Every place I've ever lived has been designed for that "average American family," with lots of bedrooms, living room, dining room, family room, etc. The problem was that I was a single person, not an average family. I needed space, but for hobbies, not people. And because I'm over 6'2", bending over to use sinks designed for children was a constant frustration. Over the years, I collected a list of things I would change if I could have my dream house. As I approached retirement, I realized time was running out for that house; it was now or never.


Dreams are not always perfect, however. I could never afford my dream house, a spacious Southern California home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But I could afford a modest ranch house, with a 20-mile drive to the beach. It was a very long way from perfect, but it had potential.


This blog documents the process of turning that small average house into something that matches my lifestyle. It will be as close to my dream house as I can make it. I'm doing all the work myself to stretch my resources. By not hiring contractors, I can afford high quality materials, and I'll know the job is always done right. The remodeling will be my primary avocation for a few years, even as I try to fit in my writing and other hobbies.


It promises to be an interesting journey, and a challenging one!

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Tool room transformation — Weather Tech floor tiles

When I bought the house in 2013, it had four bedrooms—I only needed one.  The back bedroom had initially been created by a former owner by partitioning off the back part of the garage.  This left me with a garage that was too short (in fact, the prior occupant was using the garage as a fifth bedroom, complete with carpet).  To make the garage usable, I added six feet to the front (the subject of many blog posts).  I completed the first phase of that fourth bedroom remodel (windows, structure, upgraded electrics, etc.) years ago, and then started using it as a tool room, basically a place to store the tools and supplies I needed to do my remodel/renovation.  It became a disorganized mess.



Since I no longer needed it as a bedroom, it didn't need a closet, so I repatriated that precious space back to the garage.  The former closet opening then had to be walled off.  And to cover the old opening with drywall, I first had to dismantle and remove the heavy-duty shelves from the wall on that side of the room (along with all the tools piled high).


Then add drywall.


And joint compound and paint.  Then it was time to rip up the remainder of the old carpeting, and scrape the concrete floor clean.  While searching for possible plastic floor tiles for the garage, I discovered that Weather Tech (automotive floor mats, etc.) also made floor tiles, but they were only a quarter-inch thick, and not ideal for a garage floor.  But I thought they would do well for my new music-room/instrument workshop (I build electric guitars and basses, steel-string and classical acoustic guitars, and violins).

After placing a few on the floor and walking on them, I discovered they were noisy—mostly caused by the hard plastic clacking on the concrete when you stepped on them.  So I first put down an eighth-inch insulated underlayment, which was the same as I used under my bamboo flooring.  It did the job.

The floor tiles have interlocking edges that need to be pounded together with a rubber mallet; the most effective technique is discovered fairly quickly.


The tiles around at least two of the edges of the floor need to be cut.  I saw on some videos of Swiss Trax installations that cutting with a table saw could melt the plastic, so I used a narrow blade on my band saw and pushed the tile through quickly to minimize heat.  It worked well. 


So here are a couple of photos of the finished room:



Of course, it doesn't look like this anymore, since music room furnishings and much of the stuff I moved out (and didn't throw away) had to be moved back in while the garage is being completed.

I'm happy with the floor.  I will compare it with the Swiss Trax tile when I install that flooring in the garage. 

First I need to build the next group of about twenty-two more drawers.  Drawer factory.

Garage — Part 10 (the inside)

It's been four months since my last post.  Sigh.  My old goal was to do two posts per month, so obviously slow going.  I've been doing a lot of work, but finishing off the inside of the garage was a lot of the same thing, so not conducive to several installments.  And there is still the matter of the high-maintenance puppies—now eight months old—interfering with remodeling time.

When last I reported, I was waiting for a delivery of drywall.  So this post will cover putting up drywall, joint compound, window trim, painting, and cabinets.  At the same time I added one of the sheets of drywall to finish off the back-side of the garage wall, in the adjacent work room.  I ended up finishing off that room, which will be a separate post (also written today).

As I reviewed my photos for this project, I found I had few of hanging drywall and applying joint compound (and sanding).  Likewise painting all that.  I've had previous posts going into more detail on those mundane chores, so for this post, there will be just a few photos (and few words).  Most will be about the workbench cabinet I built to house tools (14 drawers), and provide a benchtop for miter saw, dovetail jig, vise, etc.

The house remodel has been something of a musical chair evolution, with my stuff being shuffled around from room to room, waiting until everything finds its permanent place (or sold or trashed).  So, clear out a room (moving everything someplace else), remodel the room, and then find space for the stuff inhabiting the next room.

So the "beauty shots" of the garage will have to wait until it gets its new floor and drawers made for the new cabinets.  Otherwise, there will be clutter.

On with the show.


Drywall starts to go up.  You can see what had been a closet in the back room, that space now reclaimed for the garage.  On the upper right, I've screwed a sheet of 5/8" plywood to the wall where solar system/battery storage electrics will be attached later this year—there will be a post for that.

In the next photo, the west wall has been covered with drywall and painted.  There are three pairs of large dowels inserted into the wall (into holes drilled into two 4x4s used in lieu of 2x4s when that wall was framed as part of the bedroom expansion—wall moved 21" into old garage space).  My three ladders will be hung on the dowels.


On the right side of the above photo, there is a recess in the new garage extension.  I built shelves in this space, with a drawer unit.  Drawer slides were installed before this drawer unit was assembled; drawers not yet built.  This:


I also installed the drawer slides in the six-foot wide workbench cabinet for the garage, while it was still in pieces.  It's very difficult to install the slides after the cabinet has been put together (something learned the hard way), and accuracy also suffers.  If you install the slides while the cabinet is still in pieces, everything can be open and flat on a workbench.


The base for the cabinet was made from 2x6s cut down to a 5" width.  Construction lumber often is of variable width, depending on how dry it was when cut, and how dry it is when you get it.  Make sure all pieces are uniformly dry, or each piece could end up a different width after a couple of months, after shrinkage—with poor results.


This is the cabinet carcass assembled, without the top and front trim.


Trim on the front plywood edges is just 3/4" x 3/4" pine, attached with some glue and finish nails.  I used a pneumatic nailer, which ordinarily gives excellent results, but if the nail gun is not aimed at right angles, the nail can veer out.  In this case, I was holding the trim in place with my hand, negligently, just where the nail was being placed, and the nail went through my finger.  Actually very little pain, and with immediate washing, antibiotic ointment and bandaging for a few days, it healed well.  Could have been a different story had the nail hit a bone or something else important.


For the cabinet top, I elected to use plain kiln-dried 2x4s, run through my jointer and thickness planer (to 1.25" thick), and glued together with biscuits.  I did that in three separate sections, then ran each section through the planer and trued each edge in the jointer, and then glued the three sections together.  I used a couple of pieces of mahogany I had for visual interest, and coated top and bottom with epoxy.  Nothing fancy.  It will have things screwed and bolted into it, and get dinged up.  The glue-up:


Below is a photo of the cabinet, minus the fourteen drawers—six heavy duty use with full extension drawers slides, and eight more without slides.  I'll be doing a separate post on a marathon drawer building session (for garage, kitchen, bathroom, pottery studio), hopefully soon.

This will give you an idea of what the cabinet will look like, as well as a couple of the new windows trimmed out.


I'm going to do the post on the back room remodel later today.  It's going to be the music room/instrument-building workshop.  The floor is covered with Weather Tech plastic floor tiles, which I had considered for the garage, but not heavy-duty enough.

I will be doing a separate post on the garage floor, which will use thick Swiss Trax plastic floor tiles, bought from Home Depot.  I will post more photos of the completed garage when all that happens.

There is also now a new Tesla Model Y in my garage, so that will be another "garage" post, hopefully with a demo video explaining features, including magnetic braking and one-pedal driving.