Wood Shed Plans

Steve’s projects

Posted April 25th, 2010 by Bigglesbarker

Steve’s Latest Project

Steve started a project in late January 2010 to convert a laundry and toilet to a laundry bathroom for his wife’s mother who will be 90 in April. Lily is still capable of looking after herself in fact she is remarkable for her age but we are concerned about her using the stairs, so that’s why Steve is adding the downstairs bathroom. Steve will provide updates here as he goes. Although it’s a relatively small room it’s quite a major undertaking and more than just a woodworking project. And of course for such an undertaking Steve needed a plan, if you can get an existing plan even for parts of the project it makes life easier, as you become more experienced you can take the details from an existing plan and modify it to suit your needs. This project is quite unique so Steve is relying on his experience, the woodworking part of the project involves basic stud wall frames that you will find in many shed plans.

Stage 1 removal of the toilet door and architrave and frame.

Stage 2 removal of the toilet wall

Stage 3 removal of the dry wall and floor tiles

The old laundry/ toilet had the floor graded to flow to the floor waste in the laundry, for the new bathroom the gradient need to be changed so Steve had to chip off the sub base to get back to the base concrete floor, this took a while with cold chisels and a club hammer and was very tiring work. At various stages of your projects you may need specialist advise and you also need to check with your local planning departments to see if any permissions are required. You may also need licenced trades people for some aspects of your projects.

Steve called in the plumber in for this stage. The plumbing for this major part of the work had to be done by a licenced plumber. The plumber removed the toilet, had the floor cut, and plumbed in the waste for the new shower, hand basin and re-plumbed the waste for the toilet, then added the piping ready for the various taps and outlets.

After the plumber had finished, Steve cleaned up, drilled the sides of the cut in the floor and inserted parts of the reinforcing steel he saved from the demolition, then tied in new reinforcing steel, in this case 12mm deformed bar and it was important to add additional reinforcement around the waste pipes.

Next Steve mixed pre-packed bags of concrete in his wheel barrow and added additional cement to the mix, this was important as it will help prevent cracking in the future.

So now we are ready for the woodwork part of the project, first the sewer down pipe from the upstairs bathroom had to be boxed in, Steve salvaged the timber from the demolition, removed all the nails and then recut it. Steve has built up his tool kit over the years but they are still “handyman” tools. When Steve built his own workshop last year he bought a nail gun for assembling the stud frames it was around $200, he uses a small compressor, it was $99 and a slide/cut off saw with a 10 inch blade. You don’t have to spend a fortune on tools but for some tools like wood chisels get the best you can afford, it saves in the long run. Steve could have built the stud wall frames without a nail gun but you use what you have to hand.

Next is the new wall, Steve has built the first frame and installed it.

Today, 9th March Steve completed the new wall frame and installed the cavity sliding door frame

I had to take up part of the floor of the room above the new bathroom to fit a duct for the fan that will be fitted shortly, of course what I thought would be a half hour job turned into 2 hours

It took less time to chip the 4″ hole through the external brickwork and fit the cover plate

Almost ready for the electrician

20th March, I’ve made quite a bit of progress in the past few days, all of the dry wall and cornice is fixed, now working on flashing the joints

Architrave fitted round the door frame

This where the new shower will be

And here will be the basin and toilet

Today, I built the cabinets for the laundry and bathroom, I have ordered the bench tops and cabinet doors.

This was an existing cupboard in the laundry which I cut down and rebuilt to suit the smaller laundry, the smaller side panel is a support for the benchtop which will become clear as we progress.

Ceilings have been painted. I used the door previously hinged for what used to be the toilet, cut 4 inches (100mm) off one side, salvaged the edge and glued it back in to the door. Drilled the door and fitted the new latch then hung the door which is now sliding in to the internal cavity

Walls in the laundry have been painted and the floor has been rendered to add fall to the new shower drain. The laundry floor has been skimmed to fill up all the holes

Tiling begins….

Floor finished now the walls

The green wall is in fact a waterproof membrane paint that is applied before tiling, it covers all the walls and floor area of the shower. I used a diamond coated hole saw to cut the tiles for the plumbing.

The new laundry is pretty much finished apart from new taps, doors for the cabinet and plumbing the waste for the laundry trough

Shower area now fully tiled and grouted, still have the seal the corners with silicone.

Tiling is done round the new vanity but not grouted yet

This is at 13 April 2010

April 25, 2010 Didn’t quite get finished for Lily’s 90th Birthday, there are always those unexpected things that hold you up. The plumber fitted the toilet only to find there was a leak from the pan, so it had to come out again. On investigation it was found that the was a fault in the manufacture of the toilet so I took it back to the retailer and got a refund. I have since purchased a different make and it will be installed in a week’s time. The shower screen will also be installed in a week’s time.

The shower taps etc have been installed and I installed the grab rail. After drilling the holes I filled them with silicone before screwing the rail in place.