With all our new found sale cash The Boy and I have been discussing how best to spend it. One HUGE item that is in desperate need of a fix up is the back bathroom/laundry room. It’s the last big interior project at the house and I’m hoping with a little over $3,000 and a lot of kindness and help from our friends/family (who remodel bathrooms for a living) we can whip this thing into less ugly and more functional shape.

Wonder what it looks like right now? Brace yourself. Check it out HERE.

One potential hurtle is the laundry hook-ups and current plumbing. In order to keep costs down, we want to keep everything installed as closely to the current plumbing as possible. So that means…

-The shower needs to stay in that area for the drain and fixtures.

-The dryer needs to go as close to that weird exterior door as possible to reach the 220vlt (which will need to be shortened and dropped down through the attic and INSIDE the house instead of how it’s run through the door frame now). We also need to figure out a way to vent the dryer…

-The electrical, drain and two sets of hot and cold facets are located underneath the window. The sink and washing machine therefore need to be installed in that area.

-The electrical panel needs to be flipped into the toilet “poopicle” closet.

Another way for us to keep costs down is to keep our current dryer and buy a new washer (our vintage washing monster from the 80’s is getting GROSS). Squeezing both the washer and dryer in that area doesn’t leave a lot of room for a sink (remember – it’s already plumbed for a sink in that space) so we need to build a custom cabinet and install a tiny bar sink. I love this simple Lagan one from Ikea, and at only $26.98 it seems to fit in the space and the budget. Combine it with a simple modern faucet and you got a sink to fit in an impossibly small area! I’ve been going a little crazy trying to wedge everything in that space, but I have all my measurements figured out correctly (finally) and it looks like it will fit.

Underneath the sink we would need to build a simple custom cabinet to hide all the plumbing and store cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper, soap and other ugly laundry room stuff.

Oh, and another way to keep costs down is to stick with the VCT floors that are already there instead of replacing them with something else.

For the shower we would need to completely gut the original corner shower structure and storage closet next to it to expand the space and make it functional (since it totally isn’t now). This is where the bulk of the budget would go…

I want to build a little half wall to divide the shower fixtures from the sink and then install a glass door to help stop water spray and leakage on the VCT floor. A glass door would also help let some light into that dark shower corner. I think it would also be great to have a little bench so that – for once – I could shave my legs in comfort.

Hopefully we could do a simple rain shower head with a simple/modern shower control. The drain wouldn’t have to be moved, which is a plus, but we would have to slightly adjust the plumbing for the shower head and control.

The shower and back splash behind the sink / laundry would get tiled in super simple white ceramic subway tile in either a vertical pattern or stacked in a grid (instead of the offset pattern in this sketch-up version). I would probably just go with that cheapo white subway Daltile or American Olean from Lowes in order to save some $$$. Hopefully we could install a little inset shelf area on the wall to put shampoo, soap and other shower things.

We would also need to buy an exterior door, but I guess that could wait if we totally run out of funds.

The big thing for us to watch out for (and if you came out to the house for the sale, you saw it first hand) is that we CANNOT over improve for our neighborhood. In reality, we already have – but – trying to make this laundry/bathroom actually functional and aesthetically pleasing on a tiny budget is going to be a huge challenge. We can’t just gut and redo everything, so we need to be smart with our cash, work with what is already there and keep it simple enough to fit with the style of the rest of the house. My dream would be to totally gut it and lay it out better than than this, but this project is going to be a compromise from the start. I want to be able to do laundry in that room without being a gymnast and take a shower without having to duck down the whole time and be frightened of the flesh eating disease I might be contracting from the disgusting beige tile that won’t get clean.

The old cinder block fire pit did not work. Whoops! (That’s why I never posted a true DIY). Good thing it was dirt cheap to build.

When we visited T.K. and Jill’s house in Joshua Tree, T.K. gave us a little introduction tutorial class in welding. Now we are putting that new skill to use to rebuild our crappy fire pit. We will build it better, stronger, more metal-y than before.

We bought four 40″ x 20″ sheets of 12 gauge hot rolled steel from Riverside Industrial Metal Supply.

Our new fancy magnets were very useful for holding together the two pieces of steel in order to get them tack welded at a 90 degree angle. Best tool ever.

The first half got spotted in place and it started to look like something…

The metal fire pit will be sunk into the ground with eight cold rolled steel rod supports to hold it square and add strength.

It’s a big metal square!

We added foot long cold rolled steel rods to the corners and in the middle of each panel. They aren’t pretty but they are getting installed underground – so they don’t really need to be.

Installing the larger metal pit where the old cinder block fire pit died it’s horrible death was kind of a pain. Everything got ripped out and a larger, deeper hole had to be dug out. A sledge hammer and plank of wood helped sink it level into the soft soil. In the end we left about 14″ of steel above ground.

BAM! DONE. Indestructible fire pit. I want it to rust up a bit to match the sketch up version:

I think for our first welding project that it turned out really great! It was about $100 for all the material and took us three or so days to put it together with a bit of a learning curve. The Boy ended up doing most of it after falling deeply in love with welding and telling me my welds suck. Good thing, because we have a lot more metal to slap on this house and I’m going to put him to work.

Ready to go for fire! Much, much better.

With my new found welding powers I am psyched to start welding up a fire pit, edging, shade structure and a planter for the side yard. Ambitious yes. Impossible? Maybe. I’m going to start with the fire pit and go from there.

Unfortunately the summer heat that has finally hit Hemet and with it I’ve started to wonder how we can add a small cheap pool to The Brick House. A tiny pool, just big enough to get wet and cool down in but not ambitious enough to need to meet codes and require professional installation. My sister suggested this puffy thing, but while we were in Joshua Tree last week I saw a really amazing DIY galvanized livestock tank pool. A similar version can be seen here at Waldorf Modern.

I was never really happy with what we had going on in the landscaping of the side yard, so I redesigned around the idea of installing a little DIY livestock tank pool.

I visited my local livestock supply and found that they had a 10′ and an 8′ version of the round tank.

The 8′ version is $374 and the 10′ is $560. Ouch, pricey. Delivery is only $10 though! Our house is literally right around the corner from this place and yeah, it can be a little rural around these parts. When I called the other 15 or so livestock supplies in a 50 mile radius I found that this local place was the only one that stocked a 10′ version, and surprisingly, had the best price.

Sorry for the crappy iPhone pics.

I also went to the local pool supply place to check out pumps/filters. I found this small one for about $50, but it seems like a pretty temporary solution and the filters would need to be changed every two weeks. At $10 a pop, that seems like some pricey maintenance. This Hayward unit is $269 and the filter needs to be changed yearly. This more expensive unit seems like a bit of overkill for the size of the pool. I want something in the middle, something to filter 750 gallons easily and that can be installed on a pretty permanent bases. I was also thinking of doing this whole pool with salt water instead of worrying about chemicals and such.

Needless to say the pool store workers though I was a fucking idiot. I felt like one. I’m not sure how to solve the filtration / salt water / pump situation.

If this pool idea somehow works out then we would adjust the rest of the landscape. I want to throw down pea gravel in a big L shape over a base of decomposed granite. I also want to add a Palo Verde tree with a hot rolled steel ring around the base to echo the pool shape and a big cactus in the back. Then we would use railroad ties as a stepping pathway to the pool. I found this great image of a railroad tie driveway that inspired the idea but have totally lost it. Damn you internet!

This is what it would look like when you are floating comfortably in the pool. We could get a couple of loungers to relax and sun bath nude on. No tan lines! Horrified neighbors!

We would still have a sun shade over the pool to keep it all cool and shady and the masonry wall for privacy.

I think a small pool would be really great and usable thing to have out here in the desert. It’s hot like 75% of the year and we’ve been just so desperate to take a cool dip for the last few years. So for $500 – $700 we could probably build this thing. Is it worth it? Or do we go the ugly doughboy route?

Here are some tank pool images I found over the week. I totally didn’t keep track of where I found them at because I’m a terrible blogger. I haven’t been able to track down a whole lot if info around on how to build one of these things…

That green one looks horrifying. But its got a slide!

Stupid idea or brilliant? I can’t tell yet. There is a whole lot of potential for failure.

Yeah. They are gross.

I’m seriously considering replacing the warped and rotted doors with commercial steel roll up doors. I like that they are cheap, take up a small amount of space and have a linear horizontal pattern. It’s a thought, but nothing has been decided. It’s an idea for “The Future”. I think for now we will paint them black and figure out the next step later.

I’ve continued thinking about the back patio since the last post. I’m kind of sold on eventually installing a tankless water heater so that we can at least free up that tight corner.

The other thing I was wavering about was continuing the slats on the back patio. I’ve been trying to figure out how we could get rid of at least one of the three stupid doors and not do any major masonry cutting and rearranging. We always try to create the most impact for the least amount of money and skill required. Any MAJOR rearranging of exterior exits of the house is not an option. Every opening in the house is lined with custom bull-nosed cement bricks from 1950 and they don’t make that shit to patch things up with anymore. Plus we don’t know how to do it and we can’t afford it and I’m not convinced that the investment will pay off in the long run in our neighborhood.

So…my idea is to make a solid redwood wall that intersects with the open slats that will essentially “cover” the weird third exterior door. On the inside of the bathroom we can just rip down molding stick some insulation in and drywall over the door. *POOF* Door gone. It would not a huge investment, it creates more interior space in the bathroom and we are totally DIY capable of doing it.

Afterwards we can throw a butterfly chair and a small table in that new alcove. Then the little useless back porch area becomes a sitting destination, or smoking area since that seems to be what most visitors use it for.

BTW – one of my dream pieces of furniture is a Richard Schultz petal table. Drool…

My favorite part of the front porch slat screen is the area that wraps around the side of the house. I think it would be nice to mimic that on the back porch and create an architectural division of the various exterior areas into more manageable rectangles.

Also, check it out! I fixed those pesky fake shade sails to look more accurate. I think I’m kind of sold on them. They are pretty cheap, but make a giant statement whilst keeping the hottest (most sun exposed) side of the house a bit cooler.

Apologies for the gratuitous sketchup posts. I know…boring ideas for the future…less talk more action! But now that we are moving along with the exterior I want to make sure to really plan everything out so that we use our money wisely by really thinking through the entire design and hopefully keeping it all cohesive. Plus, your guys tips and experience with things like water heaters, plants, shade sails, paint, ect. have really helped us figure out the potential cost/problems/solutions that we might encounter. It’s amazingly helpful.

Our back porch is a monstrosity. It still looks exactly the same (and has the same issues) since my last house burn out.

Here is a sketchup rendering of the direction we are kind of considering going in. Whoops, that door placement is a little funny.

The water heater is still a fucking disaster. I want to go tankless, the Boy is not convinced. I’m not convinced that the investment will be worth it considering our neighborhood and the city. Our water heater works fine, it’s just U.G.L.Y it ain’t got no alibi, its ugly. But it may be worth saving up for tankless. Even for the aesthetic benefits.

I’ve been toying around with the idea of just building a new water heater box that is slatted (with an opening door of course) that is a little tighter than the sketchup views (so you see less of the ugly) but still allows ventilation, which our home inspector said we don’t have enough of…like over two years ago…

And then I got all slat happy and was like “Why not just stick slats everywhere!”.

These are gratuitous slats, there is no real sun blocking function since it’s already a covered patio and it would actually block a whole section we could walk through to the garage. The thing is, we never really walk that way since there is so much crap stored right there so I’m not sure that it’s a walking area we can’t give up easily. Plus I like that it is cohesive with the front slats and divides and defines the patio space and the “atrium” space that leads to the garage and the fire pit.

Probably not going to build it, but it was a thought…

Behold, “The Pipe That Goes Nowhere for No Reason”.

We haven’t quite figured out how to remedy this pipe situation. It is connected to the main faucet and wraps around the whole side of the house for seemingly no purpose. We want to remove it, but can’t figure out how to reattach it to the facet. The pipes would need to be cut and sweated and a custom little chunk would have to fit the weird two inch gap.

Maybe we need a plumber.

Our ghetto bathroom/laundry room door is still a mess with more pipes that go nowhere and that awesome dryer vent. None of that can get fixed till we remodel the bathroom…which seems years away. I’m not really sure how to even pretty it up till then. We can’t even install a new door till the wiring and venting issue is solved.

There is a small pony wall that divides the breezeway space from our side yard. I’ve been kicking around ideas about how to address this hunk of cement and think I may want to build a planter like this:

Filled with Mexican feather grass. Probably not in a steel planter, more likely something wooden clad.

Which reminds me, our garage doors are bowed and in horrible shape. So those need work too! Hooray.

Sorry for the rambling bits of this post, these are just a few problems that are reasserting themselves as we are continue painting. Even if we get most of the painting done there is still going to be a mess of ugly that needs fixing.

Now that the house is getting painted and the exterior is slowly coming together I’ve started to think (once again) about shade sails. While the above installation is not the most glamorous example of a shade sail, the structure and design is pretty similar to what I’m considering installing in our side yard.

Residential applications are a little less industrial and hazardous looking…

Our side yard takes a beating during the long summer days and could use a bit of relief from the desert sun. If we create a little outdoor dining / ping pong recreation area I’d like to alleviate some of that intense heat with a pair of rectangular gray sun shades that are attached to the eaves of the house and then strung out and fastened to three large metal poles cemented into the ground.

Instant shade.

Here is a mock-up in Sketchup of what I’m sort of thinking :

I’ve been looking around at shade sail manufacturers and found Tenshon whose 9′ x 14′ shade might just work perfectly in grey. At $169.00 each they are not totally unreasonably priced.

Here are some examples of Tenshon shade sails :

I haven’t been as impressed with the quality, pricing and color options (as well as size customization) at other manufacturers, but I’m still looking around.

It’s probably premature to start really planing this project (but I just love to plan and then get depressed waiting to do it for real) so my question for you is:

Has anyone installed a sun shade? Any tips or things to be weary of? Is this look dated or is it awesome?

Thanks!

By the powers of Sketchup! Make It So!

Well, I’m no landscape designer (obviously) but there are a few rules in how we need to approach this whole desert landscaping business – hopefully moving things along with the The Year of the Exterior.

1. Drought Tolerant Plantings (no grass, no horsetail reed, no Papyrus, nothing tropical…i.e. all the things I like.)

2. Simple to maintain (lots o’hardscape)

3. Modern, clean and cost effective (Use one thing and repeat repeat repeat for impact and cohesion. I’m cheap!)

The idea with the front yard is to use a combination of barrel cactus, blue fescue, mexican feathergrass, ocotillo with a palo verde tree thrown in. That big middle rectangular lump is supposed to be a lawn of mounding “blue fescue” but the stupid 2-D bush thing won’t stay put, and it’s not actually fescue at all. I’m having a hard time finding the right plants in the Sketchup 3-D warehouse.

Decomposed granite will function as most of the ground cover with insets of light gray or white pea gravel under the fescue, the palo verde tree as well as in the side yard area. Fun plans for that to come…

For the hardscape I want at least three big boulders and would like to pour rectangular concrete steps from the front door to the sidewalk. We also are planning to build a masonry wall on the right side of the house and along the neighbors property to replace all the nasty fence thing that is happening there now.

Here is plan view of the Brick House compound where you can see the insets of gravel on the DG.

I think kangaroo paw will line the side of the driveway, past the eventual “gate”, to soften up and disguise the orange fence a bit.

The “gate” I’m thinking about building is based on this gate design from Blake Dollahite.

Hog panels! I’m probably going to need to learn how to weld.

We also need to rebuild a more aesthetically pleasing mailbox.

So many big plans, so little money (and skill).

First things first. Paint the house. It’s totally going to happen! And soon.

The next big exterior project will be constructing the horizontal wood slat screen on the front porch. I’ve gone on and on and on about doing this project (and it’s probably the project I’m most excited to do) since I think it will make the biggest architectural statement in our whole Year Of The Exterior remodel.

Sketchup to the rescue yet again…trying to work out all the hardscape elements for the front yard.

I think we will use Redwood…? Maybe?

Other than that I’m not actually sure how to build this thing. I’ve been discussing the physical construction process of how to make it work with carpenter Craig, but he wants to use a bit of heavy duty hardware that I feel might distract from the clean modern aesthetic we are going for.

Any suggestions or secrets about how to achieve this horizontal screen before we screw up yet another DIY project?

A lot of folks were curious about where this funky bathroom/laundry room actually was located…and no it’s not near a pool and we don’t really have a need for a mud room being mostly weather-less in California and we lack the privacy for an outdoor shower. I wish we had the pool dilemma.

The bathroom is connected to the kitchen and both (as well as the den) exit out onto the back porch. That water heater? Yeah - it’s worse in real life. Still working on a plan for that bad boy.

Here is my magical first draft remodel plan that is vaguely concerned with price, but honestly, mostly concerned with aesthetics. I kept the door and made it usable and now it’s suddenly sexy single panel with a glass insert.

Here is the rundown:

-Washer and Dryer : Two separate units that stack. Located at the old sink plumbing.

*Need to do to make it happen : Buy the actual machines, rewire the 220volt plug through the roof and drop into the corner. Where to vent? Hmmmm. Don’t know.

-Sink : Install a deep, but modern large sink on a floating cabinet. (To store cleaners and laundry stuff.)

*Need to do to make it happen : The water lines are already there, but there is no drainage. Install a drain, buy the sink, faucet and cabinet.

- Shower : Tear it down, but keep it located in the same area. I want one nice shower for resale and also for personal enjoyment. I love showers.

*Need to do to make it happen : Relocate the plumbing from the interior wall to exterior wall. Install subway tile and a little bench to sit on. Glass door and shower pan. Buy faucets and hardware.

- Electrical breaker box : Flip to the interior of the poopicle.

*Need to do to make it happen : Hmmm. Flip? Probably need an electrician.

Look how awesome I’m getting at Google sketchup! F*ck yeah. What I meant to say before that bit of self aggrandizing is that from the kitchen it would look more like a laundry room and therefore not totally as random as a full bathroom next to the fridge.

And yeah. I’m slowly building out the whole house in sketchup. Cause I’m CRAZY PANTS.

What lurks behind that mysterious pocket door in the kitchen?

HURL. It’s the laundry room.

Oh yeah. It’s FUGLY.

These are old pics from a few years ago and it’s only gotten worse if you can imagine.

With my new and improved Google Sketchup powers (thanks all for the great tips! I’m starting to get the hang of this shit) I built out the laundry room as it currently is. This is the view from the kitchen! The room is only 9′ x 9′ and houses the washer and dryer (in ODD locations), a utility sink, shower, closet and toilet cubicle as well as the secondary breaker box.

Here is a view from above.

Now for the tour. To the right you’ll see the 3′ wide toilet “poopicle”, then squeeze on by the dryer on the left that is installed through and on an exterior door, the utility sink is on your left if you can once again squeeze by the dryer sticking out in the middle of the room. The washing machine is on your right and then there is the tiny musty shower with a shower head installed at about 4′ high and a ceiling that’s at about 6′. Just a wee bit claustrophobic and almost impossible to wash your hair.

There is a huge closet though…

Here you can see the breaker box on the wall of the toilet poopicle and the dryer wedged into the defunct doorway. The Brick House was rigged up this way when we moved and it’s been on my “priority list” for when we somehow run into a big pile of money. I’m not even sure how to slap lipstick on this pig so I’ve just left it, with the awesome teal paint and plastic tiles falling off the walls.

Ohhhh x-ray vision.

Look at that huge closet. Guess whose going to get turned into a shower! And here is that little cramped and useless second shower. Only used in the direst of emergencies.

My mission is this: With my new found sketchup power I’m going to stop ignoring this beast and get going on a plan of action. My questions for you are these…

-We have one FULL bathroom. Should I keep the shower and just remake it so it’s usable? Or is it weird to have a big shower off your kitchen totally far away from the rest of the house?

-Stackable or side by side laundry? Pros and cons?

-The sink may have to go. Is it weird to have a toilet, shower and NO sink off the kitchen?

-How the hell do you brick up that stupid door? Should it get turned into an exterior door again? Or a giant window?

This whole room is one giant clusterf*ck. No wonder we’ve been ignoring it.