bathroom remodel

Still no snow

Steve Hardin1 Comment

The plague has struck again! Both of us were sick this week and are finally getting back to normal. The kids came down this weekend and we were able to tear down the old bed frame and clean up the other spare room. We then moved the box Murphy bed into that room for company, usually the kids and proceeded to clean out the other room. It used to be Sarah’s bedroom eons ago. We had purchased a sewing table for Annmarie and I needed to get it assembled and set up an area for her to sew. Clothing is going up in price and the quality is not as good so she is going to start sewing her own work clothes. I have two vests that need done and now that I have gained some girth it is a perfect time. My two other ones started to get too small ten pounds ago. I will need to cut a plywood top to go over the top of the two dressers. She was able to find a cutting mat that is 36×48” so I will put that size sheet of plywood over the two dressers and the mat will fit right on top of that. We have a sewing light and I was able to find a lamp for the room but we need another overhead light over the cutting table. I have ordered another draping stained glass light and will put in a new hook for it when it comes. The stained glass lights just do not put out a ton of light. I have started to overcome this by just putting in more lights. I am pretty sure I will be adding a second light to our master bedroom. But I will need to go up into the attic to do it which will mean pulling up some of the floor in the attic. It won’t be as simple as when I did it before the attic floor.

This would have been simple if I had not just used every scrap of plywood I had on the farm inside of the fencing shed! I have to go to Hermiston and order tiles for the bathroom this week so I will get a piece of plywood to cut for her cutting surface. I need to get the tiles ordered and start working on our bathroom vanity and towel storage cabinet. There was a shopping event on Saturday where you could visit six different sites and go shopping for various Knick knacks. Annmarie was able to find a new potential bathroom vanity. This one is a lot longer, a whole whopping 10.5” longer. But honestly, that is a lot of counter space! The old one we were going to use was 33” wide and this one is 43.5” wide. This one is also taller. I like the higher one and think it will make it much easier to use the sink. The new one needs more work than the other one. I need new drawer pulls and all the drawers need new bottoms. I will need to hollow out two of the drawers on the new cabinet. It is doable but I will need to start on it ASAP.

Mr Rainman came out today and we were able to get a few little things knocked off the list. We installed the new Gazebo lights so thy are now remote controlled. We also took the light strand from the Gazebo and mounted it alongside the old house to light up the walkway and cat feeding area. Now when I think there is a raccoon out back I can just flip the light on, via my phone, and I will be able to see the entire area behind the old house. No more hiding for the raccoons. I was able to program the light via my phone so it can be turned on remotely. I just need to get it programmed to come on for an hour every night around the time we feed the cats.

We put the trellis back together next to the house. I will need to train the trumpet vine in the spring to follow the new trellis. The fencing shed anchor bolts came but I could only get four of them to drive in the entire length. I kept hitting something so old and tough that my impact driver would not move the anchor, no matter what I did. So there are now four anchors and more supplies inside the shed holding it down. I am not too worried about it going any whereas it did nothing in the 70 MPH wind.

My windmill got ripped out and tossed on the ground and our old chicken coop door got torn up by the wind. The windmill lost a blade and we put it back up but had to hammer it into the piece of wood so now it won’t spin. So I will need to get another one and this time I need to make sure it has bearings and some way to make sure it does not blow away. The latch on the old chicken coop got torn off. It needs some screws and may need to be rebuilt. It will depend on how rotten the wood is and attempting to repair it will let us know that. At this rate we may be able to get the drying lumber pieces moved out to the old middle granary. It is all cleaned out and ready for wood. Some of the wood has about two more years to dry out. We will be putting all of the maple and black walnut out there.

Mr Rainman has been organizing the machine shed and tossing out all of the accumulated trash. He has been doing a great job on getting things organized again. It is an annual process as I do not do as you go throughout the year. Once we get the old chicken coop lumber moved out then we can move all of the tools from the old house out into the coop. This will then create a single room we can use as project space.

Fencing shed good enough

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Friday, Mr Rainman and I worked on the fencing shed some more. Our goal was to keep the rustic look on the outside. By putting vertical boards inside we were able to cover up almost all of the holes in the walls. We turned the boards with the most aged color to the outside and you cannot hardly tell when you look at the building. We pulled most of the 2×4 boards off of the burn pile. They were pulled off of our house this summer when the siding was done. They were the window trim that was covered by metal trim. The old 2×6 boards I put around the bottom were in the building already. I had salvaged them from somewhere and put them in there years ago. It rained off and on all day on Friday and of course it was not a burn day. We have been trying to burn our big debris pile for three weeks and it’s never a burn day.

I got the solar light installed but the thing has a light sensor on it so it will not turn on when it senses too much light! So even though it’s a little dark in the building without lights it won’t allow you to turn on the lights. I had to go out in the dark to ensure the light does work, it works just fine and it is quite bright inside at night.

Saturday was a burn day! We got the last of the scraps from our work on the shed and there was a pile on the other side of the machine shed. The fire started right up and we ended up having to watch it for about 90 minutes until it had burned down and we could work on the fencing supply shed. We ended up going to the old house and pulling all of the leftover plywood from various projects and loading it up for use in the shed. The shed was pretty solid but once we started putting those spare scraps of sheeting and boards the entire thing is now rock solid! Unfortunately, the 12” anchors came and they are not long enough. They will only get into the railroad ties about one inch, so I ordered 14” anchors and when they come we will anchor the building to the railroad ties. At this point I do not see the building blowing over ever again.

Once we started piling up the burn pile we went out to the fencing supply are and dug up another load of rotten wood to toss on the fire. We really need to clean up this entire area but I have fence posts and fencing on the old wooden parts of various structures. It is keeping them all off the ground and I am unwilling to give up this luxury yet. I could lay out old tires and use them instead? It’s an idea and not a bad way to keep everything from rotting or rusting. We still have quite the pile of used tires.

Mr Rainman and I had a spirited debate on how well either of us can eyeball 2-6”. He was on the outside of the building screwing inwards and I was directing him from the inside. This continued for two days and a tape measure had to appear a couple of times to determine who was right and wrong. He is a good sport. Plus, I am working on increasing my fiber and the steady stream of farts was enough to keep him out of the building.

The bill from the plumber arrived this week. It was a mere $120 for the plumber to tell me that the drain shut off valve was closed. Some lessons are hard learned. I am sure everyone at the office had a good chuckle at my expense.

The County soil and water conservation district manager reached out to me a few weeks ago to talk about a grant to install some more fencing along the creek. This works for both of us and I have done it in the past before Covid. He came out on Friday and we walked the property. I am looking at putting some more fence up on the hillside. I already have two sides on a four acre spot done. The only two sides left are along the creek and up the hill. He will work up a proposal and submit it, I would not expect to know for six months if it is approved. This will let the animals knock down the weeds on the hillside also so we can use less herbicides.

We are going to start spraying Rejuvra on the upper bottoms and down by the schoolhouse. We are going to try and get control of the cheat grass. It’s going to be a race now with the weather. We are finally starting to get some regular moisture.

Mr Rainman was able to get my future craft room in the old house cleaned out. We have already started to stage supplies for the bathroom but I am getting ready to order some more tile this week and then we will need to bring down the vanity so I can start working on it. February is going to come sooner than I would like.

Once we had the inside of the shed done I could not help but fill it! I was able to sort most of the fencing buckets and hang the tools on the walls. I have an entire four gallon bucket of loose fencing staples but am now using the DeWalt stapler exclusively. If anyone wants enough loose staples to do 1/2 mile of fencing holler you can have them. I am never going back to hand nailing them! I probably need another two boxes of staples for the amount of fencing we are going to do next year. I did find a bunch of the smooth wire tighteners! I had quite a few, they were just scattered all around. The next thing is for a wall organizer but that can come later. In 2025, we will get the used tin up on the roof and get a solid door built then it will be 100% completed.

Finishing up winter prep

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Well I got the cows to the butcher and we will be eating #34, his carcass weight was 370#. I will smile every time we have beef for the next year.

On Saturday we were going to make apple butter. My mother had given us about 25 gallons of apples so I wanted to make a big batch. Annmarie had to go to work so I was left alone. I just kept filling up the huge pot we had on the stove. Once Annmarie was back and added my requested “triple normal spice amount” and we tasted the concoction it was decided that another 16# of apples were needed. By the time we taste tested the mixture to perfection the poor pot only had a couple of inches of empty space at the top. We ended up canning almost three gallons in half pints and still had two gallons leftover. Out came the large yogurt containers and we ended up filling eight of those. In about fifteen minutes of texting I had them all given away. With the beef coming we did not want more stuff in our freezer and we have plenty canned!

Sunday I worked on the corral. I dug out the dirt and weeds around the loose railroad ties, then mounded gravel around them. I used a seven foot breaker bar to drive the gravel in around the posts. I was able to tighten up all but two. The post on the end by the gate that took the most abuse would only tighten up so much. In an effort to rectify this issue I realized that we had an unused circular pen gate that I thought would fit perfectly in the opening. I brought it over with the tractor and it does indeed fit in the opening with zero modifications. I ordered some all-thread, nuts and washers so that I could weld a piece of 1/2” pipe on the end of the all-thread. I will then drill a hole all the way through the railroad tie and install one above and below the attachment points on the gate. I am then going to drop a piece of half inch rebar down the entire side and duplicate this on both sides of the gate. This will tie the entire gate and pen together at its weakest point. I am too old to be working that breaker bar for an hour. I had to rest between posts.

We have combined all of the sheep. The ewes that were fat and we thought pregnant have not given birth and are way past when they should have had babies. So all the sheep and the rams are mixed together. Annmarie and I went over last week to look at a place in Hermiston that someone wants grazed down. This weekend I am taking the sheep over and with a few hours of fence repair they should be good for at least a month. The field is all green grass about a foot height. The field is pretty wet so anything heavier than sheep would cause divots in the field. This will help us both out. I will definitely have to count sheep before we go as I am not even sure how many we have!

I have been working on the Gazebo after work. I have managed to get a cable up near the top of the pillars shaped like a hexagon. We are going to string lights from the cable. I would have got that done today but I realized I did not have any small zip ties. I also need a short extension cord. It is going to look pretty cool at night with the lights in it.

We are also now starting to plan our downstairs bathroom remodel. We needed some more tile and are going to go with one that looks like linen wall paper. I measured the bathroom and Annmarie drew it up in a CAD program so we could see the layout. We can get all of the Schluter parts to create a waterproof base to lay all of the tile on in Hermiston from the same store as the tile. We want to get a custom granite top cut for the vanity like we did upstairs. The vanity was a wash station from Annmarie’s grandmother. I will have to modify the top drawer to accommodate the plumbing. Once we get the sheep moved I will be able to load up the vanity into pickup and go to the Tricities to find someone who can create the top.

Day of infamy

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This really wasn’t my day all week. We have had a plugged tub drain since Sunday. I have poured two different treatments of lye down it. I have used the plunger and unknown amount and then used an industrial concentrated size Liquid Plumber. I did manage to get the water to trickle drain after purchasing a $20 rotosnake to try and clean out the drain. I could not make the second ninety degree corner with the snake no matter what I did. So Annmarie and I each took a shower and the water did not drain. On Tuesday, I called for a plumber and was able to get a service time on Thursday afternoon. We both ended up showering at our mother’s houses. I even crawled under the house one evening and looked for a clean out to use the rotosnake in, there are none under the house.

Today is Thursday and the plumber came out early in morning while I was in town. He called and said it was fixed about 20 minutes after saying he was headed out to our house from Pendleton. The reason the water would not drain was because the tub drain lever had gotten moved to the closed position! I have not taken a bath in over 30 years and it simply never occurred to me to check especially since Annmarie was gone all weekend. I am grateful the tub drain works. It does work well as I had to clean it today after the mess I had made in it.

I proceeded to go outside and finish the gate extensions on the corral. The two cows that needed to go to the butcher tomorrow are wild and one is the crazy jumper. My helper is out sick so this was a solo job. I was able to sort the four cows in the ram pasture fairly easily. I left one in the back pen and put the other three out in the horse stall area so they could see each other. I was able to get the rest of the herd into the barn lot pretty easily. I needed to get crazy #34 into the trailer, that cow had jumped out of the corral twice in the last year and avoided getting slaughtered both times. Now that the corral gate and wall extensions were completed I figured it was a done deal. I figured wrong.

I had to call Annmarie to come help me and to bring the border collie. I guarded the area leading to the spring because the temporary panels I normally use are in two separate places doing other jobs. The spring area needs to rebuilt after the flooding and I just have not done it. After five tries the cows went into the back barn area. It still took us several more tries to get number 34 into the corral with eight other cows. The one cow I had already sorted off was too small. There were two huge steers in the corral now so we proceeded to try and sort everyone off. We got it down to just those two and then got them into the chute but one ran into the trailer, turned around and can back into the chute causing a pissing match between two angry steers. They ended up popping the gate into the third offset pen in the corral. I had not extended that small gate as the cows were not supposed to go in there this time.

By the time I got around Annmarie was hollering that the cow was stuck. Yep, #34 had tried to jump the gate and got his front foot jammed down beside the gate on top of the gate hinge. Despite the cow trying to pull down the fence, no amount of pulling was getting that foot loose. I had tried to push the foot up, then got a rope and tried to pull it up over a board. After about three minutes I placed a frantic call to my nephew who lives a couple of miles away. I think the only thing he understood was I needed help ASAP and it involved a cow as the cow was bellowing and shrieking two feet from me. I was able to pull back on the railroad tie while #43 was trying to rip it out of the ground. The cow was beyond all reason.

We ended up putting two ropes over its head, one was perfect and went over the horns but the other went over one horn and the cow’s neck. At this point not getting gored through the corral fence was barely possible. We tied off both ropes to separate railroad ties. I unbolted the gate and attempted to get it off the hinges. Crazy #43 managed to kick it off and then fight the ropes. We had to take a break and get the other cow in the trailer. That crazy cow kept trying to get over the trailer divider the entire time we tried to get #34 into it.

When we went to get #34 in, he got away and managed to get out the downed gate about three feet and now truly raising hell as he could sense freedom. I ended up using the tractor to push him back through the gate and then got one of the ropes stuck under a tire. Annmarie had to cut the rope. Luckily, it was the old rope, not the brand new one she had gotten out of the tack room. We managed to get the rope tightened down and the gate open to the chute. #34 ran down the chute by himself and Annmarie slammed the door shut. There are still two ropes around him that will not be back until after the steers get butchered. The trailer looks like a bouncy house with both steers in it. We put an extra strap across the back and left it backed into the corral.

This is a stupid problem. We are definitely going to be taking every single crazy cow to the auction in the next month. Once the calves are weaned. We need calmer cows. The corral is hard to jump from one area to the next. You have to climb a seven foot wall every time!

While I was moving cows I noticed that the white ram in Alcatraz had some abrasions on his forehead. I fed them then went around to the back of the pen and noticed that the gates were falling down! I did not have time to fix it so a little redneck twine was utilized. It only needs to hold for another day.

Bathroom almost complete 99%

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It was getting cold outside but its not now. We are getting up to 50F during the day lately with rain. The entire farm is covered in green grass, even the dirt barn lot is green! We have not started feeding the cows or sheep yet. Every few days I go out and feed the rams and bull in Alcatraz. They are keeping the grass pretty low in that area but it is present and still growing. I was going to burn the weeds in Alcatraz but it rained again, poured actually. I would tell you how much came down but our electronic rain gauge was not working the entire day it rained. I just looked over at the weather station and the rain gauge is back! It says we got 3/4” of rain in the last two days, this is totally believable. I managed to go outside yesterday and dig dirt for a couple of hours. I am still trying to fill in behind the concrete bridge footings. The far footing had about two feet and now has about 18 inches left. It is not exactly fast going as you have to throw the dirt about eight feet and uphill over the footing. I did also manage to pile up more large rocks on the other side of the stream bed. There is no water, its dry this time of year. I will need some more big rocks from the upper hillside to finish the footing rock walls. Two hours of digging is fine, I don’t think I could dig all day any more. Just too much, it’s my concession to aging to only dig 2-3 hours at a time and move a few big rocks.

After the digging I went into the old house and worked on sanding the countertop for the upstairs bathroom. The thing is a solid two inch piece of black walnut that was air dried. This means the board had warped about a half an inch and I had to sand out the bow in the board. I have seen the DeWalt battery powered hand planers and keep wondering if they would make leveling these pieces easier? I keep thinking I want to try it but it’s a $200-300 trial and I don’t want to be wrong. So instead I just kept sanding it and using a two foot metal square to see where the high and low spots were so I could sand them out. I spent three more hours working out most of the high spots. The only thing left was to actually cut the piece to fit. Annmarie and I had a discussion on how best to get an accurate representation of the space. There was some disagreement and I ended up doing it the hard way with a few pieces of newspaper and a lot of clear tape. I then used this as a pattern and made several cuts with my skilsaw. I only had to make two more cuts and one sanding intervention before I managed to get it to fit. Three attempts is not bad considering the space is not a bunch of straight lines. There were a couple of rounded spots that had to be taken into account. Once I had it dry fit I went over the entire top again starting with 40 grit sand paper and ending with 220 grit. I finished the top and front with Tried and True finish. I really like the natural compounds and that is what we used on the walls in the bathroom. It fits great and now I just need to glue it down to the plywood underneath, that is next week’s project. Once that is done I will be 100% complete with my part on the upstairs bathroom!

I was in the craft room last night when I noticed the dreaded ceiling paint sags! The only thing that creates these are water accumulations from a leak. This sucks as I just fixed the ceiling a few years ago from a failed condensate pump in the second story closest. So we went up and started emptying the closet. It means cleaning off all of the shelves and then removing them. I was cutting the zip ties off to get the power cord loose so I could remove the condensate pump and accidentally sliced the discharge rubber hose in half. My pocket knife just got sharpened recently and it is sharp! I eventually got the condensate pump out and it was empty. This is bad as the water was on the closet floor. We opened up the heat pump and found some water inside. We just turned the heat pump off and I contacted the heating guy in the morning. I sent him a text and later today he messaged me from the top of some mountain. He was up with his father hunting elk and would contact me when he gets off the mountain. Once the repair is complete we will discuss how to fix this issue.