Stairway now safe for wrinklies

Today was one of those three steps forward, two steps back sort of days (when it comes to home improvement, that is--as far as other aspects of our lives, we pretty much just tread water all day). Today Connie arrived with the following plan: sand the wall next to the new downstairs stairs, another coat of mud and then, while that dries, squeeze cement into various cracks in the walls and floor, and then, once the wall was dry, paint it an outer coat and install handrail. THAT all went as planned, as one can see below:The other part of the day was to be devoted to removing the corroded sink from the half-bath, installing closures on both hot and cold lines so that we can shut off the water directly at the sink and not have to shut off water for the whole house, remove the sink, and do what was done to the tub: strip it and repaint it. BUT, this didn't go so well right from the start, when the badly corroded pipes crumbled in her hands (and black goo came flying out). A leak sprung up within the wall, water sprayed everywhere, soaking the whole room, leaking down into the floor (the basement ceiling) causing the basement ceiling to collapse. I missed most the drama as I chose that time to go shopping at Target and when I came back into the house I heard a tiny "drip, drip" coming from the basement. As I came in the door, struggling with my bags, I shouted out, "I think there is a small leak downstairs!" When I came round the corner into the living room I could see Connie (soaked from head to foot) mopping up gallons and gallons of water off the floor. Hours later, the sink is gone (to be stripped and painted elsewhere), all leaks have been dealt with, all water is back on except here, in this half-bath, where you can see two brand new valves which shut off the water. So, new to the list is: fix the water damaged basement ceiling. And, while we're at it, it seems a shame to not add to the list "fix the water damaged kitchen ceiling"*, doesn't it?*This is water damage that was caused years ago by over enthusiastic bathers. Now that one of those persons only showers (at about 1 or 2 in the morning) and the other has learned to keep the water in the tub AND all the caulking around the tub has been replaced by Connie when she resurfaced the tub, I think we can finally deal with that bit of ugliness once and for all.

New basement stairs

Anyone who has gone down into our basement will remember that the stairs going down were rickety and misshapen--with steps too tall and treads too short to accomodate all by the very long-legged and short-footed. Then this summer the supports under the stairs rotted clean through and the right side (going down) detached from the wall and fell through making the climb into the basement increasingly exciting. So, once Connie finished with the bathroom, she set to work on our stairs (with a brief diversion with the gutters above this side of the house to deal with the source of the problem). Here, Connie is peeling away the outer wall to reveal the horrors underneath.And what horrors there were: a spread of black mildew 6' tall, 20 feet across and an inch thick on the wall. The smell was truly intoxicating (but not in a good way). Now the wall has been scraped and the stairs are gone and the only way up or down is this little ladder.To cover up the black foulness, Connie painted something truly noxious over it. Eight hours later the stench still makes our eyes water. Here are the stairs, not quite complete, from a different angle. Next, a railing to stop us from flopping to our death over the side of the steps and cement to patch up giant cracks and holes in the flooring that the old stairs were masking.Simon hasn't grown 6" taller, the stairs are up higher because they are now to code, being the requisite height and depth stairs are supposed to be. So anyone over 5' is at a real risk of a concussion going into our basement. (Which means any of us barring the cats are in serious risk.) A helluva palaver to eliminate black mildew in the hopes of preventing migraines.

The Bath is Finished!

Simon demos Frederick's new bike

We were clearing out old toys from the garage attic (Ava inherited a treasure trove of Little Tykes toys)and found Frederick's bike from last year--which seems shockingly tiny. His knees would surely drag on the ground if he attempted to ride it. Fortunately, Grandma's neighbor was having a garage sale this weekend and she secured this adult three-wheeler for him. It comes complete with racing stripes on the fenders and an orange flag.

Rollerskating Update

We have been sticking to our plan of rollerskating at Davison Park one or two times a week and Frederick is, as I predicted a few weeks ago, noticeably better than when we started this earlier this summer. Now he deigns to hold my hand only occasionally and whips along as fast as he can pump his feet. I still trot alongside him (so I am always quite relieved when, after 30 or so minutes, he announces that it is time to go home) because there are random chunks of cement, glass shards and clods of mud (today a LOT of dried mud and sunflower seed hulls) scattered about that cause his wheels to lock for a split second which throws him off balance. Though that, too, is becoming less and less of a problem as he gets better at both noticing what is coming up on the path in front of him and steering his feet to avoid it.

Thomas is 16 today!

We forgot that yesterday was our 20th anniversary! Apparently that's "china". But fortunately, we remembered that today is Thomas's 16th! He got an empty bag.We could only take pictures if he didn't know that is what we were doing.A plastic mug because tea filled cups tend to get tossed by the wayside when he is being pulled out of the depths of sleep.Thomas begrudingly snaps lego bricks onto his new lego mug.Thomas spent much of his birthday fretting about an essay paper (1000 words!!!) hanging over him. Of course, he's known about the paper for weeks but it was only the day before it was due that the impact of it hit him full force. About 11 last night he asked what time he would be getting home from his FIM and then driving school obligations. 7 pm, I told him. Whew! He whistled happily--five whole hours between 7 pm and midnight, when the paper is due--more then enough time to whip out a mere 1000 words! With that burden lifted, Thomas set about to the serious business of playing a computer game well into the wee hours. (We'll see how he feels tonight at 7 when staring at a blank page on his computer after a full day of school, a bassoon lesson, 2 hours of driver's ed, all after having gotten up this morning 10 hours before his usual time.)

I love the "miniature" effect on my camera

It doesn't necessarily miniaturize, but it creates a nice effect.  And it makes Frederick's orange t-shirt "pop".

And now, for some derring-do:

If we updated our shoe picture...

Here's what it would look like:

Upstairs bathroom

Every since we moved into this house (now more than 15 years ago) we have wanted to redo the upstairs bathroom. But the problem was always losing the shower/bathtub. Now that we have the basement bathroom (the best room in the house) we were free to begin. The problems were serious: the walls around the bathtub were rotten and riddled with black mildew, there was no extractor fan in the bathroom so, even if we replaced the walls in the shower the mold would just reappear, the plastic lining the shower/bath was old, brittle, yellow and cracking, all the caulking was mildew stained, and the enamel on the tub was chipped off. So Connie begins but pulling off all the walls to get down to the wall studs--which she found under three layers of rotten, mildewy wall boards. The wall studs were moist with condensation. The old is gone and now the tub walls have been lined with insulation (which didn't exist before) and the green boards are going in.Now all the green boards are in place and the seams have been sealed shut.This took an inordinately long time to install but it was well worth it. Most of our bathroom ceiling is directly below the roof and so the attic only extends over about 1/5 of the ceiling space. Also, Connie found that most of the wiring is old cloth wrapped and ceramic tube with the one new line (going to a wall socket by our bathroom mirror) not properly grounded. Figuring out how to wire in a ceiling fan into that mix and also how to even get into the tiny crawl space above the bathroom to install the fan were no small matters.And now my favorite part: the tiling.Next on the agenda (barring any unforeseen circumstances of course): grouting, the shower head (6" higher than the previous one), fixing the drain plug (we hope: that opens up a whole new set of problems) and stripping and re-enameling the tub.