Bathrooms

Update on one year ago.
The day after Thanksgiving last year is when we had our estate sale in Athens Georgia. It looked like all of the other estate sales I have done. Tables in the house and people walking through and buying everything. I have since lost those pictures.  We knew we would be moving in a 20 foot truck so we sold just about everything we owned. It actually felt pretty good doing that.  Before the sale, Molly and Maggie went through all of their things and ended up selling quite a bit as well.   We decided to put our house on Zillow  December 18th.  I will blog about that later.



One cool thing about the City of Davenport, they pick up just about anything you don't want. We even have what I call, Scavengers. You leave what you don't want out on the curb the night before recycle day, and these scavenger trucks come around grabbing mostly metal, but also other great finds.  The scavengers did not want the basement toilet.  It wasn't anything I would donate to Habitat either.

Poor lonely toilet.

 We called a company to come out and take a look at the basement toilet plumbing. They had never seen anything like it before and couldn't wait to figure out how to fix it. We hired them and this is what they did.....jackhammer, attach PVC with a super duper clamp, and then cement it all in, like it should have been in the first place.

In the meantime, we had our furnace checked and found out two parts needed replacing which would come close to the cost of a new furnace. We decided to put in a new one since it was the original first one put in, 24 years ago. The furnace guy couldn't believe it.  We used the same company  as the toilet fixer so while the jackhammering was going on, our furnace was being replaced. The following picture is our old furnace.

It took from 7:45am to 7pm for the new furnace to get in place.  The following photo is sometime during the day.  You can see how much shorter the new furnace is (and how messy he was).

When the plumber was done with the cement, he noticed our water heater and how it was wrapped up in insulation. He took a good look at it and said we really needed a new one.  I thought it was funny that both guys were on the floor working, one on the furnace and one checking the water heater.

We decided to get a new water heater too.  $$$$$  Since the toilet cement had to sit for many days, the plumber said he would come out and put the new toilet in and help the other plumber put the water heater in, all in the same day.

The following is a game of can you find things different in the following two pictures?

The obvious difference is the new water heater but, it turns out the guy who put in the furnace, did everything wrong. When his boss came out to inspect it for our energy rebate, he couldn't believe what he saw and changed everything to the correct way for free.  When you look at the two photos, there is quite a difference.

Mike is happy to have a toilet in the basement.

Now what is happening upstairs?

I finished upholstering one chair! One more to go.

The bathroom is getting painted.

Bathroom Doctor.

 Mike and I finally pulled out the toilet (which is now the one downstairs) and pulled up the linoleum floor.   When my mom was designing this house, she picked this linoleum pattern because it would look so good against the wood floors.  She realized after the fact, that the bathroom floor would not be against the wood floors, but ended up next to the carpeted hallway. I would think about this every time I was in the bathroom. When we put in wood floors throughout the whole house, I would think about Mom and tell her out loud, her linoleum was now next to wood.  But now her linoleum is gone.

We have the cement board in.  It was like a puzzle. I now just have to screw it to the floor. I became very excited to hear my sister Sherry wanted to come help tile this coming weekend.  Can't wait to take pictures of that.

 By the way, the color you see is not pink. Jo and I chose a coral with a hint of red in it.

I am also getting settled in my new job as the Evaluation Coordinator at St. Ambrose University.  My office is in the oldest building on campus and I have two windows!!

My windows are the second and third one from the corner on the first floor, next to the sidewalk. I haven't decorated my office yet and my boss has questioned me on that. Guess I will have to go thrifting because I don't want to take anything out of the house.

One of the best things ever, is the University is next to a park. I walk there during my lunch hour.  One day I found Mom and Dad's brick there.

There are hundreds and hundreds of ducks. I was afraid to get closer for a picture because they think you are going to feed them and they swarm to you. It is scary.

Then I found a really large wood duck I didn't even know existed.

But now that it is extremely cold, I walk the indoor track. I don't have a picture of it but they just built the recreation center that opened a month before I was hired. I walk in my dress and walking shoes.  Which reminds me, I can't wear jeans to work like I could at UGA. I am slowly learning how to dress warm in my summer Georgia dresses.  Layers and layers.