Concrete Beam Repair

One wall in our kitchen is a concrete support wall so it was the only one we didn’t knock out all the plaster on. It was also the one most out of plumb; the room measures more than an inch wider at the ceiling than at the floor. There were some problems with the plaster surface over the concrete and we could feel some hollow gaps in between the 2 layers. That meant scraping the wall down, which lead to big chunks of the plaster falling off, all the way down to the rough concrete surface. Another repair not anticipated at the beginning of the renovation. 
Our contractor kept mentioning the steps we would be using to make the repair, but we were working on the other walls and when he left me on my own for a few days, I attempted the repair on my own. To fill those gaps back in bonding agent was needed to adhere the joint compound to the rough concrete. The concrete must first be clean & all loose particles removed. Then you coat the concrete with the bonding agent at full strength. Once it is tacky, but quickly before it dries, use an admix of bonding agent & joint compound and cover the raw concrete. You don’t try to fill the whole gap, but just cover the raw concrete. Once that dries then the next pass of joint compound will stick to the 1st coat.
Since the worst spots were at the corner joint, we needed to create a form on the underside of the beam to give a smooth edge to fill up to. My husband formed it up for me and I spread a very thick layer of compound across the wall and into those deep recesses. We had to let it dry for a day & a half before we removed the plywood form & even then, the underside of the mud was still damp and I even cut out a few big drips. Our contractor returned and decided to bring us a bag of durabond which is a dry mix of joint compound which is a bit more firm than the premixed stuff. Wish I had had it for the first layers; it was firmer & easier to work with. He had me add a few more layers of it to level out the corner as much as possible before adding the corner bead. Since the beam is solid, the plastic corner bead can’t be stapled into it, so I had to use the metal reinforced paper tape. Working again by myself, I smoothed on a layer of compound and climbed up ladders on each end of the beam to place the tape so that the bottom edge was level before I folded it under across the bottom side. There was of course a gap on the underside in the center that needed to be filled with joint compound too, but I’m pleased how well it came out. Now it just needs a few coats on each ace to smooth everything out nice & flat like the rest of the walls.

Inside Corners / Outside Corners

After putting up the new drywall in our kitchen, we had to form inside corners up three walls and between the 3 new walls & the ceiling. We also had to form outside corners on the window frame, the pass-thru and the hallway entrance. There was also an outside corner on the concrete beam above the brick wall, but that repair will be part of another post. 

some materials used

outside corners on window are in, inside corners on wall/ceiling need to be done, a gap at top of wall was pre-filled

The outside corners were the easier of the two. We used plastic corner beads that are stapled onto the dry and smoothed over with the joint compound. The toughest part of that was cutting and mitering the corners so that all the openings were square.

corner bead on window, sill needs work so top edge wasn't bedded

outside corner of pass-thru done

close up of pass-thru

outside corner on hallway entry

On the inside corners we used paper tape reinforced with metal strips. To install it you need to measure out a piece the proper length, spread out a layer of joint compound over each side of the corner (being sure not to put it on too thick, except in areas where the seams are really out of square). You then fold the tape down the center & place the tape into the corner keeping it as square & level as possible. Use the trowel to press it smoothly down into your layer of joint compound and then add another layer of joint compound over the top to bed it in securely. The toughest one of those joints was the 14’ long joint on the ceiling, there was a substantial amount of space (almost an inch) in the middle of the ceiling that needed to be filed in. Luckily my husband & I were able to work on that together and he devised way to project a line along the wall for us to follow to keep the tape level across the length of the wall. Once the joint is dry, and then comes the hard part of leveling out the dips in the walls and ceiling to meet your nice new sharp corners. It took quite a few passes on the ceiling to fill in that valley, especially a pain when having to go up & down the ladder so many times.

inside corners done

The Walls Are Back Up

Well we've gotten the kitchen walls back up. Who knew it took so many screws to mount drywall (besides the contractors). I was totally useless with the screwdrivers, so the guys had to handle all that. But I did tape all the joints and help mud them, still have the inside corner beads to do and leveling out the walls & ceiling.

 

The Inconveniences of Reconstruction

After two weeks of construction a few inconveniences are starting to get old. Mostly having all our belongings packed up & shifted to the center of every room so that the electrical outlets can be rewired. It makes for annoying flow patterns throughout the house. I already have matching bruises on each hip from bumping furniture corners. And of course as the rewire progresses, we're shifting boxes from one room to another, thus loosing track of where the hell to find things when we decide we need them. And then there's the constant drywall and plaster dust. Even with most things covered in plastic and their sweeping up after almost every hole they make, I still see a constant layer of dust everywhere I look. But hooray hooray, yesterday we passed the rough electrical inspection, so now we can proceed with patching up the holes and moving some things back. Of course, I'm wishing I had time to paint behind some of the larger pieces of furniture so I don't have to move them again later, but I'm needed to finish the floors, walls & cabinets in the kitchen.

All The Way Down to The Floor Beams

half gone, a photo by BaubCat on Flickr.

Our new floating floor for the kitchen needs to be on a solid and level sub-floor. After walking around & feeling sections give & squeak under his feet, our contractor recommended that we go all the way down to the floor joists & reinforce them. Opening up the floor also make it much easier for the plumber to extend the gas line to the far wall for the new location of the range and a little easier for the electricians to crawl under for that complete house rewire. So all in all, we took up 3 layers of vinyl & original linoleum, one layer of 3" wide pine tongue & groove sub-floor and the final layer of 8" diagonal cross beams. The kitchen looks so much smaller now that everything is gone.
(you can follow the link from this photo to Baubcat's 'Kitchen Renovation' Set on Flickr)

Repairing Vintage Wallpaper with Inkjet Canvas

This is how I repaired/replaced some vintage wallpaper in our tiny bathroom.
While having new windows installed, we discovered termite and wood rot damage to the bathroom window frame & wall. The damage extended along the upper part of the wall so we needed to knock it out to replace the studs & frame. But this meant removing the lovely art nouveau wallpaper that was my favorite part of the bathroom. I shopped around and online, looking for vintage patterns or anything black & white that might match, but couldn’t find anything appropriate. It was the wall directly across from the doorway so it would have looked odd without wallpaper. Tile extends 2/3 up the wall & the section of wall was only about 4’ wide, so it wasn’t a large section. It was vinyl wallpaper, so I attempted carefully to scrape it off and save it. Of course that didn’t go as well as expected and I ended up with many tiny fragments.

The wallpaper had an open weave cloth backing. I began to tape together the fragments of wallpaper on the front side and then glued cheesecloth to the back to hold them together. I only had one section about 20”x30” that was too broken up to reuse.
I was shopping for photo paper for my husband when I came across canvas made for inkjet printers. I came up with the idea of printing the design on it (I had seen pages from an old Sears Catalog used as wallpaper) so I figured the canvas would paste up well and the texture matched the existing wallpaper very well. I began placing the better sections on the scanner and scanning into jpg format. I had to edit parts of the image to fill in the damaged areas. I was then able to print out 8 ½”x11” sections. Luckily the design of overlapping illustrations gave me lots of places to form seam between the small prints. Somehow the new window & frame ended up narrower than the original, so I also needed to create two small strips to border each side of the window. In one of my many art books I found an Aubrey Beardsley design that went nicely. I scanned & printed those out too.
Then I thought about it going up in a moist and steamy room and that the ink might not hold up. I tried painting some polyurethane on one of the scrap portions but the ink bled. I then started researching to see if there was a product made for sealing injet prints. There was, but at $20 dollars per can & only available online, I didn’t want to wait. So I ended up buying clear coat spray with UV protection. I tested it out on another scrap, let it dry and glued it to a scrap of drywall. Looked great. But when I pasted up the real pieces ink bled. I think I used too much glue and got it too wet from the under side, which I hadn’t sprayed. I wasn’t going to remove it and try again, not that big a section anyway. So if you try it, clear coat both sides before gluing & use the glue sparingly.
 

Renovation Existing Tile

When renovating a bathroom, most home improvement sites and books will recommend completely ripping out all the fixtures and tiles and updating everything. They say that you will usually recover the cost when you resell the house. That’s fine if you can actually afford the thousands of dollars in demolition and replacement. Many of us don’t have those resources. And with the current housing slump and home values having dropped dramatically, sinking thousands into a renovation may not pay off.
I have updated both the bathrooms in my home without replacing all of the tile. I have redone just portions of it. I did it myself, and it does involve some delicate precision and hard labor. I’m not sure tile contractors would like my approach either. Hiring someone to do this work may not be easy as they most likely feel it’s easier to tear it all out and then cover a clean flat wall.
Easy doesn’t always mean best for the environment. My approach is to preserve as much vintage tile as possible and to add as little as possible to the waste stream. Where does all that old tile end up? Probably a landfill. Maybe if it were being recycled for some other use, it wouldn’t bother me so much, but most of the time, you see large amounts of construction waste just packed up into dumpsters and trucked away.
Here’s what I did with the 1st renovation. We had broken tile on the windowsill, some edge tiles at the floor that were cracked, a broken ceramic wall mounted towel rack and worn out ceramic soap dish and toothbrush holders above the wall hung sink. After removing the sink, we also found holes through some tiles and cracks in others.
I loved the 50-year-old tan speckled tile but knew I probably wouldn’t be able to match it. The room had black edge tile, so I had to come up with a pattern to insert black tile to fill in the spaces where I removed the broken stuff. It required placing black tiles where the new towel bars would attach to the walls, black tiles on the new windowsill and a few rows of black behind the sink. It also involved preserving at least one tan tile to fill in a spot where one towel bar was removed. Getting tiles off in one piece is the trickiest part & mostly comes down to luck.
Here’s a few links on how to replace a broken tile…

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20051584,00.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_114958_replace-cracked-tile.html

perhaps I’ll post more about my own repair work at a later date as this is already getting too long winded.