Money grumbles and house projects

[unicornduke]

Had a good and long conversation with F last night about the cost of the roof and how much more I could put in on the house (basically nothing right now). I am also worried about what happens when my truck dies. We discussed what we're both doing for a bit more money and what actually was significant. F is getting a promotion next year (hopefully) that will come with a 12k increase, which will help a ton. I'm looking at decreasing some of my expenses and I'm keeping an eye on the job market, although it's not looking amazing. I'm hoping the sheep shearing will pan out in a few years. I'm planning to start selling some of the fiber stuff at farm stores and I suspect I will actually set up some kind of small LLC for shearing and fiber stuff, hopefully not too expensive. The weaving looks like pretty reasonable profit to work ratio so I'm listening to the Professional Weaver's Podcast (very cool anyway) and going to do some time tracking. 

Other than that, we also talked about the basement and potentially if we could get it renovated, we could rent it out, which would help a ton with the mortgage. So we set up a plan for some house projects. The goal for December is to do at least one truck load of destruction from the basement. In order to do that, F's stuff needs to be out of that side of the basement, so I'm going to get the shed worked on to empty the basement of tools and stuff, so F can put her stuff in there. 

So order of stuff is:

1. build shelving/storage in shed for tools/misc stuff
2. hardware cloth up
3. F's stuff gets moved out of basement
4. destruction of basement

The whole basement needs to be torn down to the studs on that side so there's a bunch to do. I'm also going to see if my parents want to come up for a visit, my dad would have a lot of fun with that sort of thing plus some outdoors projects too. The rebuild is pretty doable, we might need to get someone with plumbing experience in, but everything else should be doable by us. The floor is a big issue, we need to put moisture barrier down, level the floor, raise the doors slightly, figure out how to put a ceiling up that is not a hideous drop ceiling, although we need some kind of drop so we cover the electrical and pipes. Lots of work. 

Then the project for January is to replace the kitchen counter surface. It's currently stick on linoleum that has duct tape covering the corners. It's gross and difficult to clean. I can borrow a tile saw from C, so F is going to stop by Habitat Restore in the next two months and pick up any and all tiles. It doesn't matter if they're ugly, we just want a different counter top. The grout and tile stick mixtures are inexpensive and the whole thing is pretty easy to do and quick, so we're just going to do it, half of the counter at a time. 

In the next two weeks, I'm going to get the generator and the snowblower started up to make sure they work and are ready for winter. And the balcony electrical is in the December to do list. 

Projects Will Happen. 

Comments

[reedrover]

Project and progress! Best of luck!

[oracne]

So! Many! Projects!

[graydon]

Hurrah for long-term planning!

May the persnickety awkward gods of logistics co-operate throughout.

[which_chick]

My friend La has a tile countertop which her husband installed over 3/4" plywood. It worked for about ten years but now is not working because plywood is not dimensionally stable enough for tile. The expansion and contraction of the wood has made the cement fail and there are loose tiles all over. *sigh*

So, while you probably already know this, just in case you do not, I am mentioning that you will need a more-stable substrate for your tile than the surface that is already there. You do have options. You can look at your particular situation and determine what works best for you, but here are some ideas.

You can remove the existing countertop deck, replace with 3/4" plywood and then screw 7/16 cement board to it. Then set the tile on the cement board. The cement board is stable and will buffer your tile/cement against the mobility of the plywood. Advantages: Cheap, quick. Disadvantage: needs some sort of edge treatment to not look weird. It'll be about the same height (finished) as existing countertop. You'll have the 3/4" plywood, the 7/16" cement board, and the nominal 3/8" or so for the tile plus cement.

You can do this and use hardie backer instead, but I don't have the tools to cut hardiebacker and you can cut cement board with a utility knife, so... I do that.

You can keep the existing countertop deck and lay down some Schluter ditra uncoupling membrane stuff (they use it to put tile down on wood floors, it provides its own dimensional stability for your tile. It's pretty easy to install and I've used it before to put tile on wood. Is legit stuff. Still have to do some sort of edge treatment but now with the existing (typically particle-based) surface to attach to. Also, the schluter stuff isn't cheap.

When using assorted tiles for a project, check to be sure that they're all the same height. I did my dad's garage floor in foot-square leftover tiles from my usual flooring store (they were a deal for sure) and they were... all nominal foot square but they were of varying heights and that... sucks.

Be sure to check price on standard (base) 4" white tile, it might be cheaper than you think especially if you don't need any bullnose or shaped tiles.

If running a wet saw in the wintertime, it's nicer if you use warm water.

I'd suggest decent-looking one-bys from the hardware, ripped to size, and painted a color you don't hate, for the edge trim. Cheap and quick, plus you can miter the edges and make 'em look nice.

[which_chick]

Also if your resurfacing includes anything that touches the sink, check out your sink-bowl-attachment situation. Some sink bowl attachment systems do not allow for very much leeway in the attachment height and you can thus wind up with a sink that doesn't attach well. You can buy a new/different sink, obviously, but mostly they attach with clips and screws. The clip presses into the (wooden/wood-like) countertop underside while the screws, which have a weird wedge-shaped head, slide that head into slots on the underneath of the sink lip. Tightening the screw pulls the sink base down and sinks the clips deeper into the wood. There's some extra in the system, but not a ton. Standard countertops are 1.25" thick, if you go the 3/4" plywood method plus cement board plus ordinary 4" ceramic tile, you'll wind up with 1 & 9/16 thick, give or take. That'll be fine though you may have to drill out spaces for your sink clips with a spade bit. Doable, but not heinous.

[unicornduke]

This was super helpful information in general, I hadn't planned anything out about the counters yet, just helped someone else do the tile work. I think she had cement board over plywood, so I might do that. I think honestly, we'll leave the area around the sink alone. It'll look like shit but I think doing the sink area is more complex than we were aiming for. The sink is a 3 bay sink, probably heavy as hell since isn't stainless steel and sits next to the stove. I honestly don't know what the material is, it's bright orange. Acrylic maybe? So I think my plan will be to leave a 1 inch section of the current counter top there, and then put some kind of thing to go between the tile and the old stuff so long as it's still able to support the sink. I may need to put in a brace or something. That area worries me the least as far as cleaning since it mostly gets water.

I'll need to really look things over before I start doing things, but that's why it's going to be in January.