This is a great start to 2025! So far this year the Gingerman has killed one raccoon from the in-law’s front porch, it was eating her cat food. I have managed to kill two out in the barn and just caught one in the live trap. I thought we had all of the raccoons out of the barn but yesterday when I was chasing the cows out of the barn I noticed a single set of raccoon paw prints leading up the hill from the spring to the underside of the barn. There is one more still living in the barn. They eat the cat food and make an incredible mess. They find a high spot and use it as the bathroom making huge piles of feces. Which I then later discover and often they are in a difficult spot to reach or require a lot of moving stuff out of the way. I have a pile on top of my drying wood in the barn and I believe there is another pile on top of old wood we stacked up in the barn over a pass through in one of the hay bays.
I really need to pull that wood out of the hay bay and look at it. I bet about 90% can be burnt and the rest moved into the granary for later use. I was more of a hoarder early on when it came to barn wood. I realize now that it is only usually good for picture frames. Especially, wood that has been out in the weather for over 120 years.
Yesterday, the Gingerman is leaving the house and spots a coyote out in the wheat stubble field. He calls the progeny and she tells me. It is running towards the old chicken coop and the bottoms so I just need to get out there with a gun. I had not replaced the ammunition on the stock holder and when I grabbed the gun I realized that all the bullets were just empty brass. I only had two bullets. I wanted to go upstairs to get more ammo but after cleaning off the scope (dusty from construction work) the women said I was taking too long. So I went outside with only two shots.
I hoofed it up to the far end of the barn lot (100 yards) and waited. I tried calling the Gingerman on his cell phone but he was in a dead spot and so was I. I kept scanning for movement, no coyote, but there were about seven rooster pheasants flying around at the beginning of field #3 and walking around the bottoms on the snow. I stood out there for 15 minutes and never saw the coyote. It ended up turning for the creek bed around the cliff corner above me and I would never have been able to see it unless I walked another 200 yards in the deep snow.
I will be adding bullets to the stock ammo holder as I usually need more than two shots. Annmarie and I have been talking about how to store weapons at the ready inside the house but have them better secured. We will be doing some more research. Leaving them all stacked by the door is probably not a great long term plan. It definitely is not keeping them clean and free of dust and dirt.
Well we had more snow and ice yesterday so Mr Rainman turned around and went back home. I focused on getting the ceiling up. At least part of the ceiling is needed to hang the vent fan and then more is needed to hang the bathroom heater. I was able to break out the DeWalt laser kit. I had forgotten what was in there, as I had only remembered it being a laser for vertical and horizontal. I had forgotten that there is a laser tape measure in the kit! I did not trust it at first but it is pretty handy when you work alone and are reaching across the room trying to take a measurement. The DeWalt laser marker has a self leveling feature so it made getting the ceiling level quite easy.
I managed to get enough ceiling installed to be able to install the vent fan. This turned out to be a miserable endeavor. When we took out the old fan part of the ductwork up in the wall fell out about a five foot chunk. The real problem is that duct work is hidden in the walls and goes through the upstairs bathroom in the walled off section next to the toilet. To gain access where the pipe came apart I would have to rip down a 3×6 foot wall in the upstairs bathroom. Once I had a spot built for the fan frame I attempted to get the duct lined up and could not oven slide it all the way up into the wall, there was a piece of insulation blocking it. I had to go get a telescoping pole, push the insulation out of the way and try to magically fit the two pieces together, after ten minutes holding my arms over my head I gave up.
For my second attempt I was able to turn the 90 degree elbow into a straight shape. I had attached one of the joints that is comprised of four pieces that are offset on one side and can be turned. This lets you change the angle from 0-90 degrees. I then put a flashlight inside the duct and stuck my face and one eye at the bottom of the duct and was able to guide it onto the existing pipe in the wall fairly easily. I congratulated myself too early. I still had to get the elbow bent into a 90 degree shape and get it on the fan body and attach the body to the ceiling. This proved harder than an anticipated and ended up dropping the duct out of the ceiling again. I also ended up with a lot of dirt and insulation on my face!
The third attempt was going to be the one or else I was going to have to quit and work on something else. I went out and got a piece of hanging metal pipe support and screwed it onto one side of the opening. I also cut a piece of 2×4 I could screw in place after I had the duct installed so it could not fall down! I worked it until I was just about ready to give up when I finally managed to get the two ducts together up in the wall. I was able to screw in the other side of the strap and get it under the elbow on the duct. I took a short break and then got the duct corner moved to 90 degrees and attached to the fan frame. The fan frame went up and I spent 15 minutes getting it level and 5/8” hanging down (plywood and metal ceiling). Once I had it level I installed the wooden piece under the duct and readjusted the hanging strap. That thing is wedged in there and is not going anywhere!
The wiring was again one thing I had kinda anticipated but I thought I would have to move one or two items, that is not the case. I am having to rewire every thing in the bathroom and run new wire for about half the items. It is sucking up my time. I had to go to Home Depot today and pickup more electrical supplies and some plumbing supplies. I still need the parts to fix the drain but I am not sure exactly where the drain hole needs to go and that is in the part of the floor we need to cut out so I can figure it out on Monday.
Two of the switches go into the old door space but it is our only access to the room until the pocket door frame is delivered and installed. Once we have the frame installed we will be able to cut out the new door. So I am holding off on installing the boards to block off the door. I have drilled all the holes I need to run the wire.
Today, I worked on installing the new electrical heater in the ceiling. I had to install the ceiling joists in a weird pattern to get around the ventilation duct work. I did not want to lower the ceiling another four inches to avoid the duct work. We are right around 93 inches now for ceiling height. The heater can only really go in one place due to the ductwork, wiring and plumbing up in the ceiling. I had already read the installation instructions for the fan and ordered a 220 V switch and a 100 feet of 10/4 wire. I was ready to go, but as I was unboxing the heater and taking apart the covering to get to the wiring I realized that the wiring was too small. The heater is only designed to be ran on 110 V! So now I need to run a new stretch of wire back to the breaker just for the bathroom heater. This did open up a world of options for a heater timer for the bathroom. I ordered a fancy one that has multiple times already programmed and you just hit the button you want for the time you want. I also discovered that the bathroom vent fan control switch is wireless. So I will be tearing out the switch wire. So now I only need to get one set of outlets installed into the custom cabinet.
I was able to get the entire ceiling installed. I will focus on the wiring and getting that all done tomorrow. I still need to install the rough opening for the pocket door and I have about six more pieces of support to install for the shower shelves and a little more support around the chimney. Once that is done it will be time to cut out the floor! Our custom vanity top is cut, polished and ready to be picked up. I will have to go to the Tricities to pick it up, they only charged $416. That is less than we paid for the upstairs granite and it was a bigger piece. It only had two holes like the upstairs and does have a triple curve in the front but the one upstairs does also.
The snow looks like it may be here to stay for a couple of weeks. I have been moving it first thing in the morning so the sun can melt the leftover on the driveways during the day.
No plan survives first contact. It snowed last night, a lot. So I had to spend 2.5 hours outside digging out our walk way and then hooking up our snow blade. I almost never use the snow blade so it had sunk down into the ground on the attachment side and I had to pull it out with the tractor. This of course meant that I could not lock it into place until I dug the dirt and grass out of the way. So the plow took me about 25 minutes to hook up by itself. Once I had it hooked up I went to town on the driveway. You have to be careful not to dig into the gravel because the blade will tear it up. I did pretty good but the driveway is a little wider now near the road.
The elk came down with the snow but they appear to be staying on the upper hillside and the upper CRP. The wheat field is fallow this year so they cannot damage it. They also appear to be staying out of the bottoms. There really is not any food there but I thought they might try and find it and tear up the fields but so far they are not. Last time they came down in a huge group they started tearing up the snow and ground to get to the grass. They made a mess of my hay field.
Mr Rainman picked up some longer 2×4 and some 2×6. We are going to make the closet hall wall a 2×6 deep as it was already! This will make it a lot easier to fit the pocket door and to have something to nail into when applying the wall. I ordered the frame yesterday and it should be here early next week.
One of the surprises was how much I am going to have to rewire. Now that the walls are open all of the stuff that was done blind will have to be updated and secured. I need a different type of electrical box to be able to slide it in and out to account for the plywood/schluter/tile thickness. I may even have to mount the boxes after I put up the plywood as I am unsure if they will come out 1.5 inches. I am pretty sure they only adjust up to one inch. I need to move the electrical outlets to the left and right on one wall. I need to move the fan switch and light over two feet so you can reach it when you enter via the pocket door. I need to install 10g wire for the 220V electrical heater in the ceiling and wire in a switch. I just thought of this, the location for the switch was going to be in the cabinet but I was going to put it on the side where the pocket door needs to go! That means I cannot put a recessed box in the wall, I will have to put a box inside the cabinet, good thing I just thought of that, disaster averted. I have already removed the hall lights and fixed their anchors and tightened them back up. They are perfect now, for the last 18 years they have been a touch saggy, I was probably the only one who noticed. I also have to lower the light over the sink, I used the old electrical box and it was three inches from the ceiling. Not aesthetically ideal I am told, so the new light height has been marked.
I had the wife go into the room yesterday and I marked out the three in shower cubby locations and heights. The medicine cabinet/mirror cannot go over the sink as the plumbing is in the way, I was going to move it two feet to the left. You would not be able to see yourself in the mirror while standing at the sink so this was shot down. The sunken medicine cabinet is going over the toilet and we will be finding a mirror for the bathroom. This is why the project manager has to have early input, it saves a lot of retro job changes later on.
We did discover an “ugh ooh” yesterday. The floor under the tub and back wall cabinet is shot. There used to be a toilet where the cabinet was previously located. Mr Rainman almost fell through the floor over by the tub drain and I almost fell through floor over by the old toilet spot. So it looks like we will have to tear out at least three feet of subfloor and reinstall new subfloor. This will make running the power much easier. So it is what it is. The wife says I should have expected it. She is right, it has really been quite a while since I truly tore into the bones of the house and this room was a parlor before and they just pieced together two more walls to make it a bathroom. If I had truly known how bad the walls were I may have prioritized the bathrooms. I know now I should have added that second bathroom upstairs on year 2! Not waited until the teenager was out of the house. Well, it is getting fixed now and we will reinforce the walls and run full intact studs the length of the wall, not pieced together things. They had a window in the wall of the bathroom and just pieced in a couple of 2×4 chunks when they took it out. No sill plate or box for the window, now in their defense it is a non-weight bearing wall but still it makes it a lot easier to set the window. They just cut the shiplap on both sides and slipped the window in place.
I am hoping on day three we can get the floor torn up and I can see whether we need to purchase one or two pieces of 3/4” plywood subfloor. Milo stayed home with me and he is so used to staying with Annmarie at work that he refused to let me out of his sight all day. He spent most of the day trying to get into the bathroom. Once he figured out we would not let him into it, he laid out in the hallway and supervised our progress.
It is official, there is no longer a toilet downstairs. There is not a shower either but on some level the toilet is more important I think. Luckily, we do now have a toilet upstairs but that means that the wife and I now have to share a bathroom in the morning before going to work. Luckily, I am going to be off most of the month working on the downstairs bathroom remodel so there will not be any jockeying for bathroom space.
Mr Rainman came out on Monday while I went to work. He managed to get all of the main items torn out except the tub. I took a lunch and drove home to help him carry the vanity out of the bathroom as it was too heavy for one person to move. The entire thing is made out of solid wood and plywood. There is a lot of ceiling space
But I am pretty sure we ran some of the ductwork for the downstairs through that empty space. We are going to tear out the entire ceiling and see what we end up with. We may be able to raise the bathroom ceiling! So we have a 85% plan currently but it is fairly fluid. I talked the wife into a pocket door over the weekend. It will go on the hall coat closet side of the bathroom. I will have to alter the tile configuration and do some calculations to see how much tile I have to accommodate the change. We may end up just taking the shower enclosure to the ceiling and going up the wall four feet around the other walls. I am not sure. I am waiting to order the pocket door frame until we get the walls all opened up. I am pretty sure that closet wall is only 2×4 turned sideways thick. The bathroom used to be the front parlor where guests were greeted. That is why you can see a brick chimney on the back of the shower wall. When they decided to do indoor plumbing they just boxed off a room in the middle of the house so the pipes would not freeze and there was easy access.
Our plumber used Pex and copper throughout the house when we replaced all of the plumbing. This is causing some issues as I don’t want to cut it all out, solder on dead heads, tile then cut and solder again. So I am looking at ways to get a nice tile finish with tile saw and tile drill. I will still have to solder in new hot and cold extensions for the shower. We want to move the faucet controls up to waist height. I know how to do it in theory but I am not very good at it. I usually have to do it a couple of times. We are going to tear the room all the way down to the studs so we can get a great view of everything hidden in the walls. We will then see if we need to adjust the level of the walls by furring them out with some extra 2x4s. We are going to sheet the entire bathroom with 5/8 plywood before doing any tile work. The room has shiplap on it now and every time I have had to disturb the shiplap I have replaced it with plywood or more boards. You can hang anything anywhere in the house. Also, the house is over 110 years old, I figured that they know something we don’t and some of those old techniques work.
One of the add on projects was to fix our master bedroom lights. The stained glass lights fit the farmhouse theme but depending on where you are in the house some rooms are noticeably darker. Our bedroom only had one light over the bed and if you were over by the book cases it was dark! We have talked about adding another light for years and I finally decided it was time. We purchased the lights and then it was just up to me to install them. The real problem with this plan is over the years I have added boards and plywood to the attic to create a storage space. This storage space now has a relatives stuff, our daughter’s stuff, our stuff and our Christmas stuff. The bugs love to get into the attic and I bug bomb it every year. We have not vacuumed it out in 10 years probably. So it was a bug jungle up there. It needed to be vacuumed. The real issue was to run the wire for the new light we needed to pop up the floor and then run new wire to the new light. So first we had to dig out the boxes then clean then get to the correct spot without tearing up the entire floor.
Now that Annmarie has a sewing room again we worked on cleaning out the walk in closet in that room and brought down all of the bins of bulk fabric. There were eight bins of fabric! The sliver lining of this is that we found the material for her to make me some new dress vests and she is going to make me a suit out of some really nice thin Pendleton black wool. This gave us an extra eight empty bins. So we started to consolidate all of the cardboard boxes and putting them into plastic for more permanent storage. This took two days as I kept getting distracted by finding stuff I had not seen in 20 years! We managed to empty out about 20 boxes and consolidate them into the eight bins. We still have two more empty bins up in the attic.
There were a lot of old books from the old schoolhouse. They were in fair condition but most were from 1900-1930. I just put them in a plastic bin and the child can deal with them in 30 years when we die. There are two whole bins of Barbie clothes and dolls. I was going to take down the storage rack I had set up for all of the electrical wiring supplies I would need to install power all around the attic. Instead I wired up three outlets in the entire attic and left the rest of the boxes empty. Eventually, we will get it cleaned off and moved to a different location in the attic. I will need it eventually and the child keeps buying stuff for her wedding next January and it is getting stored in our attic.
Stewart Creek Somethings 