Tampa lightning storms and resulting chaos

 We had a very "impressive" storm the other day.  The lightning was incredible - never had that much up north and this was the first time in about 6 years since we've been in this area that it was actually a little frightening at times.

The wife and I were out to try and get some dinner and go by Lowes again (they might wonder if I sleep in the store somewhere at times).  We waited for some time before finally going into my Wifes favorite "fast food" place - still got wet but lightening had slowed at that point.

When we got home, our daughter said it had been really bad there as well - shook the house a couple times. 

We had noticed that the garage door opener didn't work when we got home but figured it was just the batteries in the remote.  It wasn't the batteries in the remote. The internet wasn't reachable either.

The electrical circuit that the garage door opener is on also has the Internet provider Fios equipment plugged into it.  One of those impressive lightning strikes ended up coming into the house through the electric panel. I do have a whole house surge suppressor installed but it isn't the closest set of breakers to the wires coming in from outside. This apparently enabled the surge to enter the circuit with the garage door opener and Fios equipment - that would be the shortest electrical path other than the whole house surge suppressor.  

There was an outlet extender on the outlet that the Fios was plugged into - that outlet was fried and the garage door opener was fried.

The surge then went from the Fios box over the coax that leads to our WiFi / router.  That was permanently stuck with a "red glowing eye" instead of the normal indicator light.  No hard reset, etc was changing that.  

At this point, I didn't really know whether the Fios equipment in the garage was fried.  I was assuming so but without a new WiFi / router that I could use I couldn't really tell.

I contacted the internet provider to try and confirm what was burned up and they couldn't see our WiFi / router and eventually assumed it was dead.  It wasn't clear to them whether the other equipment would function correctly yet.  They indicated that I should be able to hoop up any similar WiFi / router to get by with while waiting for a replacement - expected in a few days.This was a moment of "arghhh.." because I've been working from home and my job is pretty much only doable with an internet connection. 

I went out the next morning quick and picked up a low/mid-range similar router and got it home. Hooked up and then waited for the "green light"... which didn't happen.  I really thought the Fios equipment was toasted at this point.  I contacted the provider again to see if I could confirm that since I didn't want to be offline for even more days due to waiting on a service appointment.  This is where things seemed to get worse - the provider could not confirm that their equipment was blown and because I wasn't using their provider router they couldn't do anything to help diagnose further.  

My next day of work was interesting and I was tethered to my phone - using it for internet connectivity.  That was unexpectedly OK other than the point where my entire family received emails that my phone # has preparing to go over limits.  My kids found some glee in pointing that out over dinner.

Saturday morning, my wife and I ran over to the wireless store and I ended up upgrading my phone and upping my wireless plan a bit.  The funny thing at this point is that the wireless store didn't thing we should be getting any message regarding exceeding data limits based on our plan.  Anyways, not knowing how long things would be down I would rather be safe than sorry.

The new router showed up that weekend and it turned out that the Fios equipment was not burned out.  After quite a bit of thinking and researching, I think the problem I had with the 3rd party WiFi / router was simply that I didn't have ports forwarded, etc like the router from the provider has when you receive it.  I've not tested that theory yet but will attempt to set it up and get it working as a backup if I get zapped again.

I also invested in some additional surge suppression equipment.

• Another UPS with coax support
• An inline coax surge suppressor
• Some inline Ethernet surge suppressors

Did I mention that after the surge took out our WiFi / router, it also took out 2 network switches - one at each end of the house.   Apparently, it followed the coax and continued on over the Ethernet cable.  Most of the family is using WiFi which may have saved some equipment.  I tend to prefer a wired connection for reliability and consistent speed so I guess some things were self-inflicted on my part.

Here is burned out garage door opener.  We had a new garage door installed just a few weeks before this - glad we didn't get a new garage door opener at the same time. I added a socket extender with some surge support after this was already burned out - just so I wouldn't forget it later.

Below, I am unboxing the new garage door opener once it arrived.  I ordered a couple extra remotes as well since it doesn't seem compatible with our old system.  This system is produced in Germany - just like our Bosch dishwasher.. hm, we waited nearly a year for that and got this in about a week - so glad we didn't end up in the same mess!!

Oh, did I mention that I was waiting to get this up and running before ordering a couple more wireless remotes and a keypad?  Guess what - the wireless remotes are now on back-order... from Germany..  Sigh..  

Here is the new garage door opener in use.  I like this one - it is very quiet.

Here is the network surge suppression equipment I picked up.

Below is the inline coax surge suppressor I wired up. It isn't wired very nicely yet but I didn't want to have it happen again before I had some protection in place.  I have the ground wire hooked to one of the screws for the electrical panel cover for now.

Here is the new UPS with coax support all hooked up.  Yes, it may be overkill having an inline coax suppressor and coax support in the UPS but as long as it doesn't degrade the connection speed, I'll hope it makes an additional positive difference.

I do want to note that there is a differences between "surge suppressor" and "lightning protection" but I'm not going to split hairs on the subject here.  In the end, I wanted a variety of protection which I hope will cover the most common situations that result in damage to electrical devices in the home.

Hope your day is blessed and free of lightning damage, etc.

Scott

Lanai door - really almost done (really)

 

The "static cling" based window film turned out "ok" on the door. At first I wasn't sure it blocked the view as much as desired but after checking in different light conditions it is fine. I could still do some etching on the exterior of the glass if needed but it should be fine for now. To install the film you just need to clean the glass well and then spray the glass with water - peel off a protective backing from the film and place/smooth it with a squeegee to get it to stay in place and remove bubbles from between the glass and film. I used an exacto knife to trim the film to exact size (or at least as close as my ability allowed).

Since I had redone the flooring, I need to deal with the gap at the bottom of the door.  The image below is the gap with threshold. The threshold is one which has a rail that you mount to floor and the threshold snaps into it.  Here I have the threshold pressed down as much as possible. I can leave it raised a bit when I mount the rail with some construction adhesive - I tested that a bit and it seems tight to the door bottom.  I had consider trying to find some type of felt or similar that would take up the gap but I just don't like that as I think about it.  The gap is roughly < 1/8" so most of the door sweeps from Lowes, etc would be really really tight.  The threshold I bought does work with offset floor heights.  Still pondering the final solution a bit - I comforted my wife with "only small lizards get in now".   We'll see which gets fixed first - this bit of gap or the paint around the door / touch ups on the door.

The below picture seems odd to me but it is a vertical down picture of the floor and the threshold area. I left the threshold a bit out of place to better visualize the floor height difference.

And here is a pic of the door with a piece of threshold cut to width and simply resting in place. It isn't laying straight since the seals at the edge of the door like to push it a bit - I'll deal with that when I mount the snap rail to the floor.

This is another project which has been hanging around unfinished for way too long. Each weekend moves it closer to completion at least. 

Office HVAC mini-split in progress

I've had the new Pioneer mini-split HVAC sitting around the office for some time.  I finally got started on the install a few weekends ago.  I won't claim to be fast but progress is slowly made each weekend - a bit like watching a 3-toed sloth run.

[2022/06/17 update] Been done for a while but just posting more pictures now.

Below is how final inside install looks:

Here is the wireless remote which works fine.

The mostly completed outside install looks like this. I still have to put the cover on at the point where everything comes out of the wall (note that condensate drain will exit a hole I added to the cover here as well - can't really have the drain going uphill).  I also have some more painting needed for the trim but functionally everything is complete.

The outside unit is extremely quiet. I've got the lines wrapped in the teflon tape here.

For the install process - first I installed the interior bracket and started the hole through the drywall for the refrigerant lines, power and control lines going to the outdoor unit. Note that I'm not using a cordless drill and it is actually a decently powerful corded drill with a masonry bit.  Don't use cheap bits or common cordless drills with masonry bits unless you want to finish the work with much more gray hair than you started with. Some will likely note that I haven't finished the trim around the ceiling yet either - I'd hate to run out of projects to work on..

For the stucco, I had to go through 2 different pieces representing the interior and and exterior of the stucco and concrete block.  I ended up with 2 concrete "plugs" like this. It took a good 10-15 minutes drill out each plug.  I also had to drill at a slight downward angle (from inside to outside) because the drain line empties via gravity.  I will credit a Lowes employee for reminding me to also drill from the outside to prevent any chipping/blowout around the exterior hole.

The HVAC unit comes with a sleeve to put in the hole in the wall to protect the lines and electrical but it is sized more for standard 2x4 wood construction than stucco so I had to figure out something else.  Some pipe and caps from Lowes cut down to a size that doesn't protrude worked out ok.

Below is the result with the PVC pipe in the wall with a cap on and spray foam to keep any wildlife outside.  And I'll admit that I wasn't paying attention and should have put the cap on opposite to what I did - it would have allowed me to simply use my channel lock pliers to take the cap off later rather than try to find some oddball item around the house that was roughly 1" x 3/4" and stout enough to be twisted to break the cap loose from some of the spray foam..  

Now I was able to hook the provided power/control cable to the interior unit in preparation for mounting it on the wall.

Below you can see the refrigerant lines, power/control and condensate drain line exiting the exterior wall.  I wasn't excited about the proximity to the exterior light but I'll deal with that a different day - I don't like the existing light fixture anyways which has been broken since we bought the place.   It is also a bit difficult due to the window but I'm making the best of it.  We'll see how it works out in the end.

Below shows the brackets mounted to wall which will hold the mini-split unit.  I didn't want to mount it on a pad - mostly because of dealing with lawnmower debris and other hazards at that height.

I have the unit mounted to the brackets here and you can see I have the 240v wiring ( 12ga solid strand THHN/THWN rated wire ) in Southwire 1/2-in x 25-ft Ultratite Non-Metal liquid-tite conduit coming down out of the soffit. 

Here is the disconnect box with conduit.

Somehow I ended up with a fused disconnect box instead of non-fused but after a bit of thought, I decided it is more help than harm other than needing fuses. 

The disconnect box itself had no information on it and I had thrown away the box it came in so it wasn't clear what fuses were needed.  After trying some class G fuses which were just a bit too small in diameter (but Lowes had in stock), I did some more research and determined that the fuse holders were for class H fuses.  This is a pretty good site to research fuses dimensions and such - and their glossary has info about the different fuse classes.  I also found that several other fuses are usable in the old style class H fuse holders.  The class H fuses are not generally recommended now from information I found so I decided that since this unit has some potentially sensitive electronics, I might as well go with the newer class RK1 fuses appear to provide better protection.  Fuse prices are all over the place so it took some research to find some online through Amazon that were not twice as expensive as the same items elsewhere.  I even found some with free shipping - we'll see how good the idea was when they arrive. The fuses I chose are: LTTELFUSE LLNRK-15 TIME DELAY 15 AMP RK-1 DUAL LIMITING [2022/4/1] Fuses arrived and inserted into holder - more work needed before testing though.

Below, The item on the left is a class G fuse and is 1-5/16" x 7/16". The middle item is called a midget fuse (or class 5AG) and is 1-1/2” x 13/32”. The item on the right is a class RK1 fuse and is 2" x 9/16".  Don't get con-fused and try to use the physically smaller fuses in place of those that are of the class H/RK1 size - the smaller fuses will basically fall down if fully inserted into an H/R class fuse holder.

I must admit that I am glad the wiring is at least run in the attic now.  I can't say that I enjoy hanging out in the attic - by time I was done I had bruises and scrapes everywhere.  I'm thinking that the one major benefit for older electricians would be having an apprentice. I just don't know why my kids won't be "unpaid apprentices" for me. Hard to imagine.

I still need to go back into the attic and add some conduit straps but I don't think I will have to be as far into the eve as when pulling the conduit up. [2022/4/3 Conduit straps done in attic!!]

Next, I need to run the refrigerant lines and such from the exterior hole in the wall over a window and then down to the exterior unit. I did buy a trim kit from Pioneer which I hope will make it look a bit nicer.  It is white plastic which I might end up painting to match a bit better.  I had a bit of dilemma with the condensate drain line though - it needs to maintain a downward slope to let gravity drain it and I would need to go up over the window though.  After discussing with my wife, I'm going to try and exit the PVC cover over the exterior hole in a direction away from the light fixture below and just end the drain line at the "relatively" small hole. I'll foam around it a bit I think.  All other solutions seemed worse - taking all the lines/electrical down past the light fixture and under the window would work but seemed like it would be even less visually appealing.  Taking the drain line straight down after exiting the wall would mean I either leave an ugly drain line exposed or need to hack together some type of cover which splits into the horizontal and vertical runs. The run going over the window still won't be "pretty" but is probably the best of the more feasible ideas.

[2022/06/17 update] This has been done for a little while now but here are additional pictures showing the more important and/or specialty tools/equipment/etc I used.

Corded drill with decent power - handle for added support / leverage is helpful. I have this for a number of years.

Open-ended torque wrench for the fittings. This was something I bought for this project and maybe another mini-split install for my workshop and maybe for my parents place. This was the most flexible solution at what I'll call a "reasonable cost"

 This was a DIY install mainly due to the availability / use of this product for evacuating the air / contaminants from the lines and enabling leak testing.  I recommend getting 2 bottles of the Kwik-E-VAC just to be safe.  I didn't use the entire thing but that was somewhat because I didn't want to run out at a critical moment so may have underused it it a bit.  If you have 2 of them at ~$34 each, it is pretty cheap insurance compared to having to call someone to help or try and find equipment to buy/rent to form a vacuum due to any issues.  

The Nylog blue is used on the face of the flared fittings to reduce the chance of scoring the copper when flaring and to lubricate the face when you tighten the fittings. Both of these are specialized for use with HVAC or refrigeration systems.

I bought the below tool just for working with mini-split flares.  The eccentric motion is less likely to score / damage the copper - especially if you apply  a bit of Nylog Blue to the tool face which works the copper into the correct shape / angle.  I didn't want to use my normal plumbing tool which is pretty old and seemed like a potential source for problems.

A different view of the flaring tool box.

For cutting the hole through the interior and exterior walls I used this bit with the drill above.  This can be used dry and it took me about 10-15 minutes per side to cut through the stucco / concrete. 

Below is the cover set I used - ended up basically getting 2 of them for the odd layout I had. Comes in white but I got some exterior paint to match the existing stucco.

Joshua 1:9 Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

This is true even when you cut a hole in the soffit in the wrong location initially or cut your conduit with the wires inside it when you didn't plan to. 

Lanai doorway nearly done

I've almost got the lanai door done.. getting close.  Unfortunately, when I took the original trim off around the door I damaged (peeled back) a good chunk of new paint so now I have some paint repairs to make.

Below is after 2 codes of primer and one coat of enamel. The original trim is still in place at this point.  When I took the trim off around the doorway, I found the previous owners had used some newspaper to "block drafts" at the top of the door. I went back and spray foamed around the door frame instead.

I had some paint that I thought would work great - I had used it before on some trim.  When I went to open the can this time, I had a terrible time getting the lid off and when it did come off there was rust around the edges which fell into the paint.. sigh..  Some painters tape was useful to sort of dip and catch the rust pieces.  When I went to stir the paint though, I found that it was "chunky".  Not sure why I bothered but I stirred for about 10 minutes and it was looking better.  I don't think it was that old but I did have a number of cans that I found while organizing the garage so who knows.  I gave it a try after I had 2 coats of primer on already - figured I could sand it off with the orbital sander if it looked too bad.  

Once I had put the initial coat of enamel on, I fought with the lid a bit while trying to get it back on but finally gave up and plan to get rid of that can.  I had another can of enamel paint on hand which had some rust around the lid edge but it wasn't nearly as bad and it wasn't chunky.  I decided that was a better choice for the 2nd coat.  

Below is the door after the 2nd coat and with the trim up (but not the rosettes). 

You can see at the top where I accidentally peeled the paint when taking the original trim off.  I was pulling on the side trim and it was well nailed to the top trim which I had loosened but not taken a knife and cut along the top edge fully. When the edge trim came loose, the top trim popped off while still stuck to the side trim in my hand. It had staples coming out from a bunch of places. I was a bit surprised and lifted the side piece and stepped back as I thought it was going to fall on me.  It didn't fall but it held onto the new paint very well. 

Here is the result with the rosettes in place.  I'll need to do a little bit of caulking and touch up paint but it is better than it started.   Actually, once I get the tape/paper off the glass, I'll probably have quite of bit of touch up work to do..  

There was a roll-up blind on the door which I took down.  I'm thinking about trying to "frost" the glass and see if that is enough to provide privacy and not put a / the blind back.  I've only got a soda blaster right now so it probably won't be enough on its own - even if I do both sides of the glass.  I'll give it try and then figure out what to do next.  Hopefully, I can get the rest of the floor trim done soon as well.

Oh, yes, and I purposely didn't tape around the deadbolt and door handle.  I'm going to replace the hardware to match the rest of the doors.

I also need to get a threshold that will work for this door - it is a bit odd with a small step up from the lanai combined with stucco on the exterior side. The stucco isn't really a problem but the concrete ledge/step combined with the luxury vinyl tile at the door interior is a bit awkward to cover. 

Take care,

Scott

Door stopper options - trying something new

I decided to try something different than the normal door stoppers that screw into your baseboard.  Why?  I guess because I can..  The hope is it would have a cleaner look and not prevent any type of snag hazard.  I used these items on our master bedroom closet doors - which are not overly wide and are very light.  Some of the reviews I read indicated they might not be a great fit for solid core doors or doors with a potential to be slammed much (i.e. young kids). I'll agree with that - forcing past the set point would strain the hinges and likely cause damage at some point.

These do have a decent amount of adjustment possible though which was nice. One closet door I just wanted to prevent from hitting the wall but the second door could hit a painting if we were careless.  We'll see if these result in damage to the trim over time - hoping not.

These simply go above the hinge and your existing hinge pin goes through it - note that the hinge pin won't end up going as far down in the hinge as before - with a heavier / wider door you might want to find long hinge pins if available or find a way to extend the existing pins.

And yes, you'll notice I am missing the rosettes at the top of the trim as I mentioned in a different post.. working on those still. I also need to do  some hole filling and touch up painting.

Wishing everyone a blessed day!

Scott 

 

Doorway rosettes and Lowes delivery

 I've been slowly working my way through our house and replacing flooring, painting and we had decided on some more ornate trim for the interior doors (plus paint doors and trim in white).

I completed most of the master bath and master bedroom trim minus some floor trim, rosettes on outside of closet doors and still needed to paint and trim the door to the lanai. I needed more trim and rosettes though - lets call some of my initial attempts "practice work".  Trying to find a good way to quickly/easily strip off the paint from my worse mistakes was a great way to spend money on new tools/accessories, waste time and make a bigger mess with some of the rosettes and door trim. I can't quite get myself to just trash all of them but I did listen to the advise of my wonderful wife and father as well - order new stuff so I can just get it done.

This is good advice but even it comes with problems. I used the "pick up at store" option for the door trim since this time I couldn't find a way to get free shipping.  The trim that was waiting for me at the store was the correct trim but the people picking don't really check the items for quality so some had a number of spots I had to fill with wood putty and sand before I can do much.

For the top corner pieces for the doors, I was able to order and get free shipping - in fact, it didn't offer me an option for pickup at store because it looks like it had to come from a nearby store instead of my normal location.  What I ordered are pieces with a flower shape - what I ended up getting was a mix of the flower shape (bottom of below picture) and a different shape.  I was perplexed at first and then realized that the "wrong" items actually are marked with the same item/model # as the correct ones.  So if someone just had a bunch of these face down and sticker up - they would get a random selection of the 2 items.  I need to contact Lowes to correct this - hope next time it works out correct.  Fortunately, this isn't that important in the grand scheme of life so not really a big deal.

And just in case this helps someone else; I had used a mix of latex paint and polyurethane which I had sprayed the initial trim and rosettes with.  A low odor, weaker paint stripper didn't work great.  Nor does a soda blaster work great in this case.  A drill with brass or steel wire wheel works but can damage the trim and effectively remove detail from the rosettes pretty quickly.  With the grooves in the trim and the details in the rosettes - it is hard to scrape in an effective fashion.  For the door trim, a drill with a nylon wheel actually worked pretty well and was less prone to damaging the wood.   For the rosettes, I'm slowly (trying to fix) some of them with a file (to recreate the grooves) and picked up a small wood carving set as well (i.e. used the opportunity to justify the need for a few more small tools).  For now, I'll focus on doing a better job spraying the new rosettes now that I know what works/doesn't..   Don't paint anything when the temps and humidity are high..

The end result is supposed to look like the picture below - note that I still have a bit of caulking/filler and touch up painting to do.

Below is a pic from the outside of the same door prior to putting up the door trim and rosettes - end result after adding trim is pretty much like the above picture.

Thanks for reading..

Scott

Harbor Freight compressor repaired!

I had bought a cheap Harbor Freight air compressor for some small stuff around the house so I didn't have to drag my 30 gallon rolling compressor around which gets awkward for small/quick needs.  I knew they are not great quality but figured I wouldn't be using it all the time. One day my wife had a need at work though - she needed an air source to blow the dust out of computers at the schools she works at.  I figured this was a good use for the harbor freight unit so I toted it out to the car with a good air house and a nice blow gun setup.

When she got home that night, she said it worked fine until it stopped working completely.  Uh oh..  Note, I know she wasn't at fault - some of this equipment just has some flaws.

I had planned to look at it for months now and had left it sitting in the corner of the garage. I finally got around to looking at it about a week ago and quickly found that the tube from the compressor to the air tank and snapped in half at the point of one of the compression nuts.  The tube is relatively thick walled and appears to be aluminum. After a bit of research and trips to Lowes, I had what I needed - a piece of 1/4" soft copper tubing and 2 new ferrules.  I ended up just reusing the existing nuts.  I was going to replace both the nuts and ferrules but it seems like an odd size which wasn't at Lowes at the time.

I didn't end up using the compression nut/inserts in the pic below - the thread size didn't match what I needed but the copper tubing was fine - just needed to cut an appropriate size chunk off of it.

You can see pretty clearly the wall thickness difference between the 2 tubes.  I did some some quick checking to determine whether the copper tubing was too thin for this use but all the numbers I found indicated it was more than adequate.  The compressor only goes to 100 psi.

You can see the break in the original tubing here and I'm showing the copper tubing with the a new ferrule on one end along with one of the original nuts on it.

Just to add a bit of safety factor, I tested the compressor up to 60 psi and left it for a few days - it held the pressure with no leaks.  I then filled it to 100 psi and left it for a few more days and it has not leaked air yet.

You would think that I was done at this point but I found that I didn't keep the tube bend low enough which results in it preventing the cover from being reinstalled.  I'll handle that shortly - at least I know this works overall.  I did find that I have to be extremely careful with the copper tubing though - it will kink pretty easily when bending.  I could probably find a few ways to help reduce that - heat it up with a torch to soften it a bit more and maybe run something inside of it like a couple decent diameter wires to help limit the kink.  Just need to be careful to prevent getting the wires stuck.

Below pic is before fixing the tube bend to prevent interference when putting the cover back. The copper tube is in the mid/lower foreground.

Drapery and rod finally reinstalled - master bedroom

After replacing the flooring and painting the room, I wanted to put the drapes back up.  They came with house but are ok for now.  Unfortunately, I misplaced something or thought I did - too embarrassed to admin what exactly.  Anyways, once I got it sorted out I was able to get everything put back into place.  I had done some significant patching where it was attached to the wall before and this time I used some deck screws with the star shaped heads (T20?) since I have had a number of issues with Phillips head screws stripping out elsewhere. This worked perfectly.

I had painted the finials on the ends of the bar to match the trim in the room.  I haven't painted the actual bar yet - well see if I do, it isn't a high priority.

There are blinds as well which is good thing. The drapes just darken the room a bit extra against some mid-morning sun.

I got this done around new years or so - still some more work to do in the master bedroom but it isn't a total mess now.

Pioneer Mini-split heat pump arrives

My new mini-split heat pump has arrived!  This is for my office for which the main house AC is connected to but the location lacks temperature control.  With no temp control and the hot water heater located in the room, it gets extremely warm. It is difficult to work (or interview) when the room is in the upper 80's.  It is a 9000 btu unit which should be more than adequate for my office.

I just need to take the time to install it now.  I ended up getting a wall mounted unit - I  was going to get a ceiling cassette model but decided the extra cost/complexity to install it was too much.

 

Here is a link over to the Pioneer site.

I'm hoping some things are a little easier after getting this in installed. I'll have to blog a bit on the install once done.

John 14:1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  (NIV)

Luxery Vinyl Tile - trimming the master bedroom doorways

I've got the entry into the master bedroom, entry to master bath and entry to lanai to do some sort of final trim out.

 I'll start with the master batch entry since that is looking the most tedious (and was).  I'd hate to estimate how long it took to do the 3 pieces of LVT and add some additional porcelain tile in the bathroom doorway.  

I'm going to leave a 1/4" gap and try to caulk it nicely as a first attempt (but not last caulking attempt).

Here is the additional 2 rows dry fitted in the doorway.

 

I still had some pre-mixed mortar which surprissingly turned out still usable.

 

And I had a mostly full bag of dry grout left was well from the bathroom install.

 

Here I have it mortared in.

 

And now it's grouted.

 

And the last 3 pieces of LVT cut to size and trimmed to have an even edge along the porcelin tile.

 

I bought a tube of Keracaulk.U - Biscuit which on the tube looked like a good match but when used it was WAY to light.  Now I'm trying to figure out what color/type caulk to use in this last seam.  I know some folks recommend grouting it instead but I'm not sure how much expansion I might see with the LVT even though it is glued down. I can always go back and put in a T-moulding if this turns out to be a poor choice.

[edit 2021/5/20] I had ended up finding some gray caulk which matched. Looks better but wish I had filled it a bit higher.

The final result for the bedroom/bathroom transition.

For the entry into the master bedroom, I'm taking the original molding and just adapting it a bit to work better with the LVT.  Originally, the carpet side of it was a vertical of ~ 3/4" which is way too tall - someone would be tripping over it. Here is the before picture.

 

Here is an after picture of running it through the router table with a 45 degree bit. I'm hoping this will reduce the chance of catching a toe on it.  I sanded it up and just need to find some new stain of a similar color.

 

 

I had to experiment with stains a bit but I think it came out ok.

 

 

[2021/05/21] And the final doorway - to the lanai.  Still thinking on it.

 I laid some of the LVT under it for now but I'm still working out a final plan.

 

I'll probably end up getting a low threshold and maybe something to trim out the outside edge a bit.