A diner breakfast was definitely the way to get the weekend going yesterday.
Tag: weekend
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If you’re American and like a lot of Americans, you probably celebrated the Fourth of July in something like a stereotypical All-American style. There was family and friends and cookouts and parties and drinking and reds whites and blue everywhere, and of course fireworks.
I decided to go against the grain. I decided to remodel my bathroom. By myself. Why? Cause I’m insane.
The truth of the matter is that the assembly inside the toilet was broken so badly that the water wasn’t filling the tank so much as it was exploding out of the assembly, hitting the top of the tank, and thus leaking down the outside of the tank and onto the tile floor.
Know what else? Those tiles in the bathroom floor started to come up. Mainly around the shower. Since I knew I’d need to take the toilet off to replace the tile, and since I was about to take the toilet off to replace it, I figured I might as well just bite the bullet and redo the whole shabang.
(Caveat: I didn’t touch the tub, which is a vinyl wall tub built right into the sheetrock. I may be insane, but I’m not stupid.)
How’d it go? Short answer: not too bad.
Shorter answer: ouch. I haven’t been this sore in a long time. There was so much up and down, squatting, kneeling, hammer, sawing–I was popping Aleve like a madman.
The truth is, the job itself is not so complex that you can’t wrap your head around it. In a nutshell, it’s just a series of basic steps:
- Remove old toilet
- Remove old tile
- Remove old vanity
- Check plywood for rot
- Apply thinset, then lay down and screw in the concrete backer board (called Hardiebacker)
- Lay out one row over and one row down of tile to determine the arrangement
- More thinset and lay down the all the tile
- Grout
- Install new vanity
- Install new toilet
- Caulk
- Install new baseboard
Easy, right? Looks like a lot of steps, and yes, it will take several days, but no step is so crazy it doesn’t make sense, right?
Well, easy as it may appear, there are a lot of subtleties to doing this job. I’ll spare you the pain of taking you through every little thing I did. This isn’t a how-to blog, and since I’ve done this exactly once and I will likely only do this exactly one time, I’m by no means an expert. What I will offer are a couple of tips I learned (or was told) while doing this:
- Ask the folks at Home Depot for advice. They can be incredibly knowledgable and helpful. They like to give advice about this stuff, since they’ve done it thousands of times before.
- Write out all of the steps to do that job. Make a detailed list/plan so that you don’t miss anything.
- When hammering up the old tile with a hammer and a Wonderbar, make sure you wear goggles. You’ve only got two eyes. Googles saved my eyes multiple times.
- If the plywood under the tile is waterstained but the wood is not spongy, you’re safe. Lay the new backer board on top of it.
- The Hardiebacker board may feel like you can break through it easy, but you can’t. Use a saw.
- Measure three times, then measure again. Then cut. If you dare.
- Make sure your drill is fully charged. Drilling corrosion resistant screws into the Hardiebacker goes through a lot of juice quickly.
- Be aware that, if you’re replacing a vanity that predates your ownership of the house, when you pull it up you might just find the former owner’s teenager son’s porn stash in the false bottom (I kid you not).
- Use your level when setting the tile.
- When cutting the tile with a tile cutter and not a wet-saw, make sure you score the tile well and put the breaker bar as far up on the tile as possible for a clean break. Or misery will ensue.
- Marble is frickin expensive (see number 9 above).
- Clean the grout with a sponge as often as possible. Don’t wait for all the grout to be in before you begin cleaning the excess off the tiles. Otherwise, cue the misery.
- Make sure you have enough space at the back of your new vanity for your plumbing, especially if your vanity has drawers (and these days, they all do). You will be cutting out part of the back of the vanity. You do not want to be cutting through any part that the ball bearing glides for the drawers might need.
- Check the caulk before you check out at Home Depot. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that some idiot returned a half used tube of caulk to the store you shop at, and that Home Depot restocked it without checking it first, only to have you buy it without checking it first.
- However long you think something will take, double it. Then your halfway there.
In the end, the bathroom turned out pretty well. There is still work to do. It needs a coat or two of paint. I still need to get new caulk and finish that up. Once the caulk is done, I can put the baseboard trim on. I need to scrape the ceiling and repaint it since its peeling. But this is minor stuff compared to what I spent two and a half days doing.
I’m pretty proud that I was able to accomplish it, especially considering I had no prior experience with this kind of work. In my mind, of course, I can see all the little things I did wrong. In my head all the little things I botched are huge glaring errors. But they’re not really. And I really do like how it looks.
Below you can see the before, during, and after pictures.
So, how was your weekend?
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School vacation week was this week. This year we decided to take a trip back down to the Maryland/Virginia area to visit family. We hadn’t been there in four years. It gave us the chance to catch up with family and a few old friends.
We started in Frederick, got the chance to both chill at my mother’s house and walk around the historic section of Frederick. On the side of one building is a pretty nifty mural of a man looking out an open window. We ducked into an antique market where there were, among other things, endless jars of old silverware.
After a few days we headed to Virginia, staying just over the line from Washington DC. From there we got to catch a Nats game one day, and revisit the National Zoo the next. Took the Metro both times, which was an absolute madhouse after the ballgame let out. The zoo had some great exhibits we hadn’t seen before, especially now that they’ve opened the Asian Trails section. This exhibit gives the Asian elephants a lot more room to roam than I remember them having the last time.
In addition, I got the chance to play my father’s new Martin guitar, which has an amazing sound.
All told, lots of fun was had by all. Observe the proof:
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I promise not post progress every single day. I think will tend to make people bonkers. But here we are at the end of day two of NaNoWriMo, and I’m just curious: how’s it going?
For myself, I’m just over 6000 words. It’s a nice start, especially since I know that once the work week hits, life returns to its normal state of crazy.
No matter how far you’ve gotten remember that it’s farther than you were. Keep writing!
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NaNoWriMo started today. For those unfamiliar with this term, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It started 15 years ago in the San Francisco area with 21 people participating. Last year there were over 400,000 people who participated. Not bad for something that started as a tiny idea.
So what is NaNoWriMo? It’s a thirty day month in which you are challenged to write one novel. You might think, hey, banging out a novel in thirty days? No sweat. I can read one in five. How hard can it be to write one? Well, marathon man, you can drive 26.2 miles easy-peasy, but can you run it? Okay then.
Basically, you have one month, the month of November, to write a novel. What constitutes a novel? For the purposes of NaNoWriMo, 50,000 words is a novel. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s a given that it’s a first draft. It doesn’t even have to be complete. You might end up writing an Alan Moore length million word gem. As long as you’ve got 50,000 words logged by midnight on November 30th, you win.
What do you win? The ability to say you came to play and play you did. It’s bragging rights. That’s about it. No cash, no prizes, just the right to say you took up the pen and completed the challenge. That said, there are sponsors who put up prizes, and who knows? You post and validate your 50,000 diamond, maybe you’ll win those. But that’s luck of the draw. The main prize is saying you did it.
Cost to participate? Exactly zero dollars. Best. Price. Ever.
Last year I couldn’t participate. I was in the middle of trying to finish the first draft of a crime novel I’ve been writing. This year, despite being in the middle of revising the second draft of said novel, I had an idea and decided to jump in.
This is my first time participating. I’m determined to finish. Rough calculation means I need to crank out about 1600 words per day. This will take me about an hour to hour and a half each day. That’s the goal. Plus, if I write more on the weekends, I can “bank” some words so I’m not as crushed for word count in the middle of the week.
I’ve already got a start and have a little over 3000 words written. I’ll be posting updates on this blog, but if you’re participating this year, you can follow me on NaNoWriMo at this link. I’ll be posting excerpts and looking for ideas and feedback as I go. Obviously I won’t have time to edit just yet, but any constructive feedback is helpful. The more the merrier.
Let’s tackle this beast together! Who’s with me?
Oh yeah, one more thing: the writing has to be legitimate writing. This doesn’t count:
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This weekend, like many of the weekends during the school year, was a blur. Ballet classes, Sunday school, grocery shopping, etcetera etcetera–the list runs long.
One of the things we did was man a table at the local Farmer’s Market. The town Farmer’s Market has been running for about a month now, and will keep on going until the middle of October. This Saturday was particularly fun because it was “kids vendor” day, the day when the local town kids can make things and sell them. There were the usual suspects of cookies, cupcakes, and Rice Krispy treats. There were also the usual craft-y suspects in the form of loop band bracelets, bead necklaces, and paracord bracelets. There was one little girl selling colored pencil drawings she’d made for $2 a drawing (each came with its own sheet protector–in case you were wondering what all you got for your $2).
The Boy Scouts were there selling popcorn, which, if you’ve never had, is very good. It’s not Girl Scout cookie good, but then again, what is?
Of course, there are other vendors there. Actual, you know, farmers. There were four or five farms represented, selling everything for apples to shallots to meat. (Apparently Boylston had its own meat CSA. Who knew?) There were also other craftsmen/women there as well. One woman was selling handmade soap (we bought a few bars because they smelled so good), there was a vendor selling goods made from alpaca hair, there was a local woodworker selling things like bowls and oil lanterns and pens. I bought a pen because they were just fantastically beautiful.My kids didn’t have anything to sell. Instead, they had been asked to man the table for the local food pantry. The food pantry had been running low on stock and one of the parents of the third graders mobilized an effort to get it restocked. Because of schedules and conflicts, there were a lot of people who could be present at the Farmer’s Market to help collect the dry goods. So we volunteered. And while I can’t say they stood there for four hours taking food donations, they were there to help out for a while and accept food (with their parents there to pick up the slack for when they bolted.)
All in all, it was a great time. The kids had a ton of fun with so many of their friends who were there to buy or sell. And they helped out a local charity. I’m really proud of them.
Check out some of the pictures from the day below.
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I’m just getting back into the swing of things after being on vacation. One if the things I did on my vacation was to trek up to the LL Bean store in Freeport, ME and trade in my 14 year old boots. They no longer carry my size in the store (size 14 boot), so they gave me a credit which I used toward a new pair of boots.
Yesterday was the test run (or rather, test hike) of the boots.
While I was out there, I thought I’d take some pics of the trails and areas of Mt Wachusett, which is where I do most of my hiking. Hope you enjoy them.
The windmills on Wachusett never fail to impress me.
Clearly no one has been cleaning the Jack Frost trail in a while…
One of the cooler things was that I found the stick on the trail, partailly worn, propped up against a tree. I took it and used it as a walking stick for the rest of the hike. Then I left it at the entrance to the Mountain House Trail for the next hiker to use.
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(Last one, I promise.)
Part of the Memorial Day festival in our town includes a library book sale. A buck a hardcover, or a buck for two paperbacks. This year I spent eight dollars and came away with some great reading:
Some are books I’ve read before and loved but don’t own (South of Broad). Some are books I’ve always wanted to read (the Bachman Books). Some I think I was supposed to read but didn’t (All Quiet On The Western Front). Some I read but I think a reread now that I’m older will allow me to appreciate the book more (A Separate Peace). Some I’ve seen in a past life while shelving books and thought “Now that looks like a cool book” (The Company). And some are just for fun (Elmore Leonard).
All in all, for eight dollars, I think my summer reading (and then some) is all set.
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The front part of my house gets no sunlight in the summer. I have a pretty large tree in the front yard, such as it is, and another tree right next to it. And because I don’t really have a house but rather a condo, I therefore don’t really have a yard so much as I look out on the common areas of the property.
Don’t get me wrong, the condo property is beautiful, the trees tall and gorgeous, especially during the Fall, and I don’t miss mowing the lawn or shoveling the walk. But I can’t do much about the trees.
Because of said trees, I have a helluva a time getting anything to grow in the small patch of land I do own, which is the garden in front of the house. I plant flowers and bushes that are partial or all shade, but sometimes they last and sometimes they don’t, and then the winter comes and the snow and ice tumble off the roof and crush anything that had only the slimmest hope of survival. It gets so bad that my wife jokingly refers to it as the “Addams Family patch.”
All this said, about every five years or so I have to yank everything out and start all over again. So part of what I did over Memorial Day weekend was tear up the front garden, till all the soil, and replant just about everything. The only things I left were two hastas (cause nothing seems to kill them and my daughter begged me to keep them) and a few day lilies (which I love to see bloom for literally the one day per year they do so). Which means the garden went from this:
to this:
PS – Every single rock you see lining the garden came out of the garden throughout all the times I’ve tilled the soil. It wasn’t until I started tearing up the garden the first time ten or so years ago that I understood all of the farmer walls in New England. Honestly, how did anybody grow anything here when they first settled?
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Let me do two things at once. Let me describe my weekend using a review as a medium. Sound like a plan? Cool.
This weekend was the Massachusetts premiere of a piece of music called “The Peacemakers“. Written by Karl Jenkins, it was originally performed in Cargenie Hall, it was performed in Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA today by the Master Singers of Worcester.
I was fortunate enough to see this piece today with the kids. But that was not unexpected, as my wife was a member of the chorus.
This was a big piece of music. There are seventeen different movements, but each movement isn’t as long as you might traditionally think of movements in a symphony. Nothing that long. And with the exception of one of movement, every one of them had a choral component.
The Master Singers put this piece on, but they where joined by a number of other churches that lent choir members to the chorus, which beefed it up to over a hundred adults. Add to that the Worcester Children’s Chorus, and an orchestra provided by the WPI Orchestra, and you get a very large sound. Then top it all off with the Hook Organ, sometimes know as the “Worcester Organ”, which is the large and locally famous organ resident in Mechanics Hall.
So how was it? Pretty damn impressive.
The overall work had a more somber feeling to it than I was anticipating. But with some of the text attributed to historical figures such as Anne Frank and others who used peace as a means for change and who were assassinated or martyred as a result, you shouldn’t expect a happy-go-lucky vibe. But that doesn’t stop it from being big and beautiful and impressive, with all of the pieces meshing together pretty seamlessly.
As for the performance, it was as excellent as the hall would allow. That sounds pretty qualified, doesn’t it? Yeah, maybe it is, but only a very very tiny little amount. We were sitting in the center balcony section, left hand side. Maybe this isn’t the case in other parts of the Great Hall, and since I haven’t seen something there well over a decade, but up there the sound gets eaten by the acoustics. For example, the solo singers (there were two) were beautiful but a little hard to hear, with their voices being swallowed by the audience and the nearly two hundred people on the stage. And when the full chorus was in swing, you might have been asking yourself “Strings? What strings?”
The night would not have been complete without the organ making it’s presence know by sticking open for an extra second after the end of once of the movements. But it’s 150 years old this year. What do you expect, perfection? I hope I’m around and as feisty when I’m 150 years old.
All of these, though, were little quirks in an otherwise gorgeous piece of music. If you get the chance, I highly recommend seeing a quality group perform this, as it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Scott Lyerly 