Hardin Home: Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
This spring and summer, I have a ton of projects planned at the lake house. These include: New Door New Kitchen Appliances Boat Lift + New Boat Central Heating + Air Master Bathroom Remodel New Roof The new door, new roof, and new kitchen appliances are fairly straightforward; both are from the 1970’s and are … Continue reading Planning Lake House Projects
The plumbing for the guest house shower has been done for a long time, as have the interior shower walls and the base. Today, I finished the shower by adding the glass walls and glass door. The installation was fairly straightforward; I simply had to anchor in railing on each wall and then slide the … Continue reading Guest House Shower
One of the many home automation technologies that I use in my houses is Samsung SmartThings. It supports a wide array of sensors, integrated well with Alexa and Arlo, and provides a slick phone UI with the ability to manage multiple homes. For a long time, I’ve used the SmartThings Leak Sensor to monitor for … Continue reading SmartThings Smoke Alarm
One final task before starting to drywall the new bathroom and utility room was to install and plumb the shower. The shower kit I purchased had half inch threaded fixture attachments, to which I attached half inch shark bite connectors. The rest of the plumbing was fairly simple. On the other side, I drilled holes … Continue reading Guest House Shower
After the interior framing and electrical work was done, it was time to finish the plumbing by running hot and cold water lines through the interior walls for the shower, toilet, and sink. I drilled holes through the studs, and downsized the pipes from 3/4″ to 1/2″, and mapped out where the pipes would run: … Continue reading Finishing Guest House Bathroom Plumbing
It’s been a busy month of travel, Badger games, and watching Arsenal, so I haven’t had as much time on weekends as I’d normally have to make progress on this project, but it is still moving forward. I have completed the electrical work that needed to be done in the original outer wall of the … Continue reading Guest House Bathroom Electrical Work
Over the past two weeks, a lot of progress has been made on the guest house bathroom. Most noticeably, the door between the living room in the guest house and the bathroom was put in, which involved cutting through the wall to create the rough opening for the door. Also, I built a methane vent … Continue reading More Guest House Bathroom Progress
After the utility room plumbing was done, my next step on the guest house bathroom project was to pour concrete to replace the concrete that had been removed when the drain pipes were put in. I used 1,280 pounds of Quikrete Crack Resistant concrete, which is purpose built for pouring slabs like garage floors. Since … Continue reading Pouring Concrete
Before pouring concrete and framing the walls for the guest house bathroom and utility room, I needed to determine the location of the shower. This determines where the walls will go, since the shower needs to be up against the bathroom walls, and its location is determined by where the drain pipes were placed. Therefore, … Continue reading Guest House Bathroom Shower
After installing the water softener earlier in the week, the next step was to install a water heater. While the guest house does have LP lines for the furnaces, it was going to be easier to install an electric water heater, especially since it will be used fairly infrequently. I am planning on having a … Continue reading Guest House Water Heater
