I'm Happily Recovering....

Dateline: 4 June 2013

I haven't posted here for over two weeks because I've been focused on an important project. I decided to remodel the 40-year-old bathroom in our double-wide house/business property. My original plan was to get the new bathroom in before August of this year. That's when my son was scheduled to get out of the Army.

The plan was for him and his wife and baby Jaxson to come here and live in 1/2 of the house, while we consolidated our Whizbang inventory of poultry shrink bags, chicken plucker fingers, cider press parts, and books into the other half of the house. The beauty of this plan is that our only grandchild (pictured with me above) would be living practically right next door to us.

My mind was set on August. There was no real rush. I had already gotten a little start in my free time. Then the plan changed...

My son ended up getting discharged at the end of May (a few days ago). The reality of this came to me early in May. I had a LOT of work to do, and not long to get it done. To compound the problem, it's the busy season for our mail order business. The orders are coming in steady and I typically work from 6:00 am to 1:00 or 2:00 pm every day to get the orders filled. As soon as that work was done each day, I changed gears and focused on the bathroom project.

The good part is that I've remodeled hundreds of bathrooms (and kitchens). I was a home remodeler for 20+ years. I know how to do the work and do it right. 

Though I haven't remodeled a bathroom for probably 15 years, it is not a skill that you forget. It's kind of like riding a bicycle in that respect. But I will confess that I'm not as fast and efficient at the work as I once was.

I started from scratch, which is to say I completely gutted the space. The new bathroom would be larger (8ft by 7ft) with a new window. The old floor was 1-1/2" out of level. You can't have a nice new bathroom on top of an unlevel floor. I leveled the ceiling and plumbed the walls too.

I drove myself hard, working every day until I was totally exhausted. I worked harder than I've worked in a lot of years, and I worked myself sick. I guess my immune system just couldn't keep up with the demands I was putting on it. I didn't get seriously sick. It was more like an achy flue-like sickness. I burned myself out. But I kept at it (I just worked slower).

Yesterday evening my son and his family arrived. They had driven from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, with tornados literally following them out of the state. I could hear the car coming up the road. They were beeping the horn to announce their arrival. They were glad to be home.... finally. 

As for the bathroom, well, it's pretty much done, along with some other minor remodeling alterations that we decided to do. And I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. The only problem now is that there is no water. I just stubbed the water and drain lines into the basement. Now I have to hook everything together. I will be revamping the whole plumbing system and installing a new water heater too. But not today, and not tomorrow either. I'm in recovery mode for a couple days... recharging my batteries, so to speak. There will be water by the weekend.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying my grandson....