The Bathroom

Life on the Lee-side has been busy the past couple months. I'd like to say I've been out hucking off cliffs, riding hundreds of miles, stalking bald eagles, or driving my car a 100 miles an hour on the track - Nope! Lately adventure has been replaced with boring responsibility. It's not for loss though, I look at it more like banking some responsibility now so I can play later. In December Jo and I bought the house we have been living in and set about fixing it up. It's a great buy, but many things were in a serious state of disrepair. The long term plan is to increase the value to appraise for an amount that allow us to drop mortgage insurance. Kitchens and bathrooms are the easiest way to do this and we needed the most bang for our very limited buck. I worked what magic I could in the kitchen with new fixtures and appliances (Costco is the bomb!) and focused on the weakest link - the main bathroom.

The bathroom was a disaster. The plastic sink had a huge crack in it, the toilet would clog with a single kleenex, and the floor was blistered and tearing. We needed to a little bit of money go a long way, so we would have to do everything ourselves. After weeks of pricing, sales, and coupons I got all the materials together. I decided to leave the bath and shower intact and focus on the problem areas.

The Bathroom Before

It took 6 solid days of work and nothing went smoothly. Every step of the project required multiple trips to the hardware store for missing bits or problem solving. The first step was to tear out the old bathroom.

Destruction

Next we laid the subfloor for the tiles and painted. It all sounds so easy on here, but it took days.

Painting

Subfloor

After the paint had dried and the floor was settled we cut and laid the tile. This went relatively smoothly other than getting wet and cold cutting tile in the middle of the night. I had to make a fire in a bucket in my front yard to keep the saw from freezing.

Cutting and Fitting the Tile and Stone

Laid and Grouted

Stonework

Once the tile was down I installed the vanity, toilet, and a new light. The new toilet, called the Cimarron, will flush 240 golf balls in one flush. Other than one "incident" it has yet to clog. I told the guy at the store I wanted something so strong it would make my ears pop when it flushed! I also got a matching mirror and did my best to paint match the medicine cabinet.

New Toilet and Vanity

New Mirror, Light, and Medicine Cabinet

The last step was cutting and painting the trim and caulking and sealing everything. I also added the ice; brushed nickel towel racks.

Trim Work

Brushed Nickel Bits

The Finished Product

I killed it!

In November I spent 12 hours rebuilding my old Dave's Aircraft Works 1:26 foamie glider. It had been sitting broken in my basement for 10 years (Here). Since then I've flown it twice. December was cold and January wasn't very windy. Yesterday the conditions were perfect. The wind was so strong I needed to add some ballast to get good penetration. I set up the glider with the center of gravity as far aft as possible. An aft CG is more efficient because there is less tail-down force for the main wing to overcome allowing more of the wing's total lift to act as lift. The trade off is that it spins immediately with no warning. Adding the Hero Cam as ballast only aggravated my set up. I should have moved the mount a 1/4" forward. The great thing about RC's is that you can do everything that is too dangerous or illegal in a real aircraft. Catching it on the Hero Cam was pretty cool.

I launched the glider, gained some altitude and turned downwind to dive bomb Molly on a high speed pass. In the turn I pitched a little too aggressively and entered an accelerated stall. It immediately broke into a spin. I recovered in one turn, but was too low to pull out of it. The impact ripped the covering off the wings and killed the receiver. It came to rest facing me so you can see me running up to inspect the damage. Classic!

It might be another 10 years before I motivate to rebuild it!