A little visitor

A funny thing happened when Randy and I were working on Mom and Dad's powder room:  One day I was waiting for Randy to help me measure the walls (it's a 2-person job).  I was sitting in the living room looking out the window, and I see this snaking through the flower beds onto the front porch, and nearly had a heart attack.

For those of you who have known me a long time, you understand.  For those who don't, this back is the spitting image of my first cat, Van Gogh, who passed away a few days before Randy and I were engaged, and is buried in the back yard.  Before you get to thinking this is a zombie tale (tail, ha ha), I saw her face.  Definitely not Van Gogh.  Phew!

She walked up to the front door and started pawing at it.  Who is this cat?  Do Mom and Dad know her?  So I did what any other pet owner would do, I went out on the front porch to see what was going on.

The cat's name is Ursula, and she had a number, but no address on her collar.  I figured she was scared and lost, so I got her some food, and Randy called the number.

Randy talked to the man, whom we call "Ursula's Dad".

Randy told him where we were, and Ursula's dad came and got her.  I was holding her in the kitchen, thinking she might get scared and run away before her dad came to get her.  He came, I handed her over, he says, "Ursula wanders, but she's never walked into anyone's house before..."  Ooops.  She didn't come in, I carried her in because I thought she was an indoor cat that got out!  Ursula is an outdoor cat!  He put her down on the porch, and walked home.  Ursula followed him like she was on a leash.

So a couple days later, I get a call from my brother, Bryan.  The first thing he says is not "hello", or "hey, it's Bryan", it's "So I hear you met Ursula."  Bryan did the SAME THING I did, was over at Mom and Dad's checking in on the house, and he met Ursula.  He called Ursula's dad, and said he had his cat.  So Ursula's dad says, "I think I talked to your brother or dad or someone last week."  Ha!  Randy was so offended that the guy thought he might be Bryan's dad!  So Ursula's dad says she'll come home on her own.

A couple days later over the next weekend, I see Ursula sunbathing on the front porch.

I open the door to say hello, and Ursula walks into the house!  Like she lived there!  She goes into the kitchen, looks all around, walks into the dining room and into the living room, and jumps up into the window through which I first saw her.  Of course I understand this is completely my fault.  I should have recognized that she was an indoor/outdoor cat, but I didn't because my cats are indoor cats, and none of Mom and Dad's immediate neighbors have outdoor cats.

I knew Mom and Dad's cats, Tango and Foxtrot, would be upset if they came home to a new cat smell in the house, so I wrangled Ursula and gently took her outside.  I slid shut the rolling screen door, and with one flick of her paw, Ursula snapped it right open again and walked right through.  I didn't like doing it, but she's not our cat, and she has a good home, so I had to put her back out and shut the front door.

I walked by again, she was still there.  I walked by again a little while later, and she was gone.  Whew!

Until we went out back to use the miter saw on the back porch, and she was drinking out of the pool!  She got through the fence!  So we e-mailed Mom and Dad, and told them all about Ursula, how friendly she is, that she's a wanderer, but she has a good home, etc.  Mom was excited to meet Ursula, but since they got home, we haven't seen her since!  Has this ever happened to anyone else - you think you're helping out a lost pet, and you find out they're outdoor pets?  Better to be willing to help someone who doesn't need your help, than to not be willing to help someone who needs it, right?

Mom and Dad's Powder Room - Final Reveal!

While Randy was picking Mom and Dad up at the airport, I was attending to some last minute details.  By the way, Randy stayed at work until 11pm so he could pick them up at the airport at 11:30.  Major son-in-law points.  

Anyway, while he was lazing away, I was putting the finishing touches on the bathroom.  See anything missing?

After I put the doors back on that darn vanity, hung the mirror and the other pictures on the wall, and brought in the stand over the toilet, the room was starting to come together.

Ooooo...  All you family coming for the 4th of July, can't wait to use these facilities, huh??

Is it me, or is it like Mardi Gras in here?

I got all of the accessories at Home Goods, except the towel rack and the stand behind the toilet.  We got those at Tar-jay.

Then I started getting goofy, and accessorized some more.  I think I bought those parrots in Disney World when I was little.  I remember saving and saving my money to buy something big on the trip.  I actually expected Mom and Dad to take them down, but they haven't yet!  The huge blue vase was a birthday gift from my buddy, Eric.  Mom had it in her living room, and it looked nice, so I let her keep it.  I'm sure it'll get moved around to another room soon.

Anything I could find in my color scheme went into the bathroom, including the flowers Ashley put in a vase for Mom and Dad.

I can't get enough of that mirror Randy made.

Now the toilet paper holder/magazine rack blends into the wall.  The trash can is an ice bucket!  It's the perfect trash can for this bathroom.  Small, and has a little plastic liner so you can put a plastic bag in it without it hanging out the top of the bucket.

Let's go back and see what it looked like before:

Yay for new powder rooms!

This Sink is Sunk

Jodi:  So last we left off, the powder room was looking like this:

The we put down the baseboard, the same way we did the top molding.  We cut each piece to size, put them in place, cut the notch out of the one board for the vent cover, and then nailed them into place.

Then I went around and caulked all the edges and spackled all of the nail holes to get ready to paint.  There are tons of good blogs out there who can give you step by step instructions, but since we're learning as we go, I'll just say what works well for us.  I caulk the seams so they disappear, and use spackle on the nail holes because I can sand them down (can't sand caulk, it gets like dried glue with little bits of sand paper in it, ha ha), and get a nice, smooth finish like there were never any nails there to begin with.

Which leads us to...  the sink.

We figured we'd throw it in there to see how it looks, but not hook it up yet, since I hadn't painted the bead board yet.  And it's a good thing we did...

Randy:  THE SINK DIDN'T FIT!  If you look at the picture above with the plumbing, the drain goes thru the floor. When you add the sink, the basin is about 4" from the wall. 

Jodi:  If we were ok with the basin being so far from the wall AND taking out the trap in the pipes, we could keep it.  We had visions on people losing wedding rings down there, never to be seen again.  Does anyone want to buy a beautiful pedestal sink on Craig's list? We have one for sale.

So while I was painting the beadboard, Randy was in charge of re-doing the old 1979 builder's grade mirror that we took down.  We looked at Lowes, Target and Home Goods, and we couldn't find a mirror we liked.  We were also looking at mirrors with nice frames in a comparable size for around $50.  We were already over budget, so I asked Randy to frame out the mirror with extra molding from the bathroom.  It was pretty, and it had that lip that fit around the mirror perfectly.

Since the mirror would be going over part of the wall that was not a flat surface, we decided to attach the frame to the mirror, and hang it like a picture, rather than attaching the mirror back to the wall, and installing the molding directly into the wall.

He did a great job!  Since it would be sitting over the very same molding it was surrounded with, I knew we couldn't leave it white.  I took a chance and sprayed it with oiled rubbed bronze spray paint, which is what I used to spray the door knob.  I wasn't sure how it would look, but I had it on hand, and  figured we could always paint over it again.

It's hard to tell here, but it ended up looking like a million bucks!  Or a $50 mirror from Target, but free!  Except a couple of bucks for the L brackets Randy used to keep the mirror in the frame, we had everything else already.  Just wait til you see this baby up on the wall.

It matches the stand we got at Target (while shopping for mirrors) that will go behind the toilet.  Do you see if coming together now?  Just a little sneak peek :)

So as Randy said, the new sink didn't work.  We considered buying a new vanity, but it just wasn't in the budget.  So I rescued the old one that Randy was using as a saw horse on the back porch.  I scrubbed it down, sanded it, and primed it.

Now if you were doing this for the long haul, you would want to use some sort of special hard-wearing cabinet paint.  No offense, Mom and Dad, but I used the high gloss white I used to paint the bead board.  If it looks crappy in a year, we'll revisit the sink.

I also sanded, primed, and ORBed the knobs and hinges and stuff.   I even did the faucet.  We'll see how it holds up.

So then came the reinstalling of the original sink, now all fancy again with the help of some paint and a magic eraser.

Randy:  I'd like to tell you why I'd never say that I'm up to "Jewish plumbing." When I finally reinstalled the plumbing, I had leaks at the hot water intake, the cold water intake and the trap. Yup, that's everywhere! I quickly fixed the hot and cold water. One was not tight enough. One was threaded badly. But the trap... I made 2 trips to Lowe's. Finally, I asked this guy because we had 2 days before we're picking up Jodi's parents'.

"Do you have any plumbing experience?"

"28 years."

"If you help me, I will come back and give you a hug."

"What's wrong?"

"I have a leak at the trap, but the thread tape and putty didn't stop it."

"Try this gasket... and stop over-torquing it. Hand tighten... then a little crank."

"That's it?!"

"That's it."

NO F***ING WAY! I called Jodi over to watch what I thought would be my greatest failure. And sure enough... it worked!

That's a real lesson for you folks. It might not be entertaining, but if you're installing plumbing... there you go. It's a little tip.

Jodi:  We'll be back with the wrap up and the final reveal!

It's so easy being green

Randy:  Once upon a time, we started this blog to describe the process of cleaning our house. Hmmm... how do I explain what we're doing? This is yet another distraction from cleaning... but this story by far less amusing than rock concerts or trips to Disney.

Jodi woke me up one morning and said the very Phineas and Ferb-esque, "hey, I know what we're gonna do today. We're gonna redesign Mom and Dad's powder room."  Jodi went on Craig's list and found a beautiful pedestal sink with faucet. That would be the centerpiece of the new bathroom.

Here's the plan... we're painting the walls a nice bright color. We're gonna put in some wainscoting. We're gonna install this new sink (instead of their horrible fixture). Simple enough?

Let's start with the demolition. It was fun. I got to rip out this horrible fixture and toss it to the side. I did get to empty the contents. There were golf balls in it. There were soaps stolen from hotel rooms from Disney (probably in the 1980s). It was crazy. Jodi had the pleasure of ripping the tiling off the walls (that were used instead of molding (don't ask). We were off to a good start.

Then we went for the supplies. All those commercials that show happy people leaving Home Improvement stores have big SUVs or trucks. My Honda was not able to hold the wainscoting. So I tried to rent a truck. Cool deal! $19 for the first hour. Awesome, I'd need it for 20 minutes. 

"Ma'am, I'd like to rent your truck for an hour."

"The truck has been seized by police for the investigation of a DUI."

"Then why is the sign still out there?!"

"Advertising."

"Advertising what? You don't have a truck."

Whatever.

So Jodi bought some twine and we tied the stuff to the roof of the car. And like clockwork... it rained on the way home. Not too badly, but enough to get this off to a wrong start.

Let's begin with the painting.   I'm not even gonna lie... Jodi took care of most of the painting. I suck at painting. I don't know why.

3 freakin'  coats! You can see that I measured the 5' mark where it would be safe to stop because the wainscoting will go. But it took 3 nights to paint. And let me tell you... we work. We have jobs. So this started on a weekend, but now, we're coming to the house during the week.  Ugh. Do you know much it sucks to work 8-10 hours per day... then commute 1+ hours... then start working again? And we're running out of time because we have about 2 weeks before her parents come home.

3 freakin' coats! We were almost out of the green paint. I can't lie though... it does look nice and bright. You'll see.

This bathroom defies the laws of geometry, mathematics, and physics. I took my 2' level to the threshold of the door. Vertical. I took my level to the adjacent corner. Vertical. No gaps between the surfaces and the level. This implies the walls are parallel.

Law of geometry: Two parallel lines never intersect nor diverge. They remain equidistant.
Keep this in mind.

At the 5' mark... 36.25 inches apart.
At the 3' mark... 36.75 inches apart
At the 1' mark... 37.5 inches apart.

I ate a lot of corn chips struggling with this. I must have measured and remeasured this about 1000 times. I still cannot explain it. I am a damn engineer, for cryin' out loud. WTF?!


I cut the first piece. Jodi and I used a hammer and nails to install it. Do you remember the board and batten fiasco of 2012? Our nail gun died.  We're not returning to that. So we went to Sears to buy a nail gun with an air compressor. What's another $100+ among friends, right? The nail gun made life a lot easier.

I think the picture below is pretty charming.  You can see my precious level and nail gun on the toilet. There are not many occasion in my life that I can use that sentence.

Jodi loves using wood filler and caulk and putty. She's such a goof. Oh, it dries white. She's not color blind.

Jodi:  Having used caulk and spackle last summer on the board and batten, I thought the spackle would create I nice, seamless transition between the two boards behind the toilet.  Yep, I was wrong.  But it's ok, I went back over it with caulk.

Randy:  It appears that this bathroom will make Jimmy Buffet proud. If you are a Parrothead that needs to poop... do we have a room for you!

Below is my weekend. It didn't take long for this project to stop being fun. If you'd ask what I'd been up to... I'd say, "Jewish carpentry." I think it is funny. If you need to understand why it is funny... you must be a priest.

This project required a whole lot less swearing than most projects. Maybe we're making some progress!

Jodi:  While Randy was cutting and measuring the beadboard, I worked on other mini projects.  Then when he was done, I'd run back over and we'd glue the back of each board and nail it in place.

This is the old magazine rack/toilet paper holder.  Mom and Dad have had it for as long as I can remember, and I thought Dad might cry if I didn't put it back in.  It was stained a dark walnut color, but I didn't think it would look good that way.  So I sanded it, primed it with spray primer, and painted it the same nice, glossy white as the beadboard, so it would blend into the wall.

I looked around for some tropical hand towels for the bathroom, and I had my heart set on the hot pink I found when we were looking at paint colors:

I looked at Ikea, Target and Home Goods.  I could find tropical prints, and pink towels, but not tropical pink hand towels.  I did, however, find this awesome beach towel.  So I cut it into fourths and sewed the edges.

And we had four new hand towels for $12.  

Then I walked around and took pictures of some of the flowers in bloom around the back yard.  I thought maybe we could frame some of them for the bathroom later?  They fit into our color scheme.

Then we started working on the trim across the top of the beadboard.  We got some with a lip at the top so it fit over the top of the beadboard.

We cut all four pieces and put them up in the bathroom.  Then we nailed each corner, as opposed to installing it one piece at a time.  It was easier to prevent moving and "cheat" the trim a little if it was a half a millimeter too short.   Which it was on one corner.

Then I caulked around the edges.

It's looking good so far, right? We still need to finish the trim, paint the beadboard, tackle the sink and put the finishing touches on!