Weekend in Oxford

For having a remodeling blog, I sure seem to do a lot a writing about other things...

I needed to spend the better part of this week in Oxford, England, so on the advice of a friend I visited Blenheim Palace. Overall, I think it was well worth it. The literature there states its Britian's greatest palace (I am not quite sure how you measure that), and it's listed a World Heritage site. This is the place where Winston Churchill was born, married and buried - and Being a Churchill fan gave me all the more reason to go.

Here are a couple of pictures I took with my cell phone. It's hard to get a feel for the scale, it beng much larger than shown here.



After all the architecure, decoration and gardens, the most memorable thing I viewed was a short quote by Churchill:


I hope that the home we are remodeling will positively affect our lives. I want it to be a place that we enjoy living in, others enjoy visiting, and I would like that to come from my own hands as much as possible.

Our Dog Hates Change...

We have four kids, a dog, a cat, a rabbit, and I am sure some other creatures the family is afraid to tell me about. Of all of them, our dog hates change. Here is a picture of him giving me the "don't texture and paint this room look".


As soon as we start moving the furniture, the dog starts hanging its head and moping around. Once we paint, or move a wall, or whatever, it takes him a day to get back to normal (loosely applied here). Go figure...

Now on to much more interesting things - wall texturing. Here is the texture we are applying to the theater room (and everywhere else in the house). It is a heavier orange peel look, which does a good job of covering imperfections.


I have found the best way to apply this is with the spraying mantis unit. I bought mine at Lowes for about $75 a few years ago.



I mix water into sheetrock mud until it has the texture of pancake batter, using a grout mixer. Then I use my air compressor (21 gallon) to apply it.


It goes on fairly well, but your arms will get tired / stronger lifting the hopper full of mud.

Craft Closet #2

We were able to get the theater room and craft closets textured, primed and ready for paint. I installed the counter tops as shown below. The black counter with the green painted pegboard actually looks good (I never thought I would say peg board looked good...)


Notice the two layers of trim at the top. The ceiling in the closet is 1 1/4" out of level due to the house sagging over the years. The stone fireplace upstairs was not adequately supported (now it is), causing the sag. The lower layer of trim is even with the pegboard holes and the upper layer is partially cut to match the ceiling. It also runs a bit out of level, splitting the difference. All this together effectively hides the out-of-level condition, especially once the closet doors are added.

We bought the laminate counter piece at Home Depot - $78 for an eight foot piece. The other half went to the other craft closet (one for sewing, one for stamping, paper crafts, etc.) It seems like a nice high quality surface, with a fully wrapped front. I cut it with a new carbide saw blade on the table saw, and had no chip-out.


My DW will keep her sewing machine and surger on this counter, so they will always be ready to use. To keep the counter from sagging over time under the constant weight, I added these heavy duty shelf supports (rated at 400 lbs). I quickly painted the wood backup pieces once I installed them, which helps me avoid extra masking. I also glued and screwed a fir 1x4 across the front behind the counter lip.


Next I need to make a couple of shelves for the top of the closet and 3 drawers that go under the counter. After that, my DW will get all the pegboard stuff.

Garden Shed #1 - The Plan

It seems like we always have about half a dozen projects going on at once...

As part pf the larger plan for the property, I am going to add a detached garage / shop at some point in the near future. Currently we have a garden shed that is sitting where the garage needs to go, so we have to move it, and it's too big to easily pick up and relocate in one piece.

I intend to have my 13 year old son deconstruct the current shed, so we can reuse the materials as much as possible - then help build the new one. Obviously he will need some assistance, but I think it's good learning project for him. It keeps him busy this summer, gives him a challenge, lets him earn some money (I am looking at the positive here.) I am sure there will be some disaster recovery along the way, but it will make for a good story later.

Here is a photo of the current shed. It's 10" x 12" and looks like it was built at least 25 years ago. Other than the original shake roof, the shed is in excellent condition. It has ceder lap siding, 2x4 framing, and no plywood at all. The floor, shelves, etc, are all made of fir 1x4, which is mainly clear.


This shed is 120 sq ft. Our city's building code now allows utility sheds up to 200 sq ft without permitting, so we will go for that size.

I want the shed to match the general style of the house (obviously ranch) after we redo the siding (probably next summer). Here is the concept model I am thinking about. I will reuse the cedar lap on the bottom of the shed and do a board-and-batten look on the top. The 1x4 should make good battens, once painted.


The difference between making a really nice looking shed and a plain one is some labor, which I find enjoyable anyway. This shed will be visible from the road, due to the orientation of our house, so I might as well make it look good.

I used PunchPro to design this. It's not the easiest program to use, but one you get the hang of it, it's a fairly robust tool. Once feature I like is the framing view.


A really useful feature is the bill-of-material estimator. It's nice to be able to quickly sketch something up, then get the number of 2x4's, joists, etc.


Here is an image of the interior - I still have not decided on this yet.

Home Theater #15 - Finishing Sheetrock

I completed the sheetrock work for the theater room. Even though it's dusty and a good deal of work, I like doing it myself (as opposed to contracting it out).

This picture shows the soffit, which creates the tray ceiling in the room. The hole in the corner is for the projector cable. The cabinets I will be building in the next few weeks will go here and have a corresponding opening.


Notice that I have not taped and mudded the corners. I am putting crown moulding both against the ceiling and the wall, so there is no need for the extra work. Since the soffit is an add-on to the room, I don't need to worry about fire-taping the corners.

The recessed lights along the side walls create a very nice effect in the room, but they also show every imperfection in the wall. These wall had a lot of imperfections... The horizontal seams were especially bad, pushing outward in most places. I took a block plane to smooth them down, then re-mudded the wall.


The picture below was taken from the front of the theater room looking back toward the entry.


These pictures all show the first coat of mud. Two coats and a number of hours later, the room was complted. On my next free day I will texture and prime them.

Putting in more built-in bookshelves

I finally got back to working on the basement... To get my motivation back up, I decided to work on the rest of built-in bookshelves I needed to do. This rendered image shows the plan:


This mainly shows the entrance to the theater room. The photos below are of the unit on the left.

Here is the rough opening. I framed it a couple of inches wider than the bookshelves to give myself plenty of room to adjust them. Wrestling the units into place is fun enough, without having to work with a tight space. Adding the extra shims on the sides only takes a minute.


Notice in the picture below that is there quite a bit of blocking above the bookshelf. The top of the opening is the original sheetrocked surface of the air-duct soffit, and this gap will be covered by the trim.

Why not build the bookshelves a couple of inches taller and take advantage of the space? The reason is the window opening to the left. I built these shelves so that the top would be even with the top of the window casing. This will make the top trim pieces line up horizontally. I have blogged about this in the past - slightly uneven trim heights are a sure indicator of an amateur job.


I installed the shelves as two pieces, with a 3/8" filler strip in between. This makes getting the units aligned a lot easier. The filler strip acts as a "hinge" to allow for a better alignment. If you put the two flat sides of the bookshelves directly together, you can have the following problems:
- they may not be exactly flat, and you have to force them together - if you can
- your wall may not be straight, and shelves won't easily align to the front surface, since they are a "solid" unit.
- when you are building your shelves, you don't have to countersink the side screws, etc.


This picture shows the front trim strips applied...


I find it much easier to put the front trim on after the units are in place. The vertical strip in the center covers the edges of both the units, making it look like a single large assembly. Since these are going to be painted, I just front-nail and them fill the holes. If this were finished wood, I would have made rabbited / dadoed trim that could be blind nailed.

Finally, since these shelves are under three feet wide, I could have made them using a single shelf all the way across. When I drew it up, it looked more utilitarian than I wanted. The cost to do it as two units was about $10 more, and i think it looks much nicer.

Costs:
- Qty 1 - 4x8 sheet of 3/8" beadboard plywood for the back (Lowes) $20.
- Qty 1 - 4x8 sheet of 1/2" birch plywood for the sides (Shurway) $22
- Approx 3/4 of a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" birch plywood for the shelves (Home Depot) $28 as sheet.
- Approx 10 sf of 3/4" MDF (Home Depot) - $26 a sheet
- Total cost with glue, fasterners, etc. - $60. This does not include primer, paint or final trim outside time. So figure $80 for the whole thing.

Visit to the Dutch Flower Gardens

I have been traveling again - Holland and Czech Republic. I took the opportunity to go to the Kuekenhof, which is the world's largest tulip garden located outside of Amsterdam. There is a lot of opportunity for inspiration for our own landscaping. Here are two of my favorite pictures...

This photo shows a "stream of flowers", flowing through the woods. I think is this the most striking display in the garden.


I really liked this small area next to a garden shed. I am currently designing our new shed and raised bed garden - and this idea will definitely be included.



At this point, our own landscape is pretty sad. We haven't done much with the place since moving in, since all of our effort has been on the interior. Hopefully was can put more energy into the outside here soon...

One more picture that I like: We had to stop the car for a while due to a parade, so we got out and took a walk through the nearby tulip fields. If you look close, you can see one red tulip in a sea of yellow ones. I think this is a good image of individuality.



Additional photos

Taking a Break

We have not gotten a whole lot remodeling done this past few weeks, since skiing has taken a priority. The conditions on Mt. Hood here in Oregon are the best on record for spring skiing.

That being said, there is a lot of home design inspiration that can come from hanging out at Timberline Lodge. It's a national historic landmark that was built in the 1930's.


You can easily spend a few hours looking at all the design details. The main materials are timber-frame wood, stone and wrought iron. There are also a lot of textiles from the Northwest region. My favorite spot is near the central fireplace.



It doesn't get much better than spending Saturday morning skiing with the family, and then stopping into the lodge to get a dose of great rustic architecture. If you are in the Portland area, its worth the hour drive to spend some time there.

Here is a link to a pretty comprehensive set of photos on the design elements:
http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/umsdp/TL/

Home Theater #14 - Screen Size

I am trying to make a final deicsion on the screen size for our home theater. Since I am building it from sheetrock (see previous posts), this is going to be a relatively permenent setup.

We use our projector to watch normal TV as well as HDTV and DVD's - so my initial idea has been to go with a 4:3 screen that's as large as reasonably possible (60" high x 80" wide). If I stick with this, we have the blank horizontal bands for 16:9 formats.

There are of course a number of opinions on this. I fould what seems to be the most objective at Projector Central, in the article: What is the best screen format?

For today (and the next couple of years), 4:3 is obviously the way to go. Since I am laying stone around the screen, going to 16:9 won't be very easy. I would need to tear it out and add more veneer, which is not a good idea. Instead of building the screen sitting in front of the stone, I could inset it - then la more up if the scrren needed to become 16:9, maintaining the same width. Another option is to lay the stone up to accomodate an HD ratio screen and mounting a screen over it.

Craft Closet #1

After watching a Martha Stewart segment on pegboard organizers my DW decided she wanted pegboard in the craft closet and sewing center I am building for her. The craft closet (4' x 5') is located at the entrance to our home theater as shown in the diagram below. The sewing center is on the other side of the basement.

We decided to focus on the storage areas of the basement remodel before completing the home theater, so we can get all the remaining stuff that is stacked in the room put away. Also, I am not 100% settled on all the theater room details, and this will give me time to work them out.

Here is a picture of the craft closet before installing pegboard. Why do all this sheetrock work if you just going to install pegboard over it? Two reasons: sound management and fire resistance. The sheetrock walls of this and the opposing closet are sound absorbers, stopping the noise from the theater traveling to the rest of the living areas. So far the sound reduction has been great, and the sheetrocked partition walls obviously contribute to this a lot. Also, even on a simple partition wall internal to the house, its best to sheetrock and tape it to help reduce airflow in case of fire. I could not find a specific requirement for it in this case, but it's always a good idea.



In this photo, the pegboard is being installed. I have a system that includes a support ledger and battens to mount the pegboard. The 1/2" battens provide room for the hooks. I used OSB that I cut into strips, which is significantly less expensive than using furring strips. I can cut 30 OSB strips for the cost of 5 1x2 furring strips (in about 15 minutes). Also, OSB is a greener option, since it's made from wood chips, not full lumber.



Here is a simple diagram showing how the pegboard is mounted. The lower ledgers will also provide support for the work surfaces I am installing later.


Here is the sewing center with the ledgers installed. Note that I have a top ledger as well. This is because the pegboard will not go all the way to the ceiling here, and I need a surface to nail the top trim to.


This next photo shows the battens installed. These are nailed directly to the studs behind the sheetrock. I also glued them with wood glue.

Note that I put small batten supports around the outlet boxes. I am going to need to add electrical box extenders to bring the face of the box even with the pegboard. I am definitely not in favor of just bringing the outlets out the surface and leaving a gap. This exposes combustible material to open wiring, which is a code violation and just plain hazardous. A few extra dollars and minutes are not a big deal.


Finally, here is the pegboard installed. I now need to trim it out before my DW paints it. The corners came out very tight, so I am only caulking these. Once painted, I will install the work surface.


I have to admit that I initially thought the idea of pegboard was crazy. I reminds me of some musty garage workbench. However, after doing a bit of research to make sure I could provide what my DW wanted, I realized there are a lot of cool accessories out there, and the overall flexibility is great.

Home Theater #13 - Concept for Screen & Cabinets

I have decided on the concept for the cabinets and wall around the projection screen. Here is the rough drawing (made in visio)...


It looks a bit busier that it will be because of how the beadboard looks in the sketch. Basically, there will be cottage-style cabinets on either side of the screen - open on the top, drawers on the bottom, beadboard as backing. The open places on the wall will have stone.

I got the idea for stone from the following picture:


The cabinets will echo the large bookshelves outside the theater room, but will be stained rather than painted. I got the original idea from this cabinet picture I took at the PDX Street of Dreams.


Here area the bookshelves (from an earlier post)


This plan will be a bit of work, but actually very doable and not overly expensive. The pine is fairly cheap, and I already have the stone left over from another project.

Score on Doors

I was in Lowes, looking at pegboard for the craft closet, and one of the employees rolled a cart of bi-fold doors up front with a clearance sign on them (50% off). Since I am replacing all the doors in the basement, plus the new ones from remodeling, an opportunity presented itself.


Luckily, they were changing door brands, so a lot of stock was put out for fast sale. I ended up buying 10 bi-fold doors and 9 slab doors at half price, saving over $500 - and they all match.

Normally, I buy pre-hung doors, not just slabs, but I had to go this way to match the bi-folds. Part of the challenge of getting things cheap, or reusing things, is making them work. I guess I am going to get good at building door frames and routing hinge mortices...

Normally, I go to Home Depot, but Lowes' selection of things like pegboard is really good. I can say without reservation that their service is terrible, slow and chaotic. I believe the Lowes' management is fully asleep at the wheel on this issue. That being said, when they clearance things out, the prices can't be beat. I just plan (and this case it did indded happen) to stand around for long time waiting for a supervisor to approve the discount sale. I guess mediocre people need to work too.

The basement soffit is now hidden

The set of photos below show how the soffit in the basement was "hidden". Here is the "before" picture:


I have discussed this in past - the two things that really detracted from the house where the long, dark, narrow hallways and the HVAC soffits across the ceiling in the basement. I really didn't want to go the expense to fully redesign these (if possible), so I focussed on hiding / incorporating them.

The soffit shown above became the defining location for the theater room wall. We were lucky in that the theater room size is fine (600 sq ft) doing it this way.


The pictures above and below show the new wall and the theater room entry it forms. The openings on both sides are for bookcases. I actually made the soffit a bit wider so I could put a row of recessed lights along it. These light up the game / homework table nicely.



Here is the rendered computer model, showing the final planned result.

Home Theater #12 - Sheetrock Screen

After quite a bit of research, I have decided to go with a sheetrock projection screen. Here is an image of one I found on line...


Reasons for going with this type of screen as opposed to a purchased or cloth DIY one:
- Cost is low. This screen will cost $40 max for a 100" diagonal size (80x60). To purchase anything of that size with a reasonable level of quality is at least $500. I did find one online for about $150, but the reviews on it were mixed.
- Sheetrock is easy. This will take one and a half sheets, with just one seam to tape.

I am going to use Home Depot's Behr flat paint for the screen. They have a light grey color called "Silver Screen" for this purpose. The examples I have seen online show very sharp images with good color. I am still not sure about adding a coat of matte sealer to the flat paint - there are varying opinions on it.

I'll be building this screen in a 4:3 size, since we watch TV on our theater, as well as movies. I doubt broadcast TV will be going to 16:9 for quite a while, so I am not worried about changing it any time soon.

Also, I will use a couple of layers of 1x4 to build the support frame. This will easily give the sheetrock full support, plus offset it from the wall by 2 inches, giving it a solid shadowline.

References:
- Projector Central
- Big Screen Forums

Home Theater #11 - Projector and UPS Mounting

After looking at the various projector mounts, I decided to go with a flat-screen TV mount instead. All of the less expensive mounts I could find looked flimsy, where as the TV mounts for the same price were sturdy. Also, I wanted to mount the projector behind the beam as shown.


To get this to work, all I needed to do was drill two holes in the universal mounting plate. It would be nice if projectors and TV's had the same standard bolt-pattern for mounting...

This configuration allows the projector to sit behind the beam, and just under it (keeps the headroom). Another benefit is that the projector sits pretty much out in space, so the it gets maximum air circulation around it. We had the projector sitting on a table for a while, and the secondary fan came on all the time. It doesn't here.

I also mounted the UPS on the beam to keep things simple.


After having this set up for a day, I immediately noticed that a very faint 60Hz line (slowly rolled up the screen - you had to be looking for it) disappeared from the image. The power condtioning function of the UPS is obviously cleaning up the "dirty power". This alone makes it worth the $50.

Home Theater #10 - UPS to Protect the Projector

I bought an APC uninterruptible power supply (UPS)to protect the projector bulb. A sudden shut-off can shorten the life or even ruin a $300 bulb - so the $50 for additional 10 to 15 minutes of continued operation is worth it. This will give us time to properly shut the projector down if the power goes down.

I selected APC, since it is the "standard" for UPS units. The best price I could find was through Amazon, including free shipping.


Rather than try to hide the UPS, I am mounting it on the beam near the projector. I will keep it back at least a couple of feet to allow maximum air flow around the projector, and not transfer any heat.



I am still looking into adding an additional fan up by the projector to cool the area further, but I don't want to stir up extra dust either.

Home Theater #9 - Wiring the Speakers

After quite a bit of research, I decided to go with 16 gage in-wall speaker wire. The cost for a 500 ft role was a good deal less than the 14 or 12 gage wire.

There are varying opinions on the performance, but most reviews stated that 16 gage is fine for most home theater applications. In doing my own "ear test" the back speakers sound fine - one of them has a run of 25 feet and the other 60 feet.

Home Theater #8 - Soffits and Lights are in

I completed nailing up the sheetrock and edge beading on theater room soffits. You can really get a feel for how the room is going to turn out. The picture below is a bit fuzzy - a flash would have washed out the lighting...


The pair of lights shown on the right on a separate dimmer from the ones on the left, so we can keep the light a bit lower near the screen. So far, so good - the room feels very comfortable, and the indirect light actually enhances the projected image. I put 30 watt PAR20 bulbs in the cans, which are about 4 feet apart.


I had an unexpected (negative) side effect of the recessed lighting. All the wall imperfections are easily seen. The horizontal tape lines really stand out - the sheetrock job by the previous owners is poor in the basement. It looks like I am going to be skimming the walls with a 12" trowel and re-texturing.


The soffit definately improves the sound quality in the room, cutting the echo. It also seems to stop some of the sound transmission to the upstairs. I am assuming that the top plate of the wall was a main sound transfer point, since its solid, and the soffit covers it up.

80 linear feet of soffit took a bit of effort, but its worth it. I still need to tape, mud and texture, but it won't be that bad.