Author name: hunter@hlwimmer.com

What a journey. The before shots are exactly three-years old and taken on the first two tours of the house. I've taken some shots and comined them for a side-by-side view.

Here's a few quick links to more robust photo spreads:

After shots (shot for DWR prior to their photoshoot at the house)

Before shots (shot the day we looked at the house // post with link to Flickr.com photostream)

(More side-by-side pictures after the jump)

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Before, During and AfterRead More »

Our friend, Michael, asked for a few shots of the house. We were behind a bit in documenting the spaces, so it seemed like a good time for a few updated shots.

(More pictures after the jump)

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A Thousand WordsRead More »

Ok. I think we're done… with the tiling and grouting of the backsplash, I think we can call the kitchen a "completed" project…

Again, thanks to Eric at Heath for the great edging suggestion. You can see the aluminum cap in some of the photos below. With the mix of light (Halogen, Shade/Daylight, Florescent), the tiles themselves look a bit pink (and the cabinets a bit green) in the photos, but in person, it's a nice scheme. Eventually, I'll pull out the real camera for some centerfold shots… (the previous kitchen post has more even lighting).

(More pictures after the jump)

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Kitchen FinaleRead More »

First, Heath Ceramics is awesome. Really. Not only do they make fantastic products, but they are genuinely lovely people. Long story short: We had an issue with the tile we purchased, but — because the project was put on hold due to Casie's sickness — we were far outside the exchange date. Eric, the Tile Manager, not only got us what we needed, he suggested a change for the better — and the project looks better for it.

Otherwise, we now have a blacksplash. It's taken a year-and-a-half since we "finished" the kitchen, but those in the know know we've been preoccupied with other things. This weekend, we moved forward.

We've always been huge fans of Heath and hoped to use their stuff in the house somewhere, but it's sort of pricey for our limited budget. However, they've recently introduced their Modern Basics line which is in-stock and at a competitive price ($16.50/sqf). We purchased 2X6 River Bed, which is a shade darker than their iconic French Gray.

Eric's idea was to use the Schluter Aluminum edging (which they also stock at $14/8-foot section) instead of a bullnose and it turned out great. I was nervous about the miter cut, but so far, so good. Since it was such an integral part of the window, we glued it up first rather than letting it naturally be at the tile's edge… and good thing — we were off by about 1/4in over the length of the window (i.e.: one side was 1/4in more than the other when measuring from the counter to window lip)… enough that it'd look crooked had we not measured twice.

The cuts around the outlets were a bit tricky, but we managed to finish the job with three tiles left over (yes, only three) from our 12sqf box. I even used the sample tile from the sample-pack.

Presently, I'm waiting for the caulk to dry before I start grouting, but here are some in-process photos. We chose Custom's "bone" colored grout (likely with a bit of light smoke mixed in at a 6:1 ratio)… it was between alabaster and bone, but after it dried, bone won out (which reminds me to remind you to let the grout dry thoroughly before making a decision — had we not, the choice would have been too light).

It's no surprise that we're big fans of Anderson Heating. We've turned to them for almost every heating need since their visit to repair a leaky pipe. Over the course of the renovation, we've found a few folks who are the unquestionable go-to's and Glen and Ben are two of them. Glen knows more about fluid-mechanics than most engineers (and I'm married to one and a son-in-law to another).

Our boiler for the radiant heat was installed a bit backwards a few decades ago and it was on its last legs. Granted, it might've held out for another season or two, but the last thing we wanted was a broken heater on a cold night in Concord with our heating guys tackling jobs in the South Bay.

I contacted them few weeks ago when the old-boiler broke again and Glen talked me through a fix (a safety switch was thrown). We began to discuss the idea of a new boiler. Given the market forces and the warming temperature, they were able to offer an outstanding deal on a new Triangle Tube Solo-110 wall-hanging boiler. Additionally, since the unit is energy-star rated, we're eligible for a $1500 tax-credit at year's end (which might not hold out forever)…

We decided to take the plunge and on Monday — a week or so after we initially discussed it, Glen and Ben were installing the new unit.

As with all of their work , the installation is top-notch and super-clean — just the way I like it. We even worked together to install a bit of pegboard over the old drywall to give the wall a bit more finished look and a lot more functionality.

After the install, Glen took the time to go over everything in detail, which was quite nice.

Here are some pictures of the install before I re-loaded the utility room with garden supplies. Fortunately, since there's so much new room available, I think I can store my new battery-powered mower out there.

The tiling job in the bath has been a project a long-time in coming… and to be honest, I'm a bit apprehensive about tackling it. I will be our first major, vertical ceramic-tile job. Maybe that's why it took 2 years to approach.

But it's time — and to start, we needed a good base. There's all sorts of very low- and very high-tech solutions out there. Since we were generally re-tiling (and not moving anything), we didn't need to look at a newly-mudded floor, but that was one option — to tear it all out and start over. With the radiant heat lines in the floor and a perfectly working drain system, it made little sense to jack up the floor and start from scratch.

We also looked at the Kerdi membrane which was almost a keeper save the fact that for the "full" system, you also needed to use their special, but very cool, drain. If we were doing a brand-new install (like in new construction), I'd definitely select this system.

Then there was vapor barrier and cement board in a traditional installation… but the original install didn't seem to have a shower pan or liner when we tore it out… which isn't the worst thing on slab construction, but we thought we could do a bit better than the original.

Thanks to the wisdom of the folks at the John Bridge Tile Forum, we opted for Hardibacker and a waterproofing layer(s) of RedGard. Hardibacker is much easier to cut that Durock or Wonderboard and it completely immune to water damage. With no barrier behind it, but a full barrier of RedGard, the shower should stay nice and dry — even dryer than a traditional shower as there should be no water penetration to the substrate. In fact, with the RedGard, I could have likely just used Drywall, but that seemed like cheating, somehow (Kerdi actually recommends drywall behind their membrane).

Casie is calling it the "death shower" because of the red color. It'll be white soon enough. And hopefully waterproof.

Update: It only took about 6 hours for Casie and I to wrap the shower in white subway tile (one by one). It's not a bad first attempt methinks and I can't think of anything we'd have done differently (yet) — except maybe "bricked" the pattern (to hide seams, crooked lines, etc.), but that would have meant cutting a lot of 1/2 tiles. There were some happy alignments with tile and some little nits (the corners necessitated either a sliver of tile or a lot of grout. I opted for the sliver). We learned a couple of things:

1: the $59 4in tile saw from Harbor Freight with the $12 diamond blade (we found the saw on sale for $44) worked quite well for these little tiles. Granted a 12X12 would have been hard to cut, this el-cheapo tool performed wonderfully. Plus, the teeny size meant I had it next to me the whole time. It's really, really loud, though.

2: Starting from the bottom is a must. As much as I wanted to have the top edges be a full tile and the bottom edges disappear into the floor, gravity had other ideas. As it were, we got lucky as the top courses are all full pieces.

3: Working in teams is ideal… one person mixing thinset and getting tile and another cutting and placing. It'd have been a hard job solo.