I know I haven't been updating very often, but I HAVE been busy. I don't make the kind of progress that I'd like, but progress does indeed trudge slowly on. It's late, I gotta go to work in the morning, and I baked Snickerdoodles that are now calling to me from their plate in the kitchen.
Work has currently been concentrated on the bedroom. It's been too cold to work on the laundry room lately... more on that later. In the interest of marital harmony, I've been working on getting Sian's closet done so that she can stop living out of a suitcase. It's nearly there. Below are some pics of the closet and the little bit of ceiling that we got done last weekend. We would have gotten more done, but Sian had a bit of an accident (nothing serious - my stairs are a little slick. Add a british duvet (incredibly thick...like sleeping under a futon mattress.) and all of the sheets for our bed to the mix, and Sian didn't really have a chance. She didn't hurt herself much really, but it was enough to keep her off of a ladder for 2 days. Or maybe she just didn't want to put up 14' long planks any longer.... Hmmm.....
The little bit of ceiling we have finished...
Another shot of the same thing.
Here's Sian's closet with an actual DOOR now! LOL!
We went with some inexpensive egg-shaped black locksets from Menard's. I quite like them.
It's the little luxuries that do it for me... dimmers on both of our over-bed lights. I'm sad, I know. LOL!
A picture of my B&D cordless tools all piled up in the bedroom.
We had a delivery from Lowes the other day....
Our 5 new windows arrived. Yay! They're tall....
Now for the laundry room issue...
You'll remember that we had ripped the outside wall down and was in the process of installing a door and siding and such. We stopped because it got too cold. Yes, the cold.... There were two sinks in the laundry room...the one in the laundry room itself, and one in the darkroom. The one in the laundry room had plastic faucets on the pipes - a cheap temporary solution. It got down to 16° the other night. Remember, there is a hole in the wall, no insulation, and no heat in that room. Aye...exploding plumbing.
Sian called me at work during lunch on Thursday. She said she heard water running. I asked her to check the laundry room. I heard her open the door, and then I heard water running. She slammed the door and said; "Yup! Water in the laundry room!" Well, she has no idea where the main shut-off is, and she refuses to go into the basement anyway. So, I called Mom. She came over and shut the water off. Meanwhile, I was hauling ass back from work (35 miles away) without clocking out or telling anyone.
I came home expecting a flood. Instead, it seems that most of the water ran out underneath the temporary wall we put up to cover the hole. The floor is sloped toward the outside, since this all used to be a porch apparently. The pipes had frozen, expanded, and broken the cheap plastic faucets over the sink. When the water thawed, it started spraying. So, I ripped the plumbing out - partly. I have to install a box anyway for the washer, and we aren't keeping a sink, so I removed the pipes except for a few feet sticking out of the floor. They're capped off now.
Anyhoo, here are some pictures of my adventure in plumbing...
The water was still dripping a bit, even with the main shut off.
A quality plumbing job from the 1930s, as you can see.
Here are the faucet pieces.... I found them scattered everywhere in the laundry room.
It got a bit wet, as you can see....
Here's where the water was running out under the temporary wall.
Random tools and bits. You can have the sink if you want it.... It needs refinished, obviously.
Yes, that IS an electric line running behind and around the plumbing....
On an unrelated note...
I fixed/upgraded my computer the other day. My Northbridge on the motherboard was fried. I now have a shiny new (much faster) Epox motherboard, Gigabyte 512MB 7600GT PCI-E video card, and a 20.1" widescreen LCD monitor. The picture is dark, but I'm still using my left-side 19" Viewsonic CRT monitor also. I need another LCD. Reckon I'll order a second one soon. :p AND another video card. (It's an SLI motherboard).
