BATHROOM RENOVATION MOVING RIGHT ALONG

Week of May 6 – Having completed the framing, Paul tackled the copper supply lines and the waste lines. Nothing too tricky here but it's been awhile since Paul did any copper line installation.

This was the scary part…drilling the holes for the spout and shower head.

With the walls up. Paul checks for plumb.  Right on the mark!

With the bathtub surround completed Paul set his sights on dry walling. Dry walling is NOT a fun job. It's tough, dirty, and exhausting. The walls went up fairly well. It was then time to tackle the ceiling. Now that is not a one man job.

It's impossible to hold a heavy 4X8 sheet of drywall over your head and screw it in place at the same time. Sooooo....he had to recruit a helper. Come on down......Marsha! What a trooper. She really is willing to help when Paul needs another set of hands.

Of course, she suffers a height disadvantage so it's pretty difficult to hold those dry wall sheets over her head for very long. So Paul loaned her his biking helmet so she could use her head. Now isn't that a cleaver idea?

She did awesome and we had the ceiling done in no time. Paul spent the rest of the day finishing up the dry walling, taping the joints, and cleaning things up. Thank goodness Marsha helped with the cleanup because Paul was about to keel over!

Why the two colors of drywall you ask? The green around the tub is water resistant drywall, the white is the normal type.

The next day, Paul applied joint compound to the drywall seams, installed some cement board on the floor and began the rough-in for the new toilet location. He has to cut the cast iron sewer pipe and convert it to 3” ABS plastic. That's a first for Paul. Never did the cast iron thing before.

Paul rented a cast iron pipe cutter from Home Depot tool rental department and almost died trying to cut that pipe. After two and a half hours of pushing and pulling that cutter ABOVE his head, he gave up and took the rental tool back.

He purchased a diamond tipped blade for his sawzall and that did the trick. Should of thought of that method in the first place...jeesh!

Once cut, Paul easily glued up the 3 inch ABS plastic pipe and made the connection for the new toilet location and installed the toilet. He then ran the necessary copper supply line, patched the holes in the floor left by the old toilet and glued and nailed cement board down to complete the preparation for tiling the floor.

On Saturday, Dave, Kelly's boyfriend, and Paul will lay the ceramic tile. Dave has done this many times before. He even has a tile cutter. This will be a first for Paul. Let you know how it goes. Everyone keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day.

 

NEIGHBORHOOD AUCTIONS

Wednesday, May 8 – The bathroom renovation is moving along nicely. We will give an update in the next blog.

Besides taking care of house needs, we have been enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having here in Ohio and visiting with family and friends.

Last Friday night, we were invited to a 50th birthday party for our dear friend George.

Paul and George after a few beverages.

Among the guests was a dear friend of Cindy's, Marlene. Marlene brought her mother along for the celebration. Now we all thought 50 was getting up there, Marlene's mom, Nadine, is 100!!! She will be 101 in June. The Mariachi Band stopped at our table to helped make their celebration even more memorable.  They played a special song just for Nadine.

Doesn't she look wonderful for 100.

We had a wonderful time helping George celebrate his birthday, and getting to know Nadine. Thanks for the invite, George and Cindy.

A little happy birthday wish from Cindy to George. We think the band members in the background were a bit jealous.

We had not one but two auctions in our neighborhood in the past week. We have never attended an auction together, so we decided to make this another first. Marsha fell in love with the bidding…you know what that means. Her hand was up on several occasions. Sometimes she won, but most of the time she didn't. She left the first auction so full of herself. She bought tons of stuff for only $10. Of course, she said she needed it all. Paul even made one purchase.

Marsha's very needed stuff. This all cost a whopping $4.00

$4.00

Her buy for the day…$2.00

Life is good here in Canton. We are enjoying visiting our family and friends.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day.

RENOVATION IS IN FULL SWING

Week of April 29 – RV makes for good replacement bathroom during construction! With Paul remodeling the bathroom we need a place to take our showers. The 5^th wheel fits the bill to a tee.

We are doing the remodel in a couple stages so we are not entirely without use of the toilet and sink. As a matter of fact, we are moving the toilet location so the new toilet will be installed before the old one is removed.....that's a relief.

Before the remodeling.

So with the bathroom facilities covered, Paul began removing the handicap shower. He first shut off the water to the control valve, cut the supply lines, removed the drain lines, and began tearing down the walls. He will be removing everything back to the stud walls.

The handicap shower was installed by a local bathroom remodeling company and it looked quite nice with a professional looking finish. Underneath the finish, Paul did not find any glaring examples of poor workmanship. All-in-all it was a pretty good remodeling job.

One thing he did find that was disappointing was no insulation in the walls. He'll take care of that before drywalling. They did install a vapor barrier but it would have made sense to install insulation in this cold climate.

With everything stripped down to the bare studs (boy, the room sure looks bigger!), Paul patched the floor, screwed the floor to the joists to eliminate some squeaks, checked everything for plumb and level, and began framing the walls for the bathtub surround.

Paul only has to build two walls for the bathtub but they must be plumb and meet the requirements illustrated in the installation manual. Not much room for an error in this construction project.

Once the framing was complete, Paul tackled the copper supply lines and the waste lines. Again, this must be installed to the exact requirements of the installation manual. Nothing too tricky here but it's been awhile since Paul did any copper line installation.

Paul then insulated the wall behind the tub/shower for some soundproofing benefits since the back wall of the bathroom is a common wall with the living room. Should help keep it warm in the bathroom too.

While Paul is busy inside, Marsha is busy outside. She cleaned 3,737 pine needles. Now, multiple that by 3 and she now has 11,211 needles to add to her collection. She is going to dye the majority of them.

This is what 11,211 needles look like.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!