Farewell 2021!

 Here we are at the closing of another year.  In some ways it does not seem possible.  Despite the challenges of a covid world, this year flew for me.  Perhaps because I always have a "project" or something I want to learn or read, but there is never enough time in a day. . . or apparently a year!

Christmas was amazing this year.  Gifts were thoughtful and personal.  Also a  number of them were useful which I personally love a lot.  I am at a stage in my life where I don't need knick knacks or things to dust and worry about where to put.  If anything I am slightly divesting myself of such things.  So storage containers for spices, warm socks and new fleece leggings and a box of single serving snacks for work were really perfect gifts.  Also the gift my son KC made me.  Which requires a bit of a back story.  When he was little he used to draw a lot of comic type things. (think ages 4 to 10)  He had a story he worked on off and on about us as super heroes.  We all had a super power and he would spend more time drawing us than he did actually writing the story line.  Fast forward many years.  Last year he took an on line course that taught him photo shop techniques and script writing.  He used the photoshop skills to create a poster that looks like it belongs in a movie theater.  We are all featured in it with updated superpowers (I am holding a drill and wearing a tool belt for instance)  And it says The JE Team in the middle.  He even included our two beloved and departed pets in the poster.  It is going to hang in our living room.  It is an AMAZING gift and represented so much love, creativity and thought.  I am still in awe of it.

I am off from work for a few days so I am planning to work on projects in the bathroom and possibly in our cellar for a few days.  I am sure I will be boring  thrilling you all with more reno updates in the new year.

And for those who are curious, here is the poster he made!

Catching up!

 Gosh did life get busy!  In the past few weeks, we have managed to finish enough of the bathroom renovation to have a fully functional three piece bathroom.  We hosted Thanksgiving.  I got sick after that and lost 2 days of my life to sleeping! LOL We decorated the house for Christmas inside (outside was all ready decked) and more. . . 

First, the bathroom renovation that never ends   the progress on modernizing our bathroom!  At long last we have a functioning LARGE shower and a functioning SMALL sink.  The sink was intended to be as space saving as possible and it is.  The shower is epic and for us seems gigantic though I know there are others much larger.  It is 48 inches wide and when you used to shower in an old tub shower combo, truly this is the very lap of luxury.  The showerhead is high and cascades wonderfully. The hand shower option works as planned. And we did a good job levelling the floor as we have no water pools in the shower pan after a shower. It drains as it should which was of considerable concern as nothing in our house is level and plumb and this includes floors!  There is still a lot of finish work to do.  We need to tape and mud the walls, paint them, get up tile, finish the closet, trim out the window and get a floor in.  But everything is at least workable and with the possible exception of finishing the interior of the closet, further work is on hold til after the holidays.

This is probably  not the best picture, but there are 6 niches so every family member has their own spot to put their beauty products.  

Next up was Thanksgiving.  We were hosting this year and I was super excited. Last year with lockdown it was just us. Ilove to host gatherings!  This year we were able to have my father in law, sister in law, the kids godparents and a friend of theirs at the table with us.  This meant that in order to have enough room we had to empty our living room of furniture and rent tables.  Much of the week before the holiday was devoted to such things.I had Wednesday off from work and finished up prep that day.  There is lovely brass flatware that my FIL and MIL got when he was stationed in Thailand and I use that every Thanksgiving.  My MIL died far too soon and it is kind of a way of having her with us at the table as those meant so much to her.  We made 4 pies, I made 2 batches of parker house rolls, we brined our turkey for the first time ever.  I did not have to cook myself a veg option because a friend brought me eggplant parm which I adore.  It was a day filled with laughter and fun.  By the end of the day I had a slight cough which I thought nothing about.  I had been up and down from our attic getting supplies. It is dusty up there and I was of course talking like crazy.  

I woke up Friday tired and with the same little cough.  We spent the day putting away harvest decor and putting the living room back together. I felt fine, just a bit tired but the pace of life could easily explain that.  Saturday I woke up and it was decorating day.  As the day went on I had a bit more cough but again I was up in the attic as we had 12 boxes of decorations to bring down. We decorated the inside of the house to a fair-thee-well.  It really looks great.  By afternoon though I was realizing this cough was not dust or allergies or talking too much.  I was also starting to get congested. I decided I should stay in my room till we knew what was up.  

To further add to the drama, KC had invited friends over for a game night that night.  I was able to get a covid test and it was negative, so we decided if I just stayed in my room the kids could have their friends over.  I did, and spent the rest of the day reading and sleeping.  That was my life for Sunday and Monday too as the cough got worse.  That and lethargy were my only real symptoms.  A second covid test was also negative and by Tuesday I was highly improved so I went back to work.

This weekend was also busy.  Yesterday was our church's craft fair.  Elisabeth and I visited there, looking for unusual gifts for people on our list.  In the afternoon KC and I went downtown to our city's Festival of Trees.  We have done this together every year except last year and it felt good to admire the trees together again.  In the evening we decorated chocolate houses and then watched Jingle Jangle which is one of our favorite Christmas movies.

Things are busy all through December but I am grateful that we have opportunities to BE busy, especially since last year had very little ways to celebrate with others.  I feel we did a good job making it special and we all were grateful for our health but this year feels like some of our beloved traditions have returned and I so love that!

The bathroom update you've all been waiting for!

 Life has been super busy lately.  We are still moving Elisabeth from one room to another as Rob slowly brings his things back home.  I have a very big very important site inspection at my job on Monday. This has engendered extra hours at work and no small amount of stress.  In the past this site has not scored well and I want to show that it can and will. However we have had curve balls of leaks and short staffing that are making achieving our ambitious goal rather challenging.

And here at home, renovations continue--with the knowledge that we are hosting Thanksgiving in a few short weeks. EGADS!  On the plus side much has been done in our bathroom.  

Almost all our drywall is up.  I figure you brave folks that occasionally read this blog only need to see one picture of walls with drywall.  We have one full wall behind the washer and dryer yet to do and the back side of the shower wall, but all other areas are fully drywalled.

Our sink is in place and almost plumbed.  I was two pex fittings short the night we were doing the install.  Since it was 11:30 when we got to this point, the big box store was well and truly closed.

The shower is installed.  It is plumbed except for the drain..  Isn't it big and gorgeous!  There is a niche for each member of the family to put their beauty products.  It is so spacious.  I have a box covering the floor to protect it from construction debris as we continue our work.

Also the entire ceiling has been drywalled and the recessed lights reinstalled.  So we have done a lot (and this weekend we have worked on framing in the closet for linens as my friend E was away on a scout adventure and it is his tools I use for plumbing.  But the punch list of items yet to be done remains large--finish the plumbing. Tape and mud all the drywall.  Prime the drywall and paint.  Install tile around the sink and over the shower. Install the vinyl flooring.  Finish work around our window (we need to build a sill and do the trim work around it) Trim work around the door. Install the shelves in the closet. (ordered and will be here next wkend) Build the platform that the washer and dryer will stand on so that I can have storage underneath. Install light over the medicine cabinet. Build a faux barn door for the linen and beauty closet.  Install the doors on the tiny sink vanity.

So yeah, a few things left to do.  But you eat an elephant one bite at a time, right?

Course Correction

 Saturday night I got a phone call from Rob who was in a difficult place.  Due to some spectacularly bad decisions he was in a very bad financial place that has legal repercussions.  Most of this week has been spent sorting that out and resolving the debts to other parties.  As a result of this, he will move home in the this month and regroup and regain his financial footing.

He is a hard worker and none of this is due to that.  It is, however, a result of his inability to say no to people, and to face hard things.  His choice when frightened or confronted with something he does not like has always been avoidance.  In this instance, avoidance equalled throwing away important mail and failing to discuss his crisis with us when it would have been much smaller and easier to assist with.

Part of what we will do during the time he lives at home again is work actively with him on budgeting.  Also on how to keep track of your spending--it seems like many young people, he does not look at who he has paid, just lives off what the bank says the available balance is. So if a creditor has not yet pulled a payment, and he buys something with "available cash" then a problem arises.

I told him when he moved out that if he needed his room back in the first 12 months it was his.  After that he could always come home, but he would take whatever room we could make available to him.  This is only 8 months in, so Elisabeth is bouncing back to her old room and is taking this with good grace.

I am sorry for Rob because I know this has to be  feeling like a step back.  I have told him it is just a "course correction" and that he will not be here forever. I hope it feels that way to him and that he continues to feel the love with which we are enfolding him as he works to resolve this. 

*Note: I wrote this post a week or so ago and forgot to post!

We Light up My Life!

 So Saturday was not tile day.  It wound up being electrical day.  Here's the scene.  Our bathroom was ALWAYS under-lit.  We had an old dropped ceiling in there and the sole light came from a four foot flourescent light bulb.  ONE such bulb as it was an old fixture and the other light bulb would not work.  It was not the bulb, we had tried that.  Anyway, it was dim in there.  Dim enough that all my life I have had a clear shower curtain.  Not being I am an exhibitionist. Because I can't see well enough if the curtain is not clear.  So while my wife wanted a window and other things in this room, I wanted good lighting.  I researched and found that can-less recessed LED lights were a great option. I ordered a set of 4 that could be linked together.  I read up on lights like you wouldn't believe.  

I discovered that LED lights will use less energy.  They will be instant on.  And , dang, I can see in there!  I was able to set up the lights so that there is one right over the shower area.  I was able to set up two over the washer dryer area, and one that will cover the back side of the room where the toilet and closet will be.  Yes!  We'll be able to see in the closet too.  No more fishing around playing "where's that product!"

I learned a couple of things.  Wiring these was really easy.  I also learned that the GFI plug that was in our bathroom pre-reno was not wired correctly.  There was no ground.  It would not have done its intended safety function if needed.  We were not safe the way I thought I was.  And we paid an electrician for that.  That is fixed now.  And the GFI works downstream and will cover all the other electrical components in the room.  In the picture above, you will also see a black thing.  That little beauty is our new  exhaust fan.  It is so sweetly quiet I could not believe it was on.  I haven't installed the ducting yet.  (which will be an interesting thing) because I had to order the ducting kit from the Big Box store.  But soon that will be in and then I'll drop the light fixtures  for a bit and hang the drywall.

The lights work on a dimmer switch that can take them down to 10%  And they have another super feature.  Look at this last pic?  That is the night light feature.  That dims down too!  It is just totally cool.  

Tiling deferred!

Most recently when I texted with my friend and all things construction guru E, he had said he would not be available this weekend.  So K and I planned to work on our kitchen backsplash.  We have filled the niche, hung the drywall, used outlet extenders for the first time, and agreed on a tile. (the latter being by far the hardest part of this endeavor thus far.  We bought about 5 samples and finally settled on this Jeffery Court tile from the big orange box store.  It has colors that really tie to the existing Corian, but has sparkles of bright copper that will be a lovely accent.

We also decided that we would like a pencil trim at the bottom.  I am not a fan of grout lines at the base of the counter and like the look of the pencil trim below.  However, we might have to wait a bit to find out how all this comes together.  E texted last night that he was available after all if I wanted to work together today.  Well of course I did!  And we did electrical!  There will be pictures, in another post but they truly don't do the job justice.  Part of that is because the lights are mounted in a temporary fashion until I am able to duct for the exhaust fan.  But this is fine with me.  

 As a bonus, the extra time allowed me to do yet more research on the tile job and I have found a product that is a sticky membrane called Musselbound and think that I would like to use that instead of mastic.  I ordered that and it will be in before next weekend.  Meanwhile if I have free time (something always in a short supply around here) we can start putting up drywall in the section of the bathroom that is over the shower stall. We have a bit more levelling to do of the base area for the shower pan. And we can finish off the bathroom closet.  It is coming along.  And wait till you see the lights!!!

Spin City or the story of a washer that would not spin

 Last weekend my daughter wanted to lounge on the couch.  I reminded her that her bedroom was not fully clean and her wash was not done.  She gave a huge sigh, went upstairs and proceeded to put her completely full, utterly ginormous hamper into the washer.  Needless to say I wasn't there when she did it and found out when the cycle finished and she came to tell me "my load is still really wet."  You think??? A dead washer is a crisis of epic proportions in our house.  There are 5 of us living here and my wife has a cleaning business that engenders a lot of wash on its own. Easily we do 4 loads of wash daily.

Elisabeth steadfastly maintains that she did not know this would break the washer.  I suspect that although she did not know that, she DOES know how to properly load a washer and just in that moment did not give two flying fig newtons about what would happen.  If you have gleaned that this annoyed me, you would be right. She is almost 15 and has been doing laundry for quite a while.  It was an impetuous act of anger.

Now this is all further complicated by the fact that our machines came from Sears which is now defunct.  Because they were going out of business I opted not to re-enroll in the product protection agreement.  I felt that might also go the way of the once great stores and I didn't want my money tied up there. Local appliance people (all two of them) do not work on Kenmores.

Youtube to the rescue.  I did some research and discovered that our model does not have a belt.  It has something called a motor-stator and that was what probably needed to be replaced.  I ordered it on line and my wife and I watched the youtube video over and over as if it would somehow impress the instructions into our little brains.

The part arrived and we took off the back of the washer.  No problem.  We tried to remove the cover to the motor stator.  Problem.  The nifty spin and pull maneouver they show in the video did nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch.  We both tried.  I am really fairly strong after a year of renovation.  I carry drywall, put up walls, rip up floors.  But this?  Nothing worked.  My wife tried.  No joy.  

She called a friend and he came over with his son.  They could not move it with the youtube system either.However they did devise a system where one person held hte barrel of the washer (this is a front loader) while the other backed out the bolt and that worked like a charm.

They left, and we found that there were 5 more bolts to fight with.  We tried with no success but it was honestly late and we were tired having worked all day.  Today, my wife tried while I was at work and the next thing I knew I had a text with a vid of our washer working! No more laundramat nights!  And I suspect my teen daughter has learned a valuable lesson as several times she had to wait longer than usual for a preferred outfit to be clean. And, another skill in our toolbox of tricks!

New kitchen cabinets!

 I realized that I forgot to post up pictures of the new kitchen cabinets.  Say what??? I remember to take pictures of holes where the shower will drain and I forget our sexy new cabinets!

Well, behold!  Here they are, looking all shiny and gorgeous!  They are also 4 inches higher so you don't have to contort your hand under the cabinet in order to reach the outlets and the light switch.  The bridge cabinet has my serving bowls that I haul out for family holiday gatherings (and essentially never use at any other time)  The insides are frameless so it is easy to load and unload. And they are soft close which is my favorite feature of all.  I installed a under cabinet light under the bridge cabinet. It is rechargable with a usb cord and you wave it on and off with your hand.

There is green board that is going to get installed under the cabinets down to the base of the counter so that we can put up a tile back splash.  

There is a matching cabinet down in in the alley way of the kitchen.  It is the same height as the ones over the sink, so it is a nice sight line.  Underneath it we installed the coolest storage thing ever--a magnetic knife holder. So easy to grab my correct knife when I am cooking supper.  It's awesome.

So things are moving along and now you have a prettier pic to look at than the hole for my someday shower drain!

Build a wall and a shower will come!

 Saturday E came over to help with more bathroom tutoring.  While I had hoped for installation of the bathroom sink, he patiently explained why this was not next on the list.  It makes sense, but I was still a teensy bit sad.  However, he explained that when you do a big job like this you work from the top down.  We have framed our new ceiling all ready. But we still have to do that electrical and the new exhaust fan for the bathroom. We have a wall for the shower to build. We needed to finish a bit of plumbing repair to the work done for the toilet trap and we needed to reroute the electrical for the washer and dryer so that the aforementioned wall could be built.

So this was the first order of business after the trip to not one but two big box stores trying to get needed supplies.  We re routed the electrical for our washer and dryer and after the wall was built secured our electrical cables neatly and safely on a 2 x 4.

E is a great teacher and I have learned about grounds and the correct gauge for outlets vs switches and various other cool things.

These are 220 outlets though as they are dedicated to the machines.

This is the wall we built.  Now I realize that it is ia SMALL wall and not probably all that exciting to look at. But will you for the love of all that is holy just oooh and aaaah a bit here!   Why?  Becasue this wall represents the needed third wall which will support our shower!!!  We are getting closer friends!  As close as I wish we were?  Heck no, but doing things right, especially when you can only do it on weekends, is going to take time.  

This is the drain hole for where the shower pan will go.  There is no plumbing there yet but I would imagine that we will hook it up around the same time we do the sink.  There is stuff to do before we can install the shower.  My floor slopes significantly so I need to level it with concrete.  I need to then install my vapor barrier because the shower walls install direct to the studs.I need to put two plywood blocks on the new wall.  One will hold the shower temptrol. The other will hold the shower head and the handheld shower that attaches to it.

I also ordered the lights for the bathroom.  I am going with 4 recessed canless lights that have a dimmable feature down to 10% and a night light feature.  Both of those things sound cool but not as cool as the fact that we will have a light directly over the shower and for the first time in my life I will be able to see when I shave.  LOL

This coming Saturday we are going to go paint my mom's study for her so no bathroom work or very minimal bathroom work will occur.

Elisabeth's new job

 Elisabeth is 14 1/2 and has been struggling.  Covid impacted everyone but among those folks i know, the 13-14 year old kids seem to have had more emotional fallout from lockdown.  In any case, she did.  I think what made it extra hard was that she was just stretching her wings. She had started going places with friends w ithout an adult present.  Made trips to the mall, lunch dates with a group of friends, movies.  And it was gone in an instant.  For 15 long months.

We did everything we could to make good memories in dark times.  But family game nights don't replace time with friends when you are that age. Early this spring her beloved older brother moved into his own apartment and that played a role as well.  My kids all love each other but she and Rob have always had a special bond.

The internet took up more and more of her time and it was hard to say much against it since in many ways it was a tool for some kind of connection with her friends.  But too much internet brought sleep deprivation and a surly teen.  It was  not the best 15 months of her life that is for sure.

KC missed a lot and dealt with many of the same emotions but he was working all during the pandemic. So at least for 12 or 15 hours a week he was out in the world where she was not.  Eventually dance resumed and that helped but it was all so little compared to all that was missing.

She tried and tried to get a job and the grocery store was not hiring.  It is super hard to find a job at 14.  There are weird regulations on what you can do and how long you can work and many employers would rather not deal with those issues. 

Then, an opportunity presented itself.  A Dairy Queen was being built at the mall. It is one of those that is open year round. She applied and was one of the first hired. She has had trainings all week and will have them until next Tuesday.  She is loving it!  She comes home excited about the things she has learned to make. She has stories to tell about other trainees. Suddenly her world is not so tiny and it is expanding her spirit.  Oh, and as an example of the weird regulations for 14 year old workers--she can't make a banana split because she can not legally cut the banana at 14!!

Kitchen wall face lift!

 Last weekend I took our kids on our final campout of this year.  We camped in Maine with friends from church and had a marvelous time.  My wife never comes on this jaunt. She proclaims it "too peopley" as there are more than 100 of us who gather there.  So she stays home and it is her time to use as she wishes.  This year, she decided to surprise me by painting the kitchen walls.  I present to you the before:

Essentially our entire kitchen was unpainted knotty pine, probably installed by my grandfather. There was one wall that had only horsehair plaster. We had enough reclaimed wood to put wood up there to blend in with the rest of the walls. It is not that I hate the walls. It is just dark.  And we have new white upper cabinets that we want to install next.

Now, the after!

The entire kitchen is painted this creamy french vanilla color.  The lighting is presently unchanged in the space so you can really tell how much brighter it makes things feel.  It was an amazing thing to come home too.  The two uppers that you see best in the first picture are the two cabinets we are replacing.  The niche area in between is going to be filled in.  A cabinet bridge 12 x 30 will go betwen the two uppers.  The uppers will also be about 4 inches higher as they are so close to the counter level that turning on the light switch and the disposal is awkward.  The remainder of the space between counter and what is left of the odd little niche will be greenboarded and tiled.  Tomorrow my wife and I both have the day off from work so we hope to work on the cabinet install.

Construction Updates!

 There is likely no one on the planet quite as excited about our renovations as I am.  Each little thing we accomplish is another skill learned, another honoring of the legacy of this home (as the 4th generation to live here there is a very real sense of responsibility to care take wisely for this home), and improved functionality for our space.  

I have definately been slacking in the blogging of this journey.  Weekends we were   working on the projects, and there were 4 days of camping which left me off line and relaxing in the mountains with friends.

But I present to  you the most recent efforts in our various projects:  I'll start with the least "sexy" things first:

Yes, that is a toilet flange on our new bathroom subfloor.  Why would I subject your tender eyes to this?  Well, remember functionality?  Part of making the bathroom function better was moving the toilet over to where the sink used to be and putting a small sink where the toilet once was.  This meant installing a new flange, replacing all our cast iron waste pipe with new PVC and other amazing feats of plumbing that took place in the crawl space.  It will make the walk space better in the bathroom so that you don't step out of the shower and knock a knee on the toilet.  And I learned cool new plumbing skills.  I will not lie. I was petrified to do this part of the renovation.  My friend assured me it was not that hard.  And except for cutting up the cast iron pipe and hauling from the cellar, it really wasn't.  I'll get to reinforce my flange skills in a few weeks as I have to pull the toilet again (we put the new toilet on right away so we had a downstairs bathroom) I'll need to put on a new flange after we lay the new floor in a couple of weeks.

Next non sexy pic?  I present the bathroom closet subfloor.  The whole room has a new subfloor actually, but this particular closet has always been so hard to use, so lacking in functionality, in any form of pleasing aesthetic, that honestly, seeing a smooth subfloor in there kind of rocks my world.

All right if you have oohed and ahhed over picture one and two you will really like this:

See that tall kitchen cabinet?  That was a stock 84 inch tall, 24 inch deep 18 inch wide cabinet.  Except that for our house, 24 inches deep stuckit out about half way across that built in that you can see in the picture.  The built in does not have deep shelves--it backs up to a chimney--and we had been trying to use it for storing baking spices--all the sweet things like extracts, and goodies for decorating cakes and such.  We made it work but it was not really great.  The shelves were narrow and things fell out tipped over and jostled easily.  

Where that tall cabinet is there used to be a smallish home made cabinet that we used for medical supplies.  We decided if we could yank that out and put a tall cabinet in the top part could be for meds (pain relievers, band aids, after bite and such ilk) and the bottom could have multiple shelves for my baking needs.  This would mean my russian decorating tips would not roll out at me any longer and I would be able to find my favorite sprinkles.  Alas, we measured the space as we wanted it to look as "built in" as possible.  The space would be 11 1/2 inches deep.  This meant either a custom cabinet or cutting one down.  Guess which one we did?  My wife rocked it and it really tucks into the space nicely.  It rests just behind the door casing to the built in.  I'll have to take another couple pictures of it as it has handles and I'd love for you to see how wonderfully it is filled and organized. I really can find things in a jiffy!

If  you look super close in the picture you will see that under the window there is no wood.  Most of the kitchen has knotty pine but for some reason that outer wall is just horsehair plaster.  We saved all the wood we removed from anywhere during this renovation and had enough scraps of knotty pine to piece in under both windows and behind the fridge.  Now we are washing the walls with TSP and then we will prime and paint --that same creamy french vanilla color.  I don't mind that the boards we reused have dings or nail holes from prior use.  I intentionally left them.  They are part of the history of the house, the generations that came before me and treasured these walls as much as we do.

Kitchen starts to come together!

 After having most of the 4th of July weekend devoted to fun--we hosted a large BBQ which meant lots of cooking decorating and socializing. (in short, all of my most favorite things!) This weekend we were back at it and working on the house.  This Thursday our two new cabinets for the kitchen alley are due to be delivered so we need to finish this space so we can install them promptly.  As the chef of this large family, the camping style cooking that I am doing is getting old.  I am not complaining really, just that it is understandably more challenging planning my menu around which box I need to look in for the supplies!  

So this weekend we worked on the walls of the alley.  The first thing we did was figure out how we would hang our cooking pans.  Over the years, they have hung all over the wall, but with no real order.  This meant that some of them were bumped as we walked down the alley and we had to have little signs that my wife made reminding us which pan went where.  Since this was now a clean slate, I took advantage of the opportunity to organize the pans.  They now look like this:

My tidy little Virgo nature loves this!  Actually the kids do as well and the free spirited Aquarian wife is adapting!  LOL

We also painted the walls this weekend.  The pictures don't really show the color of the paint accurately.  It reminds me of the color of french vanilla ice cream.  Anyway, here is a picture of the walls painted:

Not only does this brighten the space, but it also allows the old and new woods to look good together.

After we finished that we replaced the cabinets on our kitchen island.  It now looks like this:

The doors and drawers are all soft close which I absolutely adore.  We still have to resurface our formica but it is a very functional island.  The cabinet that has the big door is frameless and so it is now easy to get big pans in and out.

Construction anyone?

 There is still lots to do, but we have also made some great strides!  Picture number 1 is one of our three new windows.  The windows were installed by a contractor friend but all the finish work was done by us.  We had to do some insulation work with spray foam and then we trimmed it out, made the reveal and the sill.  The large shelf is the top of what will be a built in book shelf.  I will be able to have a nice place to keep my cook books at some point in the future and the cats will have a lovely shelf where they can watch the birds outside and where Val can eat up off the floor so that Rocky does not bother her. There were a few things that excited us the most about doing this. First off, finish work is fun.  It's like putting on make up or decorating a cake.  It's the reward for all the sweat and heavy lifting that goes into the job before you get to that point. The other  thing that made this so cool was that our contractor friend intentionally left the finish work for us.  Not because he did not want to do it, but because he looked at the work we were doing and felt we were up to doing it.  He is really picky about how his jobs look so I honestly feel this was a very high compliment.

OK in  picture number two, aside from me apparently moving at the speed of light, you see that we have made another huge step forward. We have begun laying the subfloor in the bathroom.  It goes into the lower part of the kitchen, which meant that I also had to rip up the 7 layers of floor that were there. Yes, you read that right. 7. There were two old lino layers, an insulating layer of newspaper and 4 layers of tile and various subfloors.  My wife cut the flooring with our circular saw and then I pried it up so that we are down to the original boards.  This was important so that the subfloor could lay through the bathroom into the lower part of the kitchen. It was also important because we were trying to find (and did) a missing heating duct that I plan to repair and activate in the lower kitchen area under that pretty window. Lastly, it is important because we have ordered two new base cabinets for the kitchen and I want to have the subfloor done in that whole area before they are delivered.  Laying this section of the subfloor also lets us work on building the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen.  That wall will be what one wall of our shower rests on so it is beyond exciting.  

And this is what we found as the final layer when I was taking out the old floors and subfloors.  Newspapers, which my mother says my great grandfather put down as insulation back in the 30's. Specifically in July of 38.  It was kind of intriguing to me as in September of that same year there was a big hurricane here that took down all the trees on our property.

We have tons more to do. It is sometimes daunting how much remains yet to do.  It takes so much time, partly because I only have weekends.  My friend who helps with things I need to learn how to do (such as plumbing or electric) is not always available.  He too is doing a bathroom and also has lots of kids and things that take his time. I hope that this weekend we will make more strides but we also have to make a dump run to get rid of the debris we have accumulated from the last few weeks of work. We are having friends over for a BBQ on the fourth and I don't want anyone getting hurt on the construction detritus.

Property Manager At Last!

 Although I need to catch everyone up on the reno project that never ends  renovations, I have other exciting news to share.  (drum roll!) In two weeks I will be starting a new job.  I have worked at my present site since (wait for it) 1978.  Yup.  Not only am I old but that is a seriously long time to stay at one job location. To be fair, I have held three positions during my employ at this apartment community.  And the site was sold so I have worked for two management companies. But the gold ring--that position of property manager has eluded me.

I kind  of thought I had a lock on it about 2 or 3 years ago.  I filled in as interim for over a year while my company searched for a new manager. I lowered delinquent accounts, and reduced the turn over time on vacant units.  My regional manager wanted me to be promoted, but it did not happen.  The new manager is very nice and I was very helpful teaching her about the job and the site.

Around the holidays I saw an ad for a property manager in a nearby town.  I applied and had three interviews.  The hiring manager said they had to wait til they got two more applicants before their board would make a decision.  I understand wanting a number of candidates, but I am not sitting around like Sunday dinner leftovers for unknown weeks hoping you decide I am a good fit.  You either know I am or you don't.  A company whose decision making is THAT drawn out concerns me. There are decisions that require lots of thought and bids etc. There are also situations where decisions must be made expediently.  It left me wondering how they handle the latter type of situation and I just stopped following up because things did not feel right.

Spring came and I got a great review at my present job.  I was glad, and I got a nice raise and bonus.  I was pleased, but typically I get good reviews.  I work pretty hard at that.  Three days ago my desk phone lit up and it was our HR director.  They had a managership coming open in a nearby town (about 20 minutes from my home). She and our VP and our CFO felt I would be the perfect fit for the job and wanted to know if I would like to discuss this further.  I said absolutely and we set a teams meeting for the next day.  They l sat there, stunned.  The teams meeting was not really an interview.  It was an outline of plans for the site, explanations on staffing and goals for the property and a job offer.  Which I accepted.

I will start there in 2 weeks.  My present manager is really stressed because the list of all the things I do at our property is about 6 pages long typed. (I created that list for her when I first applied for the other job) The job description for my replacement does not include most of those things, so there are a lot of things she will need to take on or teach to two other office people, who have not done them in the past. (and who up to now have had no interest in learning them)  I feel badly for my manager, she is really really nice. But I am beyond excited to have this opportunity.  It comes at a time when my kids are older and I am comfortable being further away from them. KC will be a senior this year. (Not sure how that is possible but it is!) and Elisabeth is entering her first year of high school.  Before I accepted though, I ran this by the whole family and they were overwhelming in their agreement that I should accept the job.

The site that I will manage is nearly as large as the one I work at now and I will have a staff of 7.  There will be lots of new things to learn and new challenges.  I am really really excited!

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.

KC is 17!

 

So this is KC's second Covid birthday!  Last year when he turned 16 we organized a drive by birthday parade and decorated inside with a Broadway theme.  I had pre-covid promised him a large outdoor friends birthday party and of course that could not happen.  I felt horrible about it all.  16 is such a milestone. And my kids have not typically had a lot of "friends" parties. We usually do family parties and only have big friends ones for milestone events.  

This year we had a local company come early in the morning before the teen was up and they put this banner on our front lawn.  Elisabeth was away this weekend--she had checked with KC before accepting the invitation months ago.  He said he thought she should go as since lockdown she has not had a lot of time out of the house and he felt she really needed it.  

But K and I still felt we had to do everything we could to make his birthday special.  Hence the banner.  He still had a family party and Rob was here, and cooked KC's favorite chicken entree and made a delicous carrot cake for the birthday cake.  There were gifts, phone calls from family who could not be here and lot of laughter.

I also made KC's favorite cinnamon rolls for breakfast yesterday --we have kind of had the whole weekend have lots of little bits of joy for him.  He loves these rolls which I typically only make on Christmas.  And tonight we will have a favorite supper of his, arroz con gandules.

He had time to go to a friends house and watch a movie.  He had time to see a favorite show with me. And he told me how very cool the banner was and that he didn't think anything could top last years birthday, but that somehow we did.  

Seriously, how am I so very blessed to have kids who feel the love and joy of experiences even in these harder times?  Celebrations have always been tremendously important to KC (top pic is when he was 3 and was helping to paint the rainbow mural for his party.)  That my son feels that his day was in no way diminished by the circumstances of covid fills me with such joy.  

Cleaning the portal to H*ll

 

 Today's renovation photo is far from pretty!  This is the crawl space in my house where all the plumbing and HVAC live.  Last weekend I visited it under emergency circumstances for the first time in I think my whole life.  (which is kind of bizarre if you know I am in my 60s!) In the course of  stopping the plumbing leak with my friend, we tripped and scrambled over literally generations of debris.  It was immediately clear to me that I needed to get tripping hazards out of the space since in about a month we will be doing plumbing and electrical work down here.  

Yesterday was that day.  I put on my daughters wellies and waded in.  I moved out pipes that apparently plumbers had replaced and just left the old ones disconnected and lying around.  I moved out an old cabinet, old chair, broken fittings, pieces of wood that were lying around, 2 giant boxes of broken flourescent light bulbs and more.  

I would bring them to the main part of our cellar and then Chet ferried them up to the dumpster.  There is still damaged insulation that I want to bag up and get out but it is a lot better.  It still sort of looks like a portal to hell but at least you can move around in there safely!

I Can't stop the rain!

So this weekend my friend and construction guru was back from his business trip.  He stopped over Saturday and together we safely disconnected electricity to two outlets so that I could remove those last two boards.  This is necessary because when the new window goes in, it will allow us to install a straight wall and gets us those precious 8 extra inches in our bathroom.  After we handled the electrical, we reviewed the work that needs to be done and I have a plan for the final demo and when we will do the plumbing and electrical.  

There was a copper pipe with our old showerhead still standing in the middle of the bathroom.  "You can take that out you know, " E said to me. I was dubious.  He assured me not to worry, and explained what to do.

Today I made the cake for our Sunday dinner, and then took out a couple of boards that needed to be removed. Then I decided not to do more because we need to have the dumpster brought back.  I thought I would remove that pipe. It was small and surely would be quick.  I got my pipe wrench and gave the fitting a turn. . . and heard water.  I could not see water, but I could hear it. The washer was going and for about 10 seconds I convinced myself it was really the washer.  Then I shut off the washer.  I could still hear water.  

I went down cellar.  My plumbing is largely concentrated in a gross crawl space kind of area of my cellar.  Over the many years my family has lived here (remember I am the fourth generation to live here) that crawl space has become the repository of things people did not want making it a hazard. The plumbing has been higgldy piggly cobbled together.  In short folks, it.is. a. mess.  And what I found when I climbed in and shone my flashlight was that a copper pipe had totally separated and was gushing hot water on the brick back exterior foundation.  I scrambled in and looked for a shut off.  There were lots of them but many went to pipes that were disconnected.   I tried pushing the pipe back into the fitting.  This resulted in giving myself a shower.  Just what one wants to do in a crawl space!  Um, maybe not.

I climbed out, ran upstairs, texted my friend, gave my phone to Elisabeth and said for her to let me know when he texted back.  I went back down and resumed my search for shutoffs.  I finally found one that slowed the flow but did not stop it.  Then I got a bucket and put it under the remaining leak.  

E arrived.  It took him a while to figure out how to stop the flow so we could work on the pipe but eventually we got it to cease.  My wife got home and she knew where the main shut off to the house was and that helped.  He showed me how to fix the mess, at least temporarily.  The piping is both old and not really done correctly. And all the weird little shutoffs really need to be consolidated and  a different kind of shut off used.  The reason the pipe came apart when I used my wrench was because they were not fit together properly.  The pipe actually had to be cut so it would fit in properly. We got it fitted and soldered.  And took our  cobwebbed covered selves out of the crawl space.  E promises that when we do the bathroom plumbing we will re-do all of this and it will not be an issue again.  He also promises that it will be a half day job.  I am betting it is a full day job.

 

Chet makes a plan!

 This past weekend was Easter weekend so it was light duty in the home improvement arena.  I got a new medicine cabinet for the upstairs bathroom and installed that.  I picked up a new vanity for that same bathroom, so I can install that when the downstairs one is someday finished. LOL I did some picture hanging, pulled some nails, kind of  kept things low key.  

Chet found getting rid of the old medicine cabinet rather heart wrenching. I had him help me pull it out and we looked at all the rust all over it.  Honestly there was so much we had covered it with duct tape  years ago. It was put in when I was 4 and i am in my 6th decade; this owes us nothing!  It helps him to  be part of taking the old thing out and he calmed doing that.

Later he came and asked me what was behind the walls in his bedroom.  I asked if he meant did it have insulation and he said yes.  I explained that there is no insulation in those walls, actually in any of our bedrooms.  There is no heat upstairs either but we are all used to that.  Chet then asked if I could someday "rip his walls apart and put in insulation."  LOL  Well, yes, i could, once the other projects I have going are done.  It would really only be two walls so it would be pretty straight forward, though getting the debris out of the second floor will be a pain in the you know what.

More than that though I was concerned over how Chet would handle mess in his space. And there would be mess.  I explained that I only can work on the weekends and it would take about 4 weekends for me to get the job done. You have to understand that Chet essentially lives in his room. He comes down and socializes at meal times and for occasional short bits during the day. But by and large, the man l ikes to stay in his room.  And he doesn't like mess and he doesn't like change.

I said I was willing to do the job but it would probably be late summer or early fall.  And that he needed to think this through carefully.  He nodded and wandered off.  Two hours later he was back.  He said he had thought it over and he thought we should really do this because his room is cold and this would make it more comfortable.  He had decided that while I am working in the day time that he could hang out in Elisabeth's former bedroom and he had checked to make sure there was tv access there and a place for him to sit comfortably.  In short, he was a man with a plan!

I can't begin to express how impressed I am by this. I will check in with him again in the late summer to make sure he still feels the same way but as it stands now, I will be taking his two north facing walls down to studs insulating and hanging new drywall.

Of course, more reno!

 This is actually part of last weekend and this weekend's endeavors.    Last weekend, I helped my wife open a doorway that had been closed up between her bedroom and the kitchen.  While it had afforded the bedroom privacy, it was not done in a way that made it look like a seamless wall.  With reclaimed knotty pine from other parts of my endeavors we were able to do that.  K hates the demo.  I tell her you need to talk to the nails and ask them how they want to come out.  LOL  She remains unamused.  However she ROCKS taking the materials and fitting them back together in a virtually seamless re-install.  This is the "new wall" 

 Finishing the wall in this manner also gives more walkspace which is an added bonus!  I love the way it looks and I feel like my very thrifty grandparents (who originally installed all this knotty pine) would be proud that we salvaged it so carefully and created this wall out of it.  

On the inside of the bedroom K had to hang new drywall which she did yesterday.  She is a whiz with drywall too!  Wednesday on her day off she will tape and mud it. Then all that will be left is sanding and painting that wall.  If the paint store can't match our chip we will just make it an accent wall and do it a shade or two darker than the other walls.

Today I insulated the back wall of the "alley way" of our kitchen. Our house has little and in some cases NO insulation. Well it has foam board that went on when we had it sided but I am sure judging by how cold our home is in winter and how high my utility bills are, that the R value on that is pretty low.  We are having a new, slightly shorter window installed at the end of this skinny part of the kitchen because we stole 8 precious inches for our bathroom re-do.  This will give us a straight bathroom wall (maybe the only straight one in the house!) and an energy efficient window as the existing one was put in by my grandfather in the 60's.  When I was harvesting boards for the wall project I got them out of the bottom and top of this back wall as well as from a strange upper storage cabinet that we removed.  Of course taking off the horsehair plaster and lathing brought the walls to the studs and there was, as we thought, zero insulation.  This wall is almost on the true north of our home and this part of the kitchen is cold enough that in the winter we have gotten skims of ice on the pets water bowls down here.

So for a lot of folks this would be  a really non sexy pic.  I  mean, it isn't like the beautiful wall my wife made.  But what it is, is the promise of hopefully more warmth!  That is the first few batts of rock wool that I put in.  I have done the whole back wall and part of the outer side wall.  We can all ready see a difference in the way the area feels.  So much so that we are getting a price on replacing the other window on the side outer wall.  This will require moving out a run of cabinets, cutting a corian counter (NOT something I am doing on my own) but then I can remove the wood carefully, take out the plaster and lathing and rock wool that wall as well. We will label the boards and I'll turn over the re-install to my capable wife.  The reason we were able to harvest wood from the back wall of the alley is that I have saved some lovely pine boards to make a bookshelf for cookbooks. It will go right under that window up to where ever the new window will be.  The boards are 8 inches which happens to be exactly the length of the cat perch that used to be down there.  So the top will be kept free of books but can have a cushion on it for the cats so they can watch the birds and squirrels to their hearts content.  

Weekend Warrior Woman!

 This weekend I kicked it into high gear in the bathroom project.  I got almost all the wall demo done and also took up the old tile floor and the subflooring. 

This picture was courtesy of my wife, surprising me with a candid pic when I lease expected it.  But actually today what I wanted to write about was not what I was doing physically, but how I have worked to help this be tolerable for my son Chet. Chet has Aspergers.  He is very much a person who craves consistancy.  He has his evening shower (now bath) at the same time every night. He has a snack at the same time every day.  He takes the recycling out at the same time every day.  You get the gist of things.  The guy does.not.like.change.

And here we were planning the biggest change to our space that we have ever done.  I knew when we started this that I would have to use care to help Chet get through this.  Knock wood so far we have been melt down free.

I started explaining what we were thinking of doing way before we did it.  I explained that we talked to two companies and they could only do a portion of this work for between 10 and 13K  If we took this on ourselves and did it with minimal contractor input we would have a more functional, beautiful space when we were done and we would not probably pay 1/2 of those numbers in cost.  Chet is analytical so this helped.

I also took time every weekend to explain what I was going to focus on that day before I did it.  Even if I explained it the week before, I did it again.  I gave him 20 minutes to ask all the questions he wanted and then I would move him along so I could get working.  Chet will literally ask questions for hours if you don't put an end time on things.  He would check back in with me at snack time to see what I had done so far.  It helped keep the mystery out of thngs.  I have a pretty thick skin where Chet's concerned. I know that he does not mean to be hurtful.  His saying things like "what are you destroying now?" is not meant to hurt my feelings.  I just always explain that I am taking apart things that don't work for us so we can install things that do work for us.

For instance, I demoed a closet. I am going to build a new one there with better and more functional shelves and a sliding barn door that can have towel bars on it.  To Chet, the old closet was "perfectly fine" and i had to take the time to show him why it wasn't.  Explaining it calmly and quietly helped.

I had to alert him to noise.  I never start work before he has his breakfast and does his hygiene so tha the can get upstairs before I start banging.  If something is extra noisy like the tub removal, I warned him and I kept the bathroom door shut to try and minimize the sound. Chet is extremely sensitive to sound.

I have found ways that he can help.  I had him help me carry the pieces of the cast iron tub to our dumpster. I have had him hold doors open, or fetch tools.  Not a lot, just things here and there so he feels a part of the process. 

I have showed him the new components that I have purchased for installation. The new toilet has been vetted for energy efficiency. I showed him the insulation and explained why I bought this specific type of insulation instead of the fiberglass.  I showed him why having a new shower head with a detachable hand shower would be helpful.  He needed concrete examples which I had but it made it possible for him to feel we did not have to save our old showerhead.

In some ways, all of this is more exhausting than the labor of getting the bathroom down to studs. But he has stayed calm and that is really really huge. We are all looking forward to the completion of the job but if knowledge helps him deal with the inconveniences I am all for it.

A Tale of A Tub

 The bathroom renovation (which is still basically demo at this point) has been progressing nicely.  It is not as fast as I would like--projects never are.  There are a number of factors that play into that. My construction guru friend has out of state jobs periodically and is unavailable to coach me.  But mostly the slow down is that I have tried to keep the bathroom functional as long as possible and I can only work on weekends as a general rule.  

By this weekend I had progressed to the area that gave me the most concern of all.  The Great Removal of the Tub.  As per usual I spent loads of time watching youtube vids on the best ways to remove a cast iron tub.  I should also note for the record that I am in my sixth decade and weigh about 130 pounds.  Also the bathroom area is very tight to work in.

I saw a cool method using an angle grinder but don't have one.  My friend E had a saw that he fitted with a blade for metal.  I gave that a try on Saturday.  It took quite a while for it to cut through the cast iron and it could only go down so far. It could not cut across the floor.   After many hours of do that I decided to move onto plan B which involved using a sledge hammer. (also borrowed from construction guru friend)  

However it was later in the day and clearly I did not think this through.  My idea was to bash the tub in the area where I had made the cut.  In my mind I thought that this would then eventually cause the tub to fracture sort of on the line of the cut I had made.  It did not work like that.  After 30 minutes of bashing with a gigantic sledge hammer I had, as my oldest son so kindly put it (a very small hole for all that work) Thankfully I refrained from bashing HIM and called it a day. LOL

That night while lying it bed it occured to me that I was approaching this bashing thing wrong.  I needed to bash the BOTTOM of the tub as near as possible to where the side cuts had been made. I got up early, had a quick breakfast and 20 minutes later:

I wound up bashing it into three sections.  One I could carry out myself.  One my wife helped with, and the last and largest one I carried out with Chet. Kirsty has a bad back and I was very worried she would injure herself. 

This is the area that used to have a tub!  Notice there are two doors on the back wall. They don't go anywhere these days but long ago they went to a shed and to a barn where the "three holer" was.  I am now in the process of removing the green board and getting down to the studs.  When my friend is free he will show me how to remove the doors and seal the space more effectively with insulation.  But it has been a good weekends work and i am proud of the progress.  Also, I found the bathroom floor under the tub to be in excellent condition so that is a plus as well!