What Have I Been Up To?

Scott asked about Leonidas after my last post... Leonidas is now naked and waiting for his new paint job.  I have not worked on him at all in over a week.

My wife and I have decided to put our house on the market and buy a bigger home.  As a result, we have been doing a bunch of projects around the house preparing it for sale.  The biggest project has been our Master Bedroom and Bath.

We have also been cleaning up and clearing out.  Every storage space in the house will be emptied so prospective buyers see open storage space, which there is a LOT of.  And of course, I still have to go to work every day...

So, here's what I've Been Doing...

I don't know what happened to the "BEFORE" pics,
but here I have already removed the toilet, the door,
and the carpet...

The Door needed patching... The corners of the wall needed repair...
the light fixture needed to be replaced, and the wall around the shower
needed repair.

When I pulled up the carpet and found linoleum, I'll admit, I swore under my breath.  I HATE pulling up Linoleum.  You can see on the right side of the Pic where I started to remove the linoleum, but while doing so, I found a few tacks and realized the linoleum was attached to an 1/8 inch piece of plywood which had been stapled to the real subfloor.  My son suggested just yanking it up.  I agreed, so I could prove to him what a SILLY idea that was... and then in three yanks, we had the whole floor leaning on the wall!!!   (I also have to admit... I hate it when one of my kids outsmarts me...)

Floor completely removed, nails all securely nailed down...
Vanity, Sink and Medicine Cabinet removed...

The hole from the medicine cabinet...
Also known as THE GREAT CAT MAGNET!!!

So I had to cover it up....

My wife and daughters hard at work refinishing the
cabinet.  First they sanded it down, and then they
stained it.  It looks very nice.

I laid tile in the bathroom and the grout was rather stubborn and left "grout stains" (actually just a very fine layer of grout, but VERY obvious, see photo on the left).

BEFORE Excess Grout Remover....  And AFTER Excess Grout Remover....  I didn't want to spend almost $20 for a bottle of stuff to remove the excess grout, so I scrubbed and I scrubbed and after two hours, it still looked like the picture on the left all over the whole bathroom.  After I finally broke down and bought the stuff, it took 30 minutes!  and look how much better it looks!

I would show you "After" pics of the whole bathroom and master bedroom, except that I'm still not done...  Apparently while re-attaching the faucet, I over torqued something and I busted a pipe INSIDE the wall.  About 30 minutes after I attached the faucet, and luckily BEFORE I reattached the cabinet to the wall, counter top, etc. I heard water dripping and found it coming through the ceiling directly under the sink in the entryway to the house!  That discovery of course, brought a halt to all other work as we had to deal with the leak immediately!

I had to cut open a hole so it would drain and not ruin the entire ceiling in the entry way to my house, but now I have a hole in my ceiling to repair, and I have to have a plumber come in and repair the broken pipe, which somehow stopped leaking, although that is only temporary I am sure...

SO, that is what I've been up to.  We meet with a Realtor on Monday to put the house on the market (hopefully everything will be done by then).  We have a few more things to do, so there will still be no sewing or working on Leonidas for a while, but that is OK,  When we move, I have already secured the right to claim a "Sewing Space"... So I'll be able to make up for lost time!

Until Next Time,
Paul