I did almost all the plumbing, which included the supply pipes, drains, vents and installing all the fixtures. The only thing I hired out was installing the water heater, and our builder helped me by squeezing into a narrow space between the first and second floors where I wouldn't fit to connect the second floor copper. (10/23/04)

I ran almost all the electrical work for the addition. I added a second panel and ran all the wiring to it and hired an electrician to cross connect the new panel to the old panel when I was done. The electrician also ran the conduit and A/C interruptible service outside. (9/24/04)

My original plan was to hang and mud the drywall myself. I decided to hire it out since the project was taking much longer than I expected to complete. There were a few places where I did my own drywall work such as on the stairs where I took out the square edge and added a curved wall. In this case that meant putting up two layers of 1/4" drywall and mudding it in. (10/1/05)

I did all the tiling on the project. We added two full baths. The Studio (which can be considered a second master suite) has a tub with a shower head and the master suite has a separate tub and shower. (2/6/05)

The floors were tiled as well as the tub walls. We used less expensive materials in this studio bath since we weren't expecting it to see much use. One of our daughters adopted as her own so it gets a lot of use. Now I wish I spent a little bit extra. (4/20/05)

Here is a view of the completed bathroom. We used all "off the shelf" items in this room such as inexpensive stock tiles and premixed adhesives and grouts. We also left space for a cat litter box between the vanity and the toilet. At least that's what we tell people. The truth is to install a large enough vanity to fill the space would require a custom cabinet since that size is not sold at the big box stores. (9/24/05)

My plan was to buy a shower floor pan for the master bath. Fortunately the builder talked me out of it. I built it with concrete and a shower liner. We have been really happy with the results. The bench in the corner is built out of cinder blocks inside the shower pan liner based on advice I received online. The floor tiles are from Turkey. The red on the walls is a brushed on waterproof membrane. (6/7/05)

The tiles in the master bath are from Italy, the mosaic floor tiles are from Turkey, and the decorative pieces were from the US. Here the tiles are mounted but not yet grouted. The decorative pieces are taped off to make cleanup easier. Some of the tiles on the wall, called medallions, match the other tiles but have a pattern stamped into them. These too were covered in tape to avoid excessive cleanup time.

There is a niche on the right built with 2x4s and cement board. The building inspector told me she normally only sees those in really nice houses. Wow. (6/30/05)

The master bath had three different sized files. The walls had 6" tiles, the tub deck has 12" tiles, and the floor has 20" tiles. All the tiles have cement board backing them up. I was a bit worried about such large tile on second story floor (flexing can break tile), but we haven't had any problems. (6/13/05)

We put in a Jacuzzi jetted tub for Johanne (we can say Jacuzzi because it is actually a Jacuzzi brand tub). We put in a deck to support the edges. I added two separate circuits under the deck - one for the jets and one for the heater that we never got around to installing. Mr. Ooms was kind enough to stop by to help me install it. (7/12/05)

Here is the completed tub. The panels on front are doors I ordered on-line. I built the frame for the doors out of oak. There are hinges on the top of the doors so you can lift them to access the plumbing. The plumbing inspector said that was a really good idea so I'm guessing that isn't a common practice. (9/9/05)

The stair rail was built out of store bought parts. I cut the base out of oak and put a spacer below it to make sure it's slightly higher than the carpet. I had to calculate the spacing and drill out holes on the hand rail and base. The rail cap over the newel post is bolted to the hand rail and the oval rosette secured to the wall (3/30/06)

The curved rail at the bottom of the stairs is made from bending rail. The slices are keyed and thin enough to bend with reasonable pressure. The bending rail also comes with a pine clamping block that fits the external profile (barely visible on the left side of the rail). I didn't have enough clamps so I had to go back and re-glue some areas, but all in all it worked out pretty well. (4/12/2006)

The glue-up involved building a bunch of clamping brackets and screwing them down to the stairs. This is a challenging glue-up even with slow set glue since it take a long time to spread the glue on both sides of the internal slices, get the clamps on the rail, and get the rail clamped to the brackets on the stairs. I cut down a sheet of Lauan plywood into 3" strips and did a practice glue-up to make sure I could get it done in time. The wax paper keeps the pine glue blocks from sticking to the rail. I borrowed some clamps from Dad, but still not enough. (4/18/06)

Here are the finished stairs. I built the curved bases out of three layers of oak - one that covered the full width and two to cover the rough edge of the drywall. The vertical sections were built the same way but with two layers. If I had it to do over again I would have spent more time selecting the lumber since the layers are very obvious. Technically the stairs don't meet code because the drywall portion of the stairs is the width required so the lip around the bottom makes it too narrow. I won't tell if you won't. (7/14/2006)