Our New Old House

I’ve been making slow but steady progress with stripping the paint off the woodwork in the front bedroom. Here are some pictures.

Before:

During:

After:

Before:

During:

After:

Scratch is impressed.

I thought you might want to see where I blog from.  This is where the magic happens, folks! 

Oh, that’s Zoot the cat in the foreground.  The top of our coffee table lifts up on arms and leaves these two apparently cat sized boxes.

[tags]cats, random, furniture, photos, living room[/tags]

I ripped out the carpet in the bathroom this week. It smelled like pee. Here’s Zoot sitting on the carpet one last time:

Under the carpet was some nasty padding:

And under that was some wierd old flooring that looks like those marble colored rubber balls that come with a jacks set.

Anyway, that smelled like mildew. I put down some baking soda and left it there overnight. That got rid of the smell. Now it’s just ugly. But it’s better than pee-smelling carpet.

[tags]bathroom, cats, photos, flooring, carpet[/tags]

I am just a six inch piece of plastic tubing away from completing the bathroom sink installation.  I made my third trip to Menard’s last night and STILL came home with the wrong size tube.  I just wasn’t paying attention!  Gah!  I wanted so badly to get up this morning and brush my teeth in my new sink.  Oh well, as my Great Grandpa Rivera would sigh in resignation at the end of the day: ”mañana.” (“Tomorrow.”)

Meanwhile, here are photos of my progress so far:

I used a hack saw to cut the drain pipe to the right length.

Then I used the hack saw to cut the PVC drain pipe too.

The PVC pipe was a little messy after I got done cutting it.

I used a steel wool pad to scrape off all the burrs and clean up the shavings and grime that might keep the PVC cement from bonding.

Here’s the sink after we mounted it to the wall.

The faucet now in place. We got the one from the same line as the one in the kitchen. “Savannah” from Price Pfister.

Ooh shiny! (This photo should come with a sound effect: “Ting!” Like the little chime it makes when someone on TV winks or smiles brightly.)

Last night when I realized I was missing one final part to hook up the sink, but it was too late to go back to Menard’s, I decided to take a break and go hang out with my friends at a bar. After a gin and tonic and sampling my friends’ drinks, I decided to come home around 11:30pm and at least hook up the drain stop before going to bed. Let’s hear it for plumbing while under the influence!

Zoot says, “Ur doin it wrong. No waterz comin’ out.”

Hooking up the drain stop.

Almost got it.

There was a big hole in the wall behind the back of the vanity from where they’d taken out some water damaged plaster from the old leaky sink. The top of our drain pipe branches up and over to the left somewhere. I can’t figure out where this extra drain pipe goes. It’s pointing toward the outside wall, but there’s no evidence of it exiting the house. Quite mysterious.

Tonight, I will be making what will hopefully be my final trip to Menard’s for this project. Hopefully.

[tags]bathroom sink, bathroom, plumbing, pedestal sink, faucet[/tags]

 Hopefully this will be the last of it. But don’t worry! I got to do the fun part today: demolition!

Today’s mission: demolish the old bathroom sink to make room for the new bathroom sink!

Scratch can’t understand why he can’t sleep in the sink anymore.

Tore out some of the carpet to reveal some really… um… interesting flooring.

And what’s left of the water damage from a leaking toilet.

Zoot got to sniff in the wall.

Some of the… um… interesting paint colors the bathroom had been.

Coming up later this week: the installation of our new pedestal sink! (It’s shiny!)

And a bonus photo for you: Scratch got nosy when Brandon was making garbanzo salsa.

[tags]bathroom, flooring, plumbing, photos, cats, vanity, sink[/tags]