Sidetracked, Just a Little...

The reason for the this title is to add context to the picture of the tomato field being irrigated with a quarter mile wheel line sprinkler system. Most of you that read this blog don't really know what I just described, but you have to have faith that I don't make these things up. That IS what it's called by those who bust their knuckles and sweat in the hot sun putting the pipe together to bring the magic of "rain" to thirsty crops in July. During the recent 4 day "surge" to get our house in a state to be able to live in (read functioning bathroom), I had to take one little mental health break. For some that might mean heavy drinking and going to Las Vegas, but for me, it means taking a drive through farm land. There will always be something about fields of crops that grounds me. The picture in this post shows tomatoes getting a much needed dose of water, but I drove past many other noteworthy fields. On this drive (Which only added about another 20 minutes, but I did have a a crazy beagle with me) I saw sunflowers, corn, cucumbers, squash, rice, honeydew melons, tomatoes, alfalfa, dry beans, walnuts, almonds, grapes, and many other crops that escape me at the moment. Since I have spent most of my life kicking dirt clods to make something grow, this break did me good.

On to the important stuff. Once again I am facing a deadline that is defined by information found on a calendar (mine happens to be hanging on the wall in the livingroom and was issued by the Pro Bull Riders Association, but this story already has enough things that don't make sense). This deadline is much like the last one where I need to have everything done in the bathroom so we can move in. I'm happy to report that the plumbing and electrical stuff is all finished. What's left is to pass a county inspection, get a water heater installed, have the propane company hook up its feeder pipes, tile the walls and floors, AND put the door back on! I think I can manage this is T-minus 12 days. The operative word here is "think". Wish me luck!!!!!

The pictures of the tiles are to give you a sense of how the bathroom will look once this whole thing is accomplished. We bought hex tiles with the flower pattern so we could "steal" the black tiles from some and use them to make snowflakes throughout the entire floor. Part of being able to do this is to visualize. That's why we we laid out the square footage of the bathroom in the diningroom. Now we can work on fine tuning where the snowflakes will be and doing the very labor intensive task of moving the tiles around to fit the pattern. I know this sounds like a bunch of work but everyone involved in this project feels like it's worth it to remodel in a way that's period appropriate. Snowflakes were very popular a hundred years ago. I think we are hoping to do justice to this fact and make this bathroom look like it existed a hundred years ago. Wish us luck!!!!

We Have Walls...Sort Of...

The reason I say "Sort of..." is it's just the corner of one room, but it is still reason to celebrate. Considering we have spent the past several weeks taking walls and floors apart in this project, it feels like progress when we start putting things back together. Before I dive too deep into this progress report, I do have to admit to not making the self imposed deadline laid out in the last post. It is almost the middle of July and the functioning bathroom needed to move in has not happened yet. The new target is the end of July for completion.

The first picture here is the new utility room. Remember that this was formerly a closet, so this is one big transformation. The second picture is what this looked like when it was a closet, so hopefully you can get a sense of what a change (for the better in our opinion) this space has gone through. The door you see in the middle of the back wall will let us come in and out from the outside without going through the main part of the house. The concept is to keep the dirt contained to this area since there will be a washer and dryer here. When kicking dirt clods and doing other equally important farm chores, your boots tend to get a bit dirty, so having this access should help. To the right of this room will another bathroom too. That way we can come in after a hard day of dirt clod kicking, throw our extremely dirty clothes in the washer, take a shower, and change into clean clothes without ever setting foot in the "fancy" part of the house. The reason the corner of this room had to have the walls sheet rocked is so a water heater can be installed in this corner. This water heater is necessary for the previously mentioned functioning bathroom, so we finished out enough of the corner to provide a place for it and our attention is now back to getting the hall bathroom finished.

The third picture shows where things are at right now. After gutting the walls and floor, we shored up the framing and also discovered some damage from water and insects. This led to taking the wall apart into the room next to the bathroom and tearing out the damaged wood. All the damaged framing was replaced and some new pieces were added to add strength so this bathroom can survive another hundred years. The foil you see on the wall insulation serves three very important purposes. The most important is it will keep moisture from migrating through the walls and damaging the framing. Bathrooms always generate a bunch of moist air that can condense on the back side of the exterior siding during the cold part of the year. Moisture behind the siding is always a bad thing. This insulation is installed so there is an air channel to help any moisture back there to dry out and the foil helps keep too much of it from getting there as well. The second thing it does is act a radiant heat barrier. Since this blog is not focused on providing physics-based explanations, we'll just say this helps it be a better insulator than without it. The third thing all this foil does is help keep aliens from outer space from practicing mind control experiments on us while we are in the bathroom. Foil does a good job deflecting their evil gamma-rays back at them.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for smooth sailing the next couple of weeks and maybe we'll see a post with a picture of a finished bathroom.