Poo

I had been holding off demolishing the small upstairs bathroom until the other two were ready for human consumption. Well, the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms are now fully tiled, as are the two fireplaces (photos in a subsequent blog). So, it was time to move the working toilet and shower to the downstairs bathroom.

Since I'll still have workmen and my dirty body with which to contend, I decided to only use temporary fixtures downstairs. I bought a cheap plastic tub sink and decided to move the avocado green toilet from upstairs. A one hour job, right?

I assembled the tub and discovered that the drain was made of 1-1/2 inch pipe, while the hole in the wall is sized for 1-1/4" pipe. Aaargh, I said.

Off to Depot. No one home there, so I left and went to Lowe's. A very nice sales guy opened package after package until we found a reducer. After reminding me that reducing a drain was contrary to code, I picked up a wax ring for the commode and left for the IP.

The plastic sink went together OK and connected to the drain with no problem. But the supply lines were missing their jam nuts (no, not something one eats). Off to the Ace hardware by the IP where I found the nuts at $1.29 each. I went back to the IP and assembled everything. Only one leak that was easy to fix.

I went upstairs and used an entire roll of quicker picker uppers to get the water out of the commode. Carried it down in two pieces, much to the amusement of the flooring installation guys.

Put the wax ring down and it's about 1/4 inch too tall. And one of the two hold-down studs is stripped. No problem, I put the commode on the wax and sat on it till it only rocked a little bit. And made a mental note to fix the stud before putting the real commode in. Then poured water in to make sure it drained. Which it didn't.

Off to Kathleen's apartment to borrow her plunger. And to pee, as not having a working commode made my bladder very anxious.

The plunger worked wonders, I must have forgotten a chunk of paper towels.

I then put on the tank. Gross, the connecting bolts were all dirty and the rubber bits all hard and crusty. And the inside of the tank had that gross black stuff that one can't help but to be reminded of poo.

So I got the tank attached and it leaked. Back to Ace to get a tank mounting kit. Put it all together and the seal was too long. It still leaked. Back to Ace to get a proper sized seal.

I put everything together and double washered the bolts to make sure they wouldn't leak, and finally they didn't.

Then I asked the flooring guys to make me a "Toilet is now downstairs" sign in Spanish.

I don't look forward to installing the shower.

Week of 5-14

A quick update before I head to the "office". The drywall guys are long gone, the plaster guys have been there about a week fairing in the mud between the new and old drywall. The kitchen is done, and I primed the ceiling to make painting easier when the floors, cabinets and appliances arrive.

I had a blonde moment- Walter asked me where the stove was going to plug into. I said that the stove is gas, so it wouldn't need an outlet. He politely reminded me about the oven light.

Off to Depot to buy another outlet box and 25' of 12 gage wire. Luckily I knew a way to hook things up so we wouldn't have to take down any of the brand new drywall.

The tile guys installed the tile in the master and downstairs bathrooms and around the fireplaces. Except we kept running out of tile... I need to do a better job of estimating what's needed!

I repaired the siding by the entryway.

The floor guys come today to begin putting in the hardwood floors.

Things are definitely coming together. I'll have pics soon.

Beauty

The neighbor lady across the fence has always been quite friendly and chatty. Yesterday she insisted on giving Kathleen and me a tour of her house. It's a different floorplan than the IP, and the counters are not granite, but what a back yard!



I digress. In the course of the conversation, she just happened to drop that she was a former beauty queen. Being the nosy guy that I am, I googled her and discovered......





...... SHE'S MISS AMERICA 1974!!!!!!!!!!!


Obviously she looks a bit different now, but her two daughters look just like she did.


Oh yeah, her hubby is also a well-know sculpture artist.

Small town, Denver is.

Step repaired

The front step is fixed.

Old step

Fixed step. It only cost $472, including sealing the cracks in the driveway in front of the garage. That's $28 below budget, a first!!!

Passed inspections

This week I had three critical inspections planned: electrical, rough plumbing and structural. Ruth the Electrical Inspector was the one I feared the most, however, she looked at all the changes I had made based on her last inspection and was very happy. She did tell me to put in a receptacle by the new wetbar. but that's easy. She signed off the precious permit and as she was walking out she said that I'd done a very good job. That's encouraging.

The plumbing guy was easy, he liked what he saw (moving the kitchen plumbing 12 inches north, adding a second set of connections for the master bathroom vanity, adding wetbar connections and the jacuzzi connection. He blanched at the P-trap that Frank had built and asked that it be changed. And he wanted to see the moved gas line be pressure tested.

Today he came back for the re-inspection and I passed. The good news was that pressure testing the gas line meant that I finally had to take my new air compressor out of the box and fire it up. It works, thank goodness, I doubt Sears would take it back if there was a problem after all this time.

The structural guy looked bored. He signed off on the joists I put in for the kitchen ceiling, but ordered me to change the screws from drywall screws to ones specifically for joist hangers. Lowes didn't have them, but Depot did so I got to work. Let's see... two ends per joist, 4 screws per end and nine joists makes 72 screws to unscrew and rescrew.

Know the difference between a screw and a bolt? By definition, a bolt has a nut on it. Once you take the nut off it becomes a screw. I learned that from my old mechanical engineering days.

Today I put up the insulation for the kitchen ceiling. Walter Torres and his crew start with the new drywall on Thursday. I will continue to report progress.

Week of May 7th

(This is the first of three stories I posted on Sunday, May 6th)

This week should show some long-awaited progress. The electrical and plumbing inspectors come Monday, and I don't anticipate any big problems. The structural inspector comes Tuesday to buy off on the rafters for the kitchen ceiling. Again, I've so over-designed it I don't anticipate problems, though he could be a stickler and get me on some technicality that I don't know.

Walter and his crew will be in during the middle of the week to put up drywall in the kitchen and family rooms (assuming the inspections go OK). I'll throw some paint on the kitchen, then the flooring guys can begin with the hardwood floors.

The cabinets are supposed to arrive on Wednesday, and Monday I'll order the appliances.

So far I estimate that I', 2 weeks behind schedule. And very over budget. In a future posting I'll explain the budget situation. We'll call this first one a learning experience....

Master bathroom

I'm making progress in the master bathroom. It was pretty ugly to start with- lots of black.

I tore everything out, and I mean everything. Even the floor under the tile.

I then built a new deck for the new jetted tub. It's so stout, the entire house could collapse and it'll still be standing. Too bad for the next guy who wants to remodel!

I then put 5/8th OSB (oriented strand board) over the frame, and wonderboard over the OSB. I had never heard of wonderboard, but supposedly it makes the tile job better. I hope it works, at $10 for a 3x5 sheet it's pretty pricey. And on Friday the 4th Frank and I installed the tub.

The only challenge I had was connecting the safety ground. It's a very heavy duty copper wire about 1/8 inch in diameter which is attached to the cold water pipe and to the motor chassis. Of course we forgot to attach it while the tub was out so I did it when the tub had been installed. That required laying on my belly for an hour and stretching as far as my stubby arms would allow. Very uncomfortable, let me tell you.

I was so thankful for the massage Kathleen got for me that day!