November 2004

November 28, 2004: We're still not dead.

Nor have we given up on the house, checked into rehab, or joined a cult. And no, the Mother Ship has not finally come to retrieve us.

Sincere apologies to those whom we have gravely offended (unintentionally, of course) throughout our lives such that they have wished one or more of the above fates on us, or others that we've not imagined, but still haven't come to pass.

It's just that, somehow, after we got back from Vermont last month, we didn't do anything.

We didn't plan to not do anything, really.

It's just that, well... We just didn't. Do anything, that is.

Well, we kind of did some things...

We had dinner with friends, we had drinks with friends, we had lots of drinks with friends... We dressed our daughter in her Fairy costume and went trick or treating, we rented movies, we played games with her and took her to birthday parties, we ate and drank more with friends...

So, as you can see, we really did do stuff, just not stuff that's even remotely interesting to take pictures of and post on a website detailing the renovation of a decrepit farmhouse.

Fun? Yes!

Relevant? Eh... Maybe not.

We just kind of indulged in many weeks of laziness. It was probably the worst time to do it, of course. At the end of September, we'd been working hard to finish up repairing and replacing clapboards, trying to beat the weather, knowing that as soon as the weather turned, we'd have to start rebuilding the master bathroom we'd demolished back in March.

Jeez, we'd been living with only one bathroom upstairs for eight, solid months? Who'da thunk it. Guess we just kind of got used to tripping over each other on the way to the toilet in the morning, and waiting in line for the shower (harboring Apocalypse Now-level psychotic thoughts aimed at anyone who stayed in the shower long enough to threaten the hot water supply). Somehow we got used to both of us hovering at the same time over a single sink brushing our teeth, while our daughter kneels on the toilet so she lean over the counter and reach the same sink with her toothbrush, and the cat sits on top of the running faucet so he can lean over to swipe his paw in the water to get a drink.

Okay, okay. Jeez... give us some credit, will ya? It may have taken us a while, but we did realize, eventually, that our situation was untenable and had to change.

So we got off our lazy butts, and got working on our new master bathroom. First thing we had to do though, was side and trim a window. Back in September, we'd moved a window over a foot or two to get it out of where we want to put the whirlpool tub surround. Had this:

Reframed and re-sheathed to get this:

And then we finally resided and trimmed out the window to get this:

Oooo-Kay! No wind, no rain, no bugs. Time to focus on the inside.

First, we ran new drain lines for the tub/shower, toilet, and two sinks in the new double vanity:

Two, count 'em...TWO sinks. In one bathroom! Can you believe it? We're increasing our sink capacity by 200%. It'll be soooo freakin' outrageous! A sink for me, the Kilted One, and our daughter, and a whole separate sink for The Cat to drink out of. What luxury! It's truly the American Dream.

We were kind of buzzed, 'cause we hadn't done anything in the house for a while, and it was cool to see those many feet of fresh white PVC pipe representing the future fixtures of our new bathroom. As always though, our sense of True Being, Wellness, and Cosmic Harmony was rudely interrupted by Joey.

Because once we got the waste lines roughed in, we had to make sure the subfloor in the bathroom was solid, so we could figure out where the traps and drain lines for each fixture would actually break through the subfloor.

The problem is, though, it's hard to mark for holes in the subfloor where there isn't, actually, subfloor.

Bad Joey strikes again. Sigh...

We are getting sooo tired of making excuses for that man. We'd have given up on him long ago, if he weren't, you know... Family.

Ohhh... right. We forgot... he's not really family. In fact, we don't really know him from Adam.

But hey, we've lived with the mess he created long enough, he might as well be. We have relatives we've known since birth who've done far worse, and they still show up at holiday dinners and eat a turkey and a beef roast like nothing's wrong.

Anyway, as we were running drain lines, we discovered that he'd hacked through the floor, apparently with a healthy contingent of axes, hatchets and Viking Maces, to put in a toilet, sink and shower.

The holes in the floor excited Joey, of course, and he installed said bathroom appliances over shredded pine flooring supported by random 1 x 4 's. No wonder the toilet was listing 45 degrees left and downward everytime someone sat on it.

So our plumbing buzz was killed by having to build a subfloor, sistering patches and joists to support it:

After a week or two of work, we're now confident that the newly situated toilet won't fall through into the kitchen, and we can continue working on the master bathroom from the second floor.

And we promise that we won't, at least for a good while, disappear for months at a time to overindulge in food, wine, laziness, and good company. And if we do... we'll try to warn you ahead of time, so you don't worry unnecessarily.

That said, we'll see you the first Journal entry of December for next week's fun and games!

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