Cooler Weather = Better Health = Home Renovations

The hot, humid weather has finally broken!  Let's hope that the rain goes back to normal rainfall amounts and frequencies too!

Now that the weather is cooler, I have tons of energy again.  That is great news!  So, I started working on the house again yesterday.

I decided to continue the renovation that involves replacing most of our waste plumbing.  In particular, I started working on our new half bathroom yesterday and figuring out how to tie this into my waste plumbing plan.

I had replaced all of our supply plumbing a few years ago.  That was a major upgrade and I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that all of our supply plumbing is brand, spanking new!  Now comes the much dirtier job of doing everything I can to upgrade and fix our waste plumbing (not to mention being a much stinkier job).  This waste plumbing project must be completed in order to install this new half bath.

Test fitting fixtures...

We have almost everything we need for the bathroom...  toilet, pedestal sink, faucet (although, now that I am thinking about it, I am not sure where the faucet is located right now), medicine cabinet, light fixtures, flooring, solid wood beadboard for the ceiling, supply plumbing roughed-in, electrical roughed-in, and a waste plumbing plan.  We've been buying pieces as we see them on sale so we have collected almost everything we need at this point.

This morning, I ordered two bathroom exhaust fans.  One fan for this half bath and one for our larger master bath.  I had even sketched out plans for ductwork for these fans to vent out our soffit just a few feet away on the other side of the hallway.  While researching building codes for these bathroom exhaust fans late last night, I found that the half bath with no moisture problems does not actually require an exhaust fan.  We do, however, want to remove odors, for obvious reasons.  I found a nice little fan designed just for that purpose which requires no ductwork whatsoever.  This will not only save on the cost of ductwork, but it will also save me a lot of time and energy in installing this fan properly.  That was good news!

I ordered the necessary fans from Home Depot this morning...  both will be shipped to our house for free.  I can't express enough how I truly love online shopping!  Because I didn't have to drive up to Home Depot, I had the time and energy to cut the lawn this morning instead.  So, the lawn is looking great for the weekend and I still have energy leftover (Adam did half the work)...  even better!  Shopping in the comfort of my own home and then having items delivered to my door for free is simply awesome.

So, yesterday I ripped out the falling ceiling...  cleaned up all the disintegrated insulation and 'other droppings' found in all old ceilings...  test fit the toilet, sink, medicine cabinet and lighting fixtures to check ergonomics...  I pulled up the old floor to figure out where to tie into the waste to the septic...  sketched some waste plumbing plans on unfinished walls where the plumbing will be located...  and then this morning I ordered the exhaust fans.

I need to build some custom doors too.  What good is a bathroom without a door and some privacy?  I need one door for each of the bathrooms and two closet doors.  I designed solid wood doors in the shaker/craftsman style which still are on my to-do list.   Hmmm...  I just remembered that I need to build a few wood screen doors to replace our water-damaged and rotted out doors.  So, add a few of those doors to the list too.

It feels good to be getting some home improvements and renovations done again.  Hopefully the next few months can be extremely productive.  I'll continue to post here as things get done...