A perfect fit

Whoa. Are these pipes from a 1982 Playboy?


I couldn't figure out why everything was in soft focus this morning, until I considered that the camera had been in my car all night, sitting at about 35º. The lens and viewfinder were both all foggy.

Anywho, that right there is the trap and the purple lid of doom that was clogging said trap. Then there is the pipe that shattered in Adam's hand:


I swear to god I don't have man hands like that in real life, stupid perspective. So yeah-- it was a dirty job, but in the end,


And so far, it works.

The End.

Pipe Fittin'

What I really should title this post is, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." I just called home to see if I needed to pick up anything for dinner, and was greeted with a rousing tale about our bathroom sink. A while back, we took the little plug out to clean all the gunk off of it; it didn't get put back in immediately. Then we started noticing a very slow drain. We tried 2 rounds of gel drain cleaner, and it was no better. We assumed something fell in the trap and was clogging things up-- nothing else was backing up. Easy fix, right? Just take the trap off, empty it out, put it back. That's what traps are for!

Apparently, the pipe behind it shattered when the trap was disconnected. Great. These are old, old pipes and I'm a little concerned that we won't be able to find any that fit, and even if we do, we'll end up shattering something else or causing a leak behind the wall, IN WHICH CASE, my pink tile is at risk. Homegirl is not happy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Incidentally, I'm told, the culprit was a purple lid to something.

I see that's it's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. Not much has happened housewise, hence the absence. I ended up spending all morning on the Saturday after Halloween in a walk-in clinic for a sinus infection-- by that point I had completely lost my voice. I'm pretty sure you don't know hell until you've been in that particular place on that particular day. It was full of ENTIRE FAMILIES to take care of one sick person. Multiple adults, one of whom probably could have stayed at home with the kids eating their Halloween candy at 9 in the morning, crowded the waiting room. All for literally 2 minutes with the doc.

I have also been continuously dealing with the back pain and discomfort for several weeks now. It's taking a while, but I am in full assault mode-- new office chair, new shoes, exercise balls (for home and office), daily yoga, heated vibrating chair pad, body pillow, lumbar cushion for the car. The works. I want this shit done with. The problem is that I had let my health and fitness go for so long, that the exercise almost makes it worse before it makes it better. Muscles are being asked to keep me sitting up straight that haven't been used this regularly in years. They're not taking it lying down, though, I can tell you that. I was taking muscle relaxers, but I started weaning myself off of them. Though some ibuprofen will be mighty welcome by day's end.

Adam's been trying to work on the house during the week, but the rain keeps making it difficult. And now I suppose I'm going to have to hire out the ceiling drywall work-- I don't think hoisting sheetrock and standing on a ladder staring up all day is a very condusive to my full scale back attack.

Someday, there will be news to report. And hopefully, it will be good news.

18 Million Cracks

in my bathroom. Trust me-- I'm not making light of those more important 18 million cracks*; I'm just getting a little concerned about the stability of the joints in my bathroom.

I was a taking a shower a few days ago (I've taken them since!), and I noticed what looked like mildew in the grout lines. Admittedly, I'd noticed them before, and bought some extra heavy duty tub and tile cleaner. But this time I stuck a fingernail in the grout line...


I think these are actually places where the grout is beginning to fail. Morelike, has already failed. There's quite a few of them. My other guess was that perhaps there was a darker grout to begin with and someone decided to regrout in white. The floor looks like maybe it was a darker grout, not just stained. (We're clean people-- I swear!).

So I'm thinking-- and correct me if I'm going about this all wrong-- I'm going to clean the grout in the tub/shower and walls well with a soft brush and regrout. The sticking point is that it's the whole bathroom's wainscoting, but I think that if I just pay special attention to the areas of failure and do the entire thing with the same batch using a good float, then I should be good, right?

Then I noticed this:


That's the hot water knob in the tub. And that black thing you see is a hole. Bondo and some chrome paint? I know I should just replace them, but I LOVE these knobs. The hole is on the backside and they're perfectly vintage for the rest of the bathroom...Or can you buy those sleeve things separately?

Then, there's the crack between shower and window:


Trust-- the first thing I want to do in this joint is paint the trim. The most recent paint job was done with FLAT paint. Sigh. Dirty fingers galore. However, you'll see that the first thing I ought to do, is address the "why you shouldn't just grout your tile to wood" issue. Clean it out and caulk it, I assume.

An finally, the real crack in the ceiling that haunts me daily:


The AC guys did this and offered to knock a few hundred dollars off the total if I let it go. I was fresh off the kitchen drywalling, so I thought this was the bargain of the century and a good opportunity to practice my texturing. I'm not so worried about the texture as I am about the sheetrock falling down. I think my plan is to perhaps put a couple of drywall screws into the portions that are sagging-- there's plaster with lathe underneath, so it's something for the screws to go into, and they don't have to hold the weight of the whole sheet; just the little saggy bits. Then tape and mud and patch as otherwise.

It's a little daunting, but should be a good trial run for repairing and successfully cammoflaging the, ahem, canyon in our other ceiling:


This weekend was a bit of a dud, so we've promised ourselves greater progress next weekend. We want that final inspection and we want it now. Or at least before the permit is a year old. Yikes.

*After the last 10 days, politically speaking, I feel I need humor more than ever. I'm getting a little worried.

Miscellany

There were other things that happened around here besides the backsplash. A new hummingbird feeder:


I know this is common knowledge, but seriously, how do they get away with charging so much for red-colored sugar water? We made out own hummingbird food. I'm working on a regular hanging bird feeder, so I'll post pics of that when I'm done.

A new hanging plant for the porch:

Our climbing rose has about 30 buds on it, and about 8 or so have started to open. The rose in the compost started blooming! Adam painted the broom closet and hot water heater closet doors and got those hung up. I mowed the yard.

And does this rings a bell?


I finally sucked it up and bought a textured vinyl window covering:


I really like it, but I also haven't checked its privacy level at night time, so I'll do that soon. I'ts pretty easy to install-- static cling and water!-- but I'd recommend using 2 people...

I'd call this our most productive weekend since we moved in. I feel a little bit re-energized!

Personalized

Nothing says, "making a house a home" like toddlers diving into the bathtub.

I found the Lux ad in the Target dollar section, but the other picture has been in my possession for as long as I can remember, and it's hung in every bathroom I've had since moving out. Adam put these up last week; they are the very first items to hang on the walls. The mantle picture doesn't count as it's only leaning in place.

Not just watching the grass grow

Besides enjoying the lovely out of doors this weekend, we did get a little bit done on the inside.

Saturday, we created the attic trap door. We'll add trim around the hole, and paint white. This is the plywood that was there. Adam added hinges so it'll open up.



This is the real coup, though. Remember this pantry?


Well, now it looks like this:


We got most of the kitchen door trim up-- a short in the extension cord burned out the table saw plug, so we couldn't finish the shims we needed for some of the pieces. And we have to build new baseboards. But everyday, it looks less and less like a construction zone.

We got more patio furniture from my grandmother's and we found some seriously cool shit there too-- like my great grandmother's butter churn from 1909 and a cane that came from someone special...? It's pretty fancy. Pictures to come.

And I got the bathroom cleaned and unpacked. That ALONE makes the house feel better:


And I mowed. Not too bad for sleeping in both days ;-).

Countdown

99 boxes of shit to unpack,
99 boxes of shit,
Unpack one,
Think you're done...

There's still 99 boxes of shit of unpack.

I don't know how that happens, but it never ever ends. It's like they sprout a replacement every time I get one emptied. I think they're some freakshow mythological figure that just grows a new head each time you cut it off...Anyway...Pretty!

So I guess it's been a while. Not for lack of progress in general...Mostly for lack of time. Lack of visible progress. Lack of wakefulness. Spring break. Weather that actually promotes being outside at the grill over inside at the computer (weird, right?). And Easter.

Adam has been diligently priming and painting the kitchen trim, among other little projects like cleaning out the garage and ordering drawer glides that don't work. I kid!

Uh, actually, I don't. We so wanted drawers that pull all the way out-- the fancy, smooth gliding, ball bearing, full extension drawer slides. So we found a good price online, ordered them along with the special attachments for face framing, and promptly discovered that they were unusable.

So we went to Lowe's and stocked up on run of the mill, undermount, single track glides. The upside? $16 as opposed to $75. It really dulls the blow of the whole episode. So this:


Has led to this:


Followed shortly thereafter by this:


And this:


Ok, so pretty much none of these items will stay in their current locations. But it does mean that they are off the floor, out of the boxes, and free of the black garbage bags they were reduced to when we ran out of boxes.

Unfortunately, the rest of the house looks like this:


That weekend was particularly productive. We fixed our two year old couch. Two boards in the support frame had completely split and the whole couch sank in the middle. What!?! So we've been eating a lot of fast food since this whole project started...and maybe I kinda let the membership at the gym lapse...a year or so ago...Let's not talk about it anymore. The couch is fixed.

Moving on.

On the same day that we did our furniture repair, drawer slides and cabinet filling, we also FINALLY mounted the bathroom wall cabinet:


And I am pleased. Yes, this room is also still a mess, and no none of these colors photographs well together, and yes the window is still covered in paper towels (even though you can't see it.; full disclosure and all that). Add it to the long list of shit we have to deal with, which includes unpacking so that I can find my jewelry pouch and two favorite black t-shirts that have all gone awol since the move, as well as this big ass hole in the hallway ceiling:


There was an old attic fan here-- you pulled a cord in the pantry, and that cord you see there pulled a piece of plywood back from a grate in the ceiling. Unfortunately, that attic fan is no longer functional, and we'd like to put a new one in, but that's not in the cards right now. So this will become an attic access point. Which will sure as hell beat the teeny tiny space in the pantry.

So, um, that's the main stuff...My dog has finally come to live with us, more than ten years since I left home. He was kind of the family dog, but was always definitely mine. A bit of a "one-owner" kind of situation. My mom was allergic to him and he was quite a barker in his day, so he really didn't get a lot of attention. Now, he and the kiddo have become fast friends and he's quietly taken to sleeping on my pretty monkey grass, smushing it totally flat. Next step will be bringing over his boon companion, the cat who thinks she is a dog. More about her when she makes the move.

Watching from the sidelines

I feel so left out. Everything is happening without me these days at the house. Very little was accomplished beyond putting away some clothes this weekend; the kiddo had a horseback riding thing (Sounds very swish, doesn't it? It was with the Girl Scouts-- I think they earned 2 badges. My Girl Scout troop didn't do anything that cool.). So we spent all day Saturday with Adam's folks while she did her Girl Scout stuff.

Anyway! I have begun the daily commute and Adam has been able to stay home and make progress toward "completion" so we can get the city off of our backs. To wit:

Lights. First, we have the easy one-- a 1950s (60s? 70s? clueless) shade to replace the crazy $4.97 shades we installed:


I'm looking at this pic and realizing now that wiping it with a dry cloth as I did isn't really cutting it. So I'll scrub it down a bit more with something more aggressive. ANYWAY. This is in the kiddo's room, and when it lights up, you can see through some of the unglazed dots so it looks like galaxies behind those big starbursts. We have a different one with metal edging and sweet little brass details that we'll put in our bedroom later. (Update: Yes, I am aware that it is a somewhat tacky shade. Whatever. I remain charmed.)

More lights. Adam had to pull out the old boxes, install newer and straighter ones and buy a new lightbulb to replace the one crushed in shipping. But the end result, is bathroom sconces that weren't Photoshopped:


Though maybe they should've been. It's still dark outside, so I'm taking this pic in the dark with the flash-- taking it with the lights on just creates glare. We may even put in lower wattage bulbs. Mind, the bathroom is still a bit of a construction zone. And the wall looks too red in that pic. Sigh. At any rate, I love them. Perfect size, and the chrome and white is marvelous. We still have to hang the wall cabinet and the shower curtain rod-- which, by the way, went even lower in price. We waited so long that by the time we got around to it, it only cost $3.

(Also, should I consider changing out the white outlets and covers on the wall with black ones? Black outlets and paint the covers to match the wall? They don't bother me a LOT...Just a little...)

Note to self: buy towel rods and vinyl film window covering to mimic old-fashioned bathroom/privacy glass TODAY.

(Yes, that is painter's tape and paper towels. Our bathroom window looks directly into the neighbor's kitchen window above their sink.)

Apparently Adam has also prepared all the trim for this sad little kitchen window:

as well as the trim for the backside of a doorway that was closed up long ago between kitchen and laundry. We drywalled completely over the hole on the kitchen side, but it's still there on the laundry side, complete with all the door trim. We'll just fill in the middle. I personally like the ghost door. It's a slight nod to the old butler's pantry that was sacrificed to the laundry/mud room.

And everyday, there's a little more walking room available within the house. He's put together the futon and desk for the office/guest room. He's set up dressers, cleaned out the pantry, set up our wireless internet, rehung most of our doors.

And this is all in addition to the plumbing. Me, I've done some laundry. Some dishes. I've cooked a few times. Maybe I'll mow this weekend.

Hey, I ordered the backsplash. I'm doing something.

Success.

Finally, things are lighting up, firing up, running and scrubbing as they are meant to. Which is a good thing, because we are a mere 3 days from M-day.

Adam's folks were awesome enough to drive their van down Saturday loaded with stuff...And it's finally not just nameless, faceless boxes-- it's personal.


It's making it feel so much more like a home. Well, that and the fact that I've been staying down there for almost a week nursing my mom and my sister through the flu.

And while the folks were here, they helped us get some final coats of paint on the walls, and Adam's dad coached him through the last of the appliance installations, thus, the lighting and firing, etc.:



When they turned on the dishwasher, and told us it was on, Adam's mom and I went literally running into the kitchen to see-- 'cause we sure weren't believing what we heard. Which was nothing-- that thing is soooo quiet. Unlike the icemaker, which tumps a load of still black ice (black from all the "pipes-sitting-unused" crud) and then loudly hisses water into the tray every so often. But I'll get used to it. Been a long time since I had such a convenience, so I'm not bitching. Just acclimating myself to new sounds.

Sunday, we got our base shoe cut and painted. We'll get these nailed up and then tackle painting the rest of the trim one room at a time during the spring when we can open windows and get some fresh air-- in case you missed it, our POs screwed us over a few ways with the baseboards, as in, they didn't remove them to drywall. Hence, baseboard and other trim painting will be done in situ. In place. On the wall. In the house. It's oil paint, so it's pretty stinky. We'll need a good solid spring breeze to keep us from passing out in the fumes.


Lots left to do, but at least we'll be in the house soon.

Oh-- and I got to try out the new shower curtain, bath rug, and shower head, and they were simply wonderful.

Adding to the collection...

Just got this at Linens N Things:


President's Day Sale, 20% off = $15.99 for the waffle weave of my dreams.

Found these shower curtain hooks yesterday at Bed Bath & Beyond:


Not on sale, though not so expensive that I can't get them. But I'll certainly hunt for a bargain before caving to full price!

It's the one room that we can finish, for the most part, sooner than later. This, then, is the reason for my over-indulgences.

Done and done.

Ha! If only...

Actually, we are spending this weekend at our rental house packing. We haven't done nearly enough of that and there's 10 years of accumulation (including grime that needs to be taught a lesson) which means we have our work cut out for us.

So no work on the house this weekend, but we have made some decisions. Lights for the bathroom have been ordered:I got them from Target Online, and they cost more than I wanted to spend. But I think they're really the best we've seen so far. I'll also still get my waffle-weave shower curtain, in a hotel crisp white, and we're going to go for a burgundy rug. Target had some lovely ones on clearance a week or two ago, so I'll go see if they're still there. And NO FUZZY THING on the toilet. I'm breaking with tradition, blazing a new path. It's a banner day. I think Adam will be pleased at this decision.

Then for our towel bar to be mounted under the wall cabinet, we like this:
Adam lusted after it, then I managed to find it at the Moen ONLINE OUTLET STORE!!! for $29 (originally $47 or something), and that is the cheapest I've seen it. Who knew nice towel rods were so pricey? I will be checking the stores one more time for a cheaper knock-off before committing.

Drawer and cabinet pulls were bought a while ago, but I'm waiting to slap a fresh coat of paint on the cabinets first:
We may have ended up buying these in brushed nickel (can't remember), but they'll be behind the door, so I'm less concerned with their consistency in the shiny chrome business.

I'd also like to have a nice new shower rod that isn't a tension rod-- if the tension kind aren't in there perfectly, then the first time you pull your towel off, you end up in the tub unconscious and wrapped in your shower curtain. Or so I've heard; no personal experience to back that up...Anyway, I have to admit, the one that was in there was in pretty good, even if it was a tension rod. I started to paint around it, and then caught myself-- "Stupid you! Take that thing down and paint the whole wall!!" That's what I did. And I found a little circle of this wallpaper underneath. Clearly, this thing hadn't been off the wall in many, many years. At any rate, Lowe's had some chrome rods that attach to the wall on clearance for $5, but I'm not sure I want to screw into the window trim, which I think I would have to do. More investigation is necessary.

But we're coming together.

To fuzzy the toilet seat cover, or not to fuzzy the toilet seat cover

So I'm sitting here nursing a headache and trying to work myself up to getting back to work, when I started to wonder-- do people use those fuzzy toilet seat covers anymore?

I always have-- they're warm. They're fuzzy. And they add one more little splash of color to an otherwise blasé beige/white space. Without consideration, I had sort of figured I'd get one for this bathroom. And yet...

It just doesn't seem right. Am I rebelling from my previous ways? Have HGTV DIY design shows crept into my subconscious and convinced me of their gaucheness? Am I weary of trying to precariously navigate my way through a color scheme I don't understand? (I always handled clay much better than paint-- it's monochrome but textured.) Is it the fact that the fuzzy toilet seat cover is shag carpet for the commode? Or is it simply the fact that I really, really, really want a white waffle-weave curtain and a white soft rag-rug-- YES I KNOW I WILL BE WASHING IT 4 TIMES A WEEK, MOM!-- and the white fuzz on the white porcelain would be sort of pointless? I mean, like I said, I like monotone with texture, but maybe not 70s texture...

Or maybe it's just the fact that the elastic always wears out in about 6 weeks and I keep having to pick it up off the floor sopping wet after someone didn't close the shower curtain all the way...

Perhaps...

Have I found a suitable lighting compromise?

Polling people through my previous photoshop efforts, led me to the conclusion that perhaps the top set of lights was too old-fashioned, but the bottom set was way too tall-- I even had to lower them in the photo so they fit on screen, and they still looked too tall. However, I think all liked the vertical lines. I'm still back and forth.

But maybe these are a sort of compromise:Sorry-- I didn't even begin to have the patience to get the perspective right on that cabinet. And we'll hang a towel bar from the bottom of it...That's the plan, anyway.

Deals, deals, deals

Looks like progress, right?

Well, I think the bargain shoppers out there will know what I'm talking about here...You know when you're shopping at places like TJ Maxx a lot, and you get some really great deals...after a while, you realize you have a totally skewed view of the appropriate pricing for anything. $10 for a shirt starts to sound like waaaay too much. You could get one on the clearance rack at TJ for $2.

Maybe I'm stretching it here, but after several weeks of what seemed like steadily moving progress, this weekend felt like a $10 shirt. In reality, I know we got a lot done; but relative to the last few weeks, it didn't seem like much of a deal. We only got done about 1/4 of what we wanted (plywood and hardibacker installed and base shoe cut and installed), and about 1/2 of what we deemed our bare minimum (plywood and hardibacker). I think we had some delusions of DIY grandeur.

Anyway, while waiting for Adam to get to the house on Saturday, I managed to get one coat of paint on the bathroom walls; the second coat was finished on Sunday after he left to get the kiddo back to her mom's house. At first, it went on very, very red, and all I could do was say, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." Don't really know why it worried me-- it's just paint. But it turned out to be a very nice color match. I love it.



Then we made the trip to Lowe's for all our countertop supplies. We left with some great inside info, so take note if you've got a tile project on the horizon: the girl at the counter said she overheard the guys in flooring say that they'd be putting a lot of tile on sale soon-- 50% OFF!!-- to make room for new product. I'd resigned myself to sticky vinyl in the laundry room in the interests of money and time. But now that I know I could get a good deal if I just wait, I'll probably keep an eye on the tiles.

The countertops were a nightmare that I'm not going to detail too much-- basically, the cabinets and the plywood and the floors were all uneven in their own special ways. Lots of shimming, screwing, unscrewing and the addition of a support beam in the far corner, finally got us to a point where we feel at least ok with the levelness and evenness of the plywood underlayment. But that, including cutting out the sink and adding supports for the sink clamps and supports for the plywood to screw into, took a long time. We didn't really have time left to install the Hardibacker. Hopefully, we'll get to it later this week.

This morning, I really had no energy for major work. So I went shopping! For house things, of course. Sales everywhere, people, I'm telling you: every place I went had great bargains. The best was the stainless steel step trash can I bought for $10! It was dented, but it took me 5 minutes to even find the ding; and it included a mini can for the bathroom.

Then I spent some time filling nail holes in our trim. They look diseased now.

So that's the progress. Looking back at it, it seems like we actually got a lot done. We're just back to projects where we don't know what the hell we're doing. Guess we just got a little spoiled.

Fun with Photoshop

My dad used to dream of the day when we could just literally Photoshop the world around us. Hole in the wall? Grab that rubber stamp tool! Dead limbs on the tree? Lasso and cut!

Anyway, we're not there yet, but...really...so close.***

I can't decide between 2 very different lights for the bathroom and, even thought the bathroom isn't painted, and the mahogany-walnut colored cabinet isn't in place yet, I was able to see into the future!

Well, you know, a very ragged, badly dropped-out, cut-and-paste sort of future:





***Note:Wall color? All wrong. It will be closer to color of dark tile. Size and position of lights? I used what used to be there as a guide. In other words, likely all wrong as well. Brownish-red blob on the right will be the new cabinet. Shut up-- I'm working with a dumbed down limited color palette.

Then again, the best laid plans...

I had a little delay getting started yesterday. Once I got going, I decided to strip the remaining block of wallpaper above the toilet, then I could paint the bathroom, paint the kitchen, and slap one more coat of poly on the kitchen floor on my way out.

Those are small rooms. Simple plan, right?

I should know better.

The wallpaper peeled right off, at first. About 15 minutes into my project, I decided to document this ugly stuff for posterity:



2 1/2 hours, one spray bottle of water, 3 different paint scrapers, one box cutter, one smearing of joint compound, a half a roll of paper towels, and an overuse of the f-word later...



Ta-da!



So I didn't end up having time to paint the bathroom...But on a more productive note, I got one more coat of poly on the kitchen floor, and a coat of Yellow Frost on the kitchen walls:





Now we begin work on removing the particle board countertop, installing plywood, and finally installing the granite tile...Any tips here will be especially welcome, particularly involving laying out the 12" squares!!!

I love it when a plan comes together.

This jetlag business has its benefits; I was up, showered and dressed by 7 this Saturday morning. And our early start yielded a lot of good results.

We chose our base shoe and found the cheapest price.

We picked a red paint for the bathroom: Spanish Tile from Lowe's Valspar red tinted base colors. Also narrowed it down to 2 yellows for the kitchen. We got quarts of each and tested them. I've been left to make the final decision, which I believe will be Yellow Frost from the Waverly Home series at Lowe's. Perhaps tomorrow will yield pics of some painted rooms...

We got the remaining top kitchen cabinets hung:



There's still A LOT that we couldn't solve here...one cabinet simply has to hang a bit lower than the others. Hopefully, we can hang one set of doors a bit lower and one set a bit higher so there's not a huge discrepancy in the door heights.

We got the floor gaps filled; we investigated the kitchen floor crack and it is not NEARLY as bad as I expected. It seems to expand and contract with the weather and isn't something we really need to worry about. Knock on wood.

Then, while wandering around Home Depot pricing base shoe, we found a wall cabinet for the bathroom on clearance (!!!) and I ran across two $35 wall sconces at Lowe's that I like almost as much as the $85 ones from Rejuvenation. Well, with the $100 difference taken into account. I'm still talking myself into needing them in the first place. I just have a completely irrational hatred of the existing bathroom lights.

And last but certainly not least, we MOVED the first van load of our crap.



Now we're getting somewhere.