An Extra Three Day Weekend

Since Laurie's new job is with a government agency, she gets some of the uncommon holidays off from work.  This weekend was Columbus Day and I was able to take the same day off to give us both a long weekend.  Our original plan was to get some painting done around the house, but those plans changed as the weekend went on.

First, we have decided to move up our schedule to have a workshop built in the backyard to be able to move all the new tools we got from my mom out of the house.  We have decided on a 10x14 structure with an additional 10x10 concrete apron.  The best place to put this is where the current aluminum shed sits.  Laurie's brother does concrete work and will build the slab we need for the shed.  He was available to do the work next week, so we needed to move the current shed.  We moved all the stored items out of the shed and were going to disassemble it when I got the brilliant idea that we could just move it.  I knew it was too heavy to just pick up, but we had some leftover 10' black drainage PVC pipe that I thought we could use to roll the shed to the middle of the yard (approx 20').  We put four pipes under the shed and it rolled very easy, then we would move one pipe from the back to the front as they became free.  Once it was in the right spot, we put it back up on its blocks and put all the stuff back in it.

The old shed moved closer to the house

The stakes show the new concrete slab area

Laurie spent the afternoon at the hair salon.  She was able to find a hair stylist that periodically works weekends, the other stylist she has been using doesn't.  So while she was getting her hair done, I installed the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom.  The job went fairly well, but I found that my stud finder did not do very well on the older wall that we did not replace (we did not replace the drywall in the bathrooms and closets). So instead of screwing the cabinet into studs, I had to use wall anchors.  But it seems to be holding and looks good.

Now we can see ourselves again

Since we did not want to put up all our light/fan fixtures until the painting was done, I bought some inexpensive light bases at Home Depot and put one up in each room so we had more light at night.  I did not attach them to the brackets so we can leave them up while we paint.  It is so much better than carrying around a flashlight.

A very inexpensive way to have light - just over a buck

Sunday was going to be a paint day, but Laurie's brother was planning to stop by in the morning to scope out the concrete job and I did not want to start painting and have to stop (too much cleanup), so we spent some time in town shopping, and went to a craft fair, waiting until he got to town.  After meeting with him and going to lunch with he and his wife, I did a couple of more additions to the master bath and the kitchen sink.  I added a towel holder to both the bathroom and kitchen cabinets and put up Laurie's make-up mirror and a robe hook in the bathroom.  I cleaned out the hallway and laundry room and removed the hall bathroom door to give us room to paint.  We also had to clean out the guest room so we could put up the inflatable bed and make some room as my mother may be joining us on our next trip.  By the time all those tasks were done, it was getting late and I was no longer in the mood to paint.

The towel hook worked best here than on the wall

Reusing one of the old bathroom towel bars

Found a better spot to put this. . .

. . .but this site still worked for a hook

The room can now have a guest again

We had a small spot left in the great room for the TV

On one of the previous days I noticed that the laundry room faucet outlet was leaking.  Not a lot, but enough for there to be water in the wall box and a visible drop.  I decided to fix it on Monday morning and that project took most of my day.  I had to break the box out of the wall, then the water connections had to be cut off and I had to use multiple tools to remove the wall outlet drain opening from the drain pipe (it had been glued).  We were able to get all new parts at Home Depot and I planned to use the shark bite connectors our electrician/plumber had used for the plumbing connections.  The problem was getting the connections made while installing the new outlet box.  After many failed attempts, I finally broke down (this was Laurie's recommendation) and cut the drywall under the outlets to give us a new access panel to the plumbing (we will trim the piece for future access).  Since the current pipes were shorter than I had thought, I had to add extensions.  This was much easier with the new panel opening.  The replacement box went in easily after that and Laurie likes that it is so much cleaner than the old one.  No leak and cleaner box, a double bonus, though I really wish I would have thought about replacing the box and connectors while the drywall behind the laundry room was off.

The new faucet fixture with the extended access hole

Looks much better trimmed out (the cutout will have trim too)

We took it easy for the few hours we had left in the afternoon and left for home around 4pm.

Stats: 4 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 10/3-10/10: $1,227
Remodeling expense to date: $33,320