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April 19, 2008
House Work
So we've been working on the house the last couple weeks, but haven't updated you all on our progress. We've been double hitting, actually too. Two Saturdays ago, on the 5th, the dog Nacoma went back to Wick and Kristen, and the rest of the day, Dan worked on the oven while I whittled away at the bathroom by the kitchen. We were all of 15 feet apart - if that even - and could talk through the open window.
I started by taking down the plastic that we'd hung over the window and drywall when we moved in. See, the paint was already peeling 2 years ago and we knew it was going to be some time before we could get to this project. We figure that the tub was an addition in/around the 1950s when the lady of the house couldn't climb stairs anymore. There was an existing 1/2 bath there, with a window onto the back porch, a 4x12ish space fully within the square footprint of the house. So, in the 50s we figure they knocked out this window, poked a hole in the concrete porch slab for a drain to be run to the basement through the canning room, and enclosed the whole area, with a wall to separate the new mud room from the now-larger bath. The ceiling, however, over the tub was right at about 6'4" and for my 6' husband this made showering there a bit of a challenge, I'm sure you can imagine. And also increased the amount of moisture coming into contact with the drywall. Thus the plastic.
So I took down the plastic, the shower curtain, the fixtures and then started hacking at the drywall itself. I started with a utility knife, but found that just banging it with a hammer and then using a wonder-bar (that magical little flat crow bar deal-eo) was much more effective, not to mention fun. Once the drywall was out around and above, I removed the stinky old, smelly old, musty insulation and put it in a big garbage bag to await the enclosure of the oven. :) Recycled has a pretty good R-factor if you ask me. We're going to try to go up to the old porch ceiling in the new shower enclosure, and tile it floor to ceiling, wrapping the header with tile too. The space is approximately 4.5 feet by 5, so it's a rather large shower space, but for a husband who often finds himself in poison ivy during his work day, I'm happy to provide a roomy shower just inside the back door for him to hose off before coming into the rest of the house. And it'll be great for washing the someday dog and the someday children, right?
Late Saturday, still the 5th, I got out the sledge hammer and started smacking the tub itself. Took me quite some time to get a whole beat along the top edge of the tub, and swinging a sledge has a tendency to make a novice tired quickly, and so I gave up. We ate, I showered (to get the sticky, smelly, musty bits of insulation out of my hair especially), and we went to bed. We took Sunday off, as is our custom, as a day of rest. We sat on the patio in the lovely, long-missed sun, grilled lunch, and read together (different books, but next to each other). It was Monday night when we (mostly Dan) finished sledging the tub to tiny bits and carried it outside to await a trip to the scrap yard. We got more than 40 bucks for a 4' tub! But then spent most of it getting rid of the drywall and other stuff at the dump. Anyway, at least the tub didn't get land-filled.
The 11th was my birthday and my parents came down for a visit and we put them to work. Dad and Dan finished the demo and wrote a shopping list and Mom had a coupon about to expire for 10% off your whole purchase at the Home Dot so, even though we're weeks from ready for them, we went and purchased the tile and backerboard. We're going with Subway tile, like we have upstairs, but in white instead of bone. Home Dot stocks these, and if we need to buy 3 more tiles, we can buy 3 more tiles. I had a thought to leave the brick exposed but we've decided no to do that because a) it wouldn't "fit" the style of the house and b) if you slip in the shower and fall against that wall, you'd have some pretty serious road rash. Among other things at the Home Dot, we also bought water faucets for outside, so now we'll have hot and cold water right at the bar sink on the patio. Our plan was to just run a hose from the outside spigot to the sink; it's only about 8 feet. But then, having the tub out and that wall exposed, we decided to just go with it or we'd regret it later, and so we did. Now we have hot and cold water faucets outside. It turned out to be an expensive birthday but it was nice to spend it with family.
Mom and Dad took us out for dinner Friday and then bought things for dinner Saturday and we invited Dan's parents over too, and surrogate siblings Dave and Nettie, and we had birthday dinner Again! Just yesterday we finished those leftovers!
Dan keeps slowly plugging away on the oven, a "chain" at a time. Each brick takes a few minutes to prep and set before you can move on to the next one. He had a lot of foresight to spend a few evenings in winter cutting the bricks all in half, so this has really sped up the process of prepping and setting. We are now at the point where the dome is meeting the arched doorway. The online forum he's part of doesn't have the details on how to make those two rounded and arched parts come together, so there has been a lot of head scratching lately. He's out there already this morning in fact, but I thought it was time to bring you all up to speed.
your host for this episode : carrie; April 19, 2008 08:07 AM
Comments
So which sibling are you replacing for your "surrogate siblings" Dave and Nettie?
(See dictonary definition of surrogate: to choose in place of another, substitute)
:P
from the peanut gallery of : Barb ; July 11, 2008 10:21 PM