# 1st time home buyer goes building



## racebum (Mar 8, 2010)

hey guys, i just closed my first house on jan 15 this year. no real prior home experience but i have been a gearhead my whole life and have a fair degree of mechanical aptitude. well, here it goes

before closing \ hasn't been lived in for over two years. a short sale right before foreclosure. owners moved back to california from oregon and it hasn't been touched since 2007










bathroom floors were some fairly gaudy 80s theme linoleum, home depot marble tile fixed that. it's really not as cold, nor slick as people told me it would be. this is the first time i ever had laid tile by the way. cabinets and doors will be replaced soon. had no idea toilets were so easy to do










next bathroom, i paid closer attention to detail and had a better turn out










1985 kitchen complete with water damage by the dishwasher due to a valve that let out one drip every few hours. the subfloor was fine but the particle board had too much exposure and was swelling. what does a guy do? get the skilsaw naturally! i just went to town cutting up the floor. 










there was also a door where i wanted to place my fridge










fixed










back to that floor






























i also decided to go with granite tile for a countertop. 3/4" AC plywood and 1/4" hardi for a base, AC is doubled in the sink area, i'd like to say it's due to my wanting to reinforce that cast iron kohler sink but the truth is a made a slight accident in cabinet calculations going the whole way round and installed braces to the right of the sink about 1/2" too high. i made up for it on the otherside with 1/2" hardi and a 3/8" trowel rather than the smashed down 1/4 rake i used here


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## racebum (Mar 8, 2010)

been in the house just over 3 months now

the very last picture i just took today. finishing the rest of the wrap around and cleaning up the neglected kitchen :laughing:

comments, questions, ideas? 

i'm still undecided on a backsplash, i have extra granite as well as slate or? that and the upper cabinets will be going in sometime this month, same with a matching fridge


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## Jim F (Mar 4, 2010)

It looks like your oven door will conflict with your dishwasher door but I guess you can live with that. Wondering where you moved the door that used to be where the refrigerator is now. I like that cast iron sink enough to look it up on Lowes site. Now if I can talk my wife into it, she thinks she wants one of those under counter jobs.


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## jlhaslip (Dec 31, 2009)

looks good. I use the oven or the dishwasher at different times, so the door conflict would be small potatoes...


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## oh'mike (Sep 18, 2009)

Looks good--I'm glad to see that you mudded down the backer board. Very good.--Mike--


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## racebum (Mar 8, 2010)

mudding the hardi is something that more than a few people told me i didn't need to do. however, most of the really good stone masons said it was worth the extra time for a couple of major reasons. 1 when you screw cement board down some pokes out the back of your screw hole raising the board and basically sitting it on the screw. 2 no floor is actually perfectly level or if they are, they aren't in this house. i didn't want to risk tile popping or grout cracking by skipping that step. the thinset under the board eliminates both of those issues since the cement board is leveled as i bring it down and it has a totally solid base to sit upon. 

the oven door and dishwasher will hit if you open them at the same time, but, how many times does one need or even want both doors open? due to the layout and plumbing of the kitchen it was either there or where the fridge is. the fridge use to go where that pantry cabinet now is. i actually plan to drywall that into the house for cosmetic reasons. also, the door, it actually goes or went back to a deck. there is still a sliding door in the master as well as in the garage. having the fridge in the middle of the kitchen just was irritating. no idea what they were thinking in 1985. the nice thing about this house is it's 10-15 minutes to downtown portland but in a nice woodsy dead end street. the whole back deck is completely facing trees and a creek. very difficult to find for what i paid and so close to town. besides, projects are fun right? :yes:


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## monkeystomach (Jan 9, 2010)

racebum said:


>



Hey,
Can you tell me more about the tile you used in the kitchen? Make/Model/Color and where you got it from?


Thanks,
Monkey


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## racebum (Mar 8, 2010)

home depot, it was their special order 16x16 multi color. for some reason or another they had two pallets of this stuff which they usually don't stock. i was able to buy it at $1.78sq/ft which is somewhere near half of the special order price. the really nice part about this versus the common 12x12 is on the back. it's all flat and grooved, coloring is also, in my opinion better. a lot of the cheaper 12x12s you see all over lowes and depot are so inconsistent with height it's hard to even use a spacer like i was able to with this stuff

here's a link to the brand homepage

http://www.msistone.com/


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