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Queen Victorian posted:A big (maybe too big) part my of gripe with the other options is having to add big obtrusive units. If we only wanted to cool the third floor, mini split units would be fine, on the second floor, borderline, and on the first floor, unacceptable. Hence ducted for the first and third floors, cassettes for the second. But if you're only using it for two months a year and don't care about the noise or unevenness, high velocity seems like the best choice. What about cooling only the third floor and putting fans in the others?
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Feb 20, 2022 18:02
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 12:43 |
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So we still haven't gotten our poo poo together on the central AC, but I did find some doors:  These doors belong to (and are currently in the basement of) the house next door, which is my house's twin. Except this twin house has been battered and abused with its innards shuffled around for decades as a two unit rental, hence doors left in the basement to rot. I'm friends with one of the tenants and while we were chatting the other day I mentioned our remodel/restoration plans and how we needed to have a bunch of doors made because the goddamn PO took them out and lost them, and then she mentioned that there were a bunch of five panel doors in the basement. They're not doing anything and tenant thinks the landlord (who recently bought the house and is apparently having a rough go at playing property investor) wouldn't object to me taking them off their hands. Also, the house still has the butler stairs door (ours is missing), and it's a weird size (27" x 84" or something) so there'd otherwise be no way around shelling out for a custom replacement, so I'll make an offer on it. (The butler stairs have been blocked off, so the remnant of the stairway serves as a little pantry and the door is technically not necessary. And tenant is moving out soon so it's not like she'd miss it, and as far as future tenants are concerned, there was never a door there). If I am able to get my hands on the doors, it'll be an interesting restoration project. At least one of them looks like it has a rotten edge (this basement has been known to flood pretty frequently), but hopefully it's not too far gone. Doors will be painted or grained so don't have to worry too much about patching affecting the look. In other news, we've started ramping up work on our kitchen and bathroom designs. I'm trying to do design drawings on the reg and my husband has been researching various things. We went to the appliance dealer and got quotes on appliances and fixtures and everything is eye-wateringly expensive. And needs tons of lead time if you want things on time. A Sub-Zero is like 18 months out at this point. I'm just imagining placing our ancient little white Frigidaire in the Sub-Zero's nook in an otherwise finished kitchen. Also my husband still thinks my Fortress of Soliturd basement bathroom concept is dumb.  I want to extract the totally awesome Art Deco cast iron tub currently in the bathroom (which doesn't actually fit and required the door to be planed down and a shim in the doorframe), clean it up (possibly re-enamel it - though the surface is still in pretty good condition despite ninety years of scuffs and scratches), and make it part of a really cool bathroom in the basement. I've told my husband it would be my project with my money and that it's not an immediate priority (gotta do kitchen and upstairs bathrooms first) but he just thinks it's silly. On the other hand, I already know I will love a basement bathroom so that I can come in from yard work or hiking or whatever and relax and get clean before tracking dirt and grime through the entire house. Also will be a great place to hide from my future children when I need a break. On that note I should add a bar. I dunno, I just feel weirdly upset that he doesn't like it and obviously wants me to not bother and sell the old tub for cash (I made the mistake of showing him a similar tub listed for $2500, thinking it'd help make the case for reusing this cool and valuable thing we had on hand) and that he's not at least neutral on it. I mean, nothing's stopping me from going ahead and doing it, but I'm just feeling bummed.
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Jul 22, 2022 06:53
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My old house reno plan was specifically built with a basement spa-type bathroom in mind. My addition has a full basement, which is for a home gym, and has a shower nook. It’s accessed through the basement bathroom, which is weird but mostly works. The bathroom itself is a longer rectangle with a vanity at one end and soaker tub at the other. The hallway that leads to it is a along side the rec room, so it just made sense to me to have a whole relaxation center down there. I should work up a more finished design. Getting into the matter of inches is where decisions have to be made sometimes. I’m still trying to see if I can fit a wetbar at the end of that hall between those rooms
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Jul 22, 2022 12:19
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If you're not already aware, check out Abatron's wood products for their epoxy hardener and putty for the rotten bits.
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Jul 22, 2022 13:56
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Queen Victorian posted:On the other hand, I already know I will love a basement bathroom so that I can come in from yard work or hiking or whatever and relax and get clean before tracking dirt and grime through the entire house. Also will be a great place to hide from my future children when I need a break. On that note I should add a bar. For those not from the area, Pittsburgh houses are super well known for having just... a loose toilet in the basement. No walls, rarely a sink. You'll also sometimes just find a showerhead in the corner of the basement, with no explanation. This is what's known as a Pittsburgh shitter / Pittsburgh bathroom. The idea is that steelworkers would come home all super nasty, and enter the house through the basement hatch, clean up a bit, and then enter the main house not smelling like coal and death And here comes Queen Victorian, gentrifying the Pittsburgh shitter
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Jul 22, 2022 15:45
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The Pittsburgh Powderroom
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Jul 22, 2022 18:14
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Hey now my Pittsburgh shitter was already gentrified when the house was built, like it's had an actual door (a sweet Z brace plank door) and been its own room since day one. In general, this house is bougie AF, in the bourgeois sense of the word - it's a middle manager house that tries very hard (and mostly succeeds) at punching above its weight in terms of Victorian era materialism and social climbing. The true sign of gratuitous gentrification in the present day in Pittsburgh is attempting to finish the entire basement with drywall, gray paint, can lights, and a wall-mounted TV and poo poo. You see newly and fully finished basements in flipper houses all the time, but after witnessing the seasonal moods of my mostly original and unadulterated unfinished basement and its weeping walls and corner puddles, the idea of a new finished basement with electrical wiring in an old house in Pittsburgh, especially if it's in the flats (like our house), absolutely terrifies me. Like, our basement gets inundated whenever there's a bad downpour with the conversation being something like "did the basement flood?" "not any more than usual" "okay cool". Since we have a grandfathered floor drain it's no big deal. The extent of my basement ambitions is to have a quasi-finished pantry and wine cellar buildout in the "antechamber", the walled-off section of the basement you land in when you come down the interior stairs, and the secret grotto bathroom, which is accessible from the antechamber. The rest of it will remain unfinished shop and storage space. Though I've actually been toying with the idea of converting the root cellar/murder room into some sort of combination canning kitchen/extended pantry. That'd give me an excuse to reuse our giant corner mounted cast iron sink (like the tub, also from the 30's) that currently graces our kitchen (that I adore and my husband hates). At least with the the bathroom in the basement and it being largely stone and tile, it would be able to tolerate dampness and not turn into a mold liability like a carpeted TV den or whatever. Another thing is that it'd be one of the few places in the house I could do whatever with design-wise, since it's kind of disconnected from the rest of the rooms. So I want to make it super moody and Art Deco. Like midnight blue tile, black, brass, Edison bulbs, weird low light plants, etc. And then add a secret bar so it's like a speakeasy. Danhenge posted:If you're not already aware, check out Abatron's wood products for their epoxy hardener and putty for the rotten bits. Heh, your thread was the first thing that popped up in my mind when I noticed the rotten edges on those doors. Besides them, I need to fix a lot of degraded exterior trim and window sashes (there are a couple that are far gone enough to need complete replacement with new material (thanks 120 years of northern exposure!)) so I will be getting into wood fillers and more hopefully relatively soon. mr.belowaverage posted:I should work up a more finished design. Getting into the matter of inches is where decisions have to be made sometimes. I’m still trying to see if I can fit a wetbar at the end of that hall between those rooms That all sounds awesome. It absolutely helps to do a few rounds of scale drawings with precise measurements so you can see if poo poo actually fits and not just make assumptions in a series of loose wishful sketches where you eyeball everything and get your hopes up about what is possible (yes I am projecting here). My favorite planning tools of late are the tape measure and engineering ruler (though if you prefer to design on a computer the engineering ruler is way less crucial). I have no idea what your basement space is like or what aesthetic you're going for but I immediately thought about butler pantries - they sometimes were very compact and had these neato hammered metal sinks for rinsing glassware and stuff.
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Jul 23, 2022 07:30
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Queen Victorian posted:but after witnessing the seasonal moods of my mostly original and unadulterated unfinished basement and its weeping walls and corner puddles, the idea of a new finished basement with electrical wiring in an old house in Pittsburgh, especially if it's in the flats (like our house), absolutely terrifies me.
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Jul 23, 2022 11:10
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Queen Victorian posted:I dunno, I just feel weirdly upset that he doesn't like it and obviously wants me to not bother and sell the old tub for cash (I made the mistake of showing him a similar tub listed for $2500, thinking it'd help make the case for reusing this cool and valuable thing we had on hand) and that he's not at least neutral on it. I mean, nothing's stopping me from going ahead and doing it, but I'm just feeling bummed. Follow your dreams of the beautiful basement bathroom. It IS a bummer that he's not being supportive, but I am an object lesson in not letting a partner sour you on a design idea - there are things I am still mad I didn't push for because he thought it was too over the top or silly. Don't be like me and have aesthetic differences contribute to your marital problems! It's not fun to have to explain to a therapist that there were too many contentions around pineapple accent pieces at a beach house.
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Jul 26, 2022 22:05
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Basement bathroom has been awesome during COVID. I come home, strip everything off to throw it in the wash, and go directly to the shower.
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Jul 27, 2022 09:44
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Covid is the modern coal dust.
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Jul 27, 2022 10:01
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 12:43 |
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Jaded Burnout posted:Covid is the modern coal dust. If only my grandfather had access to the kind of facemasks and respirators I do, he'd have lived longer!
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Jul 27, 2022 14:50
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