Christmas up North

Sandi and I had a great time up north with my parents on Christmas Eve.  I tried (and failed) to get a picture of everyone.  Sorry Sandi and Dad and Dwayne.

Though I don't have any photos to prove it, Christmas Day was a ton of fun at the Needs.  Imagine: a day eating snacks from Trader Joes and Zuppo Tascano. 

 

Bathroom remodel: Phase 1

Simultaneous to our wall project, we undertook remodeling our guest bathroom - we're young, we're foolish - why not? 

 

Before any major work began, we had a functional bathroom with several design flaws.  An old vanity, inefficient toilet and horrible use of space topped our list.  Our vision was to cut away the baby-changing table and update everything else.

 

No more baby-changing table.

 

This is what a 38 year-old pressed-board vanity looks like.

 

This is what a 39-year old vanity looks like.

 

Now, let's talk about the new vanity.

 

 

Sandi and I looked at the box stores for a new vanity for a few months.  We never found one within our budget that looked good and had some sort of durability.  So we turned to plan B: I'll make one.  We bought a sink & counter top to set the dimensions and set pencil to graph-paper.  Borrowing from existing designs and personal desires we came up with a model that should fit our needs. 

 

The 'carcass' is 36" long, 25" high and 22" deep.  Five drawers and a cabinet.  This ought to be plenty of room.

 

 

Per Sandi's request, the top two drawers have little baby drawers sitting on rails.  Per the utility's demands, half of the back is missing (which made installing the top right drawer a little challenging).

 

I think the most daunting part of this project the 'espresso' color we wanted.  As a rule, I never paint wood because I don't like to hide it's natural beauty.  I feared I would have to rent a spray gun or perform some sort of elaborate ritual to achieve the desired result.  A Rockler sales rep showed us how and laid most of my fears to rest (though we did have to settle on 'Java' instead of 'Espresso').

 

 I was thrilled how the stain turned out.

With the vanity mostly completed and company coming soon, I turned my attention to the rest of what ails our bathroom.  Demolition began Friday evening and rebuilding started on Saturday morning.

 

 

I installed a new floor

 

 

and toilet, neither of which was particularly easy or enjoyable.  Now come the vanity.

 

A special note on plumbing and how much I hate it: There is much that separates me from a professional plumber: skill, training, years on the job, tools, etc.  There is one thing I can do to make my experience a slightly more tolerable disaster I know it will be is to have supplies on hand.  Not just the supplies I think I need (or even the supplies the hardware store associate thinks I need), but the same supplies at my disposal that a plumber has in his utility van.  After the associate showed me what I needed, I grabbed that plus much more just in case....

Even with all this supplies it still took me 3 evenings to get the plumbing hooked up.  A special time of panic arose when I had everything finished.  The vanity is leveled, the counter glued, the drain finally stopped dripping and I was grinning with satisfaction.  Before going to bed, Sandi and I thought we should take a few minutes to put the drawers in, just to finish it off.  Uh-oh, the toilet is in the way.  I can't get the bottom 3 drawers in.  It's 10:30 at night and I have to unhook the faucet and the drain so I can slide the vanity to 3 different positions to fit each drawer.  Everything barley fit and I will never take out those drawers again.

 

After that and a few more frustrating experiences (like dropping and breaking the last face on Thanksgiving morning), I finally got the drawer and cabinet faces attached to the vanity.  It's a huge check off my list of projects.  I hope never to build another cabinet that involves plumbing.  Actually, I hope to never do anything again that involves plumbing.

 

We are really pleased with how it looks.

This completes phase 1.  Phase two is a matching cabinet to fill the useless space on the left.  Phase 3 is updating the bathtub and shower.  Stay tuned...

A $0.14 loss

To make a short story long, I went to the doctor's office in early September for my annual check-up.  The only thing I had on my agenda for that visit was to have the doctor freeze off a wart on my hand.  As requested, he froze it and it eventually fell off.  All is good and I move on with life. 

In the mail yesterday, I received two letters.  The first was a welcome surprise: a check for a class action settlement from Toyota for the 'Unintended Acceleration' case.  Just for owning the right car in the right year, I was entitled to $29.86!  Sandi, what are we going to do with this free money?

The next letter I opened was from Providence Health.  My bill for the wart removal 'surgery' came in.  I owe $30. 

A loss of $0.14

The Two became One

Ever since our neighbors took out their wall, Sandi and I have wanted a great-room in our house.   

 

 

So, in June we took out the sheetrock and discovered that it was a load-bearing wall.

 

Weeks and months went by and the studs were still there.  It took us quite awhile to find the right contractor and jump through all the hoops to get a permit.

 

Finally, in September, the wall came out and a beam took its place.

 

Getting the beam to pass inspection was a chore.  I would tell that story here but this is a kid-friendly blog.

 

As much as we like the absence of a wall, the plywood beam lacked certain ascetic qualities.  I bought 'merbau' wood laminate (to match our merbau-laminated floor) and wrapped the sides of the beam.  The bottom of the beam is resawn hemlock stained cherry.  It worked for our floor-boards so we knew it would look good on the beam.  I also patched the floor with the merbau laminate.

 

All that was left was the drywall.

 

I only take care of inconspicuous drywall projects.  The new great-room does not qualify.

 

The drywall contractor took four-hours to join the two rooms in a seamless plane.

 

Now we paint.

 

We took the green color into the old dining room. 

 

Since the ceiling was patched, we had to paint that which required me to repaint the entire ceiling.  I had no idea our ceilings were so yellow until I painted them white.

 

The ceiling looks so much better!

 

And now we are finished!

 

San Diego

After 3 awesome days in Disneyland, we continued our vacation with a road-trip down to San Diego

 

 

Joy and Gabe gave us a tour of Lahoya Beach and Coronado Island.  Joy works at a nice restaurant on Coronado so we went there for dinner Saturday night.

 

 

Happy (early) birthday!

On Sunday, Gabe took us on a tour of his work place, the USS Ronald Regan. 

As you can see from the scaffolding, it is under construction/repair for a few months.  Even with all the pipes and crates it is still an impressive war ship.

 

 

each link weighs 500 lbs

Gabe giving us a tour