Behold, the Bucket Flush is BACK!

The big day has finally arrived - the day when we can go to the bathroom in our own house!!! I contemplated taking a video of it flushing, but I opted against it. If you haven't been without a toilet for months, you probably wouldn't have appreciated it in the same way. 

The Mr. is to be highly commended for his hard work, dedication, and new found skills. We're a little ways away from having running water yet, but the supply lines are connected through the bathroom. The tile came down for the water supply business, and he's already put it back. So getting running water to the toilet will be a basement project, not a bathroom project. 

Daddy's little helper helped for about 10 minutes before there was yelling and water all over the floor. Fortunately, our neighborhood block party was taking place so I walked while the Kid rode his bike around the corner and we hung out with our neighbors.

While we were at the block party, I got a text saying the Mr. needed another pair of hands. Clearly bringing the Kid back to the house would a) impede progress significantly and b) take a long time, since he had teamed up with the neighbor kids and was having the time of his life. I happened to mention this to one of our neighbors, and he stepped away from the grill, handed me the tongs,  picked up an extra beer for the Mr. and headed down to our house to help install the toilet. One of the many reasons that we can't wait to move in to this house!

The toilet is now installed, does not leak, and the tiles have been reattached to the wall. Hopefully they'll be out of the way enough that they won't pop back off. We have some grouting to do, but what else is new?

The Mr. headed back to our old house, took a shower and got cleaned up and came back for the end of the block party. It was a great afternoon, with lots of great people to hang out with, delicious food, and a pack of kids gleefully playing in the (barricaded) street. We came back for the cars and the guys had to test out the new toilet. Buckets of water obtained from our own hose! (The white bucket is actually empty, but he really wanted to carry a bucket. And a flashlight.)

The sun sets over the park, lighting up our whole cluttered porch. We can't wait to live here. 

Invisible Progress

It's actually somewhat visible progress, but not 'exciting photos' kind of progress. Just today, we:

• Met with the masons to get some interior repairs started on the chimney in the basement
• Had the alarm company 'pre-wire' the alarm system. We'll have them come back out when the dry wall is up and they will finish connecting everything. In the meantime, we have a sign in the front yard. Which is the most important part, right? 
• Had the kitchen window measured for a replacement window with a garden shelf. They have to custom build it so it will be another month or so before it actually goes in. 

Over the past week we had several companies come out and quote the removal for our big tree. They were also concerned that our neighbor's tree in the front yard is in fact infected with Emerald Ash Borers and is dying. Unsalvageable seems to be the consensus. Both of these trees actually belong to the city, but after talking to several city reps, neither one of them is slated to be removed in the next year or even the year after that. 

On Sunday we cut through the headers in the dining room wall to make room for the poo pipe from the upstairs bathroom. Then we attempted to reconnect the toilet. Unfortunately in the course of our plumbing adventures we ended up with a little less floor? Or something? So the bolt holding the toilet down isn't actually bolting to anything. Therefore, the toilet rocks (and not in an awesome way). We think it can be fixed pretty easily with a little plywood support, but haven't had the time to make this happen yet. 

The sink for the upstairs bathroom was delivered. It's pretty sweet, although apparently I have a bias against it's name because it wasn't what I had picked out for months at all. When I see the name all I can think of is Ciara. I'll let you compare for yourself. 

Cierra Pedestal Sink from Signature Hardware. 

Ciara: My Goodies 

No idea how appropriate this is for work. Be forewarned. 

Explosive excitement

Dumpster #5 is gone. Whew. The city came and cut down the dead trees in the park, so they aren't there anymore, but unfortunately the dead tree in front of our house is lost somewhere on their 2 year waiting list. The tree is in such bad shape that it won't hold up for the winter, so we have some tree guys coming to quote removal and replacement. 

The Mr. decided to knock out the fridge nook and frame it. By himself. Unfortunately there was a cool vintage light fixture with a shaped glass shade on the other side of the wall. I said, "Did you take down that light?" He said, "What light?" Needless to say, there is no more light. 

Drains, glorious drains! They are glued together and run from the first floor bathroom, the future utility sink, and the kitchen sink into the basement. Today we worked on cutting out space for the big poop pipe from the upstairs bathroom to the basement. Then we took the garden hose inside the house and ran water through the drains to test them. No leaks! Also, it entertained The Kid for a good 10 minutes! 

Bathroom sink drain and the new door. I don't know why it's tan. It won't be for much longer. At least it fits the hole now. 

This is now connected to the upstairs. It has been quite the project, but we're so close to having a toilet that we can flush with a bucket of water. I remember when the bucket flush felt so pioneer, like we were Little House in the Big Park or something. It now seems wildly luxurious. Using the bathroom! In our own house!

Labor Day is a big day in the park, with a concert and fireworks display. The Kid took this picture from the neighbor's yard. It was so nice to celebrate a holiday with our neighbors and be part of our community. We also had the best family trip to Menards before the fireworks. Seriously. It's the little things. 

This is the internet. Therefore, CATS

We've set up the garage as a painting studio for the various cabinets that are in the process of getting cleaned up. We open both the garage doors for ventilation, and we usually have a number of 'visitors' waiting for us in the alley. The other day we had four kittens. They love the plastic on the floor and frequently end up with paint drips on their fur. Gah. 

The Kid looooooooves cats. He really does. Which is unfortunate, since neither of his parents can tolerate them. We keep tempting him with promises of puppies that play games. He keeps insisting that we can just keep these kittens and he will feed them sticks. (They eat the bark, or something? Clearly missing some of the finer points of feline biology.)

He sits very patiently and waits for the cats to come to him. Then he pets them!

Success!

In other news, I have selected and even purchased paint for the exterior doors. 

The masons are officially finished, although there are some cosmetic items that we will have them come back to finish. They rebuilt this wall at the south side of the porch, which was much easier to photograph than the chimney. Sorry. 

The Great Wall

The wall that has been holding everything up for weeks is actually finished. In the end, it was one of the cheaper and faster projects we've done. In one day, the crew had widened the original opening, replaced the studs, and sistered the joists running through the bathroom. Pretty sweet, really. 

Not the greatest picture, but I think it's funny how well you can see the window in the master bathroom from the kitchen right now.

So the joists that were beveled and notched and just cut to pieces have been sistered across the bathroom floor. The really rotted nasty one in the kitchen has also been sistered, but that sister joist runs all the way across the ceiling of the kitchen (on the left in this picture).

A nice visual of how much wider the door opening is. It's about doubled in size. We had hoped to be able to take it out one stud further, but to do that we would have had to re-engineer the basement, because of the load distribution over the lintel of the doorway downstairs. This is one where a) getting what we wanted would have been impractical in terms of the amount of work and money and b) we chose to work with the house and not force it to do things that didn't make sense. 

So then this afternoon the Mr. moved the doors around. This is the door to the mudroom, which we moved a few inches to the left. This is to accommodate a utility sink in the mudroom and a full size counter/cabinet in the kitchen. 

If you'll recall, our original plan was to bump this wall out into the little closet to get a full depth refrigerator on this wall. Because of the brick column, which is supporting a steel beam which is supporting all the masonry on the second floor, we aren't able to do that. We've decided to go with a counter depth commercial fridge/freezer instead, and leave the wall alone. 

The doorway from the office to the kitchen is framed out now, to give us more counter/cabinet space. You can see the brick column just to the right. 

Next up: plumbing, electrical, dry wall, paint, world peace and moving. 

Mud room demo

This demo has really been a group effort, with just about everyone having pitched in at some point. (Except me. But I took pictures!) 

We found an actual birds nest in the wall. The mason is going to plug up the whole on the exterior. 

When the ceiling came down, there was a rain of black coal dust. It's still layering the boards and drifting around, but you can really see the handprints on the light, I think. There was no insulation above the ceiling. We'll fix that. 

The whole shebang. This door wasn't functional when this picture was taken, so it wasn't really a door. But it fit the hole! Which is more than we can say for our current solution. Grrrrrrrrr.

Master bathroom demo

Now that I've rejoined the ranks of the gainfully employed, our cousin Casey has been putting in a lot of hours on our behalf. One of his many projects over the past few weeks has been taking up the hardwood floors in the master bathroom. They have all been carefully taped up and stored in case we need to use them for patching other spots. We have to get the floor up in order to run the plumbing through. I helped take down the walls a little while back. 

 

After he got the floor up, he took down the ceiling so that we can run the electric and new lights and fans through and install the waterproof drywall. It was a very messy job. 

The door frame will go back up, flipped around so that the door will open out and we will have access to the washer and dryer that will be right here. 

Still no progress on the bathroom, but you can see the PVC drain running from the roof through the attic.