Bathroom and Whole House Update - August

The bathroom paused for about a month after our contractor (and we) fired our tile guy. This time of year it takes about a month to get on the schedule for anyone new, so next weekend we should have 100% photos.

View from the window ledge.

I love my new bathtub!

View from the new doorway. More tile going up on the wall with the light on it. The 2nd light will get installed, the medicine cabinets will go up, and the shower enclosure will go in.

New look in bedroom, clean ceiling, white doors, and a bed on floor b/c we're waiting for carpet and so aren't moving all our furniture back in yet.

Why is the carpet taking so long you ask? Why, because we added more to our little construction project. This phase is DIY so will take longer since it'll get done on weekends. See that stair railing? Very early 80's. Slightly better after I painted it a few years ago. It's bolted to the drywall and notches were cut out of each stair tread to allow for the post to be flush to the wall going up the stairs.

All those cut notches in the treads make it look pretty crummy from the side. With brand new carpet on the horizon we decided we didn't want it to look like this anymore.

 Yesterday FFM and I made ourselves scarce so Travis could work without distractions. He was BUSY! He cut back the carpet a few days ago, and yesterday started by taking out the pickets which were bolted, nailed, AND glued to the wall.

Then he worked on the 'balcony' area and took out as much as he could while still leaving a handrail.

Our new railing plan calls for the treads to be flush with the wall, so then Travis started on cutting off the protruding bits of stair tread. Hard to see, but the 3rd stair up in this picture has the excess cut off.

 That all wrapped up on Saturday afternoon, leaving Sunday to start a new project. Popcorn ceilings called...so we started in on our dining room ceiling. After watching the pros do it in our bathroom and bedroom we thought we'd tackle a room ourselves to see how it turned out. We've heard horror stories about the challenges, so weren't sure how things would turn out.

Right off the bat I'll admit it's pretty awesome to be married to a tall man! I sprayed water and he followed me with the scraper. We have an old paint power roller/sprayer that we used to spray with water - stuck the hose in a 5 gallon bucket of water and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed.

 After about 30 minutes of prep, and hour of spraying and scraping, and 30 minutes of clean up we had this! Next weekend we'll attempt to mud it, then perhaps on to more rooms.

I would like to take a moment here to tell readers that nearly all of the ads on this little bathroom job have been from my darling husband. The stair rail is kind of my fault (I pointed out the nice new carpet would still look icky going up the stairs) but everything else was his idea. We're happier now that most of the trades are out of our house (still have tile and finish trim to go next week) and the railing parts take a month to come so we're not under too much of a time crunch with our DIY add ons.  Projects done and cleaned up before dinner are way easier than those that are still going strong at 11pm!

Belated Birthday

Construction underfoot all summer has disrupted things for us!
Better late than never, year 8

Turning the Corner on the Bath Redo

Finishes have started going in for the bathroom!

The heated floor in all it's orange glory.

 Floor and wall tile.

 Shower area. We decided to add more wall tile so the entire wall on the left will be tiled.

 Vanity and tub.

Our pal Rob hung the vanity and did trim carpentry this weekend.

The painters and plumber will be here this week. Painters will tackle the bathroom and master bedroom plus part of FFM's room where some drywall had to be touched up (his room shares a wall with the bathroom). We decided to change the color of the bedroom so all the walls, trim, and the ceiling beam will get a fresh look. Today measurements went in for the shower enclosure, after months of flip flopping Travis decided against the frame-less "Euro" style and will go with a minimalist framed choice. It feels like the home stretch, although due to various events the schedule has actually slowed down a bit.

Post-Drywall Reno Update

The last couple weeks have been an adventure. Our first issues cropped up, we discovered one minor leak that stained the ceiling downstairs, and Travis put his electrical and tinner (HVAC) skills put to the test.

The electrical bids came in SUPER high so Travis opted to do the rewiring himself. Not a difficult task, just time consuming. F and I disappeared from the house for a weekend so he could work uninterrupted.

Here's a view of wiring completion - new switches in the new wall, power for the heated tile, moving the lights, and some clean up of the entire wiring system. All that bright blue stuff is his handiwork.

Next came the plumber again, finishing up rough plumbing. He checked the tub, drain and filler to ensure everything lined up properly and set the new shower pan.

After the plumber came drywall and popcorn removal in the skylight.
A new wall! Pocket door now slides into the left side.

Mud and texture took a few days longer than normal in Colorado. It's so dry here mud usually cures faster than in other places, but with a month of rain everything has been taking longer. Our rain seems to be normalizing so we dried pretty fast, but the contractors are all behind still so we had a few days of downtime until they could get to us.

Previously we had no HVAC register in our bathroom. This seemed strange, but buying a 30+ year old house you end up with all kinds of mysteries. In the summer our bathroom gets a little warm, no big deal, but on chilly winter nights that tile floor was COLD! Our fix was to heat the floor. Lo and behold after cutting up some of the sub floor, there was a closed up duct! Our contractor made an attempt on Friday afternoon, and Travis opted to knock out the project after our swim meet yesterday. It took some mad tin cutting skills to get everything to fit right, but now we'll have heat/AC in our bathroom for the first time in decades (AND a heated floor!). I'm probably going to put my sleeping bag in my new bathtub and move into the new bathroom because it will be super snazzy compared to the rest of the house!

Travis' new duct.

West Coast Camping 2015

The day school let out we hitched up the trailer and headed west. WAY west. All the way to the ocean west.

First stop, Crater Lake. Still very snowy, only part of the road was open.

Dinner stop at Crater Lake Lodge. Spectacular views and stellar food.

 Camping outside Crater Lake. Not even to the really big trees yet.

Our camp host gave us a list of nearby hikes to waterfalls, we picked a couple short ones and enjoyed the views. Even after a solid month of rain Colorado just isn't green like this. On the plus side, while it dumped back in CO we didn't get rained on in OR.

Next stop, Redwoods SP and NP. More hiking and poking around nature.

After a couple days in California we headed back to the Oregon Coast. First stop, a lighthouse tour. FFM has been inside lighthouses before but was small enough he doesn't remember. This one you could get right up next to the beautiful Fresnel lens

We drove US101 right up the coast, stopping when something looked fun, tasty, interesting, cool. This included farmer's markets, funky shops, fishy places, and various beaches.

Also a stop at the Newport Aquarium where we were just in time for otter feeding time. They eat restaurant quality seafood. This crab must have looked tasty, FFM requested crab for dinner.

During our stay low tide hit about mid afternoon. It was the perfect time to trek out into the water and gently investigate anemones, limpets, mussels, crabs and starfish.

 Color on my little phone is weird,  in reality this starfish was more of a purple color.

As requested, Dungeness crab for dinner! They ate the whole thing with a side of ling cod.

After a couple more beach days we headed to Tillamook, home of Tillamook cheese. They were making pepperjack cheese the day we toured.

Camping in Oregon is pretty easy, campgrounds are often right on the beach with running hot water in the bathrooms - showers! Our campground was separated from this beach by a single dune. The night of this sunset the wet sand of the beach reflected the sunset making the beach look bright red (again, not being the owner of a fancy camera my little phone did the best it could).

Most kids in OR are still in school so we had the beaches pretty much to ourselves. When we found other families, the kids, of course, immediately formed packs and hauled FFM around to show him the local flora and fauna. They also built giant castles and dug holes deeper than they are tall.

It must be a good vacation if your kid is more sand and dirt than kid...