All Washed Up

After clearing up this clog in the bathtub I thought it would be a good idea if we used body wash instead of soap.  In addition to hair getting in the drain I’m pretty sure the soap also helped to gunk everything up.

32 ounces of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap

I looked on-line how to make our own body wash.  Of course I wanted it to be as simple and natural as possible.

Liquid vegetable-based soap

The answer seemed to be getting a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Fair Trade Liquid Castile Soap and diluting it 1:1 with water. The ingredients are water, Saponified Organic Coconut*, Organic Palm* and Organic Olive* Oils (w/Retained Glycerin), Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Essential Oils**, Citric Acid, Vitamin E.

Dilute the Bronner’s soap 1 to 1 with water.

I bought a quart of the lavender fragrance for $18 at Target and diluted it in an old pump bottle.  It’s thin so I pump it straight onto a wash cloth in the shower.  It smells heavenly.

Undiluted pint remains after mixing up a quart of body wash.

Hopefully this will last a long time. The body wash actually costs about $2.25 for 8 ounces. Not a bad deal in the bargain.

What’s your favorite body wash? Soap? Shampoo? Do you make it yourself? Recipe, please.

And Now It Doesn’t Fit

After we finished laying a new floor in the cottage bathroom were ready to replace the bathroom door.

We laid the floor and trimmed it up.

We even rejuvenated the old threshold.

The newly painted threshold links the old floor to the new one.

The door easily dropped back onto its hinges but had 2 minor problems it wouldn’t close all the way nor would it open all the way.

This dark photo shows where the light could seep through and where the door was hung up.

My plan was to get out the Surform and plane it a little.

Charlie planed the top corner of the door and it eventually fit into the jamb with no sticking.

Unfortunately the bottom of the door continued to scrape the NEW floor even after vigorous planing with the Surform.

And I mean VIGOROUS!

Finally Charlie pulled out the circular saw and trimmed a sliver from the bottom of the door.  We marked a line that had been squared in relation to the side of the door so the cut was thick in some places and only a blade’s width in others.

The bottom edge of the door was squared up and sawed off.

Finally, after about 6 false starts, we popped the door on its hinges and it both opened and closed.

Now the door both opens and closes.

Thanks for the privacy.

Do your simple projects go on forever? (Ours do: I still should paint the edge of the door that is now raw wood.)

Blinded and Left Hanging

We’re adding a window blind for privacy not for beauty.

After replacing the sill and trim on the window in the Cottage bathroom I located the wooden mini-blind that we’d removed before we started all the work over a year ago.

This natural wood blind from Ikea just needed a good dusting which I did with an old paintbrush.

We cleaned out the window ledge of insects and dirt and hung the brackets for the blind.

The brackets screwed into the wall with 2 screws.

This window faces into the woods so there’s not much of a privacy issue.

No one is lurking looking in this window.

Just in case the user wants to keep his personal habits private he can now close the blind.

The blind is hung and in working order.

Every small change seems to have a whole list of antecedents before we can call it complete.

What small change is on your list?

Clear the Haze

One of the most surprising projects we’ve done at The Glade is regrouting the bathroom tiles.  It made a tremendous improvement.

The after (left) and before (right) side by side.

Unfortunately, if the grout that gets on the tile itself is not well-cleaned in a timely manner, a haze results.

The grout left a chalky haze on the tile.

This haze is impossible to remove by just wiping down with water but there is a

The grout haze cleaner costs about $9.

Since our grout had been hazing the tile for more than 2 days, we used the formula suggested on the bottle of 4 parts water to 1 part haze cleaner.  This product is a strong alkali and dangerous to smell or get on skin so Charlie suited up with a respirator, a jumpsuit and rubber gloves.

Charlie is well-protected for this cleaning chore.

He wiped on the cleaner solution with a mildly abrasive sponge and rinsed the area with clean water.

Dilluted cleaner is applied to the wall.

The results are beautiful: clean, shiny ceramic tile.

The tile is clean and shiny and the haze is history.

An added benefit is that he also cleaned our old tub with the haze cleaner to remove any grout that had fallen into the tub.  The tub is cleaner than it has ever been.

Haze cleaner also cleans dirt from a ceramic tub.

I’m going to try this cleaner on our bathroom floor to see if it will remove 65 years of grime. I’ll report the results.

Results report: I tried it on the floor and while it cleaned very well the floor is not sparkling clean because it really needs to be regrouted also.

Have you discovered a new-to-you product that works really well?

Could There Be a More Perfect Time?

For the past 2+ weeks we’ve been unable to use the bath tub in the house due to a major clog. Instead we’ve been showering in the Cottage.

It’s difficult to get a good photo of the Cottage bathroom.

While the pink tile in the house bathroom was extremely dry, we thought it would be a good time to regrout and recaulk I thought it would be a good time for Charlie to regrout.  He thought of recaulking himself.

With the sharp edge of a scraper the old, loose grout is removed.

Charlie started by scraping the loose grout and pulling all the old caulk while making sure nothing went down the recently cleaned drain.

We had this bucket of grout on hand or this project may never have been started.

Then with a bucket of premixed grout he carefully applied it to the vertical and horizontal spaces between the tiles, sponging each section as he went along.

A wet sponge helps to remove excess grout and keep the tiles clean.

This is tedious work but the results are even better than I imagined.  The whole bathroom seems brighter and cleaner.

The after (left) and before (right) side by side.

This calls for a new shower curtain liner.

Newly grouted bathroom tile.

What jobs do you delegate?

Sidebar: I had a really difficult time getting the pink color of the tiles just right in the photos.  They are not bright, clear pink; they are a little fleshy most like the left corner of the photo above.

The Stink is History

We found the origin of a foul smell in the crawl space of our house. We originally thought the main drain had a crack in it but actually one of the lines going to the 4″ cast iron sewage pipe had broken and disconnected.

The end of this pipe which drains from the kitchen sink had broken loose from the main drain.

The first plumber who came out before the weekend promised to come back Monday to fix the drain pipe and unclog the bathtub. Unfortunately his office called to say he would not be able to return until the next Thursday. Thursday! Uh-uh.  We want someone on MONDAY so I called another local plumber who set an appointment for us for MONDAY.

The crawl space is even tight Charlie who weighs in at 155 pounds.

Charlie was going to dig enough dirt out of the crawl space for the techs to get in there and replace the pipe. If you recall the first estimate was $1100; $650 if we did the digging.

Charlie removed 20 wheelbarrows of dirt from the crawl space a bucket at a time.

Charlie not only dug out the crawl space but also got the parts for the repair which he almost completed himself except he was unable to screw the new pipe into the old cast iron more than one turn.

The pipe is mended with a piece of PVC.

When Mike and Andrew, the plumbers, arrived on MONDAY they got right down to business. Mike actually did the repair in the crawl space. He had no problem screwing the new pipe into the old one: the difference of a 300-pound turn versus a 155-pound turn.

Water can now flow down the drain.

Not surprisingly the real challenge was to unclog the tub which did eventually run free. The sweetest part of the repair was the cost. Not $1100. Not even $650. The entire job was $235! Woo-hoo. Running water that drains. Thanks, men, we’ll call you again if we need a plumber.

Have you saved big on doing a little work yourself?

Trimming the Floor

We installed a floating laminate floor in the bathroom in Glade Cottage.

A new floor that needs baseboard trim.

To finish the edges around the floor we used 2 different methods.

The gap between the floor and the tub is covered with synthetic quarter round.

Along the bathtub Charlie cut a piece of synthetic quarter round which we glued down to the laminate with Liquid Nails silicone glue.

Liquid Nails silicone glue is sold in the paint section.

Then with 100% silicone bathroom caulk Charlie caulked along the floor edge and along the tub edge of the quarter round.

The trim and edges are well-caulked with silicone caulk.

At the same time he recaulked the vertical edges on the tub for a seamless installation.

The silicone caulk goes on slowly but smooths easily with a finger dipped in mineral spirits.

I cleaned the wood trim that had been around the room before we started remodeling with steel wool soaked in mineral spirits.

After scrubbing the trim down with steel wool and mineral spirits, wipe it down again with mineral spirits on a rag.

I painted the various pieces with semigloss so I would only need to touch up after cutting and installing.

The trim has been given two light coats of paint.

Using a manual backsaw and miter box I custom fit the trim which came in 2 pieces: the base is 1″ by 2″ stock topped by base cap moulding.

The backsaw blade fits into slots on the miter box for an accurate cut.

Using only a few nails I installed all the base boards then all the base cap. The walls are not straight so gaps appeared at the corners and along the top of the baseboard.

The lower trim is nailed to the wall then the cap trim is nailed to the base.

After trim was installed we followed the directions of Cassity from Remodelaholic , who has a wonderful post on using paintable latex caulk, to give a flawless finish to molding and trim. I have always been hopeless at caulking but her instructions (hot water and nailess finger to smooth) certainly improved my results.

The trim has been caulked and the paint touched up.

Ta-da!

Do you reuse old trim? Old furniture? Old ____?

A New Seat for the Throne

Yes, that’s a euphemism for the toilet.

A new floor

We installed a new floor in the Cottage bathroom so we decided to replace the 30+-year-old toilet seat which was scratched and worn.

The old seat ready to be removed and a new seat ready for installation.

A new white-painted wooden toilet seat at Lowes is only $6 and makes the whole room seems fresher.

The new seat (as was the old one) is a standard, not elongated, size.

I had some trouble getting the old seat off.  I could not remove the plastic bolts that held it in place so I had to saw them off with a small saw.  In doing so I hit my head against the wall and broke my glasses.  Really stupid.

The screwhead bolts are plastic with plastic washers; a challenge to remove.

But the new seat looks pretty and clean and worth a pair of broken glasses. (I guess.)

The new seat is white.

Have you hit your head lately?  Break anything? Concussion?

What is That Stinking Smell?

As you know our bathtub was backed up 2 weeks ago.  And it still is.

We tried plunging, liquid plumber, the pressure washer and the wet vac.

We have been smelling a gaggy smell in the house but we didn’t exactly know from whence it came. When the drain technician came to unclog the drain he found a much bigger problem totally unrelated to the clog.

Raw, slimy sewage running down the basement wall from the crawl space.

Apparently the houses’s main drain has a major crack in it and has been spewing water and sewage into the crawl space under the house. Eeeww! YUK! Pew.

The arrow points to the flow of nastiness in the crawl space.

Unfortunately the cost for this job is $1100: $650 to repair the pipe and $450 to dig enough dirt out of the crawl space for the techs to get in there and replace the pipe.

Charlie is digging some dirt out of the narrow crawl space so the plumbers can work and to save us some money.

My darling Charlie is doing the digging to save us the money.  He’s lying on his back in nasty, smelly dirt while digging as best he can.  The whole scene reminds me of the prison break in The Great Escape.

The crawlspace in The Great Escape

The drain service was slated to return on Monday to both clear the drain and replace the 4″ by 10 foot pipe.  Unfortunately his office called and said he actually couldn’t be here until next Thursday.  I called another company who will be out on Monday.  I’m pretty sure we don’t want to go another week without using water in the kitchen sink.

What stinky thing makes your clogs seem small?

Toiling Over the Toilet

In order to lay the new floor in the Cottage bathroom, the toilet needed to be removed.

The flooring is finished and ready for the return of the toilet.

But a bathroom with no toilet is not very useful so Charlie scraped the old caulk from the bottom of the toilet to prepare it to be returned to its place of honor.

The toilet drain was stopped up with a rag to stop sewer gases from escaping while we were working in the bathroom.

First he sealed the space between the new floor and the flange with silicone sealant (caulk).

The flange is well-sealed with silicone.

The only necessary purchase was a new wax ring kit that includes a new set of bolts, nuts and washers.

Wax ring kit cost about $4.

When installed the black part of the wax ring is placed into the whole.

The wax ring is inserted into the hole.

The wax rings fits easily into place.

While Charlie lifted the toilet over the hole I guided the bolts through the holes at each side of the base. Charlie sat backwards on the toilet and wiggled around to seal the toilet onto the wax ring.

A plastic washer is placed against the porcelain and a metal washer is placed on top next to the nut.

Snug up the nuts being careful not to put them on too tight and risk cracking the porcelain.

New floor in the toilet alcove.

Connect the water line and flush.

Do you do your own plumbing?