Fireplace 2.0

fireplace by bcavalier.

We finally finished up the fireplace and mantle. I did this quick before and after composite using, of all things, ComicLife (pre-installed on my MacBook Pro). Anyway, I'll spare the long winded details and just point to the photos.

PL Premium Polyurethane Construction Adhesive

PL Premium Polyurethane Construction Adhesive is really good stuff. PL’s website claims it is “3 times stronger than ordinary adhesives.” I don’t really know what they consider to be “ordinary”, but this stuff has been plenty strong for anything we’ve used it for, even in high heat areas (like our fireplace). Our carpenter friend swears by the stuff, and has given up Liquid Nails altogether.

A single tube seems to go a long way, and is fairly easy to re-open by just pulling or cutting off the dried adhesive at the tip of the spout. It has pretty balanced open time and curing time. It has stayed malleable long enough for us to do what we need to do, but then seems to cure to rock hard within 24 hours. It’s also reasonably priced, and readily available at a Home Depot near you.

One tip on using the stuff, though. It can be darn near impossible to squeeze out, especially when it is cold, or even cool. Don’t kill yourself. Set the tube near (not on, for goodness sake!) a heating duct, heater, radiator, etc. to warm it slightly. Even so, it can still take some work to get the stuff out, so be prepared.

A fireplace-tilin' weekend

On Saturday, we actually laid the tile. Like most things in life, it’s all in the prep work and planning. We managed to come up with a plan to cover the entire facade and hearth without cutting a single tile. The fact that it actually worked is equally amazing. The fact that it only took us four hours is utterly mind-blowing, since this is the first time either of us has tiled anything. We’re usually off by at least a factor of two in estimating how much time our projects will take.

Sunday evening, after the adhesive had set, we started on the grout. It turns out that mixing grout by hand is a bad idea. Join a gym instead, and then go buy a grout mixing attachment for you drill. Seriously, spend the money, and thank me later.

Applying the grout was an on-the-job-learning process for sure, but once we got the hang of it, it wasn’t too bad. When you’re laying 1 inch tiles, though, the grout to tile ratio is very high, so we learned two things. First, you need more grout. Repeat after me: “high grout to tile ratio”. Read the package. Luckily we had enough. Second, it takes a lot longer, but not where you might think.

After this project, I can say that I had two big misconceptions about tile.

1: Tiling is hard.

In fact, laying the tile was very simple. Of course, it really was all in the planning.

2: Wiping excess grout off the tile after you’re done grouting is quick and easy.

(This is the part you never see on Home Depot commercials or HGTV.)

Lies! I am here to tell you that it is neither quick nor easy. I’ll bet, to most people, the word “wipe” implies a nice, relaxed process. However, I’d say that “scrub violently” is more appropriate in this instance. It took 2 hours, lots of trips to the sink to wring sponges, and buckets of elbow grease to get that dang grout off. I’m sure that if you have nice, smooth 12 x 12 tiles it’s a piece of cake. Leave it to us to pick 1 x 1 tiles (that darn grout to tile ratio again), and 6 and 12 inch slate tiles with peaks and valleys like the Rockies. Elbow grease.

In the end, we’re very happy with how it turned out. Hop on over and check out the pics.

Fireplace prep work

We’re starting to dive into the next phase of the fireplace project. With a little help from our friend, we managed to mount cement board to the facade. By “a little help”, I mean that he did most everything while I tried to assist and learn all the ways I would have screwed it up.

It actually turned out to be a good bit more challenging that I had ever thought it would be. Measuring and cutting the boards to fit the firebox opening and the corbels was tedious, but simple enough. After that the fun began, though. The stones in the facade were mostly even, but there were occasional protrusions that really made it tough to get the boards to line up with one another and to be plumb. We planned to use screw anchors and adhesive to attach the cement board, but after playing with them for a while and figuring out how to position the boards, we decided to mount them once without adhesive to make sure it was going to come out right after screwing things down. Luckily it did, so we took them down, and then re-mounted them with the adhesive.

Since the latest photo, we’ve also taped and sealed the center seam with joint compound to smooth it out. We still have to figure out what we are going to do with the sides of the facade, the corbels, and the rim of the firebox, but we have some options in mind. We also have to figure out what we want to do with the hearth.

Hopefully more updates and pics to come soon!

Frozen light switches, and science

With scary visions of house fires raging in my head, I decided it was best just to go for it and crack open (not literally) the frozen light switch. What I found on the inside was both relieving and puzzling. There was absolutely no ice, or even moisture whatsoever inside the wiring box. My first thought was “Yay!”, followed closely by my second, which was “How can that be?”. How could there be moisture and ice on the cover, but not inside the box?

Our carpenter friend is at the house helping us prep the fireplace, so I presented the puzzle to him. He immediately, and nonchalantly provided the answer. First, there is cold air coming into the house through the box (a project for another day) and cover. The air in the house, along with the surface of the cover, are much warmer, so when the cold air meets the warm air, they interact on the outside of the cover to form condensation (or more correctly, “dew”). The dew eventually freezes because the outside air coming in cools it to below freezing (keep in mind the air outside as I am writing this is around 0°F).

The air and the metal surfaces inside the wiring box, however, are much closer to the outside air temperature. The temperature differential of the outside air and the air and metal inside the box is not great enough to initiate condensation inside the box. No condensation means no dew, and no dew means no ice.

Tada.

Bathroom prep work

We made some time over the weekend to do a bit more prep work for the bathroom. Last weekend, our contractor came over to review all the details and brought up a few more things that we needed to decide about the tile. So, on Friday, we returned to ProSource(see below) and picked out a bullnose tile to go with the wall, floor, and border tiles we had already picked out. Once we laid it all out, the grout color we had previously picked just didn’t look right. We ended up spending more time finding a new grout color than on anything else! It was worth it, though, as the wrong grout color can really destroy the look of the best tile.

On Saturday, I performed minor surgery on the vanity. To get the back to sit flush against a wall, I needed to trim the lip with circular saw, and then add two boards to hide gaps. Taking a circular saw to an antique vanity was a little nerve wracking, but I think it worked out nicely.

While I was hacking the vanity, Lor managed to remove the fixtures and drain from the tub. That involved the use of our favorite tool, and was probably just as scary as circular saw surgery on the vanity. Then, she sanded and stripped the paint from the edges of the porcelain and from the outside of the tub (the paint is directly on the cast iron). We’re planning to paint the outside of the tub with a faux dark copper/oil rubbed bronze look to match the sink and fixtures.

Check out the progress on Flickr.

On a side note, ProSource is a flooring wholesaler. They have a great selection and very competitive prices. The catch is that you can’t just walk in and buy stuff. You have to be, or be working with, a contractor, and you/he/she has to be a ProSource member. So, if you’re working with a contractor, or have a friend who is a contractor, and you’re in need of some flooring, it might be worth checking if he/she is already a member.

One more reason Pegasus Lighting rocks

Last year I blogged about how much I liked the Pegasus xenon task lights we bought for our kitchen renovation. In the morning today when I checked my email, I found a message in my inbox from the President of Pegasus Associates, who had “stumbled upon” my post. Here’s a bit:

Thank you very much for your very kind words about Pegasus Associates Lighting in your blog dated March 13, 2006, “Stuff that rocks: Pegasus Lighting”. I have shared your remarks with everyone here and all of us really appreciate your very positive comments. I would have commented before this but I just happened to “stumble upon” your comments this morning. What a great and wonderful surprise. I just love the smell of positive customer comments early in the morning.

I thought this was very cool—a personal email from the President of the company just because he happened to “stumble upon” a blog post from some random diy’er like me. He even asked if they could use a few of my flickr photos on their site, and I was happy to oblige.

Let’s recap the score: number of nice people I’ve interacted with at Pegasus: 3, number of belligerent customer service reps: 0, number of confusing, dead-end laden, automated phone trees: 0.

Hats off once again to the folks at Pegasus Associates.

Projects, projects, projects

After a brief hiatus from any major projects, we’re at it again. We’ve already started the project of replacing the fireplace mantle and covering the fireplace facade and hearth with new time. Our carpenter friend made the new mantle out of one solid piece of pine (it’s about 14 feet long!), and it fits over the old mantle and top bookshelf, so we didn’t have to demo anything. If you need a carpenter, let me know, he’s one of the best you’ll find around Pittsburgh.

We picked the tile that we’ll use to cover the fireplace facade, but we haven’t decided what to do with the hearth yet. Right now, we’re leaning toward using some complimentary color and style of tile, possibly larger squares of a more solid color, or even large rectangular tiles.

We’re also getting close to actually starting the bathroom remodel. Up to this point, we’ve been planning and picking out the sink, vanity, tub, fixtures, and tile. We still have several things to pick out and decide, but hopefully we’ll be ready to do the demo in a few weeks.

Stuff that rocks: Pegasus Lighting

The latest chapter in our ongoing kitchen renovation has been the installation of new under-cabinet lighting. Like everything these days, there is a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, types, and manufacturers to choose from. We finally settled on Pegasus Associates’ low-voltage xenon task lights.

They rock. Let me count the ways:

1. Quality product: Their lights cost a bit more than others I looked at at Home Depot, but they are so nice. They are plug-in or direct wire, using standard Romex, they have tons of knockouts, and they have really easy to use push-in wiring connectors. The housings are mostly metal and very solid.

   The only suggestion I have for them in this department is better installation instructions, and some troubleshooting information. The instructions that come with the lights are almost nonexistent, and there is no troubleshooting info provided.

2. Quality light: One thing that really tipped the scale on these lights, was the various posts I found saying how good the light quality is. These lights have a wonderful, warm, incandescent-like light (slightly whiter, though) glow. The glass diffusers do a great job, too. You can still tell where the bulbs are by the lightwash on the backsplash, but it is much less noticeable than other lights that don’t have any diffusers. The diffuser also helps dissipate some of the heat, which so far, hasn’t been a problem at all for hands under the cabinets or inside the cabinets on the surface of the lower shelf.

3. Customer service: One of the lights I ordered flickered badly after installing it, so I called customer service for some troubleshooting help, and if necessary, an exchange. A real human answers the phone. Not only that, she was very pleasant and helpful, directing my call to yet another pleasant and helpful person in the support department. After checking and trying a few things suggested by the support department, they suggested I just send the light back, and they would send me a new one. That was Thursday afternoon. The new light arrived on Friday morning. I hadn’t even had time to mail the old light back to them!

4. Customer service: Now, I realize this is the same as #3, but in today’s world of abysmal customer service, this is worth mentioning more than once!

If you’re in the market for under-cabinet or task lights, I’d definitely recommend checking out Pegasus Associates. Even if you are in the market for some other lighting products, I’d recommend at least browsing their website to see what they have. Their customer service alone is enough for me to consider them for any future lighting projects.