We’ve been thinking about refinancing the house. Which was great, because it motivated me to get moving on the mudroom. Open permits + half complete construction = low appraisal.

We’d already insulated and hung the drywall on all of the walls but the one where the dryer vent is (needs mechanical inspection). But progress has been slowed on the rest, as I’ve been waiting to take a day off of work for inspections. When I started thinking through what was left to complete, I realized I could easily get started on the floor before the inspection, to move things along.

So I sealed up the old crawl space trap door, cut the Durock to size, and mortared and screwed it all in place.

When I did the bathroom floor, I bought enough tile to do the laundry room as well, as I knew I’d someday want a new floor in there. So I took up a few of the doorway tiles, and got to work tying the two rooms together so there weren’t any awkward seams.

With that done, I snapped a square line across the room to use as the guide for all of the tiles.

And then using spacers, I went around the edges of the room, and started filling in. And that’s where things went horribly wrong. After two full days of doing squats, I sat on the half finished floor in agony, realizing that I’d messed up big time.

So I returned the saw, and tried to figure out what to do next. For a week. And I realized that only thing I could do is tear up the floor to the point that the misalignment started. So I did. I pried up the tiles, and when I realized that Durock isn’t exactly reusable… I got the circular saw, attached a masonry blade, and cut through that, filling the entire house with dust. Since all of the screws – which are placed every 8 inches – were covered in mortar, it was impossible to simply back them out and lift the piece in one section. So I started prying. And pebble by piece of sand, 6 hours later, I had taken up the 3×5 piece of Durock, and was ready to start again. I cut a leftover piece to size, mortared and screwed it down, and started my tiling job over – this time working across the room, rather than from the edges in.

And well, even though I can barely raise or lower myself out of a chair, I’m glad I did. The grout lines are perfect, and the tiles fit in the center of the room without having to be cut. I did have to adjust the cuts on the edge tiles, but it was minimal.

So, morals of this tiling story:

1. Work across the room. Starting from your straight line, tile outward toward the edges of the room. Never start at the edges and fill in. Spacing will be wrong.
2. Don’t be a mother effing cheapskate. Want to know why I did the edge tiles first? Because I didn’t want to have to rent the saw for another day, so my cheap little brain thought, “Oh, if I do the outside tiles first, I can return the saw and be done.” And what did it mean? I had to tear up the floor, use an extra piece of durock, an extra bag of mortar, buy an extra box of tiles, oh… and rent the saw for another day. (By the way, you tightwads… If you rent a saw from Home Depot at closing time, you can pay the 4-hour rate, and return it the next morning by 9 a.m.)

Any other tiling horror stories/pointers out there?

Remember when the bathroom mirror cracked, just weeks after I had installed it? And when I spent a day removing it, and massively scarring the drywall behind it because I’d been an idiot and used an entire tube of construction adhesive to glue it to the wall?

Yes? So do I. Sure as 1,000 shards of mirror littering the floor.

Well, after nearly two months, thirty coats of drywall mud, 4 sanding pads, a gallon of paint, and a $20 IKEA mirror, the bathroom is looking better than ever.

If I only would have just shelled out the $20 to begin with.

There are a few morals to this DIY story: 1. Never be a cheapskate and attempt to salvage a mirror that has experienced a trauma… it will have weak points, even after cutting off the broken pieces. 2. Never…. I repeat NEVER… affix a mirror directly to drywall with construction adhesive. Use Any. Other. Method.  If/when it breaks, or you want to renovate your bathroom, removal will ruin the wall and likely your life. 3. Drywall repair sucks. No explanation needed.

I’ve had some hang-ups over the last month – mainly related to inspections – which really delayed progress.  I passed framing with no problem. The electrical guy said, “you’ll fix this when I leave, right?” and gave me a pass, but the plumbing guy… oh the plumbing guy….

First round, I failed for some fairly honest reasons – wrong vent placement in the sink, lack of vertical supports for the lines, the typical amateur plumber stuff.

Second time, I used the “wrong” type of support. In fixing the sink vent, I’d installed an improper tee for the sink trap, which I had to replace. And when the inspector crawled under the house, he found that we’d reduced our 2” washer line to a 1.5” outlet to the main – the same line that the original washer had drained into for 55 years without incident. But now, with our high efficiency washer that drains much less water than “back in the day,” I needed to replace that 1.5” outlet because it might overflow… rather suspect, if you ask me.

So we had to venture back under the house and cut through the cast iron toilet stack, and butt into that with a 2” wye fitting to properly plumb the washer. The problem? They don’t even make the type of fittings we needed to do the job.

So after a few trips to Home Depot and a stop at George Morlan, we decided the only way to do the job would be to cut the cast line, and use a torch to melt the old lead joints apart so we could salvage the fittings.

Thankfully, after 3 hours in the back yard with a propane torch, the cast elbow was free. After another 3 hours and two fully charged batteries later, we’d cut the 1” lip off of the bottom of the fitting, and were able to attach Fernco hubs and the ABS wye fitting.

Long story short – it took one full day of nearly zero progress to make the change and bring the washing machine up to code.

But it paid off. The third inspection resulted in a pass, and the inspector even noted, “that’s down right pretty – like a real plumber did it.”

Now we can start the real process of rebuilding. With the crawl space securely sealed up, the next step is drywall – my least favorite job, second only to plumbing.

And sorry there are no pictures, it takes all of my energy to prevent myself from going ballistic while under the house.

Side note for the home brewers… the last three beers I’ve made have had a really medicinal taste to them – almost like iodine. At first, I thought it was the iodide sanitizer I was using, but I went with bleach for my last batch and it has the same exact taste. Any thoughts? The yeast? Too much iron in the water?