Progressing to Pex!

 My friend (who is also a construction whiz) is back from travelling for his job and on Saturday he and his wife came over at noon to help in the next phase of the bathroom reno project.  (cue scary music) The plumbing!  This was not all the plumbing, really just a tip of the plumbing iceberg.  We had to replumb for my washer and dryer in their new location.  We went into the dreaded crawl space armed with humor, a gas torch and rolls of pex piping.  (which is seriously the coolest stuff ever!)  

My crawl space is hideous.  I am about 5ft 7 and I have to kind of crab crawl around it.  Picture the golem looking for his Precious in Lord of the Rings.  Yup, that was me.  For 11 1/2 hours!  Luckily my friend is a good deal shorter than I and could most often mostly stand erect.

It took so long because we discovered most of my existing copper piping was riddled with pinhole leaks.  Leaks I knew nothing about because the pipes were also wrapped in foam insulation.  Which was holding all that water inside.  Yup, right on top of the electric heater tapes that thankfully we didn't use this year.  The goddess was watching over us for sure!

But it meant a lot more replacement than we had expected.  And this does not address the moving of my sink, and toilet or putting in the 2 inch piping for the shower drain (which should be fairly straightforward but then again--this is my house where NOTHING is ever straight forward.)

I am truly blessed with good friends.  They stayed till 11:15 when we were as done as we could be with the job.  The washer and dryer work in their new location which is important. My wife has a cleaning business and we have a large family.  A washer and dryer gets lots of use in our home. 

In the crazy way of doing a project of this scope while living in the space, we will have to move the washer and dryer again when we are ready to lay the subflooring on that side.  Then we will put flooring down and move them back for good. (I hope)

I learned a lot, and it is actually fun using the crimping tool that fastens the pex plumbing.  My friend is a good and patient teacher and I am truly truly blessed with these folks in our lives.  I don't know too many couples who would still be laughing and joking with us when a job took as long as that did.  

Mothers Day Weekend

 I took Friday off this past week so that I could sand the floor in my wife's bedroom.  This room has had carpet on the floor ever since I can remember.  Allergies and rugs don't mix well for us.  And the rug was old and in need of replacement.  In lieu of that, we pulled the rug out and discovered that the floor, although painted in several colors, was really in great shape.

So Friday I spent the day sanding the floor.  After about 4 hours it looked like this:

I love the honey tones in the wood.  It is really different wood from all our other floors. Those are wide pine floors. This floor has narrower boards--though still wider than is common in flooring nowadays and the wood tones are much deeper.

Today Kirsty has put 3 coats of Bona high traffic polyurethane on it.  It is looking even better than this "naked" shot.  It will be a week before we can move her furniture back into the room but it will be worth the wait.  Oddly, I love sanding floors.  Which is probably good because this is the 5th or 6th that I have done in our home  thus far.

We also spent time working on cutting down a 30 x 24 base cabinet.  It is now a 30 x 18 base cabinet. This was time consuming but not all that hard.  We have a circular saw now, and moving into the land of power tools definately speeds up things.  LOL  We also used my cool portable work table that I bought a couple weeks ago. This eased things too as I could set it up right in the upstairs bathroom where the cabinet was.  

The cabinet also has a drawer and we had to cut that down as well and install new drawer glides. Things went along swimingly until we discovered that the end brackets I ordered were not correct. I have ordered what I hope is the correct replacement and it will come in tomorrow.  If all goes well we pop that on tomorrow night and the cabinet will be ready for painting.  I'm proud of this little project. First of all, there is the fact that we repurposed a cabinet that we no longer needed into something we very much need.  We have very little storage in that bathroom and I need to create a place where Elisabeth can keep her beauty supplies.  

The other component to this is putting on a laminate counter top.  Of course they are not sold in the width and length that I need.  I was going to order one but the sales rep said that there is a $500 set up fee and the best bet would be to order a 4 ft counter top and cut it down ourselves.  Using painters tape would prevent the laminate from splintering.  Check out yo*tube the sales rep advised.  So I did. And it looks pretty straight forward.  I have ordered the slab and it will be in mid week.  Next weekend we can hopefully cut it down and it will be ready to mount.

The next facet of this particular room make over will involve an electrician installing two new lights in the room and the plumber installing a new toilet and the new sink and vanity.  Then the room is essentially complete until our first floor bathroom is done.  When that one is done, I want to have the tub resurfaces and it will go from old blue tub to sparkling white.  Even my daughter, who is a tough critic, likes the way the room is turning out.

And in spite of all those projects, we still had a lovely Mothers Day dinner with a surprise gift for my wife. I made her meal of choice--sweet and sour meatballs, mac and cheese, roasted aspargus and a tropical cake.  We pitched in and got her a kayak.  It is a fold up one so she should not hurt her back getting it to and from a paddling place.  She is super excited as she has wanted a kayak for a long time.

Visiting Mom!

 December 2019.  That was the last time we saw my mom in Maine.  We went up for a Christmas visit.  It was wonderful.  The world was pre-covid.  We laughed, hugged, ate, and the kids and I planned to return in March for the annual Maple Sugar celebration. We'd visit with her and then visit sugar houses before returning to our state.

Then. . . covid.  I remember my mom calling me in March.  The world had not quite shut down yet.  I was still not grasping (as were many folks) how big the covid threat was and how it would impact our lives.  Mom told me she did not want me to visit.  I was shocked but said I understood and would not ever want to put her at risk. Covid still seemed distant and far away.  A couple days after that you could no longer travel from my state to hers and the Maple Sugar Festival was cancelled.  As was most of 2020.

We spent that year keeping in touch by phone, by email, by Facebook and by text. We sent cards and small gifts to her and to G who had lived with her for many years.  It was so worrisome.  For the first time, if something happened to her I would be unable to help.  I could not drive there.  I would not be able to visit if she was hospitalized. There was an undercurrent of helplessness all the time.  

So much happened in that time.  My kids grew.  My middle son moved out of the house. We lost two beloved pets.  G. passed away.  

Yesterday was the first time we could visit together safely.  My wife, myself and KC are all fully vaccinated. Chet is 1/2 vaccinated. Elisabeth is not yet eligible. My mom is vaccinated as well.  We had chet and Elisabeth wear masks for safety but it was still a wonderful wonderful day.  We washed her windows and hung her spring curtains. My wife cleaned her bathroom as mobility has become an issue for her and she can not readily do somethings that were once common place for her.  We ate and laughed. We hugged.  We cried. We laughed. We hugged some more.

Humans are meant to touch each other.  Stealing that from us was one of the hardest things about covid.  I did not even feel comfortable hugging or kissing my wife until we were vaccinated as I work in an environment where I have been exposed to covid multiple times. 40% of my staff had it.  I am part of the lucky 60% that did not.  I credit masks and washing hands frequently. 

So today I am grateful to be able to hug, to laugh and to be present fully with those I love.