TILE DAY!

Saturday, May 11 – Dave, our daughter Kelly's boyfriend, came over this morning to help Paul tile the bathroom. Dave has laid tile quite a few times and volunteered to “help” Paul with the tile laying project – actually he was the tile man, and Paul was the tile cutter.

The floor ready for the tile.

After a few layout calculations, Dave started marking tiles to be cut and laying them as fast as Paul could keep up.

Dave teaching Paul how to cut the tile.

Paul practicing.

Dave shows Paul how to mark the tiles for cutting.

The cutting went well with only a few broken corners that Dave was able to use in other places.

The first piece. Mud.

Mud mixer.

Dave zoomed right along and within 4 hours the tiling was completed.

Dave gave Paul the honor of laying the last tile.

What a beautiful job! Dave sure did great installing the tile floor.

We are so pleased! Thanks Dave for a job well done!

We let the floor dry for a couple days and on Monday, Paul spread the grout between the tiles. That was easy and went pretty well. That will dry overnight and Paul can start finishing things up.

The finished product. We love it!

While the grout was drying, Paul converted the hall closet that contained the old washer and dryer, to a nice storage closet for Marsha.

Old

New

Marsha is thrilled with her new closet.

Paul has a little plumbing and electric to do before installing the vanity, then he'll install the medicine cabinets, lights, towel bars, shower curtains, finish up installation of the exhaust fan and install baseboards and window & door trim. Stay tuned for the next adventure.

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

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.