Tag: house

Pals,

This shower stall, fabricated in China by the way, was the toughest piece of this puzzle to put together. The fasteners included were garbage. They stripped out, bent, broke, and it all led to frustration along with more money spent on stainless steel fasteners.

And there’s this—the doors are adjusted with soft plastic screws that have since stripped. Again with the fasteners.

But hey! Look at that pfaucet! Ain’t it adorable? Hope it works. We’ll check after the silicone cures…

– bob

Friends,

This is the part of the project when everything comes pretty fast. After painting, the lighting went up.

This helped confirm that I’m not a very good painter. I’ve got a lot of touchup to do. But at least the toilet’s back in. That’s gotta count for something. In the middle of the night. After too much iced tea…

I’m one of those weirdos who buys all the parts before starting the job, so every piece has been spread out throughout the house for the last few weeks. It’s nice to get this part done, once I stopped the leaks from the faucet. Besides, this represents three boxes and countless bags of stuff that I don’t have to trip over. Always good.

So now things are really starting to come together.

I’m not going to comment on the shower stall though. Just two words: Chinese Screws.

More later.

– bob

Dear Kitsch Fans,

A strange thing happened on the way to mid-century cabin quaint…

No. This wasn’t planned.

This intellectual property thing is really getting out of hand…

– bob

Dear Right Angle Haters,

Yes! the moulding is finally done! Hooray! Yippee! You may even find this surprising, but I can still count to ten without taking off my shoes after all this chopping.

You can’t swing a 66-inch stick of quarter-round without, well, hitting more quarter-round.

…and think. All of this gets painted.

Pardon the weird exposure problems, but if you look at the joint in the corner, you’ll notice that it’s perfect. You don’t get to say that very often.

– bob

Friends,

After spending last week bathing in the laundry room, I thought that it would be neat to finally get this thing done. That’s right; Monday is moulding day! Aren’t you excited?

Now it’s starting to look like something is happening. Weird!

No finished drywall corners required, pals. It’s quarter-round moulding all the way around. For this bathroom, nature-lovers, a tree must die.

– bob

Oh, all you young dudes,

Cripes. You remember back to 1949, don’t you? The war was won, but there was a severe carpenter’s level shortage. Remember? As evidence, there’s not a single level, plumb, or square wall in this entire room. I’ve spent way too much time adding layers and layers to bring the joint into some semblance of plumb.

If nothing else, it’s gonna be warm in there…

…which makes sense, considering that it’s starting to look like a Swedish sauna. It’s not, of course. Who can afford the steam?

And as far as the trim goes, I’m going to need a lot of shims. A lot.

– bob

Hello Ducks!

I missed a couple day’s worth of posts, but work on the tiny bathroom has gone apace. Naturally, the pace has been slow. If I’ve learned anything here, it’s that despite the diminutive size, this job has involved as much work (if not material) as a larger room. It’s just harder to move around.

Thankfully, these pipes didn’t leak.

…but these did. The elbows on either side of the diverter had manufacturing flaws and had to be removed. Shouldn’t be a problem, you might say. Just shut off the water. It’d be easy if the water shutoff to the house actually shut off fully. Instead, there’s a procedure to follow: shut the valve as tight as it’ll go, open the hose valves around the house to relieve the pressure, open the upstairs sink valve to drain the upstairs. To test the new plumbing, the procedure is reversed. To deal with the leak, the procedure is repeated. When unlikely problems such as manufacturing defects crop up, you get to do this four times or so.

With the water problems solved, the rest of the build could proceed. Don’t be fooled. Fully encapsulated batts of insulation are still mighty itchy.

While it wasn’t quite Gustav, We had our own deluge up here yesterday. Work stopped while we stared at the water and hail pounding my little house. It’s Southern California, after all. These things don’t happen very often.

Now that the walls are going up, it’s starting to look like Dad and I are making progress. It’s about time, since my remodeling vacation is almost over.

Since the new shower stall takes up more room than the old mold-box, all of the light switches had to move into the hallway. Certainly this will lead to hijinks. I do not approve of these sort of shenanigans. Not at all. It won’t be the least bit funny to shut off the lights while somebody who isn’t me is in there.

– bob

Friends,

It’s about time to finally get this out of the gate, no? Here are some shots taken today that really don’t represent what went on at the Lodge.

What? The pipes have gone away. But where?

Down there? “Big whoop,” I hear you say. Not so fast, slappy. It ain’t that easy to get there, you know…

Spiders. I hate spiders.

– bob

Friends,

Here’s an example of why the insides of the bathroom had to go…

Well yeah, and this…

And what’s more…

But most of all, this was the worst…

So really, it all had to go. Really.

We’re almost done tearing things apart. Maybe we’ll start putting things back together on Monday. But first…

We’re gonna need a bigger dumpster.

– bob

Friends,

Last night’s strike mission to The Home Depot was supposed to be surgical. After all, last time I checked, my Dad and I are guys and guys don’t shop. They acquire—quickly. I knew that I wanted the least cheap and junky Chinese-made pre-fab shower stall, and I knew that every Home Depot I’d ever visited had at least one in stock. The floor model at Dad’s local warehouse even had a sign that said in 1,000-point type “In-Stock” so what could possibly go wrong? Well, there was no product number on the display, so the helpful but red-faced employee simply made one up to search his inventory. “We have two!” he reported.

Some day, when you get the chance, just walk around a big box home improvement store while looking upwards. I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed by the extraordinary amount of merchandise on the very top shelves. Not my shower stall, of course, but a lot of other stuff that would be difficult for the owner of a fevered mind to find time to catalog, much less the fine staff at Home Depot.

Captain Heat Stroke and I were having no luck, so he called over a supervisor. “Wow, you guys missed it. What you’re looking for is right here on the bottom shelf,” he claimed. I was incredulous, but willing to entertain his spontaneous acid flashback. “Well, that’s not very similar to the display model I’m looking for, is it?” I asked. “It’s round!” “But it’s plastic and vinyl, not glass and stainless steel. That’s a pretty big difference. Plus…” “But,” he insisted, “you’re looking for this part number, right?” “Nope, I’m looking for this,” pointing to the display. “Oh, we don’t have any of those,” he said, ripping down the “In-Stock” sign. And adding insult, “sorry partner.” Screw you, Tex.

An hour and a half wasted. Off to the next Home Depot twenty mile away, the one that I had actually visited. The box was on the shelf, but Dad took the time to read the sign on the display. “Doors, rails, and pan included. Works with wall kit…” What? No walls? They’re extra?

The wall kit is extra and not included and nearly doubles the price of a shower. Oh, the walls are molded vinyl. Made in China. Weren’t we promised lower prices if things were made there instead of here? For these prices, I hope the slave laborers get an extra fish head in their breakfast porridge tomorrow. Yikes.

More reckless spending later today, with a picture-laden post once I unpack. Then some establishment shots to bring into crisp focus why the bathroom needs an overhaul in the first place followed by demolition. It’s the beginning of a week-long series and you didn’t even see it coming! I hope you both enjoy it.

– bob

Friends,

It’s a beautiful day up here in my piney paradise. Many projects to complete today to make up for the lack of activity over the last week or so. I’ve started on the next set of meds, so while I can breathe better, the top of my head feels like it might fly off. So it’s a good news/bad news scenario, no?

Brother, can you spare some bee pollen?

Your pal,

bob

Kids,

Yeah, yeah, this starts as a houseblogging post, but will surely delve into giant dumbness later. It’ll be great!

You may recall my whining about the malfunctioning wood stove. I don’t even think you need to stretch very far to realize, as I did, that the fire cap is somewhere on the roof. That’s not surprising, but where had all the smoke gone? Certainly not outside, as that cap was fully caked full of the fullness of creosote, soot, and generalized gunk. The smoke went IN the house. That would be a sub-optimal result.

Once I climbed on the roof with my trusty rope, I carefully lowered the filthy cap and tried to carefully lower myself to start the cleaning. Pine needles had other ideas, and I started my slide towards 9.8 m/sec² and a nasty bounce off the deck onto the driveway. You’ll notice at this point that I lived. How? I put a foot out and immediately halted my descent. Sure, the pop in my lower back would foretell a bunch of hobbling around for the next couple days. I can stay put, but moving from that stasis is a challenge. Aleve, heating pads, they’re my friends at the moment. Who cares though. We have heat!

Oh, there’s more, and that’ll be tomorrow. After the Question.

Your pal,

bob