26. May 2008 by admin.

Our bathroom is the one room we can say feels “complete”. It was lacking some storage, so we purchased the tall two-door cabinet and the wall cabinet over the toilet. Now we have ample storage for our toiletries and towels. We also decided to get some new accessories to match the white/chrome “color” scheme. Along with the new items on the sink, we also got a new toilet seat (the old one had some stubborn stains - eww) and toilet handle. We still have some adjusting to do on the handle as it’s too close to the sink cabinet now. Tom also installed a new shower curtain rod. The old one was quite rusty. I cut my hand in the process. Good thing my tetanus shot is current. All in all, we can find all necessary items for getting ready in the morning in our new, organized bathroom.

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26. May 2008 by admin.

So this was my(Tom) Memorial Day.

We wanted to remove the washer spout in the kitchen and move the water pipes going up to the bathroom into the same channel as the sewer pipe. The pipes were running under the joists on the ceiling because they changed where the bathroom was upstairs a while ago and in order to cover up the new piping, the previous owners just put in a dropped ceiling over the pipes. So not only would removing the pipes free up the ceiling, it would also free up a lot of space on the wall so we could put a dishwasher in.

The easiest (I think best too) way to do this was to remove the nest of copper pipes and put in PEX tubing. PEX (the white tubing) is very flexible as you will see in some of the pics; you can make 90 degree turns without any joints. For the interior wall joints I used SharkBite joints which are can be used with copper and PEX. They are compression fittings that you simply push onto the pipe and thats it!

So far everything has been faucet, toilet, and shower tested.

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25. May 2008 by admin.

The kids down the street figured we MUST have children since they saw our Volvo wagon in the driveway. Now the Volvo and Howie (the Golf) have a spot just for them.

Tom discovered that our entire sidewalk was lined with brick. The grass had grown over it on both sides, so we borrowed a spade and went to town.

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25. May 2008 by admin.

When we bought our house, we knew the kitchen was going to get updated right away. There was a sink, a stove and a few old overhead cabinets. There was a suspended ceiling that we didn’t like with not much lighting and the floors were in poor shape.

So after a few weeks of demo, the ceiling and walls are completely bare. It took a while because the plaster was in bad shape and I wanted to remove all of the lath (wood strips behind the plaster to support it). Some of the insulation is still hanging in there, so the more we can keep up the better. The plan is to have about 9 recessed lights in the ceiling and maybe a pendant above the sink.

Knob and Tube wiring that has to be updated! Yeah!

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