Glass Block Windows (Double Hung)

We'd been holding off on installing a bathroom window on the first floor. We weren't sure if we wanted glass block, fixed frame, or what. Hubby was concerned about security (the neighboring house is a rental that turns over about every other month, so we never know who's in there) and I was pretty sure I didn't want the same double hung windows we had installed in the rest of the house from Window City.

We have an answer ( I think-- we haven't got a price on this yet, but I'm hoping it's within our range.) Modern Builders Supply just sent us a pdf of their double hung glass block window line.

If the price is right, I want it.

View for yourself the whole PDF here: US Block.pdf


UPDATE: Cost was $367 for the double hung.
We're gonna pass.

Bathroom tiling- followup.

So we finished the first floor bathroom tile. We picked up some nice looking marble at Surplus Warehouse and installed it using the very same method you will see on any DIY website/blog.TV show/DVD, etc. Using dry (water added) Thinset, 1/2" square notched trowel, a rented tile saw, (which we forgot to return for 2 days! Doh!) a red wax pencil (for marking darker tiles) and a measuring tape.

The only thing I would suggest that we didn't do, is fully cut and layout ALL of the tiles BEFORE you mix the thinset. We laid them all out on the livingroon floor the day before, and prepared which ones would go where, but we started installing the tiles thinking that since we only had eight to cut, and they would all be straight cuts, that the following day I could start setting them in thinset, and install the last ones as they were cut.

I thought we had a pretty good bead on the layout only to get stymied mid-stride by having NOT included the extra space for the threshold. This meant some additional unexpected cuts. A quick reconfigure and a good 20 minutes later, I noticed that the tiles already installed set up pretty quick with the thinset.

Some of the tiles that were put in later than the first ones , turned out to be about 1/16" higher at the edges. Now probably only I will notice it, and only if I'm barefooted, but it's something to consider before you get started. The point is, if you lay them all out with the thinset in one big batch, you can level them all together and probably get a much better job.

Now that we've got a better idea of how to set tile down, on our most recent trip to Home Depot we came across some cheap 12x12" tile (about $1/sq foot) and picked it up for the 3rd floor guest bathroom. Those suckers have 15 tiles in each package and they are HEAVY.

We got four. They haven't made it to the third floor yet. We're working on it.

Today we screwed down the 1/4" OSB down on the second floor bathroom, and are almost ready to put the Hardibacker down. I think we'll be waiting a while before we actually get the tile down on that floor.

Attention: Completely unrelated rant warning: woot woot woot.

So, another long day under our toolbelts, and I apologize in advance for the crabbiness, but, both Hubby and I start work in the office at 6:45AM. In the afternoons we get to the site and work as much as we can. Then about 7 PM, we head back home to finish up more office work. We usually get to eating dinner at about 9 or 10PM, watch a Netflix, and head off to bed at about 12:30. Then we start the same routine all over again, six days a week. On the seventh, well, you know.

So anyway, we sometimes find ourselves at the local grocery store rustling up some grub for dinner before heading home. Yesterday evening was one of those nights and I still had my camera in the car.

We pulled into the parking spot and found the grocery cart just sitting there in the space. That peeves me in the first place because it's MY car that gets hit by the darn thing after someone ELSE leaves it there. I mean, just how much energy does one person need to expend to roll (not carry on your back or anything) but ROLL it over to the cart receptacle area where they WON'T roll out and hit anyone else's car.

How lazy and obnoxious do you have to be to NOT push the cart the five feet away to the cart collection area? It was right there!!!

No matter how tired we are at the end of the day, we put our carts back where they won't damage anyone else's car. I consider it a courtesy, if not an obligation.

So whoever you are, lazy cart person, I hope one day you leave your cart behind in the parking space and I hope it chases you down and dings your door on your way out of the lot.
So there.

The problem with *space*

The problem with space is that's there's never enough where you need it.

Case in point: the stairs on the first floor. Underneath it we have planned the only first floor bathroom. It's actually a good space for just a toilet and sink, with plenty of headroom, but we had a little problem when we came to figuring out the closet we had planned right next to it. (The only closet on the first floor as well.)

You see, hubbby tends to think and operate on floor plans. How much floor space something can take up, how much room it takes to operate and maneuver comfortably within a certain space. and he's good at it, too... Buuuuut, when it comes to the final 3-dimensional final output, he tends to forget things like doors and the fact that 2 doors can't occupy the same space at the same time.

This is where the problem showed up.

A typical closet door is usually at least 22" deep if it is to hold clothing on a coat hanger. Because we were unable to remove the remainder of the brick fireplace behind this closet, the south wall of the living room is not perfectly perpendicular to the west wall of the room (the bathroom under the stairs). The left side of the closet will be about 2" deeper than the right side. I figure we'll can hide that at the back of the closet where no one will see it. As long as the fronts are perpendicular, it will look fine in the end, but it adds to the problem of the depth of the closet. That would mean it would have to be 24" deep on the left side, and that cuts into our room plans.

Also adding to the fun is the fact the door we wanted to put on the bathroom was a 30-32" door. But between the need for some room (4") to trim the door on the left side of the bathroom door and the angle of the staircase coming down on the right side of the door, well it kinda limits the width of the door. Not even a 28" door would fit with a 22" deep closet.

Since we couldn't have a 22" deep closet and we couldn't fit a bathroom door in the amount of space we were given, we either had to redesign the closet or give up on a closet altogether, and I wanted a closet.

And we needed an additional 6" of space for the bathroom door.

So we split the closet into two sections and rotated the left and right sections of the closet 90 degrees. So instead of opening the door and hanging something up straight forward, you would hang up your articles of clothing either to the left or to the right instead. I also decided to stagger the heights of the hanging bars that the clothes would hang on because it always seems to me that my long trench coats always drag into something on the bottom of a closet, or hide your shoes, and the shorter coats would be perfect to hang over boots and shoes where you can see the stuff under them on the floor.

Anyway, that's the plan. We get a good sized closet (now wider than we originally planned, but less deep) and a 28 x 84" bathroom door that fits under the stairs.

I hope.

Oh, and one more thing: Our bestest ever plumber, Bert THE Plumber said if we tiled the bathroom floor he'd put in a used toilet that we could use while we're working, so we found some great looking black marble tiles at Warehouse Surplus (609 Ohio Pike in Cincinnati, OH) for $2.39 per square foot and laid them out last weekend. We rented a wet tile saw (not as intimidating as I thought it would be - we didn't ruin a single tile in the cutting) and made the cuts, thinset the tiles in place, and I suspect by mid-afternoon, the guys can stop peeing in plastic bottles.

Of course, modesty will have to wait for the drywallwers, but anyone that pees in a plastic bottle really isn't that concerned about modesty in the first place, I always say.