Wednesday, March 25, 2009

More Bathroom Progress

So, we continued our bathroom "March Madness", and have made great strides. Our accomplishments thus far include: sheet-rocking the hole in the wall; painting the walls; installation of the sink and vanity; installation of the medicine cabinet and over the toilet cabinet; and mounting toilet paper and towel racks. The only remaining tasks are mounting the light ( to be put above the medicine cabinet) and the baseboard molding. So not too shabby for a month's work! Here are the photos....


The remaining hole in the walls after the moving of the pipes.


"Plumber Jim" came over for one last installment
of DYI instruction: Sheet rock repair.


Here's Tony screwing in the patch.


Ah, the finished product.


The sink is mounted! Hook up the water!


Finally, a working sink!
No more brushing teeth in the kitchen : )


Isn't it pretty?


Tony hard at work with the screwdriver.


The finish product!


Woo-hoo!

Stayed tuned for the completely finished bathroom---new hand towels and all : )


Monday, March 9, 2009

An Icy Trip to Sugarbush

Not such great skiing (50 degree weather followed by 20 degree weather makes for a VERY icy mountain!).. but a great visit with the Deerfield and Gemignani clans at Miguel's Stowe Away was an excellent end to a chilly, icy day.


Warming up at the outdoor fire pit.

Tony and Mom.

Liz, Mom and Dad Deerfield.

Liz and Mom.

Major Progress on the Bathroom!

After nearly 3 months of walking across a plywood floor - we finally have tile under our feet again! After discovering that we needed to move the water supply pipes for the sink from the floor to the wall we enlisted the help of Morris De Luzio's very own Jim De Luzio ( Designer by day, amateur plumber by night!) to show us the ropes. The fruits of our first plumbing endeavor are seen in the photos below:

Tony and Jim hard at work making a tin-can shield for soldering.


Soldering the hot water valve into place.


The hot water has been moved! Woo-hoo!


So, due to scheduling conflicts with "Plumber Jim", we decided to fly solo on finishing the move of the cold water supply line and the PVC waste pipe. Were we up to the challenge??

I think so!!!!


First off, the difficult part about the cold water was that we couldn't drain the pipe. So, in order to rid the pipe of this unwanted water, we had to call in ....the Cardio-plumber! Who knew you could cath a copper pipe???!!!


After ALOT of intense torching we're in the home stretch!


Pipes are moved!


Floor is patched.


After finishing the "pipe move" we could finally tile the floor (only 3 months behind schedule) and put in our new Kohler Commode! After hours of scraping the old mastic adhesive from the plywood, we laid the first sheet of tile. This was followed by grouting, wiping, wiping and more wiping of the "haze". Then once we left the grout for about 8 hours we gingerly walked across the fresh tiles and hooked up the new toilet. Check out our DYI master work below:

Despite the Omni-Grip fumes clouding our brains we managed to stick all 33 square feet of tile to the plywood floor.

Tony worked his magic with the trowel, smoothing and scraping the adhesive into place...

While I carefully laid the tiles into place...


Viola! Tile is stuck - what a team!

And now for the grout...


And finally... the Throne!
Stay tuned for the installation of the sink and vanity....