Hard Weekend Ahead

[Gone Costal]

My wife and I are getting ready to head to the coast this afternoon to do some works before the carpets gets installed in two weeks. Some of the stuff is just basic rip out of carpeting in all rooms, patching an area where they didn't level the sheets of new particle board coming together and painting.

But the first thing we have to do is rip out a steeping Whirlpool tub he guy had installed. The man that owned the place took excellent care of this 1991 28x56 double wide. New siding and new roof two years ago. Put up a 36' long x 16' wide garage he used as a wood shop and a 8'x10' koi pond in the back.

He had some illness that require him to take whirlpool tubs often so had one installed in the guest bath. The guys that did it probably did a con job on him because of the way it was installed or he just insisted in a full size one installed.

They put a hole large enough to slide the 60" tub through the wall of the 2nd bedroom. The tub still extended out of the wall by about 1-2" so they built a wood box to surround it and pushed a computer desk over the hole. Unfortunately, we didn't see it when we bought it and the inspector missed it also. Fortunately, we did get some compensation for the removal and remodeling of the bathroom. Nice amount too.

In the master, opposite end of the tub, they cut a excess hole for the plumbing and left it in two pieces just nailed to the wall and very uneven. I have to say it was one of the worst installations I have ever seen and can just imagine what this guy went threw. The wall kit is a real mess also and the trim around it is in about 20 pieces being glued here and caulked there. try and get some pictures for you all to see this weekend.

So the plan today is to pull the tub back out of the wall, cap off the water lines and drain line and leave the job for a later date. I imagine I will just gut the bath to the stud and install the proper fixtures later on. Then we are repairing the walls to the master and second bedroom with new drywall.

The biggest chore will be to pull off all those strips on the seams of the vinyl wall board, tape and mud them, sand them smooth and try to get them textured by Saturday so we can start painting. We have the master, 2ND bedroom, hallway, den and living room to paint. Shouldn't be that hard to do but we are going to have to hustle our behinds off. The Master and 2nd bedroom are both being fully textures before painting.

I am renting a texture spraying from a rental place just down the road for $40/24 hours. The trips about 2 hours and I don't want to haul my compressor and hopper down with everything else we have to take this trip like air bed, two dog carriers, painting equipment, plumbing tools, supplies ect.

Hopefully we won't have to make another trip down there mid week to finish it. Better yet, I hope we don't return back here not talking to each other or getting into a paint fight. This should turn out to be a very interesting weekend at the least.

[dandjbarrett]

Wow, best wishes for a productive weekend. Hope it all goes well for you.

[SpongeBob]

Hi, think optimistically......at least you don't have to worry about a roof or siding for quite some time!

[Maureen]

Good luck with the tub removable! I can't even imagine a tub that size, sticking out into other rooms! At the same time, it only goes to show that you can disguise anything! I'm glad you were compensated for it though.

Just curious, are you texturing walls or ceilings with this sprayer? I've only seen a texture, the popcorn ceilings sprayed on. I'm having a hard time imagining a texture on walls lol!

Good luck to you! I hope your weekend goes smooth!

Maureen

[Gone Costal]

Well we made it back from the trip down to do all that work. Didn't look like we got to much done till you start reviewing all our work. Then you start getting tired thinking about all the time spent and things done in just 3 days.

We managed to get the tub pulled out in two hours and sitting in the garage. That inlcuded capping off the water and drain lines, capping off the pump line and getting them into a box, tearing out all the supports holding the tub in and sliding it out unscratched. Wonder what a used whirlpool tun goes for.

We also managed to pull all those strips off cover the vinyl board seams, getting them taped and mudded before the night was threw Friday in the master bedroom.

Saturday we second coated them patched the holes in both bedrooms from the tub and get them plastered in. We got the livingroom prepped and painted and the hallway done. Then saturday afternoon I got the wall seams and tub patches sanded and second coated. In the meantime I got to put in about an hour on the Koi pond which I got running. Man this thing is going to be so nice and enjoy on the back deck.

In all we got the tub pulled and walls patched. Painted the livingroom (18x28), den, master and 2 bedroom. I even got the the 12x12 kitchen floor smoothed out with leveler for the new vinyl. We installed 10 new door locks, set a new toilet, installed a new kitchen faucet and got some new ceiling fans installed.

We figured we saved ourselves about $2000 doing it all ourselves. The plumbers down there want $90 an hour plus $37 for a helper. Pianters wanted $250 a room and floor guy would have charged us about $200-250 to prep the kicthen floor. Then we would have had quite a bit in the patching and taping over the seams in the two rooms. That money will go towards the new good neighbor fence I want to start on in two weeks.

I had 3 different fencers out there and got bids from $3200 to $4500 to put up the fence. I made a deal with a lumber company I work with here for the materials. Just a little over $1100 inlcuding the cement for the post. Fence will be (24x57x27) about 110 feet so they wanted about $36 a foot. The hardest part is drilling the 30" deep holes so I figure I can do the entire fence myself for under $1500.00. More work but I have alot of time right now.

I will post some picture later of the place and things we did later.

BTW, the texture sprater I rented didn't work. The spray gun trigger was broken and just kept shooting air threw it as soon as you turned on the compressor. We went and bought two texture rollers. They looked like rags were wrapped around them and crinkled up.

I have to say we couldn;t have been happier with the results of these pollers. I mixed the mud up just think enough that when you got a scoop of it it flowed in a stream. Its just like painting and you can put a heavy texture like stucto on by lightly rolling the roller down the wall or a lighter texture by going back over it.

I found the best way was to get alot of mud on the roller, starting from the top go about 1/2 way and filling the roller again. It was a pretty heavy texture, but with all the water in it it turned out about half the roughness. Looks like a professional job for big bucks.

Only thing we have a problem with is our selection on the paint. What we thought would look really nice on the wall from those little 2x2 chips at the store turned out ugly. Infact the 2nd bedroom was so bad we would shut the door, walk pass it later and say "yep its still ugly".

Next weekend we are laying 75 yards of carpet and a 12x12 sheet of vinyl in the kitchen. I have a freind who was a carpet installer that is helping us lay it. He says it will take about 12" to lay the carpet in 6 rooms and the vinyl in the kitchen. Man am I glad he is helpijg because it would take me about 3 days and then another 4 to fix all the mistakes.

For now we are just counting down our move date...19 days. We got up 2 morings at 5:30 and watched the sunrise over the coastal mountains and listen to the ocean raoring about 3/4 miles away. Talk about getting the itch to get down there. But we committed to staying on with the company for 30 days so it has to be done.

[Mark]

Oh wow, you can hear the ocean! How cool is that. Where I live, I think it's cool to sit outside at night and hear the train, which is probably 3/4 of a mile away or so.

Anyway, I got tired after reading all you did! But I've definitely been there done that before.

You can definitely save a lot of money by doing it yourself. But when time starts to become a factor, sometimes you have to hire a few things done. So just have to pick & choose. Installing a fence is tough work, but I too would have done it myself to save that kind of money.

For example, if I need a big area tilled up, then that's something I hire done. A guy with a big tiller can come do it for maybe twice the cost of me renting a small tiller. To me, that's money well spent, and time well saved.

The video we offer on making paneled walls look like sheetrock walls is based with rolling on texture, like you did. The results can be pretty dang impressive!

Mark

[Gone Costal]

Filling the pattern in the vinyl so it doesn't show threw on the new vinyl


Tub pulled out of this opening. Now to patch it and paint it.


Here I am playing with my new hobby. I have always wanted a Koi Pond as I am a real big aquarium fan. Lots of debris went into it over the last 2-3 months. But it running now and filtering out.


Heres the sunrise at about 5:30 in the morning. Watching it, listening to the ocean and hearing the elk bugle is going to get hard to take. Good Bye City life.


Well its about 9:00 on Saturday night and I think I can do some more.....or not !!!



Other side of the wall I had to repair in the master bedroom. I am going to gut the insides of the bath out and do all the plumbing from in there before installing the ceramic tile shower walls. Drain will be connected under the house becuase of the large floor hole already.

[Yanita]

As with the rest....WOW, you got alot done!


Take it from and others that waited to do alot of upgrades after you move in...what a PITA and seems to take twice as long. Instead of having an empty home to move about in, you constantly have to move furniture, boxes etc. And invariably something gets broke, and then the women in the home is upset...

Get as much done as you possibly can before you get there, it makes moving in that much easier.

I saw a red flag in your last post.

Installing a ceramic tile shower. Not saying this can't be done, hasn't been done etc, but just wanted to give you the heads up that this is not the best choice for MH living.

All MH's move with the changing of the seasons and rain. This can cause cracking of the tiles and grout, leading to expensive repairs and water damage. Do a search here on site. Again, your choice, just wanted to give you a heads up.

Have a great day!

Yanita

[Gone Costal]

Yanita, thanks for the heads up on the shifting and movement of the house.


I thought about the movement of the structure before taping those seams between the wall board. But decided that it couldn't be that bad as the livingroom, hallway and 3rd bedroom was refinished over 5 years ago. After a careful inspection of all the joints I didn't find one surface crack. Thats what I based my refinishing the other rooms on when we decided to do it.

Doesn't mean that each part of the home doesn't have its own settling or shifting problems. There is also always the chance of a small earthquake in our area from time to time too that might move seams enough to crack them.

As for the ceramic tile? Your warning will be concidered. I know from laying ceramic tile for a few years professionally that it doesn't take much movement to popped grout or pop a tile. This is the very reason I talked my wife out of a 18" ceramic tile stone floor in the kitchen. Although it feels and sounds rock solid, just a little movement could cause a ripple effect in whole floor.

I agree with you all about getting as much done as possible before moving in. I do these kinds of jobs everyday of my life right now. I remodel apartments for the largest apartment management company in Oregon. It is sure alot easier painting, mudding and remodeling an empty apartment. Don't have to worry about paint splatter, compound dropping on the floor or damaging something.
When you have the time its the only way to go.