Thaw, more Snow, and plumbing – Weekend Update MLK weekend

Oh 3 day weekends, please start visiting us more often!  I love a three day weekend.  Stefan and I were talking and it seems we have a habit of working really hard on Saturday and by Sunday the combination of the physical tiredness of Saturday and the mental/emotional tiredness of the week takes over and we are pooped.  The 3 day weekend gives us a Sunday to recuperate and a Monday to plow through more work.  It’s glorious.

This weekend we ran into a bunch of snafus but we got a lot done and are well on our way towards getting things done in the 2nd floor bathroom.

First order of business was to drop off the scrap metal I had loaded into the back of the truck last weekend.  Wow.  That was an adventure.  We went into Everett and there is a whole row of places.  I had a place I had looked up online and they were all the way at the end.  They were very nice and were willing to explain everything we needed to do.  First we waited in line to be weighed.  Then we were told to go to the sorting station since we had mixed metals.  We unloaded and sorted everything.  There were so many interesting people there.  It was quite the experience.  Everyone was very nice.  I’ve found that at places like this where I feel like a yuppy in a local’s environment, I just throw on my country girl accent and remember to make eye contact and smile.  I may be a city girl now but I was raised a southerner and good manners go a long way with all types of people.  The rough scrap yard guys are willing to help and answer questions if you go out of your way to show your respect for them.    I just ignore their stares and make sure I smile and say thank you.  We came out about $120 ahead and it only took about half an hour.  We took one fairly large piece of copper pipe.  It was $95 just for that one piece.  We have probably 4 times that much still at the house.  This was kind of just a trial run but now we know how it works we’ll load up the truck and do a multi-hundred dollar run.

After that adventure, we went to Home Depot and picked up this extension ladder for $99.

Roofing contractor was planning to use roofing brackets to hold the extension ladder. After more thinking and some playing on the roof, we decided to try another approach. Putting holes in our brand new roof just didn’t sit too well.

You can see here why it was so hard to get too. We had to go just about 8 feet above the top of the roof-line.

To get there, we just used a 6 foot step-ladder. We tied it to a piece of scrap wood that we clamped through the Green Windows just to keep it from sliding out from under Stefan while he drilled the holes.

We got the first one done on Saturday afternoon. It took a mid-project Home Depot run to get a hole saw the right size but we managed one. It started to get dark so we put up shop and worked on an “indoor” project that evening. We were going strong until nearly 11 o’clock. But, we got the water supply done in the bathroom. Pex-tastic, we will see if can finish the project completely. We got help from the First 4 Plumbing on plumbing issues at home.

We even labeled the manifold.

It felt so good to get something checked off the list.

Sunday was windy so we elected not to do any roof-ladder work. Frankly speaking, I wish I hired a professional service to do this roof job, as it turned out to be very time-consuming. I heard guys from roof repair West Palm Beach are great at roof repair, so next time I need something like that, I would probably contact them. Instead, we worked on planning out Electric. We picked out and ordered this lighting fixture for the bathroom:

We also picked out these lights for the vanity:

Since it was a 3 day weekend, we took some time to walk downtown for a late lunch/early dinner. It was great to see the sun and have some date-time.

Sunday we finished up the other two venting heads. These are for the bath fan exhausts. There are 3 in total. One for the first floor bath, one for the half bath on the second floor, and one for the master bath.

We had planned on drilling a bunch of holes for running electric but as Stefan was cutting the last exhaust hole, the right angle drill died a heart-wrenching death. We stripped the gears and it made this pitiful jingley sound as the gear teeth floated around the case. So, that put an end to our weekend of work. We decided to get in the car and make a third and final weekend trip to HD but we walked outside and…it was snowing! Forecast of 4-8″!! We only got a dusting but still, HD in a blizzard isn’t something I’m dying to do again so we called the weekend done and relaxed and watched TV instead.

My sister is coming out next weekend so we’ll have an extra set of hands. Here we come dry-wall ready bathroom!!!

Stay Warm!

Sarah

P.S. Highs are in the teens for the next couple days. Brrrr.