Fireplace Final Phase

After working on the fireplace for a year and a half it is finally finished. It was installed and ready to use on Christmas Eve. It was exciting as it is something that I have wanted since we moved into the house. We lit our first fire in it and it was worked really great. There hasn't been a fire in that fireplace for over 70 years. After a lot of hard work and dedication, I can definitely say it was one of the hardest projects that has been done with the house. There is a removable ash pan at the bottom so I don't have to scrape the ashes out, which helps prevent the ashes from getting all over the floor. The insert was painted with a high temperature spray paint. I decided to go with black as that is the color that looked the best against the tile. The glass is a special tempered glass that had to be ordered in. I had my husband cut out the Celtic triquetra out of metal to put over the glass. I wanted something unique.






Fireplace Phase 5

The fireplace is almost complete a few more weeks and it will be ready to install. The mantel has been cut to fit and is ready to be stained. I decided to use pine for it, as it was one of the nicest woods that I looked at, plus it wasn't really expensive.
Since the wood was in good condition, I decided that I don't have to paint it beige before staining it. The wood was cut to fit the chimney and was sanded. After it was sanded, I wiped it down with a damp rag and let it dry for a couple of hours. After making sure that it was completely dry, I set up my buckets and got busy with staining. I used the Minwax brand in #215 Red Oak. Unfortunately, this stain did not have the polyurethane (varnish) mixed in with it, so I had to buy some. I only put one coat of stain on the wood, as the red oak went on pretty dark. After letting it dry for a couple of days, I used the polyurethane to seal the stain on the wood. I had to let that dry for a few days before I could hang it.

Fireplace Phase 4

Working on the insert has been extremely time consuming, as it has to be custom made to fit the existing firebox of the fireplace. The insert will have a heat exchanger in it and a fan will be located in the back of the chimney to help blow the air. The outershell of the insert is now finished and it is time to work on the inner shell and the heat exchanger.
Outershell of the insert:

Bathroom Etc.

I stained the cabinent that the sink goes in and the one shelf an American Chesnut. I stained the woodwork and trim a Classic Oak color. I decided to leave the shelf above the toilet white in order to have some more color in the room.





Bathroom tub

The area by the tub actually went pretty well. The surround was pretty easy to take down and the walls behind it were really horrible looking. There was old glue from some tile that was never cleaned off and you could see the remnants of the tile squares. We decided to put durock up instead of water resistant wall board because the dur rock will not come apart or mold when it gets wet. Instead of putting up another surround I decided to use the sheet linoleum in kind of a rock pattern and a metal shelf. It turned out really good, and it looks so much better than the old surround. When my husband was cutting the trim to go around the tub, he accidently cut a couple of the pieces a little too short, so we had to fill them in with silicone and I stained those areas to match the trim. We also found found another note hidden in the wall with the plumbing. We decided to add our own not next to that one.

Pics of the bathtub area:






Bathroom Walls

The walls in the bathroom were more complicated to do. Some of the walls were made out of cinder block and others were made from wall board. Nothing was straight, and it was a pain to try and get things straight. After a lot of hard work, we were unable to get some parts of the wall straight. The wall behind the sink bows a little bit, but it is hidden behind the mirror and the sink. Found a hidden message written on one of the boards. That was kind of interesting to find.
The color I chose for the walls is called Icelandic. It is a mix between blue and purple. The color is perfect in the bathroom, it really brightens it up.

Pics of the walls:

Bathroom Floor

The good news was that the boards underneath the sub floor were still in good condition. There were a couple of spots on the wood that had to be taken out and replaced. We also decided to add a few more boards for some added support. After that was done, the plywood was put down. Plywood is better to use in the bathroom as it won't swell like the particle board does when it gets wet. The linoleum went on top of the plywood and I decided to use the sheet kind in a wood pattern. The sheet linoleum in my opinion is better to use as you don't have to match squares and there is no chance of water leaking down to the sub floor.

Pictures of my floor:

Bathroom Phase 1

Finally got around to remodeling the bathroom. We started over Labor Day weekend, and finally finished on the Sunday September 18, 2011. It took at total of two weeks to get the project done. The bathroom was in horrible shape. The previous owners put down particle board as the sub floor, then put the tilled linoleum over the top of it. The problem was the tiles were not lined up and there were gaps between the tiles. There was no sealing put around the tiles to help keep the water out. Eventually the water made the floor start to cave in, we had to put a piece of board over the part of the floor by the toilet until we could get the problem fixed. The paint was peeling off of the walls, the tub surround was falling off, and bugs were crawling in. Which was really gross. There were many beetles that got flushed down the toilet.
Here are the before pictures of the bathroom:





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