Building a Rock Wall

For Christmas in 2014, my grandma gave us all quite a bit of money.  I wasn't sure what to do for our 4 boys but knew I wanted to do something that would get them outside.  After looking around the internet for ideas I decided to build a rock wall.  Much of what I based my ideas on came from Ben's Backyard Climbing Wall.  Without that as a starting point I think I would have been lost.

My dad had already built our boys a fort which gave me a nice starting point to anchor the wall to.  He also came up with the idea to hang a 4x6 from the fort to an A frame that we built.  That gave us an anchor 8 feet in the air to attach the wall's posts to.  Like the wall I based mine on I decided to make my wall 12 feet tall.  To make it strong I used 3 16 foot long 6x6s.  Thankfully, the boards we got were already a bit old and had dried out because otherwise they would have been very heavy.  My dad helped me pick up the beams using his trailer.

Originally, I wanted to put 4 feet of the beams into the ground.  However, where I live the ground contains a lot of clay.  About 1 foot into the ground I found clay, 2 feet down I found a white extremely hard clay.  That white clay was almost impossible to dig with a shovel.  I ended up having to dig a 8.5 foot long trench that allowed me to get in the hole and dig my 3 points where I wanted to put the 6x6s.  I was unable to get the holes 4 feet deep, but got them a little over 3 feet.  

Once we got the beams in the holes we used carriage bolts to hold them to the 4x6 cross beam.  I then put 600 pounds of concrete into the holes to hold the beams in place.

I wanted to make the wall look like a castle and I learned how to make a nice pattern at https://mrmcgroovys.com/how-do-you-paint-that-cool-brick-pattern-on-the-castle/

I currently have one section of the wall done.  It is 4 feet wide by 12 feet tall and goes straight up.  I had to take a break from the wall to work on my bathroom remodel, but plan to revisit the wall soon.  My next section is going to be 4 feet wide by 12 feet tall, but will have a 20 or 30 degree angle leaning back to make for a more difficult climb.  Later when my boys are a bit more proficient, I plan to make a section with a more difficult angle like the end section of the one I copied.  

Turns out I don't have a photo of the entire 12 foot wall just the 8 feet I did at first.  I guess I will have to get a picture and add it.

Playground Project (background)

Another ongoing project we have is the kids' play area in the front yard.  Our house sits on a very interesting lot.  The backyard is a concrete patio with a little bit of dirt area behind it where Josh has planted fruit trees and an almond tree.  From the backyard, there are stone stairs leading to the side yard where Josh is working on a bunny hutch area.  The side yard is huge.  Another house could probably fit on it.  A little hill leads from the side yard to the front yard, which is where we are building a playground area.

The front yard when we bought the house

The front yard in 2014: Geodome, tetherball, and wooden play structure

Josh and his dad recently built monkey bars and a rock climbing wall to attach to the wooden play structure.  I will update this post with pictures of that later because I can't seem to find any!   I'm sure Josh will want to add pictures of the rock climbing wall building phase.  That was quite a lot of work!  

We eventually want to put in artificial turf and remove all the ivy to make the play area larger.  The concrete patio also needs to be replaced and the porch roof removed eventually.  There has been so much settling underneath the patio that it is causing the porch roof to sag.

Rough ideas and an update

Lowe's has a virtual room designer on their website that is easy to use.  I wish it had more options for design but I was able to make something close to what we want the bathroom to look like after we are done.  I was using it mostly to figure out what colors in flooring and tile we should do.

Here is a link to the website: Lowe's Virtual Room Designer

Here is a picture of what I came up with:

With wood-look floor tile

With white floor tile

We are trying to decide if we should go with a dark wood-look tile, which in a way would pay homage to the wood planks that used to be on the walls, or a large white tile with some texture to it.  I do think the wood look warms up the space instead of having it look so sterile white.

An example of the wood-look tile we are considering: Black Walnut Porcelain Stone at Crossville

Black Walnut Porcelain Stone at Crossville

An example of the white tile: Emser Surface Linear White

Emser Surface Linear White

It's a good thing we don't have to decide this right now.  Josh still has to get the bathtub fixed up and rip out the shower.  The floor is the last thing that will go in.  For sure, we will have to change the floor tile though.  At first, we thought of leaving it the way it is, but our shower and bathtub tile came in yesterday and it is really white compared to the floor.  The floor now looks yellow!

We are going with a large format (12" x 24") white tile from Home Depot for the shower and bathtub: Emser Times Square White tile 

 Josh won't have a chance to work on the bathroom this weekend so he has been prepping the vanity area after work every day for the countertop installation next Friday. 

We currently don't have a bathroom sink so we are brushing our teeth in the kitchen.  It is a little odd to tell the boys to go brush their teeth in the kitchen!

Bathroom materials and cost

It is nice of my husband to share this blog with me!  He gave me permission to post on here so here is my first one.  Our first major remodeling project is our one bathroom.   We are a family of seven so you can imagine the chaos in this one bathroom in the mornings and at bedtime.  The bathroom is a good size at about 70 square feet but it only has one sink, which makes for a few fights at teeth brushing time! 

Josh and I make decisions on the materials for the bathroom together but I am the one who usually finds the options we have and brings those options to him.  We splurge on a few things (like the mosaic tile backsplash) and we go the less expensive route on others.  I thought I would post a few of the materials that we have found along the way.

Our first big purchase was our vanity countertop.  We wanted to expand from one sink to two sinks so that we could have more than two children brushing teeth at a time.  We also wanted vessel sinks, which are surprisingly hard to find at the store.  Even more difficult was finding a vanity or vanity top to fit those vessel sinks!

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Titan Quartz Pre-fabricated countertop in Sierra Ice - 

 

I think we went to four different places before we were able to figure out how to get the countertop we wanted.  Both Home Depot and Lowe's were too expensive for the semi-custom vanity top we needed (over $1,000 and probably wouldn't have worked with the sinks we wanted). The custom order/install department at these places also would not do any jobs that were less than 25 square feet.  We didn't want a completely new vanity, which probably would have been the easiest way to go.  This also would have cost over $1,000.  Our current vanity is real hardwood and we didn't want to get rid of it. Josh was planning on refinishing it.

Cost of refinishing the vanity: $50 plus about 25 million hours of labor.  Okay, it's not that much time but poor Josh has spent a lot of time refinishing the vanity, and he still isn't totally done with it!

We were able to go to a place on Miramar Road called Stoneville USA that sells granite slabs and tile.  Slab yards are a fun place!  Josh and I kept getting distracted by the pretty granite slabs even though we knew they would be way too expensive and too much material for our little 5' x 3' countertop.  At first, we were there to look into using tile for the countertop instead of a slab.  I wasn't too thrilled about tile for the counter but was willing to consider it. We were able to talk to a sales rep there and he suggested going with a prefabricated countertop and having a fabricator cut it down to the size we needed.  It was either that or calling around to fabricators to see if they had any slab remnants we could buy and use, which would have taken a lot of time.  So he took us to look at the prefabricated countertops and we found one that was probably the closest to what we wanted, a white engineered quartz.

Cost for prefabricated quartz countertop - $345
Cost estimate for fabrication (cut it down to size and drill holes for faucet and sink, also may include installation)- $300

Bonus: We found the granite we would use on our kitchen island whenever we remodel the kitchen!  This slab has tan in it but we would prefer only blue and white if we can find it.

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KRAUS Vessel Sink in White 

We ended up finding our vessel sinks online at Home Depot.  Shipping was free which was a big plus!  We also were able to bundle our sinks, faucets, and pop-up drains together.  Once Josh told me he wanted vessel sinks, I was pretty adamant that they had to be square.  I guess this was nitpicky but there was something about the rounded squares and rectangles and sloped walls of the others that irked me.  We may end up going with grid drains though for the sinks because the pop-up drains that came with the sinks are monsters!  We would be left with only two usable drawers in the vanity because the pipes for the drains are so long.

Cost for two square 15"x15" sinks, two single-handle faucets, and two pop-up drains - about $500

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Elida Ceramica Stardust Mosaic tile

 

Finding the right backsplash took me a while.  Finally, I found this one at the Lowe's website.  It looked pretty online and looked even prettier in person.  We started out buying 12 of these to start.  We may have to buy more as we find areas to use them.  For sure, we are using them as the entire backplash above the countertop.

Cost for twelve 12"x12" pieces of mosaic tile - about $180

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Trend Lighting Scope mini-pendant light

We also needed to change the lighting in the bathroom.  Before the remodel, there was a ceiling box that made no sense containing a light fixture that was falling apart.  Thanks to my FIL and Josh, the ceiling box and ugly old light fixture are gone and replaced with an open space to the attic and two pendant lights.  The open space will soon be covered by sheetrock.  

Commerical Electric Brushed Nickel Ceiling Light 

Josh was also able to replace the very tired old ceiling light with this new one.  It supposedly won't need to be replaced for 32 years since it uses an LED bulb.  We'll see!

Cost for new lighting - about $180 

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Brushed Nickel Cabinet and Drawer pulls 

I actually bought a 10 pack of these at Dixieline.  I'm so glad I did and I love them!  I tried out all the ones they had on display to see how they would feel.  Why I picked this one:  Brushed nickel finish, not rounded (kind of sticking with the square shape except for in the lighting), easy to pull open, and easy to clean!

Cost for 10 pack of cabinet pulls - $28

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Behr Marquee Semi-gloss paint in Etched Glass - We went with the whitest paint we could find for the walls.  This one might have some gray/blue in it.  We are only to the primer stage in painting the walls so we haven't been able to see it in a large portion yet.  I always forget how expensive paint is!


Cost for 1 gallon of paint - $40

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Current total cost estimate for bathroom renovation: $5000 
This estimate may change as we get further along.  

We are estimating that it will probably be the end of February or middle of March before we are done remodeling the bathroom.  It may even go longer than that.  At the end though, we will have a shiny new bathroom to use! 

Bathroom Archaeology

The first big remodel project that I have chosen to do is the bathroom.  It is incredibly ugly and needs to be updated and brought out of the 50s and 70s.  Just before Christmas I took the old wall coverings off.  Rather then paint this bathroom was done in wood slats.  It wasn't exactly paneling, but was instead some sort of thing unfinished wood nailed to the wall.

Before removing all the wood I often wondered why somebody would put wood slats on a bathroom wall.  I was able to look under the wood a little bit and see dark gray paint with some shiny gold showing through the paint.  After taking down the wood I found the walls had been covered in gold foil wall paper.

Unpainted gold foil wallpaper behind toilet

As I removed the wall paper, I was able to see yet further into the past.  Under the wall paper was yellow and pink paint.  

It was fun to remove all the ugly parts of the past in my bathroom.  It was interesting to me to see what it looked like in the past.  Nothing had been taken out in the entire 60 years of the house's history.  Everybody before me just covered up and moved on.  While that created more work for me, it did give me more insight into my house and the decorating ideas of the past.