Running Water IS Essential

Well the bathroom renovation (complete gut and rebuild) came along well.  It shouldn't but it always surprises me how much work goes into such a small room.  Arguably the most important room the bathroom really does need to be great.  We put a lot of thought (long drawn out exhausting conversations at 2 am after way too many beers...) into the layout and composition of the bathroom. After all that hoopla we decided to only change small things, like the f*#%ing walls!  But just to keep this rant under control I'll just dish it out bullet style.

• Rip out everything in the bathroom... including whatever is nailed down
• Drywall
• Ceiling boards
• Endless blown-in insulation 
• Illegally hidden junction boxes....
• Sink, tub, and other bathroom fixtures
• Annoying walls
• Scary trap door to the basement (obviously leaving the drop of death open to any unsuspecting victim)
• Layers of flooring, yes layers...

The demolition took a lot longer than it should have mostly because I was working on my own while Jeremy was trying to keep up with seeding here in Saskatchewan.

Now this bathroom being the second to last room to renovate has taken us this long to get to because of all the previous mentioned discussions (aka: arguments).  Although we only decided to make minor changes and keep the existing foot print there is a lot of behind the walls work here.  So here is the bullet version... hahaha, bullets are my thing today.

•  Bury gigantic heavier than hell cast iron vent stack in the wall instead of having it in the middle of the room.  (I had to be on spark watch when Jeremy cut that sucker).
• Move tub and shower plumbing to the other wall, to allow for easier tap access.  
• Re-plumb sink and toilet with bright shiny new pex. 
• Install a fan that actually vents....
• Rebuild trap door 

Now of course without fail I make all kinds of crazy decisions that stretch a simple bathroom drywall job into a freaking Sistine Chapel style job.  But in truth I didn't find it so arduous as there really is a light at the end of the tunnel.  

Once the walls were smooth, perfect, (hahaha) and painted it is time to install the wiring for the heated tile.  It is a lot of work, installing the tile over top of the delicate wiring.  Mostly because I have Jeremy over my shoulder reminding me every tile not to mess up the wires.... But that's over now and I really should move on.

When we installed the tiles in the kitchen we used 1/4 inch spacers that were kinda cheap and not horribly ideal to work with.  Jeremy threw them all away in a fit of rage after we were finished.  I asked him to keep some of them, you know, "just incase".  And of course he didn't. 

Sure enough we decided to start tiling on Canada day when everyone is enjoying a cool beverage near or on a beautiful stretch of water, and every hardware store is closed.  I called everyone in town looking desperately for some spacers and was able to gather a grand total of approximately 40 spacers.  Well if you've never tiled before that just isn't really enough....  Unless your super motivated to get this floor finished!  So working carefully and robbing spacers from one area to the next we made it happen. 

With a couple base boards, and other various finishing touches we completed the bathroom (rebuild) in about two weeks.  I'm very happy with the results and even got to have a shower in the new tub the day before I left on holidays. 

Before

After

 Completion is such a sweet sweet word.  I'm absolutely in love with this bathroom, it is so much better.  If you notice the rug on the bottom right, it covers the trap door and I have another small rolling vanity there with it's own mirror, outlet and light.  The bathroom is functional and pretty, my favourite combination.

With this room done there is only the porch to go.  There is a lot happening in there but for now I'm taking the summer to do my favourite summertime things (essentially finding water and drinking beer next to it).

The Author

The Time Suckers.  I mean adventure seeking hooligans.

So Far Behind I'm Ahead

Yes before I get anymore phone calls or e-mails I know I'm exceedingly slow on writing up this post (three months).  So what goes on around here in three months well....

April 2015 the month of money

Before stain and endless coats of poly

April turned out to be the most frustrating of the renovation (as proven by my blogging absence).  It wasn't exhausting or even heart wrenching it was just calling ourselves out and putting on a couple new roofs that we never planned for nor budgeted for.  We had our buddy Jim do the work, and damn did he do a good job, but double damn it still set us back.  Other finishes have been happening around here too.  Things like staining the bathroom and bedroom doors and other miscellaneous tedious things.  The counters went onto the cabinets in April as well and all the hardware, plumbing and a couple fixtures went up.  Things are finding their place more and more everyday.

After

My pretty sink (the colour is truffle if anyone cares)

Putting the new (extremely fancy) sink into the new countertops was one of the most nerve racking moments I've had during this impossible renovation task.  I chose to go all out and buy the granite sink because it's so pretty.  Holy shit it wasn't that big when I picked it out.  See those little white dots those are the knock outs for your taps or whatever you decide to add onto the sink.  The way you make those holes is to hold a dowel on them and smash it with a hammer.... it says in the instructions that no matter if you follow them, if you break it it is not the sinks fault.... well shit.  Luckily for us Jeremy is a super genious with a hammer so we are good.

May 2015 the month of lost time and that feeling of helplessness you just can't shake

May was just a black hole.  Working for real money really blows.  Jeremy got swamped by seeding and left the majority of the bathroom (almost the last room!) in my hands.  Now I'm not adverse to a chunk of demo but as anyone who has ever read this blog before may remember the layers here are just phenomenally incomprehensible.  Layers of plywood, lino, blown in insulation, ship lap, batting insulation, drywall, extra walls, and built in cabinets.  Add the thickest layer of nails (I'm not joking I had a layer of nails) as thick as my wrist (that is an exaggeration) and yeah it was super fun.  Now I could be just a little disillusioned with demolition....  OK fine I'm just tired of it all.  But with that in mind it did get done.

Finished Roof of the Studio

Here is a clean photo of the kitchen

Although we have had a rough month I am loving the new kitchen.  When we first installed the cabinets and doors we did have one really big problem, they were pink.  Not bright pink but just pink enough to make you look twice.  After a long deliberation we decided that pink wasn't the end of the world and if it really got to us we could just wait for summer and paint them.  So we bit the bullet and put the counters on.  Once the counters were there it's like the cosmos came together and my cabinets didn't even have an iota of pink.  I know it's there but luckily enough no one else seems to see it....  If you do I really don't want to hear about it.

Missing from the above photo is my new custom built (by Jeremy) island countertop.

June 2015 just another month to loose the mind

So that brings me to June, another black hole if I don't say so myself (and I do).  It has only just begun but now with the rebuild in full swing I'm hoping we start to feel that high of accomplishment.  It just keeps looming everyday as I step over more boxes and more building supplies just to get in the fridge I can't help but feel the desire to just break for the boarder.

The bathroom progress although slow is coming on daily now.  We have all of our materials so hopefully we can stop bleeding money (for a while at least).  With mudding and taping drywall around the corner I should really wrap this gigantic update up and get at it.

Oh and just because I thought it was so funny.

Two Years And Counting

 Two years.... Well we appear to be approaching the coveted and elusive finish.  We still have endless little things and some pretty massive things at the main house to do but the studio is actually approaching the end.  Jeremy spent quite a few hours in the basement at the Studio installing this dead-sexy manifold plumbing system.  The water hadn't been turned on for over 10 years, so the town guys (Thanks Rob and Dean) came over and... well turned the crank.  Other than a slight leak at the meter everything went surprisingly well....  Jeremy is scowling at my lack of confidence, but it just seemed too good to be true.  I mean I don't think anything we have done has actually worked the first time, with the first plan.  I mean to come off without a hitch is just fundamentally confusing to me.  Then we had to see if the ancient hot water heater would work... and it did.  It's actually quite anti-climatic to tell the truth.  I'm so used to typing something more like:

"So we downed a couple beer and reassembled our thoughts into a new and more extravagant plan than before that would require twice the amount of materials and two more weeks of knee splitting work."

So yeah, now we have both a working bathroom and kitchenette.  Shout out to Clint, thanks for your help with the tub.

I suppose it all wasn't all migraine and fear free finishes.  This tub (which I adore because its soooo cute) almost gave Jeremy a coronary when he finally got his gumption up and drilled the holes for that fancy faucet.  Just to give a timeline to this renovation project I first posted about working on this bathroom in..... September, which means we probably really started in August, wow.  The bathroom still needs a mirror and some art, and that'll be it.... Yeah, that's it.  Weird. 

Imagine a big bright painting above the sink. 

 We decided that the most cost-efficient, and by that I mean most labour-intensive solution to a countertop, would be to tile it.  I originally wanted to do it in screaming red tile but when my parents arrived bearing Christmas presents I was outnumbered 3 to 1.  So large white (ahem, boring) tiles it was.  Luckily I was due for some good karma and I found the only 12 white tiles in town and bought them.

Kitchenette complete, I feel the need to devulge our dirty laundry.  By that I mean tell you about one of the largest pressure points in our marriage:

Jeremy is an average sized man standing at 5'10", I am a short...ish woman standing at 5'2"3".  These counters are 37".  Needless to say I was pissed disheartened.  Jeremy is angry frustrated.  Whenever conversation even drifts toward this topic I swear both our nostrils start flaring............  Seriously we just started arguing about it again just now............. OK done (for now).  During my research I discovered average is 36", but my argument is that I only have so many inches to spare, and it's my Studio anyway so I win.  I have decided not to force a redo, but like hell I'm going to keep my mouth shut (insert evil laugh).

The rest of the studio is slowly but surely coming together.  I need to come up with a couple more storage solutions to really eliminate the clutter but it is functioning at almost optimal capacity.  If you care about what happens in this room you could check out my other blog Quilting Curve.  Well basically all that needs to be done is some trim work, touch up painting, and transition strips between rooms.  I could get all rowdy and get into landscaping plans but I'll save that rant for spring.  I really hope this winter helps us keep up the momentum and we can move onto the massive stuff over at the main house.  I'm apprehensive to state a start, or for that matter finish date on our next project at the main house, but I'm hoping to get demolition at least started just in time to make Christmas an ordeal.  Well I'll leave with a video of the gross water coming out of the pipes for the first time, because that's always fun.

Being a Grown-Up

Well piece by piece we continue to make progress on this gigantic over ambitious top to bottom renovation.  7 weeks ago I posted about the beginning of our bedroom renovation and we have now (more or less) finished that.

We have always planned to have a bathroom in the attic and our bedroom could not be built until all of the plumbing was installed and bathroom set up.  So with the expertise of my brother in law on the phone Jeremy got it done.

• Plumbing  check
• Bathroom sub floor check
• Lino check
• Sink check
• Toilet check
• Fixtures check
• Whole bunch of finishing stuff... no check

It's becoming more and more obvious to me that as soon as we "finish" the house we will have a year of real finishing to do.  Jeremy with all of his ambition and stick-to-it-iveness just hates finishing.  And although I suppose I could just pick up some tools myself that just doesn't seem overly likely either.

Well with the attic bathroom installed (but not yet connected to the water) it was time to turn ourselves back to drywall.

 I'm pretty sure I have photos of me taping and mudding this room, but I'm so darn tired of them people must be tired of them too.

Before I painted the bedroom I did some research on colours and moods and all that non-sense.

What I found was that people who sleep in blue rooms usually sleep longer... 7 hours and 52 minutes.  People with orange rooms have better digestion, and get this people with purple rooms only get an average of 5 and a half hours of sleep a night.  But the real kicker is that people who paint their rooms caramel have more sex.

Well with all this bull shit going through my mind I just picked some dark olive colour (or the colour of sick poo, depending on your taste).  According to my research (I really mean one article I read a while ago hahaha) this colour will sooth us to sleep and help us wake up with an upbeat outlook on the day... This makes me feel better since I really didn't like the colour to begin with, but like hell I'm repainting.

We still have to refinish the floors in the room but we will be doing the entire main floor when the time comes as we will be sanding it down and staining it along with all the baseboards, doors, and staircase.  All in all I'm happy with the room, it's not big but the best we could have done in this house.

 But the real bonus of finally moving back into a bedroom is the taking back of the living space.  What a relief just to have room to move and hang out as a family again.  The living room is quite large so we decided we needed to fill it with some real life adult furniture.  So yesterday while I was off a soccer with the kids Jeremy and the neighbor unloaded our new living room.

It was bliss to sit down on furniture.  We haven't had a proper couch in 2 years, just a old dirty recliner and a futon.  I feel so grown-up.

Each time we come to place were our house starts to feel like a home I get so happy and I start to believe that maybe just maybe we will 'finish'.

Jordan and Payton at their first soccer game

Jeremy's completed bike