So in the last post I told you about some news that had caused us to somewhat rearrange our plans.  We were having a baby and we needed to find a stable place to live before that happened.  We bought another duplex that was in much better shape and moved into the bottom unit.  Although this duplex was in better shape it still  needed a bit of work to be ready to go.  We had a lot going on over the past couple months with work changes, summer and family stuff but we were able to get everything we wanted to done JUST in time. 

The prior tenant had moved out when we purchased the place, but it just so happened that a couple of our best friends wanted to move down to Pittsburgh too.  This worked out great for all of us because they could get cheaper rent, we could get less risk, we would all have friends close by, and they even helped us clean, paint, and fix things!  Most people will probably caution you about renting to friends and family and all the problems it can cause, but in this case we had already lived together in the past so our concerns were minimal.  They were planning on moving down near the end of September meaning we had a little over 2 months to complete as much as we could!

Windows

The most expensive thing we had to tackle was windows.  I have never replaced a window, I was on a short time frame, and there were over 20 of them to be done, so I wasn’t taking on this one myself.  I think one day I would like to figure this job out and see if there is a cheaper way to do it. From the research I have done the market seems fairly restricted in that it is hard to even get custom windows to install yourself for a price that makes it worth it, but I need to learn more.  Anyways we called a bunch of places and sat through all the spiels, window samples, and special deals.  We kept saying that’s too much until they got down to their best offer (usually after calling a manager and agreeing your home is a good model home to put a sign at or some other made up reason) and finally decided on some windows.  All said and done it was about $600 per window, not great, not awful.  Five weeks later they came out and in 3 days got all of them replaced and flashed.

There were 2 unique windows in the 3rd story that they could not replace for me. I mean I’m sure they could for enough money but I wasn’t gonna do that. The original windows are shown in the picture to the left. What I did to replace these is just measured the dimensions then I ordered some custom cut insulated interior. This is fairly cheap and cost me under $100 per window. I then removed the old windows and used some of the caulk the window installers left for me and just seated the new glass against the jamb and caulked the gaps all around the glass. So the windows no longer open but they were now nice and efficient. At some point over the next summer I will hopefully redo the walls up in that story and then make some more pleasant trim for this glass as well.

Carpets

This is something I also don’t bother trying to do myself.  With so many places offering free and or cheap installation why bother?  I have read stories about installation quality, but I personally have never had an issue. Since time is currently my most scarce commodity I’ll take the help where I can get it!  We picked some cheaper carpets because I don’t really see the point in the expensive stuff especially in apartments or with kids and/or pets.  My wife picked out something she thought looked nice and was fairly soft.  It also happened to have a pet stain guarantee as long as it was professionally cleaned once every 18 months.  We figured this would be a plus since both units will have pets in them.  Again just like with the windows a few weeks and a couple guys came out and replaced them all in a couple days time.  I did remove the carpet on the attic and porch steps myself because I did not want carpet put pack in these locations.

Bathrooms

Both bathrooms needed a good bit of work, and these we did take care of ourselves. Both of them needed painting and some touching up of some holes and such in the walls. This was pretty easily taken care of, the downstairs we actually had to peel some wallpaper off and seal first but even so not a bad job. I also installed an exhaust fan in the upstairs bathroom and replaced the one in the downstairs bathroom. We ripped up the old linoleum in both bathrooms and installed tile, because who doesn’t love a tiled bathroom! We replaced both toilets because the old ones were pretty nasty and didn’t work real well. Finally we replaced the sink faucet downstairs and my buddy actually bought a vanity and faucet off craigslist because they preferred that over the pedestal sink that was upstairs for more storage.

I have put in several bathroom fans at this point and in finished ceilings it can be a bit of a challenge but you just need to take some time and think out your plan. You need to know if you can access it from above like in an attic, or if there is an outside wall you can get to from within the ceiling, and also where your power and switch is going to come from. For my upstairs bathroom I had no access from above but I knew there was a couple feet above the ceiling to work with if I cut a hole because instead of removing and replacing the plaster ceilings in this home when they got bad they just put lower ceilings below the original. First I checked for studs in the ceiling then cut a small hole where I wanted the new fan. I picked a location near the shower where I could also reach the wall that I wanted the switch in so I could fish wire easily. I used the little hole to make sure I knew the location of the studs and then I cut out the full rectangle for the light in a way that it would be up against a stud on one side. Since the ceiling was actually lower than the original plaster ceiling I could then squeeze my arms and head up there since there was a foot or so of space. I put my arm up through the hole and used a hammer to pound a hole in the nearby plaster wall, since it was above the ceiling anyway you wouldn’t see it. There was already an outlet on the opposite side of the wall I was going to use, so I cut the hole for my new 3-gang light/fan/heater switch box just slightly offset from it so their backs wouldn’t touch but so that I could also just tag onto this circuit. Since this light has a heater it does have the ability to pull some current, and I am tacking onto an existing 20A circuit. I didn’t know at the time what was already located on this circuit, but running a new wire from the basement all the way up would have been rough : /. I decided to chance it and attach to the existing circuit and if I started tripping breakers then I would fish the wire through and swap it out (I lucked out so far haha). Anyway, I then fished 2 wires through the hammered hole out the switch hole I had just cut. This was a fairly straight shot from the hammered hole to the cut hole so I didn’t even need any wire fishing rods or anything.

Next I needed to hook up the exhaust, I would rather go through the exterior wall than the roof because it is way less work and you don’t have to worry so much about leaks and such. I used a flex bit on my drill and went up through the light hole and drilled a hole through the exterior wall where I wanted the vent so I knew where to cut from the outside. I then went outside with a ladder, the exhaust cap, flexible pipe, and a Sawzall. Using the Sawzall I cut a hole big enough for the exhaust. I pushed all the flexible duct hose through the hole then attached it to the cap and screwed the cap in. Now all I had to do was grab the duct from my hole inside and attach it to the fan exhaust! I attached the duct and wired up all the switches and then stuck the fan up into it’s hole. I had screwed a piece of wood into the side of the fan the stud would NOT be on to add some extra support by sitting on top of the drywall. The other side of the fan box I screwed directly into the stud. There was no power on upstairs when I did this so I just took my time and hoped for the best haha (it worked great).

The downstairs already had a fan but it sounded like a running lawnmower, so that one I simply bought a fan of similar shape to swap out. I pulled out the old one and moved all the connections over to the new one. Then I used the same method as the upstairs fan to attach it, I screwed a board into one side for support and then screwed the other side directly to a close by stud once up in the ceiling.

Tiling is something I am starting to get pretty good at now-adays. I have tiled several floors because I love tile. It looks great, holds up well in any environment, and it isn’t too pricey or hard to install. The one thing you need for tile is a nice stable subfloor. Tile/grout will crack and come up if the floor is able to flex too much. So the first thing I did was tear up all the old linoleum, luon, etc. WARNING: Old tiles can contain asbestos! To avoid health issues take proper precautions and do NOT sand the floors, I wore a mask and tore up the entire floor with a hammer and pry-bar, with no sanding. Even though you can put cement board over the current floor and then install tile on top it isn’t a great idea. This would not be a good sub-floor for the tile as it is likely uneven and some might be peeling and luon will delaminate and such if exposed to moisture. If you are going to do it, you might as well do it right so you aren’t doing it again in a few years. This house was built in 1910 and therefore it had plank floors underneath everything which is what I got down to. This is also not stable enough of a sub-floor for tile. Wood swells and flexes a lot and so we need to stable this up some more. What needed to be done was another layer of EXTERIOR GRADE plywood laid on top of the plank floor. Water in the bathroom will go through the tile and cement board and so you must use exterior grade wood. Then many screws were run through the plywood into the plank flooring to make sure they were securely joined as one floor and nice and solid.

Now the normal step after this is cement board, but I have already put 5/8 inches of plywood down, and I was now going to raise the floor another 1/2 inch with cement board! This would make for a pretty large step between the bathroom and adjoining room. What I decided to try instead is Ditra. Ditra is a plastic membrane that can go over many surfaces and allows tile to be installed directly on top. This was the first time I tried it and it was at least twice the cost of using cement board, but boy was it much nicer! It prevented me raising the floor that much higher, it was way easier to cut (I used scissors) and lay down than cement board, and it’s waterproof! I am a big fan of laying everything out dry and then taking it back up and doing the mortar. I feel like this is more efficient and less time consuming overall because you are doing all of one task at a time and as long as you take your time things look great! If you used Ditra just make sure you read through their installation instructions where they tell you the requirements for sub-floor, mortar, trowels, etc. I cut the the Ditra out for the whole floor and laid it all in place to make sure it fit correctly and trimmed the edges where necessary. After that we started laying tile on top. This is always very time consuming and my wife hates this part haha. We snap centering lines then lay out the tile scheme we want using tile spacers between all the tiles. When we get to objects or the wall we can then lay the tile that needs cut on top of the last full tile and then butt a third tile against the wall/object and draw a line where to cut, this will give the perfect size (just don’t forgot cut a little more off to account for the spacer!). I use a mini-wetsaw I purchased for like $80 for all my tile work, it is way nicer than snapping it all and makes quick work of most normal cuts. Our normal routine is my wife will lay the tile out and measure the wall pieces and I will do all the cutting, this makes it go fairly quickly.

Once the tile is all laid we carefully stack it up row by row and place it in an order we can remember in the next room. We also pull up the Ditra and then clean up any mess on the floor. Now it’s time to cement everything in place. First we need modified thinset to attach the Ditra to the plywood. We mix and lay this mortar according the Ditra Installation Guide and embed the Ditra into it. Make sure you mix the mortar wet enough and apply enough for the Ditra to embed easily, if you pull up the corner of the ditra after embedding it it should be completely covered in thinset. Next if you are making the Ditra waterproof you will want to put Kerdi-fix around all the fixtures you don’t want water to come through like where it meets your tub. After that you can immediately start on everything else, no need to wait for the mortar attaching the Ditra to dry! Mix up a batch of UNmodified thinset and then first if waterproofing use this to embed Kerdi tape where the pieces of Ditra meet and at your walls and such. After that we simply need to lay down our tiles that are already cut! Make sure you re-snap your center lines! You pulled the Ditra up so your old lines might no longer be accurate! Once you snap new ones, pick a quadrant and spread and notch your thinset pushing it into all the little squares in the Ditra. Push the tile into place twisting them slightly to make sure they are seated and use your spacers to get them evenly spaced. Try and clean up any mortar you get on top of the tile or that squeezes up too far between the tiles, it is easier to do now than when dry!

The final step, after first waiting at least 24 hours for the tile to dry, is grouting. Don’t walk on the tile at all for at least 24 hours! Once it is dry I usually go around with a grout saw and remove and areas of mortar that came up too far between the space between tiles and I also remove all the spacers now. Next just mix up the grout and using a rubber float push it down into all the cracks and then going across at a 90 degree angle pull off any extra. Then take a damp sponge and clean off the tops of the tiles, again do a good job at this now it makes it a lot easier than doing it later! Work in sections to avoid the grout drying too much on you before you clean it with the sponge. Finally after the grout dries for 4 hours or so come in with a rag and buff any haze left off the tops of the tiles. The tile floor is now complete!

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Once the floor was in we only had some finishing touches: cutting and nailing some molding to the walls, replacing faucets and putting in new toilets. The toilets were the only thing somewhat challenging here, since we raised our floor. The correct thing to do would probably have been to raise the flange on the top of the new plywood I put down, but I didn’t bother this time. Since the floor was raised about an inch from the plywood + Ditra + Tile we now had an inch gap between the toilet and the flange. What I like to use is the Danco flanges for this, which is why I didn’t bother raising the flange. I have never had an issue with the Danco flanges and they allow you to cover this gap. I put off installing the trim for awhile because I always tend to put off finishing touches haha, but I finally did and then both bathrooms were complete!

Other Floors

For our tastes we always carpet bedrooms and we always tile bathrooms but other rooms are more of a toss up for us. Lately we have come to have a taste for wood laminate in other dry rooms and vinyl planks in kitchens. At least for places we plan to rent and/or live in temporarily. Probably in a home I plan to live in for a long period of time I would tile the kitchen, because what can I say? I absolutely love tile! And I would also probably use real hardwood or carpet in other living areas based on their usage in my permanent home. The reason we like wood laminate and vinyl planks instead though is because they are cheap, easy to install, easy to fix/replace, and they look pretty darn good too!

The downstairs area already had wood laminate in the dining and living areas that was in decent shape so we didn’t touch that. We also didn’t touch the downstairs kitchen because we plan to almost gut that and redo it next summer. We don’t like several things about it currently and need to restructure the flow so we will likely tile that floor then. This means all we had left was the upstairs living, hall, kitchen, and dining areas. For these rooms we found a wood laminate we liked and an almost identical pattern in vinyl planks for the kitchen. Always buy an extra box of the stuff because if you don’t use it you can return it and it is a huge pain to have to run to the store and get more, and you will often find pieces of laminate with bubbling or something that you won’t want to use! We also made sure to grab more than enough padding for under the laminate. You can get laminate with padding attached and save yourself a bit of install time but honestly it doesn’t save that much time and it usually costs you more.

The installation was pretty simple, all the floors up there were already bare. Someone had torn all the flooring up at some point and just left bare plywood floor for some reason. So we laid down our padding and got started on the wood laminate. We started in one corner of the living area running the planks perpendicular to the longest wall because this can help with bowing. Before doing this measure out using the plank width to see how much of a partial plank you will have at the far wall. If it is less than 1/4 of the width of the plank you may want to rip all the planks for your first row to make it a little bigger at the other wall. Next using spacers we gap the plank slightly from the walls to prevent any buckling should expansion occur. Once we lay all the FULL pieces we can in the first row we use the same method as with tile to measure and cut the last piece for the row (keeping in mind our spacers!). Make sure you mark and cut the correct side of the plank because since these are like puzzle pieces they only fit together one way!

I think people cut laminate it all kinds of different ways, but my preferred way is a jigsaw with special laminate blades. Whatever you use to cut make sure the cutting blades enter on the face of the laminate and use fine tooth blades. Both of these will help reduce chipping. This means if you use a circular saw you have to mark and cut the planks upside down since the blades spin upwards and use a high tooth count blade. The laminate blades for a jigsaw cut down meaning you can cut with the face up which I like better. It also allows you to easily cut around weird shapes and objects. I have used a circular saw before too, I just think the jigsaw is quicker and easier.

Anyway after you cut your end piece then save the other side you are not using as it will be the start of your next row! This prevents the seams from lining up on your floor which will look nicer and make for a stronger floor. It also reduces waste which is a really nice aspect of this flooring type as well. If by some miracle planks fit exactly or almost exactly and your seems line up then you will want to cut a piece in half and force the seams not to line up. You just continue along this way row by row cutting for any objects you encounter along the way! You may want a tapping block and a rubber mallet to help you seat the planks inside each other, but other than that the pieces should all go together fairly easily. The longest part for us was running down to the porch to cut the pieces since we wanted to keep from getting sawdust all over the house.

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The vinyl plank floor installs in exactly the same way except we did not use a padding underneath. Check your planks but most do not need an underlayment and can go right on the sub-floor unless you want one for some reason. We just used the jigsaw to cut it because it was already setup and I like it better than scoring and snapping, but you can again cut them however you want. For most you should just be able to use a straightedge (such as another plank) and a utility knifed to score the face of the plank and then snap it. The planks are installed In the exact same way as the laminate and can give all kinds of appearances. We made the kitchen floor look like the rest of the floors except with vinyl it will be waterproof and won’t bubble if it gets wet!

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Walls & Other Minor Fixes

Once all the previous stuff was completed we just had some minor tasks, which are simple but also can give off the worst impression if not completed. We actually painted most of the walls within the place because the prior residents had horrible taste in color choices haha, and the walls were chipped, marked up, and dirty. We actually did the painting before the flooring to avoid getting paint on our new floors. The upstairs living area walls were from floor to ceiling this nice marbled wood looking laminate but the upper half on one of the short walls had been removed. It would have been very difficult to find matching stuff to replace it and what was exposed was the ridged glue that held the laminate in place at one time. What we did was take joint compound and spread it across this entire wall trying to do our best to get it smooth with minimal blade marks and ridges. We then sanded the wall down and painted it a color that matched with the laminate walls.

We also had to reinstall trim everywhere throughout since we removed it all to do the flooring. Some of it was in good shape so I was careful taking it out using a putty knife to loosen them then a pry-bar from behind to get them off. We cleaned and painted the trim first then nailed it back up using some putty to cover the nail holes. For the kitchens and bathrooms we were running short on time at this point so what we did was buy PVC trim which is already colored and we used this in all these rooms. In the downstairs bathroom the walls were also tiled so we used glue to adhere the trim. I actually used a combination of construction glue and hot glue. Construction glue gives the hold I want, but takes too long to dry, the hot glue dries immediately and that keeps it against the wall while the construction glue cures. I actually glued some of the PVC trim on non-tiled walls too just because I don’t have nail holes to cover then, but several places like in the upstairs kitchen I nailed it in place instead.

Then we just went one room at a time fixing anything that looked bad, such as replacing some outdated and broken light fixtures and outlets, fixing some in wall bookshelves, replacing door knobs, installing floor transition strips, etc. We also had loooots of cleaning to do during and before all this work. I talked in the last entry about how dirty the place was downstairs, upstairs was cleaner but they must have loved deep frying because there was a thick layer of grease over everything in the entire kitchen! These little things always take way longer than you’d think, but they make a big difference in the appearance of a place. I always like making sure all the big stuff is done then I go one room at a time and spend several minutes looking around to take stock of anything that looks bad. Then anything simple to fix I do so and then move onto the next room. We were actually still doing these steps when it came time for our friends to move in haha. Everything else took longer than I had hoped especially with all the other stuff going on in our life. I was still working on things the day they showed up with the moving truck! Luckily they are our friends so we finished up this other stuff with their help after they moved in : ). They also helped us paint and clean and everything as well, which was a great time-saver! My buddy even replaced several of the lights and sanded down the stairs I removed the carpet on after moving in.

Bonus: Antenna & Internet

Now that we live in a big city we have way more access to TV & internet services! In our original home in the middle of nowhere satellite was the only choice if you wanted them. We don’t watch much TV to begin with so it always sucked paying for it, and especially with our new focus on saving a large portion of our income for early retirement it just seemed like an unnecessary expense. Internet though we have become too reliant on and it is a heavy necessity for our lifestyle, but luckily there are also more options for that!

For internet we went with the cheapest FiOS package, which was only $40 per month for 100Mbps and blows our prior “country” speeds away. What we did to make this even cheaper is split it with our friends upstairs! Our living room is right below theirs so I installed an Ethernet jack in each room and then connected them together with CAT5 cable. I then plugged a cable from ours into our FiOS router allowing them to get internet from that port within their apartment. They could then connect their own wireless router, TV, etc. to it and get internet. We have never had any issue with bandwidth for anything we do, including streaming from multiple services simultaneously. That now put that cost at $20 per unit for internet, which could be a good benefit in renting in the future too!

For TV since we were now in the city we knew we could pick up lots of channels over the air. From inside my house with a window antenna; however, we did not pick up much. So I bought the cheap RCA Yagi mini outdoor antenna from Wal-Mart for $40 and mounted it off the side of my porch roof. I then used antennaweb.org to find the direction of most of the stations. Next I took a TV out to the porch and hooked it up with very short run of Coaxial cable. I could then adjust the antenna the correct general direction and fine tune it so I got the most channels at the best quality.

Once that was complete I knew the antenna was good, so then I could run the Coax. There was bunch of old cable all over the place from the years of people switching TV and internet provides so I reused what looked to be in good shape if I could find a long enough piece to get from point A to point B without having to use a junction (more junctions degrade the signal quality). I ran one long run from the antenna to a 2-way splitter on the side of the house then ran a long wire from each output into the upstairs and downstairs living room. Now hooking the TV up I found many channels I got on the porch had gone away, this was expected due to loss in the cable and splitter. The next step was a pre-amplifier (RCA TVPRAMP1Z), this allows a signal picked up weakly at the antenna to be amplified so that it can overcome the loss in the coaxial cable. All said and done both us and our buddies upstairs were able to get 40+ channels over the air completely free!

It is also worth noting that we do use streaming services, but we do not pay for most of them. If we had to pay for them we would use only one of them if any at all, it just so happens that collectively our family has several of them that they let us use : ). It just isn’t worth it to us, but if you like TV and can’t get your fix from over-the-air then streaming services can be the way to go, just make sure you split them with someone to help cut the cost! The only streaming service we pay for is the NHL service. We love hockey and the only way to watch our teams play is on a channel that you can only get in a non-basic cable or satellite package and that just isn’t worth it to us. So instead we again split the $120 annual cost with our friends and use a SmartDNS for $3 a month to get us around the local blackouts (it makes traffic to the servers look like it comes from another location). This little trick basically means a cost of $15 a month total for TV, compared to cable and satellite packages nearing $80 per month!

What’s Left?

There are still several things that need completed at our new place such as:

• Redoing the downstairs kitchen
• Redoing the drywall on the third story
• Getting heat to the third story
• Getting power to the garage
• Paving the parking area
• Redoing the roof in a few years
• Patching up cracks in the foundation stone
• Painting the siding
• Redoing the porch railing
• General landscaping
• etc.

But none of this stuff is exactly pressing at the moment and since we have all the interior high priority items done we decided to call it good for now. Now that we have a nice place for the little one and as a bonus are collecting rent from the upstairs unit it was time to return focus to our original project. The lesson I continually learn is things never go as planned and always take much longer than you think, you just have to be prepared for these things to happen and go with the flow. Since the baby will be here soon for example it might be much slower going on the original duplex, but luckily our expenses there are minimal with the yearly tax bill and insurance being the only hit we are taking (besides potential lost profits). Anyways in the next post hopefully we will head back to our original duplex and start work on electric! Something significantly more enjoyable than demolition. See you all then!