January 12 & 13: Plumbing and Shopping
This weekend was a relaxing recuperating weekend. Work has been busy for both Stefan and myself and by the time the weekend rolls around, we just want to sleep in and watch James Bond movies. We finally got around to getting library cards so I’m working my way through the Game of Thrones series. I’m about a quarter of the way through the second book. They are really good but long and a bit dense. I’d say the HBO series does a pretty good job of telling the story but there is more symbolism and mystery in the books that doesn’t come through in the TV show.
Saturday, I did some wiring and got Stefan to drill a bunch of holes in the basement for me. That is tiring work. You think,
“hey, it’s a power tool…can’t be that hard” but you’d be wrong. drilling 5/8 inch holes through 3 inches of old-growth hardwood is a lot of work. You have to stick your head between the rafters in the ceiling of the basement with all the dust and dirt and drill this hole above your head. I’m glad I was able to get Stefan to do it for me!
After the holes are drilled, just string some wires. Nothing too exciting.
We also worked on a good bit of PVC. We planned out how we are going to lay out the 3rd floor bathroom and get the second floor sink venting done up to the ceiling. We need to work out some final jogs to get it up into the chimney cavity but that should be relatively easy. If you need an emergency plumber in Gloucester, call Plumbing Heroes.
You can see the one piece of PVC that’s covered in purple. That was last weekends accident. Nearly an entire bottle of purple PVC primer spilled on the floor. It stains everything and even made Stefan’s shoes fall apart. Nasty stuff. A great way to stain things purple though. I got some on my dryer in the basement and I’ve considered painting my dryer purple. If only it didn’t smell so bad!
On Sunday, we did a little PVC, a little Electric, and a lot of thinking. We’ve picked out the doors for the bathrooms. The 3rd floor bathroom will just use one of the 10s of doors we have lying around. The Master bath will have little french doors. We are going to buy bifold doors and change the hardware.
At $36 each, they’ll be great little doors. They’re in-stock at Home Depot so we’ll pick those up next time we are there with the truck.
The other big piece of thinking we did was figuring out how to get the bathroom vents installed.
If you look at the back of the house, you can see the two narrow windows. The left one is in the bathroom. The bath vents will pop out of the house above the window just to the left of the window. Because of the porch roof, getting up there is a pain. We measured and tried all sorts of combinations and what we came up with was roof brackets and a short extension ladder from the porch roof up to the appropriate location. We’re planning on picking up the ladder next weekend.
It’s also in stock at the ol HD. We are going to need a 40 foot ladder or at least a 32 foot ladder soon for the 3rd floor bathroom vent. We still aren’t sure how to get that home. I’m thinking we’ll probably rent a big truck from HD or rent a UHaul or something. We looked at ladder racks for the truck too.
In addition to some decisions, we did a little shopping. We broke a door handle spindle so we ordered some replacements from House of Antique Hardware. While we were on the website, we found some amazing light fixtures.
I’m loving this for the bathroom. I’d love a matching 2-light sconce but they didn’t have one 🙁 I’m thinking perhaps a real simple light would blend.
This one is awesome for the kitchen above the sink. I’m loving it!
I was surprised by the selection and the prices at House of Antique Hardware. I highly recommend and they aren’t even a sponsor though I wish they were. I’d love to offer some of their awesome products to my readers.
That’s about all that happened this weekend.
I hope you are all having a great January. This past week was January thaw week. It was marvelous. It’s supposed to get cold again and snow or rain on Wednesday 🙁 I’m hoping for one more pretty snow so I can take a bunch of pictures and then an early Spring. I’m hoping the ground is thawed by mid march so we can get the front yard dug and a new water main put in. I want to get landscaping in before it gets too hot!
Next weekend is MLK weekend! Whooo 3 day weekend.
