A Leaky Mess!

First batch of split pipes

Things at the house will probably go slower this week than last. Eduardo and Dad have some tile jobs to work on, so that just leaves me to do whatever I can get done. Yesterday I added the first bit of color back into the new place. Even though I have been painting for weeks, so far it's just been all-white primer, or white ceiling paint. But yesterday I painted the kitchen "Honey Butter" yellow. We'd thought about going for the same color orange we had in our old kitchen, but I thought we should just try something new. Honey Butter is definitely new...and bold. I hope Eduardo likes it when he sees it.

Today I will start on the less bold beige/brown color I chose. Those sort of vague colors really have to be up on the wall before I can tell if I like them or not. On a small sample strip it's just too hard to visualize whether a slightly more grey beige would look better than a slightly more brown one.

I must admit that it is kind of nice to have the house to myself when painting. I don't have to worry about being in the way, or the guys rubbing against my fresh painted walls, and I can turn the music up. Also some of the pressure I feel at all their accomplishment (while I plod away priming wall after wall) is lessened, so I don't feel as rushed or as disappointed in what I've gotten done. That's not to say that they have said anything to that effect, in fact I don't think they even think that, and I don't either really. It's just the nature of what I am doing. Last week they took care of all the plumbing, so that is done. Last week they hung the sliding door upstairs, so that is done. This weekend they started hanging the interior doors so that is mostly done. I have just been priming. A wall here, half a ceiling there, most of the trim, but not all of it, half of the upstairs living room...For all of my working I have yet to finish even one room. Except for what I did yesterday I haven't even actually PAINTED anything yet! I am hoping to get some stuff done this week, so I feel a little bit better about the situation. If I can get the kitchen and the two bedrooms done, trim and all, I'll be pretty excited I think. But we'll see about that. There is so much more to painting (final color) than just rolling it on the wall. There is taping, and I have to move everything in the rooms around, which can take some time.

Going back to the plumbing problems last week. What a mess that turned out to be! I wish Eduardo could write about that, since I only know what I saw from breaks I took from painting. But anyway I'll try my best (and hope it's close to the truth). So remember way back when in November when I was all barfy and going to make an offer ont he house and we found out that there was a plumbing leak? And then I got all freaked out and thought that it would be a huge deal and cost thousands of dollars to fix? Yes, well the huge deal part was right, but (luckily) the thousands of dollars was off. It didn't cost a whole lot, dollar wise, just a few copper pieces, and some pipe (since Pepere Joe had a bunch of soldering stuff that Uncle Jack loaned to us). But in time it was quite expensive, and in patience from the guys maybe double or triple that. The short version is that they went through the house and fixed all the pipes that they saw that were busted. Both lines to the upstairs shower, both lines to the downstairs bathtub, one to the downstairs bathroom sink, the kitchen sink, the lines to the laundry, and a couple under the house. I think there were maybe 8 or 9 fixes made by the time I called the Township and had them turn on the water. They did, and we waited and....water started pouring out from the kitchen pipes, the laundry ones, the upstairs bathroom, and the downstairs tub! There was a bit of shouting to "turn it off!" before the show was over. The great news was that none of the fixed spots were leaking, the bad news was that there were a bunch more burst pipes than we thought. So they had to rip out the bathroom vanity upstairs, and reopen the laundry room wall, and expose more of the kitchen pipes, and crawl around in the cold, cobwebby much under the house and fix everything. Oh there was a break in the hot water heater line too. I forgot about that one. The guys spent the next two or three days cutting holes in walls, finding and fixing broken or leaky pipes, and going up and down out of the crawls space. 

Cutting pipe

Heading down into the crawl space

Eduardo too

Fixed pipes

Dad soldering pipes