Month: July 2018

towel and grab bars – block before you rock

It did not occur to our architect, builder, or any of the subs to mention that it might be a good idea to install blocking for cabinetry or bathroom towel/grab bars before sheet rocking. I think it would have been a very good idea to do this. Not such a big deal with cabinets, because not too hard to hit studs with those, but quite important for grab bars, which are likely to not land on studs, and also maybe for towel bars, though loading for those will not be too bad.

So I didn’t want to cut the walls open to install blocking for towel bars. Our bathroom fixtures are all Hansgrohe’s Axor Citterio M in satin nickel. Hansgrohe bars look OK but are expensive and long lead time and squared off. We decided to go with Valsan’s Porto line, which has round rods and is modern looking and available in a satin nickel, moderately priced and readily available.

To mount I consulted the many photos I took before we sheet rocked and used my handy neodymium magnet stud finder, along with wall panel shop drawings, to figure out what was where. Where I could mount to studs I used 1.5″ GRK cabinet screws. Where I was not going to catch a stud I used Everbilt hollow wall anchors, I think these are considered to be molly bolts and seem to be the best way to secure things securely to sheet rock. Our sheet rock is all 5/8″, so needed the longer anchors for this. I think the shorter anchors may have worked, but the boxes for same call out max thickness of 1/2″. Home Depot had these anchors (Lowe’s did not, nor did a good local hardware store).

Theoretically you can just drive these anchors through the sheet rock, but you would have to pound the heck out of them for this. Our sheet rock is already poorly fastened because studs were all over the place and driving these through would have caused a lot of damage. I already popped a few sheet rock screws fastening the towel bar fitting to studs. I forget what drill size I finally used, but I worked up to a size where it was pretty easy to tap the anchors through the hole. No problem with the anchors spinning as they were set, the barbs held plenty well in the new sheet rock. I would not want to hang anything hugely heavy on sheet rock, but a couple of towels on 5/8 should be fine. I put of a couple of hotelier racks like this too and am not too worried about them either.

No grab bars for now. If those don’t happen to land on a stud I think we are cutting the walls open to block for those. We’ll wait until we are a bit older …

ikea – cutting down pax wardrobes and other

We toyed with the idea of using Ikea boxes in several areas, kitchen with SemiHandmade fronts, laundry room, and walk in closets. Ended up doing none of those, but did use SemiHandmade fronts for some of the kitchen, we liked their sequenced walnut.

We have an air handler hung below the ceiling in the passage between the master bedroom and bath, and as they were framing that in I asked them to leave me at least 79.5″ clearance from the floor, figuring I could squeeze the smaller Pax wardrobes in there for some extra storage, they are 79.25″. Of course the bottom of the air handler box ended up being just under 79.25 in at least one spot (and also not being very level, oh well).

CT Closet and Shelf did our walk in closets, we are happy with what they did and cost was fair, but I stuck with the idea of using Ikea for some extra storage in the passageway. Since the bottom of the Pax wardrobes is raised off the floor a bit I figured I could cut them down to fit.

The bottom plinths, or whatever you call them, at the bottom of the wardrobes are about 2 5/8 plus a circular saw blade width high. I cut those, and the sides of the wardrobes, down by 1/2″, using a circular saw, no problem there. I see why they tell you not to step on the panels, a lot of cardboard honeycomb in there!

If you cut much more than 1/2″ off you will not be able to use the leveling feet, here they are screwed all the way up.

But I probably should have left them off, since my adjusting bolts for these now stick up out of the cabinet base by about 1/2″. I think it would be no problem to lower the cabinet by 1 to 1 1/2 inches, you probably want the bottom shelf off the floor by a little bit, and if you get it too close to the floor maybe it will look goofy. Also when you cut the plinths you will lose one of the dowel holes. Not a big deal, the one dowel can hold them in place then when you have the weight of the wardrobe on them they’ll stay put.

Here are the wardrobes in our passageway (picture taken from the bedroom). I got sliding doors for the two wider units but difficult/impossible to fit those in under the air handler, so redirecting and will put on hinged doors. The Lillangan laundry cabinet/hamper is kind of fun, we tucked one of those in next to the wardrobes.