is closer together than the top. I'll have to cut the nails and plumb it up and trim the sill a second time.

Using my xmas present, the Husky Work Bench (with a spot for a router!), a little sweeping, and the new 4' (2) T-8 fixture, and that's it for now.

I still need to scrape the rest of the linoleum (or would it be vinyl by the late '70s?) flooring off of the concrete before I put up the dividing wall. Then we need to get some of the concrete sealant paint and hit the block walls that don't have it already. There are a couple of moldy spots where the old furring strips had been and will need to be cleaned beforehand. This side of the basement was finished but with a bit of water in the basement, most of it has been ripped out but some of the paneling remains.

{I deleted the picture by accident. Oops}

I purchased a $8 scraper for removing the leftover linoleum and glue from the concrete basement floor. It sucks. It weighs nothing. The short, thin, aluminum handle (standing on the husky work table next to it) was ditched and a scrap of black pipe, complete with an old gas valve, was used to give this 4" wide blade a helping hand. Now it was easy to use and made short work of the floor. The extra length in the handle was great for my back and knees, too.

My wife wants some flooring in the room, so I'm thinking we will get some cheap snap together flooring that doesn't need to be glued in place.

I'm in love with your workbench and cabinets. Looks so clean yet practical.

So I talked my wife out of putting flooring in the storage room. No need to spend money on a nice floor in a storage room when you have to walk through an unfinished room to get to it.

We got some concrete seal paint with mildewcide and painted where the room will be, and we have to finish scrubbing with bleach/water before painting the rest of the wall.

My dad built the house I grew up in and he built our cabin, so naturally I asked him to help my frame up the wall. A couple of pressure treated 2x4s at the floor and block wall, and white ones for the rest. We left out the two 2bys on the end by the existing stick wall in case we had to trim with a sawzall, but luckily we didn't have to do that.

A couple of 2x4 chunks for blocking in between the floor joist and stood it up. Used a hammer drill and some concrete screws to fasten the wall to the floor. A couple of screws into the blocking and the stick wall on the right side after the two studs in place on that end and were are in business.

I didn't want to do drywall, so I bought some paneling. We'll paint it, probably white. I kept the wall back from the end of the stairs enough to put in a counter top and some lower cabinets against the new wall. I'd like to put my tube amps, turn table and vinyl there. Up high to keep the kids from grabbing at it.

I used the brad nailler and air compressor to put up the paneling. Nice and easy. I'm considering putting up baton strips to hide the nail holes and to add some detail but that'll come with the cabinet and counter top.

While I was cutting the paneling my dad started assembling the three 2'x4'x86" shelving units. I picked them up from Menards on sale. The shelf surface is cheap particle board so I might have to put struts on the bottom side to beef them up or replace them with something more substantial.

After my wife got her hands on the shelves they looked like this :

One more project mostly concluded. There are some electrical items that need to be addressed but since the missus' laundry area was overflowing with storage bins on the floor, this relieved a bit of stress on her part. We also have the third bedroom's closet packed tight of stuff (like my vinyl collection) that needs to be removed in anticipation of a second child and our 15 month old being displaced out of the 'nursery'.

Just trying to keep my family safe and then happy:

I think my focus will go back to the cabinet doors for the garage. More on that later.

On to the basement Play/TV room :

So with our second child coming at the same time as our first child's second birthday, we need to get our house in order. Get our son out of the nursery and into the spare bedroom. Clean out the spare bedroom of all the stuff being stored in there to get it ready for a 2 year old. Some of that stuff is going into the 'back room' and some going to the room in the basement. The back room is an add-on room that was built when they added the attached garage. Right now it's a second living room that's never used but it will turn into 'almost a spare bedroom' without a door, but with it's own patio.

The basement will become a playroom and will receive the old living room furniture. This is where we are at since last night:

We've been slowing scrubbing the block wall with bleach/water and painted it with mold/mildew paint:

Last year we used a Dow Froth Pak 200 spray foam, a two part kit to seal up the perimeter of the sill plate and between the joists. I then installed some batt insulation over the top because I only got about an 1" or so of cover with the spray stuff:

We had to clean out the new playroom (about 350 square feet), so now my shop is full of... well full of everything:

I don't think this playroom will become a home theater room but I keep coming up with home theater stuff. This will be a place for my son and I to go and be somewhat noisy while my wife and the 'soon-to-be-here' baby girl can have a quiet nap upstairs.

The plan right now is to

1. Paint all the walls with some color.
2. Wire up can lights along the block wall for lights over the 12' couch that will go there
3. Wire up can lights in front of the pink looking wall. There will be counter there.
4. Wire up can lights in front of the '70s paneling wall. This will be the TV wall.
5. Wire up switches near the stairs.
6. Insulate between floor joist to cut down on noise transfer.
7. Route the ductwork from the ceiling space to go down the '70s wall to the floor. Since this is a basement, we are more concerned with heating than cooling so getting the hot air to the floor is more important.
8. Use the same 'pink looking' paneling as the short wall, on the ceiling, and paint it.
9. Use some 1x4 board as crown molding to make up the gap between the bottom of the joists and the top of the block. I'll brad nail it to the sill plate and paint it.
10. Build a cabinet and counter top at the alcove by the 'pink' wall. This will hold my vinyl and tube amps. (This might be pushed to the end of the project.)
11. CARPET!
12. Move furniture.
13. Make a dutch door for the opening to the right of the stairs so that my wife can keep my son out of that side of the basement but can keep an eye on him while doing laundry.

Oh and do all this before the baby gets here around Thanksgiving. Hell, it should be done by September/October at the latest so that my son can have time to adjust to a new bed (he's still in her crib), and his new bedroom.

Did some modeling (Revit) on a slow work day:

I'm not sure on the 'EL' shaped counter top. It might become a small bar height table with the cabinets on their own.

My wife used some paintable caulk to fill in some of the nail holes from the old furring strips while I primed the '70s-tastic paneling. There were a couple of caulk jokes.

I finished up shortly after this picture.

We bought (7) 5" can lights and LED retrofit bulbs. I think I need another one. I think I'm going to take an afternoon off and try to do the noise stuff to install the lights and run the wiring, as we have been painting after our son has gone to bed. I need to grind off the nails from the floor from the old tack strips, too.

We bought 2'x2', rubber backed, carpet tile from Menards for $2.99. We bought 102 of them. They didn't have all one style or color, so we went through (4) 4' stacks of tiles. We took over both aisles on each side of the stacks and part of the main aisle trying to find matching colors/styles and not have singles. We even had an employee come up and ask my wife if she needed help. She said we needed a hundred of them, and he just mumbled something and backed away. We laughed.

Got to work yesterday and realized that I'd being doing nothing all day, so I left after two hours. I got my driver's license renewed and dropped another $250 at Menard's buying two more can lights, LED bulbs, ductwork, diffusers, switches, outlet, wire...

I proceeded to hang all of the can lights and got a pair wired up above the cabinet/counter area. They're on a dimmer just like all of the other lights except for the one at the stair's landing. The one at the landing got wired up too, but then I tried focusing on loud things because I was running out of vacation time and had to pick up my son. So I got all the holes drilled and the electrical boxes installed for the rest of the lights, so I can do relatively quiet pulling of wire and electrical connects after he's asleep.

The extra wires hanging down are for the door bells. I'll have to extend the wiring to the other side of the wall and reinstall the transformers. Don't worry the wiring has no power to it!

So after getting the electrical sorted for the basement family/play room, I nicked the primer on the panelling and it popped off with enthusiasm. E36 M3. I knew that there was drywall behind the paneling but didn't really want to do the finish work of mudding it. But that is now where we are at, after a Father's Day cookout, we stopped and bought some mud and supplies.

I left work early again and started assembling the ductwork. I bought the stuff that has a folded channel on one side and punched 'catches' on the other side. Push two 'L' shaped pieces together and -bam- you got a 10"x3"x2'L sheet metal box that is relatively stable. A fitting for the turn at the bottom that corresponds to the diffuser size and another fitting for transitioning to a 6" round and you have some ductwork.

I picked a diffuser that has a damper so I could just skip the balancing damper. I might put one back in later since the back side is so accessible. I might also replace the foil flex with real sheet metal one too because if I'm carrying stuff into the shop and can see it being torn apart.

The duct connection gave me a bit of difficulty since I mistakenly thought the take-off was an 8" when it was a 7" so the 8" to 6" reducer I purchased didn't help any. Luckily, I had some sheet metal to cover the old hole, cut up the tap and reformed it for a 6" duct. I will use some foil tape to seal up the edges but I'm really not worried because we spend enough time in the basement that a little conditioned air won't be wasted.

That was the easy one since I had open access to both sides.

The second one wants to be installed through my shop full of stuff on the back side of the room. Behind the black tool drawers.

So after removing the bench and the lumber below it, I used a circular saw and cut through 90% of the sheet of plywood just to the inside of the stud. I then opened it like a door. I figure it's easier to nail in another stud just for blocking and install the duct on this side, then just nail the plywood back down. Then I could reassembly my shop. The alternate would have been to try to peel the sheet of drywall off the wall that was nailed (no screws to back out) and then replace it when it breaks. Or cut it and give myself more to patch, no thanks.

They way I did it won't cost me any more money or any additional time mudding drywall.

Much time deliberating and ciphering since my last update two months ago. We have the ductwork, 99.9% of the electrical, ceiling insulation and paneling, and painting completed. Hooray!

Here were are mid ceiling work. I used some thin wood paneling with some interesting grain and some red oak strips to cover up the gaps. I would have done it some differently if I was to do it again but it looks pretty good right now, so I'm mostly happy. The 'tool supreme' was my extendable, folding ladder! I took the two extensions off of the folding part and linked them together and clamped on my 'T' frame on it. I was then able to hold trim up and push one side of the ladder towards the other side to push the 'T' up to clamp the trim against the ceiling in place. Didn't need a whole lot of force for that but I did have a pretty strong wave in one of the sheets that I did use a fair amount of force. The ceiling isn't super flat but I like the natural wood look. It's better than doing drywall overhead! I used a narrow head staple with a pneumatic bostich stapler for all of the ceiling.

Once I glue/brad nail the white plastic trim up around the wall/ceiling interface, we can start laying down the 2'x2' carpet tiles with two-sided carpet tape. The wall/floor trip is already stained and I have the wood for the two 2' wide cabinets mostly cut up so I need to finish that and start pocket hole screwing it together. I already have the 10' countertop that will need to trimmed to length but that will be short work with the jigsaw.

We are hoping to be mostly done by September...hopefully the beginning and not the end.

Last night, I put up the ceiling trim. I used construction adhesive on the wall with the window because the board on the top of the blocks was too far behind the face of the wall to reach with brad nails. The one side held, but the other side fell down, so I cut two pieces of 2x4 and glued them in with the adhesive and then brad nailed to the 2x4. We started putting down carpet tile using some two sided carpet tape. That will allow us to pull up the carpet if the basement ever gets wet. It would be fun but at least we could save the carpet. We are only 3 rows in yet, but it's feeling good to get this far.

I still have some trim I noticed; some that I need to do after the floor trim or the countertop, and a couple I forgot by the window.

We got the carpet done!

I also built one cabinet box and need to assemble the second. Stain them and the door way trim boards.

If you squint at the picture you can see some trim boards laying around the perimeter so I need to get that done too.

I'm slowly gluing trim boards to the block wall since I need heavy paint cans to keep the pressure against them. I did most of the rest of the trim that I can brad nail to the wall except I'm waiting until I get the two cabinets, mini fridge, and the countertop finished in place to complete the trim in that area.

I trimmed the door way into the laundry room and put up a baby gate so now if were are doing the finishing touches on little things we can have our son loose in the room, haha. We will probably grab another gate for the bottom of the stairs once we are down there too.

Nice room, looks good. I love basements.