A New Hat for Nathan and a New Floor for Olivia

We were goofing around with the boy yesterday and found a new hat for him.

I wish we had had that diaper double bagging his behind today. He had the mother of all blowouts while in his high chair. It was one of those "straight to the tub" diapers.

Contrary to what you might think, that wasn't the highlight of our day. Grandma and grandpa Dudley took the boy for us after church so Liv and I could do a little shopping for the bathroom. We picked up our window and some plumbing items that were on sale. We found the tub we wanted as well as a vanity and vanity top. We didn't buy any of that stuff today, but will probably get the tub next week since it's on sale. We also hunted for some floor tile too. Liv saw one she liked that was on sale for 99 cents/sq ft. We looked around some more and found a higher quality tile that she liked even better for only 68 cents/sq ft. So, she didn't even have to talk me into that one. We loaded a couple hundred pounds of the stuff in the old pickup and headed home. Here's what it looks like...

Kermitt Turns 100

After only about 10 months, this post is now my 100th entry onto Kermitt. Part of me thought I would lose interest and quit after about 2 weeks, but here I am still keeping a semi-regular posting frequency after almost a year. Harvest is just now starting, so my posting is bound to become much more sporadic over the next 6 weeks. That being said, I thought I would take this opportunity to show off my post-harvest/early winter project.

If any of you have ever visited our house and experienced either of the bathrooms, you will agree that they both need some serious updates. It's bathrooms like ours that keep HGTV on the air. Anyway, we saved most of my overtime money from this summer and we've decided to tackle the upstairs bathroom remodel/expansion after harvest is over. If you've never seen our upstairs bathroom, it's basically a short narrow hallway with a bathtub across the end of it. Your knees literally touch the opposite wall when you sit on the throne. And the decorating? Let's just say that 1965 called and they want their wallpaper back. Take a gander...

Yeah, she's a beauty all right. Luckily for us, directly behind the tub is another empty room that is completely un-accessible except for a small 1.5' x 3' door in our bedroom closet. Here's what we're looking at.

The L-shaped spot where "existing bath" sits is actually where the tub is in the first picture. The stairs climb from north to south, so the portion exposed in this space is actually the sloping ceiling above them. The small break in the SE wall is the access hole in our closet. There's also a full size window labeled in the north wall. The roof line is a standard A-frame with the peak running north-south down the center of the room. The pink area represents the area that is roughly 6.5' tall or more, or the usable portion of the room as far as I'm concerned. It's roughly 7' wide by 10.5' long. Here's a picture looking north from the closet access hole.

Here's a shot looking south from the window.

The tub is on the other side of that corner and you can see the stairs to the left of that. Notice the old chimney right in the middle of everything. Luckily I had my thinking cap on when I had the roof replaced about 5 years ago. I had my contractor vent everything that was using the chimney out the side of the house and knock both of my decrepit chimneys down to below the roof line. The chimney will be right in the middle of the new room, so now I just have to remove some more bricks down to below the floor and cover it up.

So here's the master plan... totally gut the old bathroom and turn it into a hallway leading into the new bathroom. We are wanting it to look something like this.

It may look like we're not using all available space in there, but remember that the roof line restricts headroom in more than half of the room. We're planning on knocking out the wall behind the existing tub, creating access to the space. The new toilet will sit where the existing tub is. The tub/shower had to sit as close to the middle of the room as possible to maximize head room and avoid having to stoop while showering. The opposite wall will be really long so we're opting for a long 5' or 6' vanity with 2 sinks. We've kept all the fixtures close together to minimize our plumbing needs. The closets will have to conform to the roof line, making the floors of them deeper than the upper shelves will be. Both closets will have access doors into the unfinished portions behind them, making more "attic" storage. In fact, the east closet access door will make a secret passage linking up with the access door in our closet. I always wanted a house with a secret passage!

I've been constantly reworking the plans for this room in my mind for weeks. With the help of a buddy at work (thanks J!), I've got a pretty good idea of what's going to have to happen and what materials I'm going to need. Here's the first job...

This is a shot above the stairs. You can see the tiny access door in the lower left corner. The first project is to make sense of this rat's nest of wires. This panel is actually an old fuse box. I'm going to replace it with a breaker box and re-route any wiring that will be in the way of the new room. I'm also going to put sheeting down over the stairs to make access into the rest of the attic easier. Hopefully in "phase 1" we can fix stuff like this...
I believe this decrepit splice is part of the main service wire that feeds the whole house. Yeah, needs a little work. So there's the master plan for now. Like I said, this project won't start until after harvest. We've already started buying some materials as they go on sale. I imagine I won't be able to use my garage after a month of stocking up. We're looking at a budget of $3000 to $5000. We will get nice stuff to put in there, but our primary focus is resale value. We'll get stuff that is reasonably priced and would look good to potential buyers. My goal is to have the whole project finished by the end of the year. That may be a bit ambitious, but having to go downstairs to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night should keep me motivated. I'll keep you updated on our progress once construction starts.

Score One for Dad

Ever since Nate was born, I've always been amazed at how well Olivia handles him. When it comes to the boy, she's better at everything than me. She's better at feeding him, comforting him, entertaining him, changing him, bathing him, everything. Finally, tonight I found something that I can do better than her. We both tried this and my facial hair got a much bigger response than her smooth face. Score one for Daddyo!

Grandma Was Right

Grandma said that the boy would be doing this sooner or later. I guess she was right.

Finally, Some Boating Pics

Tom and Megan sent me some pics of the boy at Logan's birthday party and I'm finally getting around to posting them.

Tie your hair up mom, it's in my face...

Mmmm, sunblock...

He looked like a blue pumpkin in his life vest.

Inspecting the boat windshield...

Learning to negotiate stairways for the first time...

Chasing that baby at the end of the hallway...

Sigh, I wish I was boating.

SNL - Palin and Clinton

Here's a clip from Saturday Night Live from last weekend. It's pretty funny and I can't believe how much Tina Faye looks like Palin. Enjoy!

Fall Is Coming

It's getting cooler in the evenings and we had to break out some of Nate's fall clothes for our evening walk a few days back. He looked very elfish to me in his new threads so I had to take some pics...

My New Favorite Invention

Liv found a new "toy" for the boy this week at Wally World. Actually, I think it's more for her and I.

Hopefully this will keep him contained enough that Liv can get more done around the house. He has required constant supervision since he started crawling and his mother is pulling her hair out.

We haven't tried it out for more than a couple minutes so far, but I love it already. I call it Lil' Leavenworth. During the short amount of time he's been in it, he hasn't touched a toy. He's spent all his time grappling with the sides searching for an escape route. Here's what our hardened criminal thinks of the whole arrangement...
It's too bad his orange jumpsuit doesn't fit anymore! (see "Inmate Number 62704" from 4-23-08)

Happy Labor Day

Labor day weekend is finally drawing to a close and I feel like I need a vacation. We had a pretty busy weekend, but it was all very fun. Aunt Shauna and Uncle Tom were home for a visit as well as Nate's Grandma Painter. Saturday we all got together at the Morning Star so S & T could meet Linda for the first time. After lunch there, we headed over to the McLaughlin's for Uncle Logan's 21st birthday bash. While there, Nathan got to take his first boat ride out on Lake Petersburg. I didn't have the camera with me, but Megan and Tom both took some great pictures with their phones. If they e-mail them to me I will post the good ones up here for all to see. (hint, hint Megan & Tom). After all the excitement, the boy was spent...

Sunday, after church, we went over to Great Grandma and Grandpa Adamski's to celebrate Grandpa Bill's 80th birthday. At the ripe old age of 80 I think he could work most 40 year olds under the table. Happy birthday Grandpa Bill! We also got to see Grandma Painter again along with the rest of the Adamski clan. We couldn't stay too long though, because we had to get home for another bbq at our house. It was just the Dudley's at our place and after some killer bratwurst, we played some games and pitted the boy against his pet monkey in a chicken fight...

Monday morning it was off to Grandma Dudley's for more food and games. We had a huge and delicious spread for breakfast. Those of us that didn't fall asleep afterwards played games and messed with Nate. Here he ponders the mysterious disappearing aunt...

Early Monday afternoon, Shauna and Tom left for Iowa again and we headed home ourselves (with a short stop at Great Grandma Dudley's pool of course). So, long story short, we expect the boy to sleep well tonight. He'd better because I reckon both of his parents will be so sacked out that they won't notice if he starts whining.