Heavy Delivery

The heat wave continues. The high temperature for today was 99 degrees.

Prior to my piano lesson tonight, my friend Mark stopped by with his little truck packed full of cast iron and porcelain. It was our new bath tub. We unloaded it into the garage. That MoFo is heavy. It will remain there until I am ready for it in the bathroom. I'm hoping that means the end of July. 

If it turns out to be there longer than that, then I shall begin a shame spiral.

Solstice 2015

I made a conscience effort prior to the start of the party to remember to pull out the camera and snap some pictures.

This was the best picture I got.

I also got a good shot of the food.

But that was about it. I basically forgot to take pictures.

For the few who showed up, there was great food and cold cold beer. I don't blame anyone who stayed away. It was HOT! And I'm sure that is why we had such a low turn out. The other alternative is that we are not that popular and I just don't see that.

I am not complaining. We had a party and people came. I don't think we had more than 30 people. That's more beer for me.

We went through almost all of my 5 gallons of homebrew, a lovely clone of Alaskan Amber. And everyone who showed up got to see the bathroom in transition.

The official, record breaking high temperature for the day was 102. It was about 89 when we went to bed at 1AM.

Susan and I are both glad it is over.

I used my time machine to go ahead a day and snatch tomorrow's headline, which I think is an appropriate legacy with which to remember this weekend.

The paper is reporting that the official temperature for today was 105, the hottest recorded at the airport since August 4th, 1961.

That is also the temperature I recorded on the deck, in the shade, just a little bit ago.

Preppin' for a Party

One nice thing about having a party is that the house gets all cleaned up and straightened. For a couple of days, you actually live in the place that you want the rest of the world to think you live in. 

We have been doing all the final touch ups on the yard and the house and Susan is in a fury of food prep.

I suspect a low turn out due to the heat. It is already over 100 degrees.

I think this is one of the prettiest sights on earth.

This is even prettier.

Happy Solstice (One Week Late) to all who are celebrating.

Here Come Da Heat

Susan is working a Spokane Shock game tonight and I am on duty to complete some jobs prior to tomorrows Solstice (one Week Late) party.

I've got to get some lights up, do some finishing touches on the yard and try to stay cool.

It looks like we are in for a heat wave weekend.

Rants and $$$

I have stuff to report but first, a rant about Coffee Hipster Doofusses. Or is it Doffussi? Whatever it is, it prevents me from getting a decent cup of coffee in the morning.

Let me start by saying I am no coffee purest. I load in the sugar. Coffee on it's own is not for me. I can get along without cream but I must have the sweet.

While I can defer the creamer, my preference is for a creamer of the chocolate variety, making a nice soothing mocha with which to start my day.

But can you find a flavored creamer that is just chocolate? The answer is "NO!"

They have vanilla (not bad), hazelnut (nope), Pimento with ginseng (NOOOOOOOOO!). All I want is a delicate chocolate tint to my coffee. But there is nothing even close...or it is sold out. That alone should tell these grocery people what to stock.

I've been forced to buy a little bottle of Nestles Quik and use that, AND IT'S NOT CUTTING IT!

See what I'm like when I don't get my coffee!

Two major purchases in as many days is moving us onto the cutting edge of the cutting edge.

I bought a Dremmel side cutting saw ($89.00). I need to get in close to the walls in the bathroom to clear the ledge where the sub floor will rest. Chiseling the old floor boards was not cutting it. (Pun intended) It appears that the old sub floor went down before the walls went up. That makes it very difficult to remove the flooring.

Anyway, I'm plugging away at the walls and hopefully will have some subflooring down on Sunday.

The other big purchase was a long overdue NEW LAWN MOWER. My old Craftsman Tecumseh had finally thrown in the lug wrench. It lasted for almost 18 years and that was after I bought it at a Pawn Shop. So it served me well and I felt a twinge of guilt as I turned it over the Country Homes Power for a $50.00 credit towards my new HONDA Double Bladed Power-Torque Mulching Lawn System (499.99 plus tax).

That's right! It's not just a mower. It's a Lawn System. I think that allows them to charge an extra $150.00 for it.

That five hundred bucks includes an extended warranty with annual servicing.

I mowed last night and it was quite fab. The mower has two features that really made it attractive. Number One: a really big opening to the grass catcher which makes dumping the grass much easier than my old mower. Number B: Susan paid for half of it.

On top of all this activity, we are two days away from our annual Solstice Party. We are a week late because Susan had to work last Saturday at a giant event. So we put it off until this Saturday. We've been slowly cleaning and preparing for a couple of weeks now so we have not experienced the level of stress that normally oozes from Susan and runs downhill to me.

A bunch of food is already prepared, the homebrew is in the keg, and the grounds are acceptably ready. Not great, just acceptable.

And of course, we will be one bathroom short.

Here's a digital version of this years invitation. Sorry I can't make it any larger. If you double click on it, it comes up pretty clear.

Plumbing Accomplished.

I was told the Plumbers would arrive between 8:30 and 9:00. At 9:35, I called and was told they are on their way.

I got them set up and left them to do their work when they arrived at 9:50. Rick said he expected to be finished by 3.

I drove up at 5:30 and there were two Plumbers trucks in the driveway. "This doesn't bode well.", I thought to myself.

I went back to see what was going on and there were three guys working away. It had not gone as well as Rick expected.

The drain for the toilet went surprisingly easy, I guess. Above is a picture of the old drain line and the new one.

The problem they ran into concerned the joists on the southern third of the floor...the newest section of the floor. The half inch plywood that had been the floor was supported by a ridge shelf all the way around the floor area and two 2x6's. A 2x6 does not meet code for a floor and it's even less supportive when one drills a 4 inch hole through the board.

So Rick bought some 2x8's to sister to the 2x6's. That seemed to do the job, but of course, added a lot of time to the job.

They finally got out of there a little before eight.

Count Down to Plumbers

The Plumbers will be here on Wednesday so the bathroom must be ready for them.

I believe I achieved bathroom preparedness today.

I'm trying to figure out the provenance of what went on in this space. I know that the wall we took down was originally an outside wall. At some point, an addition was added that extended the bottom of the stairwell and made the kitchen larger.

But there are three different sub floors in the space. The north third of the floor is the expected sub floor of rough cut planks laid down with a little space in between them.

The southern third is 3/4 inch plywood over 2x6 joists that are not placed according to code.

The weird part is the middle third. It is tongue and groove planking painted green that was probably a very small narrow porch floor at some point.

I don't think I'm ever going to know what has gone on in this space.
I can only talk about what is going to occur in this space. That story will continue on Wednesday.

Mo Deestrukshun

A little more progress has been made in the bathroom.

For starters, we spent $2,900 for a new bath tub, faucet and drain. Since that's most of our budget, we're finished.

Here's what it looks like right now.

My job for tonight was to try and get as much of the ceiling down as possible. The Plumbers will need access in order to connect venting.

I did pretty well. The last vestige of burgundy wall and ceiling is gone forever.

This weekend will be removing the flooring. More access for the Plumbers. They have a difficult enough task in front of them as it is.

Susan has been upstairs cleaning in preparation for the upcoming Solstice party, this year being held one week late. We have gotten a good jump on the cleaning. And when I say "we", I mean her.

A Grand Post

This is my One Thousandth Post. Nobody Cares. Let's talk about something important.

I have not reported on the bathroom progress because there has been none.

We have run into a problem concerning plumbing. However, after much consulting with a variety of Plumbing Persons, we are now ready to proceed. The cost to move some plumbing around is going to be $1,500.00.

The cost for the new bath tub is about $2,400.00. Add another $250 for the faucet and we are up to just over four grand. We haven't even talked about tile, the in floor heat, and all the assorted finishing items. My hope was to keep this to $5,000 but clearly, we will be breaking 6K in no time.

The Plumbers are scheduled for the 17th. Before they get here, I have to pull up all the sub flooring and a couple of steps on the old stairs.

I'll chronicle it all as it occurs.