Author: susank456

I love to be outdoors, hiking, pheasant hunting, playing with my dogs. And I love to take pictures of the things I see and write about my experiences. I don't take life too seriously, I poke fun at myself and just about everybody else. I've gotten selfish as I've gotten older.

The Great Bathroom Remodel (formerly known as The Gutting of the Bathroom)

So many weeks have passed since we started the Great Bathroom Remodel.  It is now the middle of July and we started in April.  And to think that I was so sure with the two of us on vacation together we could knock out the demolition and renovation in one week, maybe two tops.  Silly me.  You can tell I have never been involved in such a huge undertaking.  I guess I really do live in a fantasy world. 

Demolition is over and rebuilding is underway.  There have been interruptions galore.  One week in the heat to replace the brake lines in the station wagon.  A few days here and there to help friends work on their cars.  Mitch just can’t say no.  Not to mention one huge temper tirade.  I thought that was the end right then and there.

The floor is tiled, the bath tub has been installed and most of the sheetrock has been hung.  Mitch is busy sanding the sheetrock as I write this.  He even has the floor to ceiling medicine closet built.  He wired the lights that will go over mirrors, cut the holes that will hold the mirrors and has plumbed all the water lines and drains for the sinks and tub.

I bought the wall paint and primer and am ready to start as soon as all the sheetrock has been hung and sanded.  The hold up now is the staining of the cabinets.  I had one cabinet stained, but because of the heat and humidity it didn’t turn out well.  The surface of the cabinet doors had dust and grit embedded in the stain.  So we had to bring them inside to the basement where it is much cooler than the garage and re-stain after sanding off all of the gritty stain.  I just love to redo everything I’ve already done.  But even in the basement with the air conditioner running, the stain is slow in drying.  We have to have the one cabinet that will go over the toilet done and in place before he can hang the last of the sheetrock.  I have two cabinets left to stain.  At this rate, I might be done staining by the second coming.

We decided on recessed lighting but haven’t found any we like yet  We haven’t picked out the counter top for the floor cabinet.  We haven’t even gone to look at anything yet.  And there’s the matter of the shower door / curtain.  We can’t decide which way to go.  Shower door or shower curtain.  Any suggestions? 

We’re still married, though at times it’s been close.

Homemade Dog Frozen Pops – Special Recipe for the Dog Days of Summer

1 – 14 oz can pumpkin

16 oz non fat plain yogurt

Mix pumpkin and yogurt together. 

Spray non stick vegetable spray in cupcake pan.  Spoon mixture into each cup and freeze.  After frozen pop out frozen pops and store in container in freezer.  Wait for hot day and watch as your dogs cools off with one.

Makes 12.

Mine love them.

The Gutting of the Bathroom – Day I’ve Forgotten

We are now into a month without the master bath.  Things are progressing slowly to say the least.  Mitch has tiled the floor and it looks really good.  He does good work.  We decided that the best course of action on the ceiling was just add a layer of quarter inch underlayment over the existing sheetrock and re-texture the ceiling.  Great idea and it fixed the ceiling faux paux, but now the ceiling height is a quarter inch lower than normal height.  A quarter inch doesn’t sound like much, except when you have had custom cabinets made to fit the room and now the room is shorter.  As Maxwell Smart said in Get Smart, “Missed it by that much!”  So Mitch has to shave off a quarter inch from the cabinet in order to make it fit.

Another new development, when Mitch measured for the cabinet over the toilet, he measured the outside of the area, not the back of the wall.  Guess what, the back wall is an inch shorter than the front of the wall.  I know, most normal people would assume that the wall should be straight, but not in this house.  Nothing is straight or level, or normal height.  In order to help solve that problem, the sheetrock has to go.  After the sheetrock was pulled off and replaced with quarter inch underlayment, we’re still five eights of an inch short.  So more shaving.

One step forward, two back.  It’s starting to wear on us.  At least we’re still married.

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day 15

Day 15 I had to go to the doctor’s office today for a tetanus shot.  I woke up this morning to a red itchy rash on both arms and put two and two together.  I know it doesn’t sound like the two are linked, but on day one I cut my arm on the house.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, cleaned up the blood and put a band aid on the cut.  For days I carried sheet rock, old boards and other various dirty things to the car dump.  The same thing happened to Mitch last year, that’s the only reason I even thought about it.  About two weeks after he had worked on the exhaust system underneath the El Camino, rolling around in dirt and rust where he scratched up his arms pretty good, he broke out in a red itchy rash and his joints started aching.  He went to the doctor’s office and yes he needed a tetanus shot.  My last one was fourteen years ago, so I was due.

This day turned into one step forward, ten back.  I had ordered lights for the mirrors online and went they arrived, the lights were way too big and had cloth shades.  Nowhere on the web site did it describe the shades as cloth.  Cloth won’t work in a humid environment.  I returned them to the home improvement store and found out I didn’t all of the necessary paperwork.  That meant a trip home to print out some shipping confirmation that had a barcode on it so that the same store that I ordered from could read and then authorize a return.  Isn’t technology great?

Meanwhile, Mitch is diligently trying to measure, cut and lay the underlayment so that he can tile the floor, but things didn’t go so well.  A couple of catastrophes interrupted that.  A flat tire and a tire store that can’t even look at the tire for 2 hours in order to determine if it can be repaired or if a new tire is needed. 

I’m trying to get all of the errands done, take back lights, buy new lights, stain for the cabinets, dirt and tomato plants for the garden, (and get them in the ground) because it’s time to plant.  Oh and don’t forget doctor’s appointment.  All of this and be done and cleaned up in time for a retirement, birthday and welcome home party this afternoon.  Our friends like to multi-task too.

At least we’re still married.

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day 9

Day eight was demolition day.  We cut a hole in the living room wall adjoining the bathroom.  This was done in order to get the icky tub and vanity out of the room and to get the new tub in the bathroom.  Mitch finally broke down and let me use some of his power tools.  He let me use the sawsall and it was fun.  We cut up the old ugly bathtub and carried it out in pieces to the El Camino to wait for the city clean up day and go away forever.  Mitch removed the cracked cast iron sink from the vanity and it went to wait with the bathtub.  I personally hauled out the “lovely” faux wood grain counter top out to the truck.  We dragged the vanity out of the bathroom to the living room, but someone with a lot more “lead in his pencil” will have to help Mitch get it out of the house.  It is really heavy.  Mitch didn’t want to cut it up, not sure why.  I would have. 

We were able to remove the huge honkin mirror from the wall and carry it outside without breaking it.  We carefully laid it on top of the old station wagon mirror side up so that the birds will see themselves flying over head.  Mitch removed the sheetrock from the walls that will hold the new tub.  It’s surprising how big the room is empty. Eight foot by ten foot, as big as some tiny bedrooms.

Day nine Mitch’s vacation is over and had to go back to his real job.  I think he’s really glad to get back and get some rest.  This means that this is going to take longer than we (I) thought.  So for now, we have to shower in the basement bathroom.  Woo hoo.  Sadly, my vacation is over too.  I have to go back to work tomorrow.  But we’re still married.

Charlie and Orso Playing While We Work on the Bathroom