Yes, Real Life Does Get In The Way...

Three weeks ago, one of my sons (older, still living at home in the basement) told me that there was a water leak somewhere in the basement... Oh joy!

Mopped up the water, took down some wallboard, and figured out that the leak was actually coming from the second floor bathroom, draining down the wet wall into the basement past the kitchen on the first floor.

Now I've known for some time that the second floor bathroom in our 1970's house would need to be remodeled - it's been on my project list for a long time. Well... This was the "motivation" I needed to finally get it done.

The past couple weeks have been spent with the demo. From the sheetrock on the ceiling to the subfloor. Everything came out. The sheetrock because it wasn't the new moisture-resistant stuff that's out there, and the subfloor because it's half-inch plywood instead of the new, three-quarter stuff and is not as rigid as it should be. All the fixtures, everything - down to bare studs and joists - came out. The tub was the original cast-iron thing... About 400 pounds. Good thing you can shatter cast iron with a large enough sledge hammer! Only way to get it out. Also filled a lot of bags with the old tile flooring (installed over almost an inch of mortar)... Also very heavy.

This weekend started the rebuild in earnest. New subfloor went in, with cementboard over the new plywood. Some copper pipe repairs and some electrical repairs at the same time. New bathtub fixtures. The new tub (baked enamel over steel) went in yesterday... The new ceiling went in yesterday, and the moisture-resistant wallboard should go in today if everything works out OK...

A LOT of manual labor all weekend and in the evenings after work. Complete exhaustion. So one might ask "Hey knucklehead, why don't you have a home remodeling contractor come in to do the work instead of doing it yourself?" The answer is twofold, and short. One: Cost. Two: I really enjoy home remodeling. But I DO have to get it done as fast as I can because we really NEED that bathroom to be functional!

I guess my point in posting this is to point out that (like everyone who has a blog like mine) real life DOES intrude. Doing what I've been doing for the past few weeks is about as un-sissylike as it could be. But it doesn't change who I am. Not a whit!

But through it all... About every five minutes, my mind would wander and images like these would make their way from my subconscious into my forebrain. Ahhhhh.

It's hard to even THINK about wearing the things I want to wear when I'm wearing dirty, sweaty jeans and a sweaty t-shirt and covered in sawdust.

I wanted this SO MUCH...

The look that I've never seen - unless I was watching James give her the kind of pleasure I never could...

Yes, we have. Yes, she did. And it feels phenomenal!