no. but getting close. with the outside work anyway. there's just a little bit of everything left: a little lap siding, a little shingle siding, a little trim, a little soffit work, a little painting ... and gutters. i imagine with some decent weather, we should be done in a few days. and trumpets shall sound and a chorus of angels will burst into song. winter will turn to spring. peace will unfold in the middle east. (pics from all 4 sides on Flickr).
on another note, the bathroom is officially gutted. the enchanted shell shower exited with a mere whimper. i bought some carbide tipped blades for the sawzall ... the phrase hot knife through butter would be appropriate. strangely enough, the shower enclosure was in no way fastened to anything. it just sat there. also, there was/is a large hole in the floor in one corner where some lovely plumber mangled the floor putting in the drain and water lines. this highly trained plumber also just bent the copper lines instead of installing fittings, supported the drain by letting it rest on the top of a partially removed floor joist (looks like a chainsaw got loose) and using a coat hanger, and has part of a drain running uphill. all in all, excellent work. the marks of a true craftsman.
there was more mold (and former mold) in the bathroom than expected--in one corner from an old roof leak which we saw from the outside and near the toilet from when it was not working right and the tank was slowly overflowing. so, i had a fun sanitizing session (glad we have our respirators from the asbestos project) ... so it's good we are doing this project to remove possible mold sources. and of course, in the midst of all this, i realized the upstairs toilet wasn't working right (the float wasn't shutting the water off) so had to scavange parts from the old toilet to fix it quickly (and replace the downstairs toilet shutoff). but, since remediation and emergency repairs i've gotten things all cleaned up and on the dry, strengthened the existing tub/shower enclosure and bulkhead, framed in for a shower ceiling and began putting in some new framing for the rear shower wall. i need to get to a 32"x60" enclosure for the Kerdi kit. i won't get there perfectly (without major reworking of what's already there) so am getting it "practically" close so that only minor changes will be needed to the kit (hopefully changes i can easily work out in the tiling).
Mr. Toby had some more antics the other day. the painters were inside the sunroom again. suddenly one of the painters came and asked me to (in broken english) put Toby in another room ... and he showed me the little white pawprints on the floor leaving the sunroom. apparently Toby jumped into a freshly painted windowsill. luckily it came off the floor easy ... not so much off Toby -- he still wears his badges of shame.
started tearing up the downstairs bathroom today. pretty much no turning back now. especially considering i managed to take a chunk out of the toilet tank lid while trying to remove a stubborn corner bead. whoopsidaisy. good thing we were going to get another one anyway. looking at a Vitra Evergreen dual flush.
we donated another chunk of change to Lowe's, this time for our tile. we're going with a multi-colored slate (browns, greens, coppery reds, grays, etc). very earthy looking ... which is fitting for our planned decorating scheme (WPA/WPA style posters of National Parks we've been to). 12" on the floor, 2" on the shower floor, 6" on the shower wall (with 3 rows of 1" x 3" tile as an accent). we kind of wanted to to the 2" on the shower walls ... but too pricey. ended up buying a "disposable wet saw" (as the Lowe's guy called it). it was only $58 (with a blade) which is cheaper than renting one and less work then running back and forth to Lowe's to have them do cuts in their spare time. can probably get a couple bucks for it on Craigslist when i'm done too. looking at getting a Kerdi shower kit to waterproof the shower (kit includes a presloped base and a drain). now, just have to do the work. crap.
Contractor was back out today ... did some work on the north side -- shingle siding and soffits. slow and steady. as long as "steady" is included.
last week was fairly hectic as we worked to get some things finished up for the first of two Christmas parties we are hosting this year (on consecutive weekends). the first was Chrissy's girls Bible study group (and alumni) and this coming weekend is the one we host each year. hosting large groups of people is good motivation to get some stuff done! Chrissy got our house all Christmasy ... we got our tree Sat morning. got a type of blue spruce this year. it's a bit prickly, but looks nice and smells great ... mmm. so far only minimal batting at ornaments by the cats.
so the kitchen is 99.99% done now. yes, miracles do happen. i'll probably tinker on a few touch-ups and want to repaint/restain the door jamb going into the dining room sometime ... but it's essentially done. so, soooooo nice to have it done finally. we love the results. Chrissy finished a bunch of touch-ups and the repainting of the door jambs and the little shelves. i got the blank drawer front to cover the sink installed as well as the new pantry door. the old pantry doors were configured with 2 sets of 2 doors. we came back with a single large door with 2 recessed panels. and we decided it would be fun to make the recesses chalkboards ... and so it is.
the upstairs bathroom is a totally different world now also. installed the exhaust fan/light last ... well ... sometime (a week ago Friday?). i'm too old to remember that stuff anymore i guess. it went fairly well. it's always a little scary cutting holes in walls (for a larger elec box to put switches beside the outlet i was pulling power from) and ceilings (for fan) of plastered walls. i was a tad concerned that the whole ceiling would end up on the floor. but alas, the hole went marvelously. running the wire went ok. even working in the attic a few minutes wasn't terrible for once (except for the bat that scared the crap out of me when it crawled out of a pile of insulation beside me). saturday (i can remember that far back) i got to the overhead shower. today (i'm off this week again to use up vacation time) i did some adjusting of the support hangers, riser piping (one connection was annoyingly leaky), and the gigantically huge long inner shower curtain (180") with two outer curtains. i may make the inaugural shower shortly (just got the drain running well enough to handle it ... i think). sorry the pics aren't great ... it's hard to take overall pictures in small rooms. oh, and Toby is a big fan of the new setup ... he loves roaming around the tub between the curtains.
also today i finished a basement reorganization project i started a few weeks back. removed a bunch of junk (some ours, some old debris from who knows when) from the old coal room so that i could move a lot of boxes into there (stays drier in there and the space was otherwise wasted). added 3 more shelving units to the big room so that now pretty much everything is off the floor and actually accessible. de-spiderweb'd again too. no pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it that it's great improvement. maybe i'll throw some on flickr sometime.
outside progress has been S.L.O.W. i will say that the contractor warned us ... but its still annoying. the crew seems to use any excuse to not come work. HOPEFULLY this week they'll wrap up the siding, trim and maybe soffits and gutters. please please please please. looks great so far!
escape kitty escaped two more times ... these times by just shooting out the door while it's open. then last night he slipped between the screen/storm door and main door without me noticing. i was checking to make sure the outer door was latched right before going to bed. thought i heard him scratching at something when i was upstairs a few mins later but it wasn't until the second time i heard it while laying in bed that i realized he could have done what he did. he's so sneaky. almost cost him a very very cold night stuck between doors. this is getting out of hand. maybe we can tie him up on a 100' leash in the house?
with the outside work anyway. there's just a little bit of everything left: a little lap siding, a little shingle siding, a little trim, a little soffit work, a little painting ... and gutters. i imagine with some decent weather, we should be done in a few days. and trumpets shall sound and a chorus of angels will burst into song. winter will turn to spring. peace will unfold in the middle east. (pics from all 4 sides on Flickr).
the enchanted shell shower exited with a mere whimper. i bought some carbide tipped blades for the sawzall ... the phrase hot knife through butter would be appropriate. strangely enough, the shower enclosure was in no way fastened to anything. it just sat there. also, there was/is a large hole in the floor in one corner where some lovely plumber mangled the floor putting in the drain and water lines. this highly trained plumber also just bent the copper lines instead of installing fittings, supported the drain by letting it rest on the top of a partially removed floor joist (looks like a chainsaw got loose) and using a coat hanger, and has part of a drain running uphill. all in all, excellent work. the marks of a true craftsman.
than expected--in one corner from an old roof leak which we saw from the outside and near the toilet from when it was not working right and the tank was slowly overflowing. so, i had a fun sanitizing session (glad we have our respirators from the asbestos project) ... so it's good we are doing this project to remove possible mold sources. and of course, in the midst of all this, i realized the upstairs toilet wasn't working right (the float wasn't shutting the water off) so had to scavange parts from the old toilet to fix it quickly (and replace the downstairs toilet shutoff). but, since remediation and emergency repairs i've gotten things all cleaned up and on the dry, strengthened the existing tub/shower enclosure and bulkhead, framed in for a shower ceiling and began putting in some new framing for the rear shower wall. i need to get to a 32"x60" enclosure for the Kerdi kit. i won't get there perfectly (without major reworking of what's already there) so am getting it "practically" close so that only minor changes will be needed to the kit (hopefully changes i can easily work out in the tiling).
the painters were inside the sunroom again. suddenly one of the painters came and asked me to (in broken english) put Toby in another room ... and he showed me the little white pawprints on the floor leaving the sunroom. apparently Toby jumped into a freshly painted windowsill. luckily it came off the floor easy ... not so much off Toby -- he still wears his badges of shame.
