It all happened so fast...

I wish I could say Andrew finished up the plumbing quickly and easily this morning and that we were able to shower and make it to work by 8:30. Alas, I cannot say that...or I'd be lying.

Here's how it happened. Andrew stayed up working until 2 last night, and then got up at 6:55 and went to Lowe's. David, a plumbing expert at Lowe's and quickly becoming an acquaintance of ours, asked him how it was going. His response? "Well I'm here at 7 in the morning so not so great!" Too true. He came back with the parts and started soldering. At 8:20 he still wasn't close to done, so I whipped out the computer and started working from home.

Every once in a while Andrew would request my help in confirming that water wasn't leaking. We'd call each other on our phones, I'd wait near the plumbing, and he'd go outside to turn the water on. Andrew tried soldering the pipe 3 times, but this pipe was the lowest point in the house which meant that all the water left in the pipes ran to it. Finally he called a plumber to ask for any tips. He said at that point it's almost impossible to solder, and recommended Gator Bites, or for those of you that shop at Home Depot, Shark Bites, or Sonic, Cheddar Bites...oh no, that's not right, is it? This is basically a pipe with compression fittings that doesn't require soldering.

So he finished the plumbing and then off he went to turn on the water. Only problem? He accidentally left a valve open, and he forgot to ask me to watch. So I'm working away, when all of a sudden I hear water pouring into the bathroom!! I run to the bathroom to see water spraying everywhere. It looked like a fire sprinkler went off! I ran to tell Andrew, the whole time screaming like a crazy person. And there was definitely some crying, too. Can't blame me though. I had visions of our drywall completely soaked and flopping on the floor like wet bread, and having to redo EVERYTHING! Thankfully, that did NOT happen. Everything was very wet, though...including our light fixture. Turns out it's not quite as frosted as we thought!

We got out the wet vac and some towels and started mopping it up. My heart was still racing. This was probably the most dramatic DIY moment for me yet. I think I may have had a mini panic attack.

It dried out pretty quickly though, so we continued on our merry way and laid down the rest of the hardie backer and then Adam came to tile.

On a sidenote, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but we decided to hire someone else to tile. Our reasons are the following:

• We have none of the tools for it, which alone would run us upwards of $300.
• It takes a lot more skill than you might think...and we're not sure we have it.
• It's very time consuming, especially for a beginner, and we both work all day 5 days a week.
• We want to stay married.

Anyway, he finished up the subway tile yesterday and it looks awesome! Just keep in mind it's not grouted or caulked yet. At first I was worried it went up too high on the wall, but after looking at it for a while I think it actually makes the room feel taller. Which it needs, as it is neither tall nor spacious. Once we get the other stuff in here and get the shower doors on I think it will be perfect.

We brought it up so high because we wanted to raise our shower head so you didn't have to bend down  to get wet. Apparently people in the 80s were shorter? Hah. We raised the shower head by about 5 inches, and we wanted to make sure the tile came above that. Then we had to make sure we ended with a full tile at the top. 

Today he did the floor and it turned out out great, too! He started in the back because we decided it was more important to have full and half tiles there than by the door, but turns out we ended up with that on both ends! What a perfect surprise after such a stressful and imperfect day.

It's really starting to feel like we're making good progress now. You know those TV shows where they spend 45 minutes showing the demo and all the problems encountered along the way and then all of sudden the room is done and you think, "Did they skip something?" No, that was our experience, too. It seemed like we'd been stagnant for a while. We'd done a lot of work, just nothing really aesthetic so it felt like it was going really slowly. Then it was like all of sudden...BAM! It's a bathroom! It's almost bittersweet. I still feel like I should walk past and see studs and subfloor...Nah, almost bittersweet, almost.  Anyway, Adam is coming back tomorrow to do the grout, and then we'll be ready for the next phase!

We've also discovered that Chaucer is really curious about renovations and DIY. He loves smelling and exploring new things and really doesn't seem all that bothered by the loud noises. I mentioned once before that Chaucer likes to sleep in weird places and that was further confirmed the other night when we found him truly embracing all of these changes...

Looks quite comfy for a cat, doesn't it?
(Just FYI, this is the new, never-been-used toilet.)