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I slept in until 8:30. Susan got up about 9. We had late night at the fire pit. Perhaps I covered it in the previous post.
We made a fabulous breakfast of Eggs Benedict since we still had Hollendaise Sauce left over from last night. A great start to a great day.
Since we have been sooooo awesome over the last two days with respect to the bathroom project, we are using today to work in the yard. Specifically, we have to get our front yard flower beds into better shape.
When we built the retaining walls for the garden beds a few years ago, we used dirt from a local landscaping company (Whitkoph) to fill them up. We used what they called Garden Blend. From that name, I concluded that this was the ideal dirt to use in a garden.
I was wrong! They could have told me that it would be prudent to add some sort of mulch or compost or peet moss to make the garden blend less like concrete, which is what it turned out to be...but they didn't!
So now, we are adding peet moss. I am up to $70.00 worth of peet moss and I think that will be enough. I have a little roto-tiller and I have already completed work on the western expanse of front yard garden. Now I have to do the eastern expanse.
The only minor complication is the weather. I woke up to thunder about 4AM and when I went to the bathroom, I saw a cascade of rain raining rain down upon the place where I reign. Well, where Susan reigns and allows me to help.
Anyway, the rain barrels are again full and the ground is mushy. The grass didn't need any additional water but it looks like more rain is coming today so they need to be drained. I solved the problem by letting the barrels empty onto the yard.
I called it a complication but that is not really the word. It would be nice if the weather was a sunny and warm as the last two days when we were working indoors. And yet, a cool day in the yard without getting rained on is okay as well.
Timing is not our...uh...ya'know...um...thing.
I am going forth to the yard now and will report back as rest breaks require my presence and participation.
4:50PM: We have not only completed our gardening chores, but we have already been to and returned from the Hub.
Everything went well with the roto-tilling and the planting.
There really is not much more to add than these pictures.
Wow! What a day!!
It started off in the morning when we woke up. Then we dressed ourselves in raiment's of gold and worshiped at the alter of our former synigoggery. Really! Our church used to be a Jewish Temple.
After we were cleansed of our sins, we went forth unto the world to sin s'more. WE missspelllled words and spoke unkindly to squirrels and ate of pig meat in the form of bacon and chicken in the form of eggs and stimulants in the form of coffee. With Bailey's Irish Cream.
So we were really hitting our stride.
Then we got to work. Today's goal was to finish the gut. That required getting the east side wall down to the studs and removing the linoleum down to the sub floor.
It took us less than a hour to get this point shown above.
Next was the floor. We had no idea if this was going to go well or not.
It went well. I broke out my worm drive saw and cut the floor into sections and then we just pried the sections up. It was a breeze.
We decided we are going to replace the entire sub floor as we had some issues with former mold and possibly rotting wood surfaces.
It all went remarkably well and even with our late start, we were done by four and on our way to the Hub.
From there, we called Mark, whom we had invited to dinner. He joined us at the Hub as we finished of a pitcher or three. Don't worry, they were small pitchers.
After a fabulous dinner of Barbecued Filet Mignon and grilled Asparagus with Hollendaise Sauce, we lit up the first pit fire of the summer.
It was at that point in the evening, as the stinky pee started to trickle, that we decided you cannot have a holiday without hollendaise.
Be prepared for Pictures Galore today .
The project of the Memorial Day weekend was to get busy on the bathroom remodel. And that's what we did.
Here are pictures from the four corners of the newly enlarged space.
Southeast Corner
Southwest Corner
Northwest Corner
The Other Corner
The goal today was to remove the tub, toilet and sink and get the north wall down to the studs.
Removing the stuff was not too bad of an ordeal although I had to make three trips to the General StoreTM to complete capping off water lines and a sewer.
I had a little difficulty with the toilet and the bathtub. The water lines for the tub are so close to the wall it was difficult to remove the crusty old valves.
I couldn't even turn the valve on the toilet so I just removed the whole thing. It was a tight space and tough to get started. Since the toilet is moving anyway, I would have had to remove that valve eventually.
Then it was time to get to work on the plaster and lath that was partly hidden by draw wall.
Finally, our long national nightmare of this pink and burgundy bathroom is over.
We have one wall remaining to get to studs and then we will be moving on to pulling up the linoleum.
An interesting difficulty crossed our path. Now that we are down to one bathroom, the toilet upstairs has developed a problem. For no other reason than it is now our only toilet, the water turn off valve attached to the float in the tank stopped working. The toilet just runs. So now we have to turn off the water from the valve in the wall after we flush.
Echo Betsy is messing with me.
We got a late start at our endeavors today but started them we did and even finished them, we did. Sounding like Yoda, I am.
I really wanted to start tearing into the bathroom some more but we decided that the front garden, and the condition of our Arbor Vitae's was more pressing. Besides, I was able to do a little work in the bathroom yesterday. Plus, I got the lawn mowed...a much needed chore since we had been gone for over a week.
So I broke out the many hand tools of gardening destruction and a few power tools as well.
Susan worked on the walled garden at the front of the house while I concentrated on cleaning out under the shrubbery. I'm guessing we haven't done it in five years. I base that on my feeble memory and the amount of fibrous detritus that my leaf blower hurdled skyward.
We were out there for about four hours and did a pretty good job. The front gardens are ready for some roto-tilling where I will be adding a great deal of peet moss to the ground dirt in order to try and change its consistency from something resembling cement.
I should add that it rained yesterday which means it was the second opportunity I had to see how the new rain barrels worked. From the storm we had on Wednesday, we filled both barrels, 80 gallons total. Same story for the rain storm we had yesterday. Both barrels were right up to the top. I currently have them attached to soaker hoses that are watering the shrubs.
It's pretty amazing to me that we got 80 gallons out of those storms. That's FREE WATER! I really should try filtering it and sterilizing it and using it for my Kool-Aid.
The day is now coming to a close and we are sore, which means we did something today. I can sleep on that!
I am writing from Rancho Mirage, California.
We are on Vacation and having a wonderful time.
We left Spokane on Monday morning and drove as far as Klamath Falls, Oregon. That was our goal for the first day.
On Tuesday, we drove about six hours to my sister's place near Sacramento. We spent the night there and had a nice, but quick visit.
On Wednesday, we set our GPS on Palm Springs and drove for nine hour...about 45 minutes of that consisted of sitting in traffic in L.A.
So here we are in the desert visiting Mom and Margie Stanton. They are quartered in a place that looks like a movie set. It is perfect and ideal. There is not a leaf out of place.
The weather so far has been very temperate, very comfortable. There was a wind storm that came up yesterday afternoon and lasted well into the evening.
It looks like today will be cloudy and cooler, but not by much, I'm guessing.
I am of course, not publishing these posts until we return home. There is no need to advertise that the house is empty. Especially when that is not really the case.
My neighbors are watching the house and Phil is there working on the bathroom. We should have an almost clean slate to start work on when we return.
In the meantime, the order of the day is to lay about and be quiescent, sluggish and languorous.
Yup! I brought my thesaurus!
First, let me remove the item that is heavy on your mind right now. Susan ran Bloomsday and completed the course in 1:33:something.
It was a beautiful day for a road race in Spokane. The totals are coming in and I can say for sure that over 47 people ran the race.
According to the Bloomsday website, 45,000 ran. I'm sticking with my number.
But enough about Bloomsday! Let's talk about something important.
An important decision was made today that will effect the bathroom remodel. We have decided to remove the exterior door that is currently in place.
We have always thought how nice it would be after hot tubbing to be able to walk right into the bathroom. Well, now that the wall is down, we are starting to see some space issues in the reality of actual space. We have come to the conclusion that we would rather move the toilet over by the door than have a door.
We've done fine over the last several years walking into the kitchen after hot tubbing and then moving on from there. There is really no need to have a door there. I can make arguments for both sides of the issue. But when it comes down to it, removing the door totally changes our design features for the better.
It is official! Our summer remodeling project is underway.
The main floor bath is about to be transformed from a hideous, cramped tomb of pink tile and burgundy walls into an capacious oasis of luxury, tranquility and soothing earth tones.
I am hoping to be done with this in two months. I think that is a fair time table. So, by July Fourth, this project will be complete.
There's no way!
Adjustments to follow.
I shut down the gas last night and drained the radiators. I still can't get over how much water that system holds. It took a good solid 45 minutes before the water stopped draining.
So, we are now officially without heat. I think it will be okay as we do have portable space heaters that we can use as needed.
I drained everything because we are going to start on the main floor bathroom remodel. We will be exposing the wall tomorrow. That means knocking off all the plaster and lath and taking out the studs. It is a weight bearing wall so we will need a beam put in place. That's what I use Phil for.
Pictures to follow!
