We were at our neighbor’s yesterday for a delicious “Irish feast” as she called it — corned beef, cabbage, taters, & carrots; colcannon (decadent mashed potatoes); baked potato soup — it was soooo good. Her sister-in-law gave everyone a glass shamrock “favor.” Pitt managed to eke out (more like eek out) a tournament win. I drank apple wine from an Eastern PA winery (an amazing shade of lime jello green), and ate way too much dessert.
We almost didn’t go, though, because it meant leaving our DIY projects in process and losing several precious hours of work time. We’re making progress on the powder room, but it’s slow going. Both of us are so tired of it (Mike especially, as he does the majority of the work). Our neighbor even asked, “So, are you going to throw a bathroom party when you’re done?” “Sure, ” I said. “Everyone can come on over and have a tour — and a flush.” (As it will be “one of” the world’s smallest powder rooms, akin to a phone booth, it’ll be a very quick tour.)
Here’s where we are…doesn’t look like much, but we really have come a long way. So far, we’ve:
- Remodeled the kitchen, which allowed us to move the refrigerator that used to occupy half the powder room space
- Researched and found small fixtures, without which the project couldn’t happen
- Stripped off plaster and lathe from walls & ceiling (multistep, multimess process)
- Plumbed for sink and toilet
- Installed plywood underfloor
- Installed electrical for exhaust fan, light, and outlet
- Framed out, insulated, and installed 3 walls
(Sorry for the funny angle. I have to take this from outside the house, while holding the storm door open and keeping the cats from getting out. This is looking toward the powder room door. The front hall is beyond that door. We won’t have this view ever again once we get the last wall up.)
We’re far away from being able to party in it. We still have the fourth wall to install, ceiling to install, electrical to finish, platform to build to raise standard-height toilet to “comfort” height, trim to add (kind of elaborate), everything to be stained/painted, floor tile to install, more trim, fixtures to install… it’ll be a while yet.
So, as much as I can’t wait for the weather to get warm and stay warm, it better stay uncomfortably cool for a while longer yet. Otherwise neither of us will be able to stand to be indoors, laboring in what will be a 38″ x 45″ space. Especially not when there’s a big, bad, beautiful sunroom to be built out of what still looks like this (the ground has sunk so much where we had to dig it up for the sewer repair that Mike’s had to re-prop the porch up three different times).
But…it’s all progress. We’ll get there.
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you
get tired of doing the hard work you already did.
~ Newt Gingrich
Writing by Ear 