Plumbing Leak

Yep.

Wednesday night Kevin and I were working in the kitchen and he discovered this:

It's definitely difficult to see on our lovely cobalt blue countertops, but that, my friends, is a puddle of water of our counter.

How does that happen?

We had no idea, so we looked up....












And saw this:

If you ask me, not too threatening. Until...Kevin got out the stool and felt around by that teensy, weensy little brown dot in the ceiling.

Spongy.

Not good.

One guess as to what is directly above this spot in the kitchen.

Yep. The bathroom. The tub to be specific.



So, Thursday morning I called our good friend, R.P., who graciously offered to come over before noon and check it out with me.

He started by putting two small holes in the spongey area (with a bucket underneath) to release any water that might be standing there. Just a note: we will need to replace the entire ceiling when we remodel the kitchen anyway, so that's just fine.

Good news! No standing water.

So, then we moved upstairs to the bathroom. R.P. removed the tile panel on the half wall and we got a great look at the plumbing...and all of the wet floor and subfloor.

After initially thinking there might be a problem with the drain, we determined that the problem lies with the plumbing for the hand-held shower attachment. The plumbing wiggles, a LOT, and probably cracked in the very recent past.

Final determination: no using the hand shower attachment, but we are good to go with the tub.

Now, we need to detach the bad plumbing, buy new and reattach. That should be interesting. :)

Total bust

Well, after I was so excited to go to the auction on Saturday, we came home with nothing.

Okay, not nothing. There was another auction at the fairgrounds at the same time and I got a cake plate. :)

But, no toilet, no shower, no sink or vanity, no flooring. Total bummer. Now, it's not that they didn't have any of those things. There were several options, but we are just looking for something particular.

They had a number of really tricked out shower units, but this is what they looked like.

When your house is built in the 1900s, this isn't exactly the look you go for. It would have been totally cool, but it doesn't go with the rest of the house at all.

Ditto on the toilets. Although, if you were looking for a black or gray one, they had those. And the ones with a dual flush system.

But, alas, none that fit our needs. And the vanities and pedestal sinks were too big or the wrong style too.

So, we came home with a cake plate, and our bathroom remains as is for now.

So, it's been a little quiet...

Admittedly, it's been quiet on this here blog.

Why?

Um, did you forget that we just moved?

So, we've been unpacking and trying to arrange some furniture, rugs, and other random stuff that we seem to have accumulated. Oh, and plan. This house requires some planning.

That being said, I have my sights set on the bathroom on the main level. It used to be a full bath, and we have plans to make it that way again. We are headed to the Allen County Fairgrounds tomorrow for a big "home stuff" auction. I hear it is loved by contractors who are able to score some sweet, brand new stuff for super cheap.

Check out the auctioneers' website.

People come from all over for these auctions. I mean, seriously, they have a list of hotels and truck rental companies on the page. That's CRAZY!

I'm totally pumped. I CAN NOT wait!! I'm hoping to score some serious bath products: sink, toilet, shower and surround, flooring, etc. We'll see. We want to keep our remodels period-appropriate for the house so it really depends on what they have.

Wish us luck! And, I will be updating after the auction to let you know where we came out.

In other news, I've been setting up appointments with various companies to come in and do some quotes. Fun stuff. More about that later.

First Round

It is amazing how different a house looks when the former owner leaves a house empty! The good news? We love it even more!

This last weekend was a whirlwind of projects at the house. Big priority? Get it clean! Oy! Thanks to Kevin's mom, our friend Tracey was on hand to work her magic. Tracey was such a blessing. She loves to clean and see the fruits of her labor, and boy, those fruits were abundant! The dirt that came off the walls was ridiculous.

The carpets too. I think we all have no idea how much dirt and nastiness hides and thrives in our carpets and rugs. Thank goodness for my mom's carpet cleaner. Whew! Really, you should have seen the rinse water she was dumping. Totally gross.

I would be amiss if I did not stress that it was really the purpose of my parents' visit to have Dad help Kevin with reshingling the garage. The garage roof was showing significant wear and tear and it was estimated that it would not successfully weather another northwest Ohio winter. Thankfully, Dad was a roofer in a former life and was able to share his experience with us.

Kevin started early in the morning to tear off the old felt and shingles. The unexpected bump on that project was that it took until noon to clean off the roof. Originally, the plan was for them to return home early Sunday morning, but with this bump, they decided to stay longer and get a lot further on the roof. And, that's exactly what they did. When it was time for Mom and Dad to leave, there was just one side of the roof left and I could help enough for Kevin to finish it up. Well, except that we ran out of shingles. But, we fixed that Monday morning and Kevin officially finished the garage roof Monday night.

Roof? Done. Whew!

Oh, yeah. And, we also wanted to tear out carpet in two rooms: Ethan's bedroom and the full bathroom upstairs. Mom did most of Ethan's room. She and I pulled up the carpet, but the padding underneath had completely deteriorated and was giving my allergies major grief. So, Mom finished that room, scraping up the lingering padding with a putty knife. It really worked wonders.

I worked on the bathroom. Yuck! You know, I just want to take a little break here and say that we all deal with our own dirt. And it's gross, but it's your own so it's mostly okay. It's much less okay to work with someone else's dirt. Not cool.

So, the carpet in the bathroom was gross.

Anyway, I pulled it up after some major wrestling with an abundance of carpet tacks. Oy! Seriously, there was no need for so many tacking strips and nails. And underneath it? ... Are you ready for it?? ... Marble! No, I'm just kidding.

There is lovely vinyl tiles glued to a wood floor, which means if there really ever was marble under there it was torn out long ago. Bummer, dude.

That being said, it's vinyl which means it will do until we can renovate that bathroom. Mission: Accomplished.

All in all, a very successful weekend.