Take Down that Wall! (Kitchen Remodel '09 - Part 1)

After deciding we wanted to remove the load-bearing wall that separated the kitchen from the living room, the next step was to figure out just how to go about it without our house falling down. The wall supported nearly half of the weight of our roof, so a lot of work needed to be done before we could take it down. I had to pour a new pier under the house, install additional framing, and place a huge, 20' long LVL (laminated veneer lumber) beam in the attic.

We are so lucky to have a good friend who also happens to be a good engineer with experience in removing load-bearing walls. (Marc, we are forever indebted to you for your knowledge, expertise, and sweat equity -- and I mean SWEAT!) Here he is directing traffic the day we put the beam in.


Before any work could be done on the wall removal or beam, I had to dig a footing and pour a pier. This meant digging a 2'x2' hole while laying on my belly under the house, then filling it with concrete, and later filling a tube form with concrete atop the footing. I'll admit, there was nothing easy about digging a 4 sq ft hole underneath my house. However, the hardest part (and perhaps the most labor-intensive thing I've ever done on the house) was filling it with concrete. I had to fill a large plastic tub with concrete and drag it commando-style through the crawlspace under the house to the pier site. Concrete is heavy, and I had to make about 20 trips.

After the pier and additional framing were in place, it was time to get the beam in the attic. The beam was made of 2 separate LVL beams glued and nailed together. With the help of 5 friends, we hoisted the beams one at a time into the attic from a hole I cut in the exterior wall above our carport. This went a lot smoother than I expected given the weight of these beams (approx. 200lbs each.) In the photo, you can see how we reinforced the carport frame with 2x4s, and then used the carport frame to as a resting point, so someone could quickly move from one ladder to another.

I hung out in the attic and pulled the beams in through the hole while the guys pushed. This was the first 100 degree of the summer in Austin (one of 68, 100-degree days this summer!) We started early Saturday morning, and by nightfall the beams were in, the hole was patched, and the siding was replaced -- like nothing ever happened.

Kitchen Remodel 2009

The planning for our kitchen remodel began 3 years ago at the moment we bought our 1951-built house. After countless dinner conversations and many consultations with friends and family, we finally decided on a plan and began work on our kitchen remodel last month.

Our kitchen was remodeled in the 1970s and featured faux-marble laminate counters with metallic veins, dull cabinets, and plastic drawer boxes that weren't even functional. Changing all of those items was a no-brainer, but the heavy decision involved what to do about a wall that divided our kitchen from our living room. At a minimum, we would reface or paint our cabinets, replace the counters, sink, and vinyl floor. At most, we dreamed of tearing down the wall between the living and kitchen, getting all new custom cabinets, moving the sink to a new wall, and adding a second window. After much deliberation, a great bid on all new custom cabinets (from Madison Cabinets in Hutto, TX,) and a promise from a good friend to help us with the engineering aspects of removing a load-bearing wall, we decided to go all out with our dream plan.

Before pictures:
The wall with the framed photo is the one that we will be removing. Actually, it is going to be a half-wall because it will be the back side of our L-shaped island.

We will be adding a second window to the right of this window, and then moving the sink so that it is centered between the two windows. The dishwasher will be moved next to the fridge.

We can't wait to have drawers that close properly!

Bathroom Redo

When we moved in to the house the bathroom was OK. And because it was OK, and a lot of other things weren't, the bathroom was pretty far down on our to-do list. That was until I noticed a water leak beneath the toilet. Let's just say one thing led to another and before you knew it, the bathroom was stripped down to the studs. We decided to remove the window that was inside the shower wall because in my opinion, windows and showers don't mix. Aside from the privacy issue, windows inside showers are bound to have problems with water infiltration. We still wanted natural light in the bathroom, so I installed a Solatube skylight (about $200 at the home center.) I installed it myself in a couple of hours, and we love it! It provides a ton of natural light, so we never have to turn on the lights during the day.

We chose the Kohler Bancroft pedestal sink, a Kohler cast-iron tub, a Kohler faucet (under $200 at home center), and our cross-handle shower fixtures are from American Standard ($170.)

We opted for classic white subway tiles in the shower. These tiles may be overused due to their recent popularity, but they are so much cheaper than anything else, that it's hard to justify spending 5-10x more to get something unique. Plus, they look great! This was my first tiling experience. I had read several times that it's a good idea to peel off a tile after you've done a couple of rows, so that you can check the consistency of the thinset. When you remove the tile, the back of it should be about 2/3rds covered with thinset. If it's 100% covered, then your thinset is too wet. If it's not covered at all, then your mixture is too dry. My first attempt was way too dry, so I took off all the tiles and cleaned them. Then I let them dry and started again. I'm really glad I did because it also gave me another opportunity to get my tiles smooth, flat, straight and level.

I ran all new electrical wiring and installed a GFCI outlet (which code requires if it's near a sink.) I also installed a bath exhaust fan. A friend of mine recommended the Panasonic Whisper Ceiling fan. It works great and it's very quiet, although after a year's use, it seems a little less quiet than when I first installed it. I put on fan on the GFCI circuit because the fan was partially over the shower stall. Code requires that any vent fan over the shower be on a GFCI circuit. All this meant was running the wire first through the GFCI outlet, and then to the fan. Everything worked great, except that every 4 or 5 times we turned off the fan, it would trip the GFCI outlet. After a little research I learned that some of these GFCI outlets cannot handle the power from a bath fan, and so they will trip periodically. An electrician told me that the code requires it, but the technology of these GFCI outlets hasn't yet caught up with the code. He recommended trying a different brand GFCI outlet. I swapped out the Leviton outlet that I had purchased at Home Depot with a new commercial-grade GFCI made my Cooper that I bought at an electrical supply store. Both were rated for 20 amps, but switching them out made all the difference. I put the Cooper GFCI outlet in a week ago, and it has yet to trip! I've turned the fan on and off at least a 100 times trying to see if it would trip and it hasn't, so I think the heavier duty Cooper outlet fixed the problem.

The Studio

I'm a musician, and one of our first projects was to build a teaching and rehearsal studio behind the house. There was already an existing detached garage and workshop in the back, and our hope was to save as much of this structure as possible. Unfortunately, the building was too far gone. It had no foundation, only a dirt floor, and it was badly damaged by termites. There was so much of a lean to the building that it looked like someone could just push it over. The photo above is the completed studio, and here's a "before" shot.

I designed a very simple 24' x 16' building that would have two rooms, each with its own exterior door. The
back room (8' x 16'), the "garage" would be used for tool and lawnmower storage. The front room would be the music studio (16' x 16'.) Our budget for the completed building was roughly $10,000, which meant that we would need to do almost all the work ourselves. Most contractors would charge $25-60,000 for an all-new construction like this one. Here's my original sketch. I drew this to pass time on a long flight.
We hired a concrete company to lay the forms for the slab and bring the concrete, but to save money, we wheel-barrowed it into the forms and finished it. We did all the rest of the work ourselves except we hired a roofer to put on the shingles. Here's what we did:

Framing
We had one person with framing experience, along with some friends and family, and we framed and sheathed the building in a weekend.


Siding
We used HardiPlank siding and installed it ourselves. There are a number of websites that tell you how to install it, but this one is particularly helpful. I think anyone can do this themselves. It's a great DIY project because installers charge a fortune, but it's not hard. Here's a photo of my wife putting up the HardiPlank. She's now a pro with the nail gun.


Insulation

We wanted to avoid using typical fiberglass insulation because of it's unhealthy qualities. We decided to go with recycled blue jean insulation because it is more environmentally friendly and it also has better soundproofing capability than fiberglass. It is also much easier to install -- no need for long sleeves, gloves, and goggles. I have been extremely impressed with the sound proofing and installing it was a breeze. We bought our insulation at Ecowise in south Austin. I managed to fit the rolls we needed into my VW Jetta in only a few trips.

Electrical
I did all of the electric work myself. This involved digging a trench from the house to the studio, burying conduit, adding a dual-breaker to the box on the house, adding a subpanel in the studio, and installing all of the outlets and switches. I learned how to do most of this from books and the internet, but anytime I had a question I would just call some electricians. Most of the time, they were surprisingly helpful over the phone. I also pulled permits for all of the work, so each step was inspected and approved by the City of Austin electrical inspectors. If you're not completely confident in doing electrical work, it's best to hire an electrician. If you decide to do any electrical work yourself, just remember to turn off the power, lock the breaker box, then check and double check with a voltage tester!

Flooring
We decided to stain the concrete floors a dark brown color. I wanted the look of stained concrete, but I was very hesitant to do acid staining myself. That stuff is nasty, and you have to be very careful when working with it. A friend of mine recommended a water-based concrete stain that was easier to apply, better to work with, and better for the environment. We used Mason's Select Transparent Concrete Stain made by SuperDeck. The benefit of acid staining is that you get a nice marbled look because the acid staining reacts with the natural properties of the concrete. You can achieve the same look with water-based stains by using two different colors. We used a black and a brown stain to create 2 different mixes - a dark brown (part brown, part black) and a light brown (all brown.) Then we used simple garden pump sprayers ($10) and applied the stain using a light, circular motion. To do this, spray on one color, and then before it dries, spray on the second color. Because the stains are still wet, they will mix slightly and give you the acid-stain look without all the mess. Here's a shot of our finished floor.
The closet in this photo is planked horizontally with western red cedar boards. I needed storage space in the music room, so I framed out a closet in the corner. Instead of just having more drab drywall, I decided to make the closet an architectural focal point. Cedar boards can be very expensive, so I just bought standard 6' fence pickets from the home center (about $2 each) and sanded one side smooth. I mitered the corners and used the same board on both sides of the corner so that the grain would match. The project took one Saturday and only cost around $60.

Air Conditioning
This is Texas, and Texas is hot. It didn't make sense to install a central air conditioning unit and run duct work for just one room, but we also did not want to have a window unit. Window units are incredibly loud and not efficient. A mini-split system was the perfect solution. We bought a Soleus mini-split unit online for under $600 shipped from airconditioner.com. It heats and cools very well, and all with less noise than my computer's hard drive. It's been through two Texas summers and continues to work perfectly.

Welcome!

My wife and I purchased our first house 3 years ago. The 1951-built home is located a few miles north of downtown Austin, TX. We have taken on several remodeling projects, and our goal has always been to spend as little money as possible while still doing quality work and maintaining the character and classic look of our "old" home.
The purpose of this blog is to provide information and resources, and share our experience renovating an older home with the budget of a young family in mind. Before and after pics of the street view:



























This blog will include information and photos of many of our previous renovations, and will provide detailed information on current and upcoming projects. Past projects include: painting (interior and exterior,) redoing the bathroom, building a privacy fence and fence gates, adding built-in shaker-style cabinets in the hallway, replacing doors, refinishing furniture, building a detached studio and garage, rewiring, and several others. These are before and afters of the back of the house.