The Master Bath demolition is done, we also finished ripping out the wood paneling and remaining sheetrock in the family room, kitchen, and breakfast area.  The kitchen is empty and we’ve scraped the popcorn texture off the ceilings.  The  texture did quite a number on the original ceiling texture, so none of that will be salvageable.  We will probably have to either take down the old ceiling and replace the sheetrock, or just throw a new layer of sheetrock up over the existing ceiling.  For the amount of time it would take to fix the original ceiling with all of its sags and cracks, replacing or covering will be just as easy.

I’ve added a new gallery for the demolition, plenty more to come.

We were forced to demo everything down to the studs, including the ceiling, it was popcorn textured anyway.  It was actually a good situation, it gave us the ability to raise the ceiling in the shower and make it a little larger (the original shower was 6′4″ tall, I’m 6′1″) and less claustrophobic.  It also gave us the ability to re-insulate the walls and insulate the interior walls for sound control.  Since we’re putting all hard materials down for flooring we’ll need as much interior insulation as possible to cut down on echo.

Lessons learned in bathroom demolition:

• The proper tools ALWAYS make things easier
• Air Hammers/Air Chisels work great when removing tile
• There’s always something you didn’t expect
• There’s always something else after that one thing you didn’t expect
• It’s worth the extra work
• Roaches love moisture-laden walls and crevices
• The old way of putting up ceramic tile was meant to be bomb-proof

We now have a Ranch-Remodel Amazon Store.  We will add products that we use in the remodel or that we recommend for other remodels.  While there aren’t many products right now, we will be updating it throughout our process.  Right now, I’ve posted a couple of products that we plan on using in the master bathroom.  Check it out and let us know what you think.

Ranch-Remodel Amazon Store

One of the three closets is going to become the home’s “media central”. The closet measures approximately 52″x32″, which makes it the perfect size for everything media that we plan on putting in the house. So far, we have multi-room audio, multi-room satellite video, and some home automation planned. The internet router, satellite receivers, multi-room audio receivers, amplifiers, and home automation controls will hide nicely in the closet.

A couple of things to consider when creating a media closet:

• Make sure the closet is on its own 20 amp circuit at minimum (while most pieces of equipment don’t draw a lot of power, they can add up)
• Make sure the receptacle is rated for the amperage of the circuit (watch out for 15 amp receptacles on 20 amp circuits)
• Use the low-voltage retrofit outlet boxes to tidy up the cables as they come out of the wall (they’re basically frames with no enclosure, which make it easier to manage thick cables like HDMI instead of having to get them through the knockouts in normal boxes)
• Most satellite and cable companies now offer receivers and DVRs with RF remotes (these allow the receiver to be out of sight of the remote and still be able to receive commands)
• Remember, the closet is to store components and equipment.  Get products that allow you to hide the main components.  You don’t want to be opening the closet multiple times a day to change volume, channels, or music tracks.

While I’ve already started to run a little bit of cable to the closet, I will post details later when there’s something actually worth looking at.

Whether your house is 1 or 100 years old, a media closet helps to tuck away the noisy and annoying devices.  It’s a great way of uncluttering your life and gaining back the simplicity and beauty of your home.

While our plan is to stay in the house for only 3-5 years, I do want to make the house as energy efficient as possible to make way for alternative power, whether I install the system or the next owner does.  That involves doing everything I can outside of re-insulating the walls.

Most, if not all, home improvement stores don’t carry LED lighting except for under-cabinet lighting (that sucks).  I don’t blame them.  It’s still a little expensive (but doing the math, it’s not) and there are not a lot of good options.  Don’t let that deter you, though.  There are plenty of places online that carry quality products and I recommend some at the end of the post.

LED technology has intrigued me for a few years and I’ve followed most of what’s happening in that area.  One of the companies that continues to make headlines is Cree.  They have become one of the leaders in the LED race and are constantly making LEDs better, brighter, and cheaper.

One of Cree’s LED products for residential lighting is a fixture called the LR6 (pictured).  It is made to retrofit into existing 6″ recessed cans, just like a big light bulb.  It comes in the standard screw-in Edison base and also the GU24 base (2-pin system used with CFL bulbs).

As shown by the picture, the LR6 is a beast and is not meant to come down for a long time.  This light means business, 50,000 hours of business, to be precise.  Now, LEDs don’t burn like incandescents so they don’t just burn out suddenly.  They slowly fade out, and I mean slowly.  The rating for the LR6 is 50,000 until the LEDs reach 70% brightness.  That’s 17 years and 43 days of operation at 8 hours per day.  If you really wanted to do the math, which I did, the light would finally burn out after 166,667 hours of operation (as long as it continued to burn out like the first 30%).  If you installed the light the day your child was born and kept the light on 8 hours a day, your son or daughter would be 57 by the time the LEDs burned out.  Crazy cool.

Speaking of cool, these lights produce little to no heat, also.  That helps with cooling during the Summer.

Now, onto our encounter with these lights.

I went back and forth between these lights and 3″ halogen fixtures (with LED replacement bulbs) for the bedroom.  I came to the conclusion that the bedroom needs a consistent and natural light.  The halogen fixtures, while trendy, tend to make rooms splotchy and create harsh shadows.  LED replacement bulbs would just make it worse.  LEDs are naturally very directional, which is why they’re great for flashlights.  With halogen fixtures, it would take 8-12 lights to light a 15′x12′ bedroom.  That seemed overkill to me, after all I don’t want the starship Enterprise hovering over my head.  However, you will see that I use halogen fixtures in many other places of the house, just not for general lighting in a bedroom.

So, I decided to use the Cree LR6 fixtures in Halo H27RT recessed housings.  I purchased the LR6 fixtures at WAM Home Center for $89 each.  That may sound like a lot, but it’s actually a lot of savings in the long run.  The Cree lighting website has a calculator that is detailed in the savings specific to your situation.

The Halo fixtures are remodel housings made to go in insulated ceilings and are better for energy efficiency due to their “air-tight” construction.  I used 4 fixtures, 1 in each corner of the bedroom.

Master bedroom with four Cree LR6 fixtures

I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive about purchasing these lights without seeing them in person.  It was worth the risk.  They put out a great, natural light that blows incandescents and CFLs away.  No more orange glow of incandescents or having to dispose of CFLs in a special drop-box.  It might take some getting used to, but the light just feels better with these lights.

Here’s some things I’ve observed about the lights, good and bad:

• The lights are bright, comparable to a 65 watt incandescent bulb
• The light is very natural, not like the blue tint you think of when you hear LED
• Excellent color reproduction (reds look red, blues blue, and my skin looks heavenly)
• The LR6 is dimmable, unlike most LED fixtures and bulbs, but only to about 30% and then they shut off
• For the reason above, do not use a digital dimmer with these fixtures, use a dimmer with an on/off switch
• Make sure you get the right base, I ordered the standard LR6 and got the GU24 base (no big deal, but required some wiring)
• No need to buy trim, the LR6 comes complete with a white trim kit (other trim kits are available)
• Our savings with the LR6 fixtures instead of 65 watt incandescents is $1701.76, not mentioning the hassle of changing bulbs
• 12 watts each (48 watts total for the bedroom)

If you’re in the market for LED residential lighting, find bulbs and fixtures with Cree bulbs.  They’re excellent quality and the brightest on the market.

Recommended links for LED lighting and the Cree LR6:

• Cree
• LR6
• WAM Home Center
• LED Waves
• Lighting Universe

The website is a simple Flash-based CAD program. To get started, you have to create an account. The personal account is free (ad-based, but not annoying) and allows you to create 1 house and share it with people. The personal account is what I use and it is perfect for someone that just wants to plan out their own house or tinker with designing a new house. The PLUS account is $27.50 per year and allows you to create 5 houses without ads. There’s also PRO and BUSINESS accounts that allow you to export plans as high-res images and simultaneous publishing of plans.

It took a little getting used to at first, but once you get the hang of it the process is very simple. My advice is to save often because the site has frozen on me a couple of times. I like the fact that it gives you inside dimensions of a wall when you draw it, and you can change the thickness of walls, so drawing an existing house is as simple as measuring rooms from drywall to drywall. I’m not going to give an in-depth tutorial, it’s easier to just dive in and learn it yourself.

A few things to consider when using the site:

- They’re based in The Netherlands so some of the furniture and fixtures have interesting names and lack some of the more American furniture and fixtures.

- The windows are only one height. You can change widths but not height. It looks fine from the plan view but if you look at it in 3D it might not be quite right.

- You can duplicate plans. I created the original plan and duplicated it to plan out renovations.

- The site is still fairly new (2007) so hopefully they will continue updating and adding things to make it even better.

All in all, the site is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone renovating, purchasing, or building.

Take a look at the link below to see the original floor plan and the remodel plan of our house. I am still in the process of changing the remodel plan. The kitchen hasn’t been planned yet but most of the other changes are on there.

Original Floor Plan

Remodel Floor Plan