Mo

Mo had to get some fillings done.  Here is trying to smile with half his face numb.

Julius aged 50 years.

The other day Julius came into the kitchen where I was and said, "Mom, how do you like my hair?"  He turned around and showed me the back.  At first I thought he had just made it stick out, but then I realized that there are actually 2 bald lines up the back of his head.  This is one of the hazards of having a salon in the house an having hair cutting tools within easy access of children.

We went into the salon to finish his balding job.  I started on the top and when I got to this point 

Julius asked if I was done.

I asked him if he liked it that way.

With a huge grin on his face, he said, "YES!"

It was so funny. He reminds me of a little Bishop.  Can't you just picture him sitting on the stand in sacrament meeting (maybe not with the ice cream cape on).

As much as he wanted it, I didn't leave it.  We finished the job.

Look how cute he is.  His head feels like velvet.

Rub a Dub, Dub

As soon at the tub was functional, the kids had to try it out.  They all put on their swim suits and and a tub party.

The only bad things about our new bathroom are that Zelda can open the toilet lid (remember her love of playing and throwing things in the water?) and if she is in the tub, she can turn on the water.

Bathroom Saga

Our bathroom is almost done.

It has needed remodeling since we moved in about 4 years ago. 

At the time, we knew it had old tile on the floor that was broken and missing in spots, the floor around the toilet had been taken out and replaced, but with no tile on it.  The toilet was a piece of work.  It has leaked at different time.  At one point when it was leaking, I was trying to figure out were the leak was coming from and discovered that  the  wall behind the toilet was sopping wet behind the tiles and took out a 1 1/2 foot square of tile and plaster.  I'm not exactly sure where it was leaking at that point, but we replaced all the insides of the tank and put new bolts and washers to bolt the tank on.  That seemed to fix it.  Once it was the wax ring that needed replacing and it dripped sewage into the basement, we fixed that.  Then for about the last year, it has flooded the floor around the toilet every time the bowl filled with new water.  We don't know what was broken, but it would seep out from around the base of the toilet, run to the wall and drip down into the basement.  I had a bin down there to catch the water that was icky from running through the wood, though it was clean when it came out of the toilet.  That worked until Zelda got old enough to discover how fun it was to throw things into the water.  Luckily the basement still has a cement floor with a drain in it.

We knew the toilet and floor needed replacing and the wall behind needed patching, but we also wanted a new sink, bath tub, recessed medicine cabinet and turning the door around so it swung out.  We were planning on keeping the blue tile since it seemed to be in really good shape, that way we could keep the cost down a bit.  There was one wall of tile that we didn't want to keep, so I was going to take the tile off of that wall, clean it up (undiluted Simple Green worked wonders getting 50 year old glue off the backs of them) and use it to replace the tiles that would come off around the tub and the hole in the wall by the toilet.  

It  didn't work out that way.  When the contractor  opened the wall around the tub,  this is what he found

The wall was filled with moisture ant damage and rotten wood from leaks in the gutter and around the window.   The wall had to be completely rebuilt.

He also had to cut out some of the sub floor that was rotted away.

Since all the walls were open, we had all the plumbing updated as well.

It took a lot longer than we were planning, about 4 weeks total and that is our only bathroom, so we had the Honey Bucket in the driveway.  I appreciate indoor plumbing now.

 All that is left is us painting and putting up hardware, a little trim and a mirror.

(Oh, and getting our gutters fixed so they don't leak into the wall any more).

Here is the mostly finished project

We love our new bathroom!

By the way Russell Thomas of Evolve Construction did a fabulous job!

You can see by the picture.

Some of the things I loved were that he paid attention to the little details that make the project look really nice and when I didn't like the look of the lay of the tiles, he redid them how I wanted.  

His number is (206) 306-3433.