It’s been a long six months working on house renovations for both aesthetic and practical and necessary changes, besides the present to ourselves which consisted of a stairway to the creek.
The last major project for our contractors was to replace the shower in the bathroom. The actual shower itself was the first piece of our puzzle we purchased, and the last to be installed.
Before we could make the change to the larger shower, we had to remove the water heater and closet. Before we could remove the water heater and closet we needed to get an on-demand water heater, and before we could install the on-demand water heater we needed to have propane pipes and a tank installed at the house. We did that when we were working on the kitchen renovation so that we could install the gas range. The whole renovation has been like that.
The incomplete bathroom renovation which at this point just had a new bathroom vanity, sink and faucet.
The electric water heater was in a built-in closet with shelves next to the shower, so all of that had to be removed down to studs. The water pipes and drain had to be relocated for the new shower, and concrete boards had to be installed. I’m sure everybody will be shocked to know that the walls were not square or level which added some additional entertainment to the process.
Four days, and many steps later the shower was done, the toilet was moved to center it in the space between the vanity cabinet and shower, and the flooring was replaced, as well as a new medicine cabinet hung and towel rods and toilet paper holder were hung. Sheetrock repairs required a lot of extra work but now the walls and ceiling are ready for paint. That will be our project for this week. Our project!! We will get to do this part at our convenience. Yay!!
We had to grout the tile in the shower and will need to seal it when the grout is completely cured.
The flooring extends from the bathroom into the hallway and utility/laundry area between the kitchen and our bedroom.
The whole room feels way more spacious and efficient, highly useful characteristics for a small room in a small house.
Once the painting in both the bathroom and hallway is completed we will install the new light fixtures. Then we can turn our attention to painting the living room and kitchen. So we still have a lot of work to do but it will be quiet work that we can do ourselves.
Happy cat in a sunbeam on top of a pillow in a quiet house. He won’t be doing any work. He’s a supervisor only. Or king. Depends on who you ask.
The house is still a total mess with moving things around in order to facilitate the recent changes we made. Now when we put things back and get everything cleaned up and organized it will get to stay that way.
View from the living room window looking east in the evening as the sun is getting lower in the sky.
It’s kind of amazing how much the colors change on the trees and mountain and grass, depending on the height of the sun.
The pile of tree pieces in the picture above is going away at the moment. The guys are cutting it up, splitting it and hauling the pieces away. Next year it will be truly excellent firewood. It is going to take them quite a few pickup truck trips but soon the two trees will be gone.
Another view out the same window of our resident flock of Wild Turkeys. The flock consists of several hens and their chicks from this spring. These are big birds.
The turkeys congregate around this side of the house and then one by one they fly up into the trees by the creek to roost for the night. There must be some sort of order to who goes first and who goes last; we just haven’t figured it out yet. It’s fun watching them do this every evening and even more fun watching them all bailing out of the trees in the morning.
This morning one of the youngsters landed inside the garden fence and couldn’t figure out how to get back out again until I went out to open the garden gate to provide him with a really good reason to use the same wings he used to get into the garden in the first place. Silly bird.