Drywall job is complete (had a contractor do that – there were some tricky bits expected and we wanted to get on with it). He also found a crack running across the floor where two backer boards met and worried that it could cause tile popping or cracking in the future. Hasn’t been a problem in the past, but decided to go ahead and have him install double-thick 2×4 supports between the joists and drive long screws through the backer board, sub-floor, and into the supports.
Put about 12 hours this weekend into sanding, spackling, digging out bubbles of tired old paint (four layers!), removing messy old caulk job where it will meet the new paint, etc… Funnest part: Sanding new mud from ceiling. Must wear goggles and filter, but breath from filter fogs goggles from inside while falling dust obscures from the outside. So had to remove goggles every few strokes just to be able to see.
The closer one stares at an old wall, the worse it looks. Like word processing, a process of infinite revision. Gotta know when to quit and get on with it.
Finally decided on paint color. Found two separate vendors to supply the chicken-wire floor tile and the coving that will serve as a baseboard; coving color and texture identical to existing shower tile, which we’ll be keeping. Finally found the perfect light (i.e. one we can agree upon) to replace the 1970s Hollywood-style vanity light. I so look forward to ripping that monstrosity out of the wall.
Decided to make a fairly major change to the cabinet, which is too deep to be fully usable – we’ll install three drawers on sliding rollers, which will require knocking out its frame and molding and building a replacement door. Unanticipated work and might cause delay, but will be worth it.
Next up: Final spackle pass, final floor prep, lay tile.
I’ve been renovating for a couple of months. The worst job I’ve had to do is sanding the concrete floor in the toilet.
Dusty, as you mention. Requires goggles, mask, earmuffs and a hat (keep the dust out of my hair). Also requires the room to be sealed, and a vacuum cleaner to be pointed at the angle grinder.
The worst bit is the bending over, or squatting, for several hours at a time. Besides the fact that I still wound up inhaling a heap of concrete dust (I can still almost taste it…), my hair became matted, the rest of the house still needed a big vacuum, I managed to finish.
The amazing thing was just how heavy the vaccum bags full of concrete dust are. I mean, you kind of expect it, since concrete is pretty dense, but the fine dust it makes is pretty heavy.
Good luck with your renovations.
(I don’t know if you remember me – we had some contact back in the glory days of BeOS. You wrote or worked on something like People Porter, and I wrote a program for importing Eudora Mailboxes into BeOS (splitting the file up and adding attributes. I had a great time one evening reading every post in your blog. Glad to hear you are able to do stuff after what seemed like a pretty severe motorbike accident).