A lovely old house

Many years ago, while I was working as a general building contractor, we purchased a grand old house on a large lot in downtown Mountain View.  Two fine townhomes were built on the back of the lot and the original house in front remained.

Many renters enjoyed the house over the years, particularly its large living room with plenty of Craftsman period built-ins, the separate dining room, the 3 spacious bedrooms, the lovely sunroom with a view of the garden,

The sun room

and the good sized separate laundry room.

The single spacious bathroom and the original kitchen were, shall we say, original.  Over time new flooring was put in, the bath area was tiled, and lots of painting and new wiring was added and life was good.

But the single sink for a 3 bedroom house and the kitchen with its 1960’s avocado green stove

and tenant improvised weird counters were the black sheep of the house.  Plus, I had a longing to get down and dirty and back into the nitty gritty of the remodeling game I was so good at – drywall, concrete, electrical, plumbing, carpentry – all trades I was proficient in.  I could still do it (I hoped) and it definitely needed doing.  We had two weeks between tenants, my wife, Mary,  who had always helped me on most everything and who was knowledgeable and skilled in many aspects of remodeling was available, so we began by checking out the local building supply stores  to see what was available to use in our new bath and kitchen.

  We decided the critical element in the bath was to provide a 2 bowl vanity and, in order to do this, we had to move the monster, the toilet (and with it the entire cast iron plumbing tree for the house).  While we were at it we would keep the tub and recently added tile surround, but tear out most everything else including the old wall covering,   heater, sink, toilet, linoleum floor and underlayment, heat ducting, and medicine cabinet.

The kitchen should be easier.  Get rid of the old stove and replace it with a new gas range with a microwave overhead, a new cabinet over the microwave, and tear out the old countertop and replace it with a newly tiled countertop with new cabinet underneath.

The tenant moved out, the fixtures and cabinet were picked up from Lowes, and we were ready to tear out.
We started tearing out the bathroom, removing everything but the bath tub. Most went easily but the felt underlayment of the old linoleum clung to the wood floor and had to be scraped off. fearful that it might contain asbestos, we found the safest and fastest way to remove it was to saturate it with a spray bottle and then scrape it up while soggy (avoids any airborn asbestos particles and comes off easily).

Starting the tearout

The most difficult and nasty part of the job took place under the house – accessible by crawling in the 10 inch to 2 foot high dirt and dust covered crawl space 30 feet to the bathroom.

Lots going on in a small area

The first task was to remove the cast iron stack in a way that left a connection to the new ABS piping on top of it and to figure out how to fit all the connections (tub, sink, vent) in the 2 feet from the underside of the floor to the dirt. I had always used my Sawzall to cut the cast iron, using several metal cutting blades or a diamond blade, but using a 4 1/2″ hand grinder ($17 at harbor Freight) with a metal cut off wheel proved much faster but far dustier. After considerable planning the cast iron plumbing tree was removed.

Cast iron plumbing tree trophy!

After that, more than a dozen trips back under the house over several days resulted in getting the new stack installed, along with new air supply, water supply, vent and drain lines.  Things got pretty tight in a small area

We were ready to move upstairs into the bathroom again.  the old paneling was adhered to the wall with a black mastic that had to be scraped and smoothed.

Scraping off old mastic

Then it had to be covered with a couple of coats of mud (drywall compound) to prepare the surface.

Mudding the rough wall

After the walls were patched, smoothed, and sanded it was time for skip trowel texturing with the special blade and creamy mix of mud and a handful of 30 mesh sand.
to prepare the floor for tile we nailed down some cement 1/4″ backer board after leveling as best we could.  8

The backer board was also set in a thin layer of thinset mortar.

We came up with a pretty nice cut along the curve of the tub – sort of practice for cutting the large tiles to go on next.

Texturing wall defects

While Tim was crawling in the dust under the house and getting the bathroom ready for tile,

Not much room under here

Mary spent over a week going over each room in the house, cleaning the walls, filling all the cracks, texturing the patched areas, and making hundreds of step aerobic moves on the step stool.

Sanding taped and mudded joints

The cracked and peeling walls were looking bar and new.  No job was too tough or nasty for her, including sanding the drywall joints and textured areas before priming and painting.

All that remained was cutting out the base for a tight vanity fit, , cutting and installing the bathroom tile,

and installing the vanity.8  Of course, someone had to come by and make Tim’s tile job look decent.

The tile expert

Better not leak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does one do for two weeks after the toilet is removed?

Soaproot Plants

Soaproot, a member of the onion family, was harvested by the Ohlone people with a digging stick from hillsides each winter. Soaproot provided food, soap, glue, medicine, brushes, and a potent fish poison.

The brushes were used for brushing hair, as scrubbers for cooking baskets, and for general cleaning. They were made from the dry, outer layers of the soaproot, laid so that the natural curvature of their bases nested. I saw some on display and thought I’d like to give soaproot brush making a try!

Dug up plant

I first found some areas near us where the plants grow and dug up some of the larger ones between November and January. They can be difficult to dig up whole. I would recommend finding those in loose, damp soil, and using a long bladed spade, digging around the plant before digging under it and prying up. If the hairs and bulb are damaged they will not be very usefull. Try to find plants with long hairs, the size of the plant above ground is indicative of the size below ground, but there will be some surprises.

 

 

 

 

The plants were then cleaned . A plastic handled wire brush was used to help clean the dirt out of the long hairs and to untangle them to some extent.

Cleaning the plant and wire brush

The soaproot hair portion was separated from the bulb and set out to dry,

Drying out the brush hairs

and the soaproot bulbs were boiled for along time until they were soft,

Boiling the bulbs

at which time they were separated, and placed in a colander , and scraped vigorously against the colander wall

Mashing the separated bulbs in a colander

until the white sticky paste oozed out.

Paste for handle making oozing out

The paste

The paste

was saved and paced in the refridgerator. Note: remember to lable the paste container or there is a good chance your spouse will toss it out! I know from experience.

The next step is to further clean and dry the hairs and place them in small bundles with the hairs in the same direction and to tie these together. I used a long needle and strong thread. To be authentic, you might use natural materials like reed strips. The bundles can be of any length and diameter one wishes, depending on the intended use and type of handle to be used.

Tying the brush

The final step is to coat the handle part of the bundles with many (5 to 10 or more) coats of the paste brushed on, in a manner that covers the ties.

Plant, brush with paste handle, and brush before paste handle

The paste in a container can be thickened by being left out to dry for a time.  Left in the sun each coat will dry and turn hard in a day and the finished brush could look like this.

Brush with paste handle .One of the problems with the handles of brushes coated with soaproot paste was that they would become soft when wet. To get around this, some tribes coated the bundled hairs with pine tree pitch (sap) that had a bit of charcoal dust added in. This provided a waterproof handle. I scavenged some oozing and dried pine sap Pine sap pieces to be melted

and heated it in a can raised in the water on our oven top.

Heating the pine sap

I strained out the debris

Straining the sap

and quickly coated the hairs with a layer of sap. I repeated this with another layer of sap that had some charcoal dust sprinkled in .

Brush with sap and charcoal handle

This was messy and cumbersome. I found that just heating the can full of sap with a hair dryer worked much better. The hair dryer could also be used to spread and soften the sap on the handle so it could be molded into an attractive shape.

Being a potter, I experimented with adding different substances available from ceramic supply stores to the hot sap mix and made red handles with red iron oxide powder, a speckled earthtone handle by adding 30 mesh sand and so on.

Brush with pine sap and sand in handle

Pine sap with red iron oxide and another with yellow ochre

However, the downside with the sap handles is that, while they are waterproof, in the sun or heat they will slowly change shape to match whatever the are resting on. A little more heat from the hair dryer and they could be reshaped. There is probably a better ratio and additive to lessen this problem.

I enjoyed making the brushes. I learned some history and produced some nice looking, practical, and truly unique hand made gifts. Good luck and give it a shot!

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