Not so much

Yeah, I haven't really been doing anything. Me = Big slacker.

I did just a couple of things this weekend, none of which require pictures.

Here's all I did:

I took the Christmas lights out of the tree out front. I've been meaning to do that for a while now, but it was finally warm enough and I had the free time to get it done. It was relatively painless, but I haven't actually wrapped them up or put them away yet. I'm still not sure how well that will go.

I changed the bulbs out in the porch lights in front of the house. Replaced burned out and broken incandescents with CFLs. I don't really like CFLs, but they're more efficient and last longer. Also, they're getting to be cheap enough where you aren't even really spending more to get them than you would with incandescents. When LEDs come down in price a bit, I'll definitely be getting those.

I also added a Dusk to Dawn sensor to the back porch light. We go out so much at night with the puppy that it's nice to have one that will just be on for us. It's also nice from a security standpoint. I like my house to be well-lit on all sides all night to discourage anyone from thinking they can lurk on my property. I'm very much anti-lurking.

Additionally, I picked up some foam rubber pipe insulation. The inlet for the outside air to air-ify our furnace and water heater burners comes in at the ceiling of the basement, and is right next to some of our plumbing. I doubt that it will get cold enough in the utility room for those pipes to freeze, but I don't want to find out the hard way. A little insulation on those pipes will give me some peace of mind.

Finally, I picked up a garage door opener. We're still living the good life with a completely manual garage door, but all that's about to change. We got this bad boy: Chamberlain Screw Drive and it will solve that problem right up for us. People seem to like it and we got a great price on it at Costco. I haven't ever put one in before, but I have some friends who have, so I'm going to try to ply them with beer and food to get them to help me out. That will probably take me at least a few hours of work and will justify a whole giant blog post of its own, I'm sure.

So there you go. Not much actually done, but a little bit. This week there should be more. Thanks for reading!

Puppy Cuddles = Plumbing (under the right circumstances)

We got a lot done yesterday. By "we" I mean the people I hired to do the work. "We" meaning me and my dad, the normal "we" on this blog, spent a lot of time cuddling a puppy and chatting. It was not the worst day of working on the house ever by a significant margin. So even though we didn't do much, much got done. That's kind of a nice change.

Here's the list of what went down:

We now have water flowing to the master bathroom rough-ins:

Everything still just stubs out, but we're all set to go for when we put on fixtures now.

We also have the HVAC moved now. Instead of having a vent right in the center of the bathroom door (not ideal) we'll have air coming up through the base of the vanity and out through a grate on the kick plate. I think it's an elegant solution to a particularly sticky problem.

This is the gas outlet behind our stove. We now have the ability to do a dual-fuel range, which is exactly what I want to do.

This is the new port for the pipe. They put in the flexible gas line and it kinda winds its way around and over to the other side of the house. It should be pretty easy to work around, which will definitely be nice.

Last but not least, there's the shower rig. Those blue pieces are marking where our body sprays will be. When it comes time to tile around them and all, the blue tubes make sure we don't accidentally cover them up or anything. Then we pull the blue tubes out, put the fixtures on, and voila!

Okay, this is really the last. My wife had an amazing idea last night. I say it's amazing because it's something I struggled with when designing the bathroom. We have a linen closet in the hallway but not enough room for one in the master. I thought about closing off the closet to the hallway and opening it up in the bathroom, but we like being able to get to extra towels and toilet paper and whatnot without having to go through the master bedroom and bathroom. So Jenna suggested that we do double doors. One from the hallway and one from the master bathroom. I think it's a brilliant idea. It means we can get our towels without having to go out into the hallway, and a guest can get extra toilet paper without having to come into the master bathroom. What do you guys think? Is it just crazy enough to work?

New Year

Well, it's the new year now, and we're off to a good start: I have made a blog post. Rather, I am currently making a blog post. More accurately, I am currently making a blog post but by the time you are reading this, I will have already made a blog post and will likely be sipping a Mai Tai out of a coconut shell on a beach because that's how I spend my Monday evenings.

 fig. 1

Really, not much has happened. I did order the plumbing parts we need and set an appointment with the plumber for next week, so that will be good. We are also leaning towards finishing at least one room completely rather than let them all languish at a state of 95% for years to come. I'm thinking the hall bath and the guest room are ripe for quick finishing with minimal required effort and materials. I will keep you informed of our progress.

So anyway, thanks for reading, as always! I'll post up here as soon as anything exciting happens.