More tile work

The nice weather is officially here, so I spent alot of the last weekend outside, plus the lawn is growing 2" a day, so that means plenty of mowing to do. I did get a little bit done in the house though. The bathroom floor is all grouted and ready to be sealed. I also installed the tile on the fireplace base, surround and overmantle. I still need to get that tile grouted, but that will be a quick and easy job.

Here is the tilework on the overmantle. The untiled area is where the TV bracket will mount.

To cut the curved pieces, I made a template out of cardboard, traced it on the tile, then used my angle grinder with a 4" diamond wheel. Then I sanded out any imperfections. Marble is actually relatively easy to shape and sand.

The tile around the fireplace insert was really easy, no cut edges of tile are visible, they are all covered up by the mantle and the insert. I pretty much just had to roughly cut the tiles to size and set them in place.

Here is a close up of the grouted floor. Once I seal it, the grout will darken up some.

Another pic of the floor

The Doors

About 2 weeks ago I had ordered new doors, handles and hinges for the bedrooms, bathroom and closet upstairs. I received the handles and hinges within a few days, but I was just waiting for the doors to come in at Lowes. Box full of handles, its nice to be able to get reproduction hardware that mimics the look of the old victorian styling. I still needed to cut out the wall for the bedroom closet. I used a diamond wheel on my grinder to get a nice cut line without messing up the surrounding wall. About 4 hours later I had the door casing built and the door all installed. I still need to frame out the closet on the other side of the door though. I had to build the door casings from scratch. The walls in the old house are so thick that I couldn't order prehung doors. This is the casing for the closet door. I started by ripping down a 10" wide board. Then I routered out the corner to key them in together. After that I had to router in the hinge slots. The bathroom doors took a little longer, I wanted double doors here so that there wasn't 1 big door swinging out in front of the fireplace. Here is a close up on the handles. The one on the right is the live handle, the one on the left is a dummy handle, that door is held in place by a ball catch on the top. On the inside of the doors I put glass handles to match the chandelier. The next step is to get the new doors trimmed out and then get everything painted. Also I need to do the tile around the fireplace.

Bedroom mantle continued

The next step after framing was to drywall the mantle and install the corner bead. I had enough leftover scraps of drywall to do the whole thing. This step was relatively simple, although it was my first time working with bullnose cornerbead. The bullnose is just around the opening where the TV goes. The trickiest part was getting the arched bullnose to fit the curve properly, it just took some extra time to trim it all to fit good.


A few coats of mud and a little sanding later, things are starting to look alot better. Here is a closeup of the bullnosed arch. The plywood area behind the TV will eventually be tiled to match the actual mantle and hearth.


Here's how it looks currently, fully built in and part of the room now. I still need to put crown molding along the top edge. The two "rectangular bump outs" are strictly cosmetic to add some more detail when I install the crown. The tile leaning against the wall is what will go along the very bottom and also behind the TV. The bad news is the gas firebox I had framed this out to fit is out of stock now at Lowes, and it was a seasonal item. I searched online, and also contacted Lowe's corporate headquarters to try and locate one. I might not be able to get the firebox until September!

Bedroom Fireplace Mantle with TV Niche

Over the weekend I began framing the mantle area for the fireplace in the master bedroom. I started out by making a simple rectangular hearth out of 2x6's and screwed that to the floor. Next I ran the gas line, electric, coax cable and ethernet cable up through the hearth, as the TV will be mounted above the fireplace.

The niche area for the TV will have a curved/arched top. I took two pieces of OSB to cut my template out of. I clamped them together so both pieces would be identical after I made the cut.


Once the two pieces were cut, I had to build them out to the proper thickness by nailing in spacer blocks. I needed to use several of them so that when I drywall this curve there will be plenty of spots to screw into.


The next step was to mount the arched piece I just built, into the framework for the mantle. In the pic below, the TV will mount in the upper area and the firebox will be in the bottom. You can also see the gas line and wires coming up through the hearth in the lower right corner.


I put the marble mantle in place to make sure everything was fitting together properly. The next step is to drywall everything.

to be continued...

Giant hole in the ceiling!

Don't worry, it wasn't a meteor shower or a falling tree. It is an intentional hole cut by my handy saw in the master bedroom ceiling. My buddy Matt came over to help on this one, and after we got everything measured out, we cut the hole and the joists in the ceiling. We then began framing in new headers on the joists that were cut. By that time it was getting late so we called it quits for the night.

The next day I finished up the framing and got all the angled corner pieces installed.

Next it was time for drywall, and this is where I left off today.

When this is all said and done, there will be a prefabricated dome that will sit on top of this octagon. There will be lighting all the way around the octagon shining up on the dome. Originally I was going to have a circular opening, but after going to a concert at the Detroit Opera House, I liked the look of using an octagon. Here's a photo of the super elaborate ceiling.

Master Bedroom Ceiling update

Here's a quick update on my progress with the bedroom ceiling. I've wired and installed halogen recessed lighting, 2 lights in each corner. I've also began hanging the drywall. Now you can begin to see how the shape will be when it is finished. Still alot of work left though.

A closer view of one of the corners with the lighting.

Stay tuned!

Bedroom work - Construction and Demo

My dad, Nick and I worked on framing in a part of the ceiling in the master bedroom. I'm not sure what you would call it, a soffit I guess? But anyway, this new framed in area will give the ceiling some "depth" and character, as well as hold the recessed lighting. Its hard to explain exactly what it will look like, you'll just have to wait for the pics!







We did it in 4 sections, each wall 1 at a time. Unfortunately I don't have any action shots of us putting it up.



Meanwhile my mom and Jen started tearing out the plaster walls in one of the other bedrooms upstairs.