I Have Walls!

The Thanksgiving holiday finally draws to a close and our house was a hive of activity for most of it. We spent Thursday at grandma's for the usual Turkey and whatnot. It was an awesome spread and a great time hanging out with family. Here's Aunt Shauna with her pet monkey, and his pet monkey.

Nathan enjoyed the dog too, provided there was a safe barrier to preserve his personal space.

Friday the family showed up for the first of 2 work days on the new bathroom. After a hearty breakfast of B&G (thanks Liv and grandma), we all started in on our appointed tasks. Since we had 8 people and just 1 bathroom to work on, we had to divide and conquer. Shauna, Megan, and Logan all went out to the garage to tackle the mountain of staining we had to do.

Grandpa went to work trying to get a detailed mapping of our crazy electrical system.

Tom and I started in with the new plumbing.

Liv concentrated mostly on keeping all of us fed while grandma and Nate entertained each other. I believe they came up with some sort of police lineup game.

That and of course some root beer too.

At the end of day one we had finished the 1st coat of staining, mapped the whole house's electrical, glued all the drain pipes in place, and started on the water supply lines. There were no major setbacks and only one minor injury when Uncle Tom took a piece of 2" PVC to the forehead from about 5' up.

Day 2 started much the same as day 1. Shauna and Megan were back on staining detail with help from Olivia this time. Grandpa and Logan picked up where Tom and I left off with the water supplies, and Tom and I started framing in the new ceiling. Grandma gladly took baby duty again and away we went. After lunch we finished up some jobs, juggled around some helpers, and soon had about 5 people framing walls up in the bathroom.

Everything was going fine until a small drip of water was noticed coming through the kitchen ceiling downstairs. After some investigation, we discovered that the new cold water supply line was full of water despite having the valve shut off to it. Somehow during the new supply line installation, the valve had been damaged allowing a tiny trickle of water to seep into the new pipes. It took a couple hours, but the water eventually filled the new pipes up to where we had stopped and began dripping out the unfinished end. So, we had to glue caps on to the open ends to prevent any further leaking. It was an easy fix, but it still baffles me how the valve could start leaking after having been totally fine for the past 2 weeks.

Progress had come to a screeching halt for our little water problem, but after the fix we were back at framing walls. By quitting time we had completed about half of the bathtub surround and half of the adjoining closet.

All in all, it was a VERY productive weekend. We got all the staining done.

We got all the sub-floor plumbing done.

We got the new ceiling in and a good start on the walls. Thanks again to everyone that come over to help. Olivia and I are very grateful to you all!