Finishing Up the Marble Floor and Steps

I knew when we were first talking about this bathroom project that there would be some interesting details to think about as we proceeded. Adding a set of winder stairs to a confined place in the bathroom was at the top of the list, especially when I heard that the homeowner wanted to cover them with marble tile.

STAIR NOSING
Though marble is a natural stone and is very heavy and durable, it's also somewhat brittle. For this reason it was very important to protect the tile at the front edge of the steps with a piece of Schluter trim. If we didn't do this, it would surely wear down faster or possibly break and crack because of the foot traffic to the back door.

Schluter trim comes in a wide variety of colors and styles depending upon what your using it for. It's great for making transitions from horizontal to vertical surfaces or corners where the appropriate tile trim piece is unavailable. The trim remains permanently flexible so it's great for corners that might otherwise crack over time with just grout or caulk.


You can see a sample piece of the trim I used in the picture. It's easily cut with a hacksaw and then set into the thinset mortar just before I lay the tile. The grout fills the seams between the trim and the tile and provides a very professional looking installation as well as some protection to our lovely marble steps.

MITERED CORNERS
Mitering is a term often used when doing trimwork that refers to cutting the trim at an angle (usually 45 degrees) where the corner pieces intersect. This can be done with tile as well and is most often used where there is an outside corner that is receiving tile. With these stairs, I used quite a few miter joints where the angled pieces came together.


A mitered cut on tile is not difficult provided that you have a tile saw that has this feature. My smallest tile saw is an MK 4" benchtop model and even it will cut miters by raising the cutting platform up to 45 degrees on one side. My larger Felker saw has an attachment that holds the tile at 45 degrees on the sliding tray which makes the cuts fairly simple once you get the hang of it.


The marble floor is grouted and sealed and ready for business. It will be slippery, though, so the homeowner will want to have plenty of rugs for wet feet. :)

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

The Beginning of a Marble Bathroom Floor

After adding a bathroom to this home (see these posts) by removing a closet and raising the floor, I had two small stairways to consider finishing. One, in the hall to the den, received pre-finished red oak hardwood flooring (this post). The bathroom, with a set of winding stairs to the back door, would get marble tile.

When I think of marble tile I think of luxury, like a Roman bath from ancient times, right? I guess that was the idea here as well. The homeowner picked out a black marble that had accents of yellowish-green throughout. I always enjoy using stone materials because of the amazing colors and hues that naturally occur in the rock. Most of the time it's covered up with dirt, but now we get to put it in our homes and enjoy it!

Using marble isn't that much different than any other tile, except that the framing does need to be stronger to support the stone material. I had this in mind as I framed the floor so there were no concerns with this on this project.

Stone tiles, like marble, slate, travertine or granite also call for a different kind of thinset. Be prepared, it costs nearly double the price of the cheap stuff! This is not the time to skimp, if I'm going to all this trouble to install flooring, I want to make sure I do everything possible to keep it looking great for many years.

I started by installing Hardibacker cementboard throughout to provide a solid foundation that would not be susceptible to expansion or moisture absorption the way plywood would. It goes down over a layer of thinset and is nailed throughout with galvanized roofing nails.

By far, the trickiest part of this project was how to approach the winder stairs. They were to be tiled all the way down to the backdoor. We would also be doing a 6" marble 'baseboard' all the way around the room on the walls. The tiles were 12" squares so I cut them in half to use as the wall tile.

A heavy-duty professional tile saw is really useful for cutting stone tile like this, especially if you need straight cuts!

In order to not 'tile myself into a corner' I needed to start at the top of the steps and make my way down and out the back door. I used a tile spacer on the treads while I placed the tiles on the risers and taped them in place. Then, I could take the spacer out and install the tread tiles as I worked my way down.

I gave quite a bit of thought to the layout because I didn't want any weird grout lines going down the steps. I preferred to have a whole piece at the top of the steps and was able to achieve this without having any tiny pieces around the edges of the room. In the end the layout worked great, even with those crazy steps!

To be honest, the steps took extra time to cut and install, but it was a blast! I enjoyed the challenge of making them durable and safe as well as looking great.

Tomorrow, I'll cover a couple other details that were unique to this installation- stair nosing trim, and the mitered corners.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

How To Install PreFinished Oak Flooring

It's time to install the hardwood flooring in the hallway outside the new bathroom that I added to this home in Donelson. The homeowner wanted to match the hardwood in the rest of the home as much as possible so he picked out some pre-finished 3/4" red oak flooring for me to install.

The process for installation is very similar to installing unfinished hardwood. Here are the basics:


PREPARE
Before you begin, get the hardwood ahead of time and let it acclimate to the humidity inside the home. It's important to have a flat and solid subfloor to install the hardwood over. Over the subfloor I installed 15 lb felt paper underlayment across the floor, making sure to overlap the courses by several inches. Staple it down in a few places and make sure there's not anything trapped underneath that will make a 'hump'.

LAYING THE FLOOR


It's time to install the first piece of hardwood. Measure out from the starting wall and make a chalk line. It's good to use the straightest or longest wall as your guide. In my case, I wanted to make sure the line was parallel to the bathroom wall where I would end up. Select the longest pieces that you have and face-nail the first run in place all the way along your chalk line. It's important that your first piece is straight because it will be the guide for the rest of the flooring.

What's FACE-NAIL? Face-nail means that you nail through the 'face' of the board or the top where it will be seen as opposed to most of the flooring that will be nailed through the tongue so the nails are hidden.

Before I start laying the rest of the flooring I like to sort a batch of it by length. Usually, I would sort a couple cases at a time. You can see in the picture how I would divide it up. This just makes it easier to grab the pieces that I need without sorting through a stack of lumber each time.


With the flooring organized, grab one of the longest pieces and then a series of pieces that are each 6-8" shorter. When you lay them out like the picture above, it will stagger the seams as they are installed. By the way, if you are working with a helper, one of you can organize the stacks and pull the right wood while the other person nails it down.

Here's a trick to measuring the pieces that need to be cut: Take a piece that's approximately the right size (from the well-organized stack, right? :), and flip it around so the tongue is on the wrong end against the wall. Then you can just mark the length on the piece where it needs to be cut. This method will save you having to use a measuring tape for this cut and it will go a little quicker.

For each piece of hardwood, I started at the end where the tongue is and used a small block to make sure the pieces are super-tight. The block is a small piece of flooring with tongues and grooves. Using this prevents damage to the pieces I'm installing. Nailing through the tongue with my angled finish nailer, I work my way toward the other end, using the block as I go to make sure everything is tight.

NOTE: When installing a larger area of flooring, you'll want to use a special flooring nailer. It's better in two main ways: 1) It uses special flooring nails that have 'teeth' on them that makes a very strong bond and 2) It shoots the nails when you hit it with a rubber mallet. The force of the mallet ensures a tight fit while you're nailing.

As you get closer to the wall, you won't have space to use your nailer so that last three courses or so will need to be face-nailed. To get a tight fit, I like to use a couple blocks and then use a small flat bar to pry against the wall and squeeze the pieces together. Make sure you don't pry directly on the pieces you are installing!

The last pieces will likely need to be ripped on the table saw. Consider how wide the baseboard trim will be so you don't have a gap left later.

One of the noticeable differences between prefinished flooring and unfinished flooring is that there will be slightly more imperfections. Before an unfinished floor is sanded and sealed, the small gaps will be filled with woodfiller to hide them. There's also a difference in the quality of some of the brands of hardwoods. The differences are in how well they are milled to fit tightly together. The low-quality (cheap) brands will probably have more gaps because the milling wasn't as good.

I'm not one to tackle installing a whole house of hardwoods by myself, but this hallway was a lot of fun. Mainly, it's just cool to work with finished wood and see the amazing colors and designs in the grain. It looks great and it will last for many decades and more...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Now for the Oak Steps

When I added a bathroom to this home in Donelson I raised the floor from the den to match the rest of the home. That meant that there would be three steps to build going to the den (see this post).

The homeowner has decided to have me add hardwood flooring to the hallway, but before I do that, I need to install the oak treads and risers on the steps.

There's usually a section at the home stores where they sell all kinds of stair parts like the treads, risers and balusters in basic red oak. That would have worked fine, except that these steps were 51" wide.

To find the wider cut treads and risers I went to JeffCo Flooring downtown. It's the super-secret place where the pros shop for hardwood flooring, including stair parts. They had just what I needed.

I started with the bottom riser and worked my way up. These steps will not have any trim on the sides to cover any gaps so I had to be exact with my measurements. I usually cut the pieces a little long and trimmed it to make sure it fit well. I put it all together without any fasteners and then took all the pieces outside for a good sanding.

Some people finish the wood before installation, but I like to install them before I finish. After a healthy dose of liquid nails, the treads were nailed in place with the risers. The top step gets a piece called stair nosing that is rounded on the front, but the back has a groove where the end-tongue from the flooring will fit. The stair nosing is sold by the foot, so you can just buy as much as you need.

I put a little painters tape on the wall to keep from making much of a mess and then applied the stain. These steps were stained with a Minwax color called "Natural". It's nearly the same as just using a clear coat, but I thought it was a slightly better match to the pre-finished red oak flooring that the homeowner wanted to install in the hall.

Letting it dry overnight and lightly sanding between coats, the steps will get two more coats of polyurethane after this stain.

Next comes the hardwood flooring...

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Winder Stairs- Layout First

Raising the floor in the new bathroom meant that we would need 3 steps down to the landing at the backdoor. The problem was that there wasn't much space to work with. We needed to use the minimum footprint as possible. We also needed to make a turn to guide the user up into the bathroom to the right. This meant that a 'winder' stairway would be needed.

A winder stairway is basically defined as a stairway whose sides are not parallel. There are different codes that cover these stairs to keep them safe. Let's start this project by looking at how to layout this simple winder.

TIP: Need more info about all the code requirements to building great stairs? Check out this "Visual Interpretation" of the code from the Stairways Manufacturers' Assosciation. (Click Here)

1. I started with a large piece of plywood that I would be using to make the treads. I drew a square in one corner that was 36" on each side. My winder would end up being 36" deep, but 41" wide at the bottom step. Still, I started the layout by using a 36" square.

2. Draw a diagonal line from one corner to the other. (A black line in the picture) Then make a mark 18 3/4" from each corner on this line.

3. Draw two lines from another corner through both of these marks you just made. (The white lines in the picture.) By doing this you have outlined each of the three treads for the steps.

You'll notice that the narrow part of these treads is very small. Sometimes you'll see an old staircase that uses the treads like this. Of course, this is quite dangerous because there's not really room to place your foot making it more likely to slip and fall. So, the codes now say that the tread shouldn't be less than 6" wide at its smallest point.

4. Draw a line, square to the edge of the first step, at the point where the tread is 6" deep. Continue marking the other steps at this point as well like I did in the picture. Cutting this out can present a problem if you're turning a tight corner like I am. Often you can make a long turn around a corner but in my case I'm going to build a short wall in this place to support the required handrail. We'll get to that soon enough.

5. With the basic treads laid out, I wanted to consider the actual dimensions of my stairway. Mainly, I needed to make a new line at 41" wide because that's how wide my stairs are at the bottom.

6. Go ahead an cut out the treads. These will be the guide for building the platforms that will hold them. Let's cover that tomorrow.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Adding Some Steps Into the Den

In conjunction with raising the floor to add the bathroom to this home, I would need to build some new steps at the end of the hall leading down into the den. For stairs, this is about as basic as you get. Walls on both sides with no turns or obstacles to consider.

With any stairway, I need to spend some time doing math before I start cutting any lumber. There are some basic guidelines to building steps and I covered them more thoroughly in this post.

The height of the new floor dictated that I would need 4 steps, each one with 6 1/2" rise. This is comfortable height so that works great. I would make each of the treads 11" deep.

I cut three stringers out of treated 2x12 boards. I fit them in place to test the fit before I nailed anything. Using a level, I could tell that the concrete floor wasn't quite level making one of my stringers higher than the others. To fix this, I shave a little extra off the bottom of the stringer and added shims where needed. In order to have level steps I have to have level stringers!

After the stringers were in place, I added some cross supports to add more strength under the treads that would be plywood and possibly covered with carpet later. I also applied a bead of Liquid Nails Adhesive before nailing the treads down. All of this helps to prevent squeaks later and give the homeowner a solid set of stairs.

Next we'll work on a set of winder stairs... stay tuned!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Out With the Old, In With the New Floor

The room where we're adding a bathroom to this home was at one time a garage. It was converted a few years ago, but is still a couple feet lower than the rest of the home. The first phase of this project was to remove the closet and surrounding drywall that would be in the way of the new framing.

OUT WITH THE OLD

The closet was completely not load bearing and had been constructed with minimal framing, basically just enough to hold the drywall up. It came out fairly easily. When doing this kind of demolition work I always take it apart the way it was put together. First, I carefully remove the trim and doors and set them aside to be reused.

After the trim is out of the way, I do my best to remove the drywall in large pieces. Then I can bag the pieces and dispose of them. While I'm at it I like to go ahead and clean off all the studs by removing the nails or screws that had been holding the drywall. My goal is to reuse as many of these building materials as I can, but many of these studs aren't straight enough to make for good framing.

The closet had a lowered ceiling that I wanted to remove as well. Before taking off this drywall, I bagged all of the loose-fill insulation that was in the attic above. A dustpan actually makes a great tool for scooping this up and bagging it. I'll reuse the insulation later and save myself a huge 'blizzard' of pink insulation when I bring down the ceiling drywall.

FRAME A NEW FLOOR

Removing the walls reveals the floor framing for the adjacent kitchen that rests on the cinder block wall that runs around the perimeter of this former garage. I would be building the bathroom floor on this wall as well. Thankfully, the wall was nearly perfectly level, which is often not the case in old garages.

I will be framing the floor as one large platform first, and then add the bathroom walls that will rest on top of the floor. I'll also be adding two small stairways that will lead down to the old garage going into the den or at the backdoor.

I put a lot of thought into how the framing would work and where the walls would go before I got started. There are lot of factors in this particular project to consider such as the dimensions of the stairs and where the plumbing would go.

The floor joists would be 2x8 stock to match the size of the rest of the house, and provide plenty of strength to support the slate tile that the homeowner is considering for the bathroom floor.

TIP: Wondering if your floor will support tile or natural stone? Check out the calculator at the John Bridge forums here to calculate your floors deflection and see if it makes the cut.

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com

Add a Bathroom to Your Home

I'm embarking on a new project for a homeowner in the Donelson area. He just bought this home from the 1940's. Much of it was updated after a fire a few years ago, but it still had only one bathroom. It's time for that to change.

On one end of the home is a room that obviously started out as a garage, but was later transformed into a den with a large closet that probably held the laundry at one time. The idea for this project is to completely remove the closet, raise the floor to match the rest of the home and then add a 2nd bathroom.

This is a difficult one to explain, even if you're looking at my rough sketch (pictured below).

There are a couple tricky parts to this project. First, is the prospect of raising the floor. This room's floor is around 28" lower than the rest of the house. Thankfully, that's enough space for me to frame a new floor and still have an 18" crawlspace to access underneath.

Raising the floor will require adding two sets of stairs. One, at the end of the hall that will descend into the den. The other will actually be inside the bathroom. To make all of this work, the new bathroom will enclose the back door and have three 'winder' steps leading down to it.

It will be an interesting project with some very interesting parts that will have to come together to be a bathroom that is not only functional, but also up to code and built to last.

I like a challenge!

-Peter

www.CarpentryGuy.com