So this is the first update I've posted in almost 3 months...I ran into a leaking window that pretty much derailed the project until I could find a way to seal everything up and keep the rain out again. That, along with moving to the other side of the duplex, our week and a half long vacation out west, and all of the other camping and weekend activities, has really slowed down progress this summer. My tenant has been out since July and I'm now starting to notice the rent check missing every month and I'd like to get the place put back together, cleaned up, and up for rent within a few weeks.
Here are some pictures of what I've been up to since May.
After ripping up the particle board I put down 5/8ths plywood to provide a solid base for the tile. This picture shows the plywood cut and laid in place. I then secured it with a TON of screws and was really impressed with how much stiffer the floor was.
This is where the trouble started...I had to patch up some drywall cracks anyway and since I noticed some water damage on the old particle board subfloor I figured I'd open the wall under the window and check things out. The insulation was actually wet and some of the window framing was starting to rot.
Checking outside it looks like the only thing standing between the rain and the inside of my wall was this caulk joint...which had clearly failed a while ago.
I pulled off the aluminum casing and found the whole lower window frame rotted away. I figured this was a pretty big deal so I actually talked to 3 or 4 contractors about how they would handle this and was considering replacing all the windows in the house if needed. In the end no one had a real good solution that didn't involve ripping off ALL of the stucco to properly flash the windows and then residing the whole house. The solution that made the most sense was to patch up this window and then keep an eye on the caulking on the rest of the windows to catch this before it happens next time.
Since I had already ripped off all the aluminum casing I had to pull the window out in order to rebuild the frame and add flashing to keep the water out.
I used treated lumber to build up the lower frame.
I then used flexible self adhesive flashing to seal it up. I started at the bottom and overlapped the exterior of the stucco since I couldn't get to the tar paper drainage plane. I then worked my way up the sides and finally tucked the top piece under the drip cap.
Once the flashing was in place I put the window back in.
I then applied generous amounts of silicone caulk and trimmed things off with an aluminum cap at the bottom and PVC brick mould trim. We got a heavy rain about 3 days later and the inside was nice and dry so this seems to have done the trick.
Since I already had the wall open I figured this would be a good opportunity to run coax cable up from the basement to the smaller bedroom upstairs.
Now that the rain stays on the outside I could fill the walls with new insulation and patch up the drywall. This is where things slowed down for quite while as I moved over to the other side of the duplex and then went on vacation...also I HATE taping and mudding drywall so I wasn't too excited to work on it.
The drywall was eventually done, textured, and the whole place painted...basically back to where I was in May :) I could finally start prepping for the tile. Here I have the Ditra underlayment set.
Rather than set all the full tiles one day and come back later to cut and set the partials, as I did the last two times, I thought I'd try something different and set them all at once to save a few days of cure time. This meant I had to layout all the tile ahead of time to measure and cut the partials. After spending a few hours working this I was starting to get a bit nervous that they all wouldn't line up the same when I actualy set them.
Here I finally remembered to take a picture of the drywall patch job around the window.
Tiles picked up and ready to go.
Half way done and everything fits so far.
All the cuts worked out and I got everything set in one afternoon. I'm hoping to get everything grouted tonight.
Grouting the tile went fairly smoothly, still a ton of work but it turned out fairly nice.
Here you can see the living room with the old carpet removed.
Here is the new carpet, Its a smartstrand fiber which is supposed to be more stain resistant than nylon stainmaster carpet...we'll see I guess. It ended up being 396 sft @ $1.65/ft total with pad installed. Not bad.
Here is a picture of the laminate I installed in the master bedroom last fall.
And also the laminate in the second bedroom.
