A Hole in the Floor

Let's put it this way, they don't call it a crawl space for nothing. Poor Herbert! Although, he is getting paid, so there's that. At any rate, the day finally arrived when he could cut a hole in the kitchen subfloor to move the plumbing to the other side of the room. I always say to Bruce, I'm pretty good at coming up with ideas, it is the implementation that is the tricky part for me. There's no doubt Bruce could have done it, however, this job is best left to a younger man.

Now you see him....

Now you don't...

Well, if you look closely, you do see part of his body, and his head lamp, which he needed to see what the heck he was doing under there. I'm losing track of the days, but I think this was on Monday or Tuesday. The plumbing is now moved--next up the electricity.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bruce put the stucco mix on the nasty wall...

Covering every bit of it so it will provide a stable surface for when the back splash goes in, which seems to be weeks away. Here's the finished product along with the wider door opening.

I took this before the plumbing was moved as you can just see it on the bottom right. And, although I don't have a photo of it yet, the door opening is beautiful now; Bruce finished cutting the opening and putting up the door casings on Saturday. Believe it or not, I stayed home on Saturday, cleaning my own home, picking up my order and the like. While I was tending to the home fires, Herbert installed all of the baseboards and door casings in the room Bill will be using as a temporary bedroom. I spent one day this week painting it. As well I painted one of the other bedrooms, another shade of beige. Just like the living room, I'm afraid some of it will have to receive another coat, as it was too gloomy for me to see that I wasn't getting full coverage.

Another dumpster arrived, thank goodness! Bobby (tile setter) and I watched the driver back it up the hill.

Yours truly promptly began filling it....

I know--gross, right? Our unpaid project manager insists on a clean job site!

In the meantime, I did do the market on Sunday and was it ever fantastic!! The weather was sunny and brisk, and you know what that means. After literally almost a week of constant rain and gloominess, the beautiful weather inspired loads of folks to get outside and bask in the sunshine. Including me! I'm thinking we are in training for more than a life of remodeling right now. I'm afraid the English weather, when we are there for the wedding, will be like we've been having this winter. We are getting an early taste of it!

Speaking of which, the invitation finally arrived Tuesday, and it is not what you might call lovely--stylish might be a better word. Blue chevron stripe on the top, if that tells you anything. :)

Back to the market, I had a personal best that day, not in terms of money, although that was good, but in terms of pieces--42. Can you believe it? Me neither!! In a break from all these construction photos, here's a funny one from the market. When was the last time YOU saw a dog in a back pack?

What will people think of next?

I'm still working on the coasters, learning as I go. They are entirely unpredictable, so making a bunch seems a little daunting right now, but I will say I'm getting better. I sprayed these with a clear lacquer finish when I returned from the market.

You are correct if you think Bruce had anything to do with the stand. This having a whiz kid around the house is the bomb!

Yesterday between business calls, he continued on the windowsill project. Older homes, including ours before he changed it, had basically bathroom tile sills. I imagine that had something to do with our rainy summers and having the windows open? You may recall that none of these homes were equipped with central air conditioning back then. Certainly my childhood home, only blocks away from this one, did not. I remember being very jealous of the Peck family because they had a wall air conditioner whereas we did not. Moving to Melbourne in 1969 changed all that because we moved into a home with AC!

Here he is in the dining area with one done, and one not.

It's a shame I took this with the back door open--it is in sore need of attention as is most of the outside. Before he got to one above, he did the front window:

As you can see, the outside of the house is still pink. No amount of cajoling by his Mom can convince Bill to pick a new color. So by the end of yesterday, the sills are done in the main living area--woo hoo!

One of the very first things Bill did, in fact, I'm thinking it was the day after closing, he went over in the rain and trimmed back most of the plants, but fortunately, he missed this one.

We've spent so much time over there I've barely noticed my own azaleas blooming. This has been a strange winter for us, as you are by now, no doubt,  sick of hearing from me. Some of the plants and trees think that it is spring,

however, today's predicted high of 57 is anything but spring like, at least here in Florida! What pray tell do we have to moan about when so much of the country is either ice bound or snow bound? Enough said.