Porch Column Bases 7: Finishing Touches

The last steps remaining to be done were the final caulking, filling and painting of the four columns whose bases we replaced, all described in the first six posts titled "Porch Column Bases." The previous post is here.

Before I tackled the final touches, I photographed a bit of damage that happened to the tops, either when we removed the bases and left the columns hanging, or when we repositioned the columns on the new bases.

I don't know exactly what happened, but when we went to put the new bases in place, and line up the columns, there were slight differences in positioning. I don't know if our eyes don't see the same straight line, or some of the columns were out of plumb before, or are now, or what, but when we lined up the columns on the new bases, there were slight shifts of emphasis, and cracks developed in the tops of the bases, where they attach to the porch roof beam. I photographed these and then just painted them shut. Will have to keep an eye on them for any additional shifting.

I mention it, because I think this is another area where we were lucky. The tops were as secure as the bottoms, and never detached while we were working on the bottoms. But I would suggest you check that, as you're taking off the bottoms. We just kind of took it for granted and got lucky that all the tops stayed in place.

Another thing that developed was a crack in the paint on the beam that runs the length of the porch (you can see it faintly here, right above the porch column capital). This beam is spliced. Again, we're lucky everything held together and again, I'd suggest you try to determine whether the beam is spliced or at least keep an eye out for it, when you're pulling everything apart.

In any case, a day or two after we nailed everything down, I went around and made sure all the nails and screws were countersunk enough, and then filled all the shimmed up gaps and countersunk nail heads and screws  with wood putty. In this case I used a pre-mixed, fluffy putty that was easy to apply sideways, and stayed put when I pressed it into the shimmed gaps. I'd had enough of epoxy oozing out of gaps, and also didn't see the need to use epoxy for this job. I hope I was right about that decision, long-term.

After the putty dried, I sanded it lightly, vacuumed everything up and then caulked the columns where they meet the bases and the bases where they meet the porch floor. 

Here are some close-ups and some longer views of the whole ball of wax after puttying and caulking:

Then I taped off the bases and started painting. That part went blessedly fast. Fall was well advanced at this point, the days were getting short, the day was one of those soft grey, pretty fall days, and I was glad to have an easy outdoor job for once, and even more glad to be done by nightfall.

To see before and after shots, the next and final post in this series is here.

Day Three: Bathroom Renovation Project 10 - eensy teensy spider

So, first order of business Day Three. Stabilize the beam. We've decided to splice plate it, which you can see below. I did some reading in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. I've got a book, Renovating Old Houses. It's pretty good. It suggests that if a beam has an old split that isn't getting worse, best to leave it. If it's getting worse, it should be stabilized. Depending, it could be drawn together, but that's not always better, because the wood has a tendency to get used to its shape. Splice plates, it suggests -- which also happened to be Dan's first suggestion. So, after we all sleep on it, and then read the book and look at everything again, we agree on splice plates.

Also, because the the entire house has sagged a bit to the middle, the joists have been pulled out from the beam and are within a quarter to a half inch of falling out entirely, so we also reinforce the joists where they meet the beams in this area. 

I say we. I was at work.

So I'm at work Monday morning, and I get a call. Dan is so diplomatic. He doesn't say, "We have a problem." Has probably learned over the last decade never to start that way with a client. Instead, he tells me this and that, and we're having a pleasant conversation when it turns out that he's figured out why the wax ring on the toilet kept breaking and leaking. Oh, cool, I think. Another explanation for a vexing problem.

Turns out that while the whole house has sagged in the middle, the cast iron stack, which is rooted in the concrete floor of the basement, has not. And so now, the stack is higher relative to the floor than it used to be. And why is that a problem?  Again, not that Dan ever uses the word problem. Well, because it means that we can't get enough of an angle for the drain, especially since we're moving the toilet and tub a little further away from the stack.

I see it in my mind's eye. A tub that won't drain. Not my idea of a quality job.

So, Dan concludes, he's going to have to cut into the cast iron stack and install a Y lower down. I hear the uncertainty in his voice. Suddenly something he said the night before rings a bell. He's worried that the weight of the cast iron stack above the cut will be too heavy for the PVC Y.

"So, why don't you cut the stack and just pull everything out above the cut?" I ask. 

"Really?" He says, the relief in his voice palpable. Probably, though again he diplomatically doesn't say so, he never thought that conversation would be so easy. I've pushed back pretty hard on every attempt to exchange existing construction for something new or especially anything PLASTIC in this project.

"Yeah," I say. This one seems like an obvious decision to me, though I don't know why. Just an instinct. I certainly don't want the drain to give way one year after the floor is closed up and tiled over.

He sounded so relieved.

It was only later when I was in the middle of another meeting that I thought to worry about him up there on the roof trying to pull the damn thing out by himself ... but smart thing, he cut it in several places and only threw a third of it off the roof. "Made a nice dent in the yard," he comments, nonchalantly, that night.

So nonchalantly that I never thought to go investigate. Yikes! I think when I'm making my toast two days later and look out the kitchen window.

Yikes!

And double Yikes!!

But here is the new Y, in the coat closet access panel directly under the bath:

And the rest of the drains, also showing how the problem joist has now been sistered and the ugly hole that cut nearly through it has been reinforced. The sister is higher than the joist, at the level of the new floor.

And why is it a "sister"?  I wonder, writing this. Sisters and brothers. Close, you know. It is a kind of reinforcement for the self. A reinforcement and a doubling that makes us stronger. Not unlike a good marriage. Tho different.

And a "template" of the tub, for placement. This isn't the footprint, it's the diameter of the top of the tub.

And the night before, he later showed me, while I'd been up on the first floor reading about split beams, he'd been up half the night reading the specs and temporarily putting together the freestanding plumbing for the tub. 

 It looks so cool. We're starting to see the thing come to life.

Day Two: Bathroom Renovation Project 8 - Taking up the floor

Day Two. Taking up the floor and baseboard. 

The first thing we exposed, actually on the evening of Day One, was the plumbing. Here, below, the sink drain and water lines.

Here, the sink drain leading back to the rat's nest that is the tub, toilet and main drain.

Toilet drain. The original installation cut through virtually the entire joist. An issue to sleep on overnight.

Another issue to sleep on overnight: the main beam under the west wall of the bathroom (and above the dining room wall downstairs) has split. 

Splitting is not uncommon, and on the surface it looks like an old split, but when we tip our heads down into the cavity and look inside, there is a bit of fresh splitting. As this is the beam that takes all the weight of the joists under the bathroom, the tub's weight, etc., stabilizing it is important.

Next, the rest of the floor and the baseboard came up. The baseboard was fastened with tons of giant square nails. We've had countless discussions about the baseboard over the past six months. To take up or not. To re-use or not.

The primary issue is the leveling of the floor. A good part of Day Two was devoted to assessing the level of the floor. It slopes 4" diagonally from the NE to the SW corner. After much traipsing up and down to the basement, to determine how much of that is due to the whole house settling in the middle and how much is slope on the second floor, we decide to bring the SW corner, where the tub will be, up about 2". This will make the bath floor more level, bring the bath floor up even with the hall floor, which has two floors on top of the wide-plank pine, and still leaves us the option of jacking up the main beam in the basement someday and bringing the whole house closer to level.

I'm not convinced we ever will level the whole house, or even attempt it, but the basic idea is to make the bath more level and yet leave it in sync somewhat with the general characteristic sloping of the whole.

At that point, we call it a day and make our first trip to Home Depot, before a very late dinner.