Workin' In A Coal Mine...

Under 311 Morgan Street is a "crawl space", a 3 foot tall access to the underpinnings, the floor joists (all heart redwood), main beams (all heart redwood), the water pipes, drain lines, electrical wiring, and last but not least (in this case) the natural (city) gas line(s) and spider webs galore. My interest at this segment of the reconstruction of 311 is the water and gas lines to the new sinks and the cooktop (hob). Yesterday I attacked the water lines and by the end of the day had both the hot and cold lines in place to the new vegie sink on Hawaii (the island in the kitchen) as well as the drain lines to both. It was a real joy to finish this part of the project as I HATE (read: Abhor!) plumbing. I'm famously bad at it and would rather jump in a septic tank than undertake ANY plumbing task. I can create leaks where none were before by the simple act of LOOKING at a joint in the copper lines!
It's supernatural! I'm equally bad at each of the requisite tasks in plumbing too...designing the plumbing route, choosing the right pipes, corners, valves, etc.
Awful, I'm simply awful at it. I LOVE soldering and have taught it to hundreds of my previous students but that was wires and electronic components...these are PIPES and they have a strange ability to resist my finest soldering efforts. Anyway a miracle has occured...I made a total of 14 joints and as far as I can tell...I have NO LEAKS! A-fukin-mazing! AND though I am finished with the drain lines too..they leaked like a bamboo hut when I tested them late in the day. Today I went to work on the weaping drains and seemingly have abated the deluge for now. We shall see.
I hate plumbing.

Today's activities were those of grouting the Big Island...("Hawaii" as we call it), though there is no volcano, there COULD be a geyser! That finished we grouted the backsplash and the counter of the new Bread Center alongside the oven wall. It went well but at the end we were done with work for the day, too much for Kelly and I had a trip to the grocery store on my mind. So be it, we called it quits at 2:30 and came back to The Swamphouse. I tore off the grocery list I'd made up and headed off to purchase the vittles for the next few days and Kelly trundled off to take a nap.

Long Dead Tile Project Revived

The upstairs bathroom had it's counters replaced and sinks as well as new faucets set some many years ago. The plan had been to create a new bathroom facility w/o a tub but with a shower tiled floor to ceiling. All a great plan, and we started. Along the way towards mid-point we stopped to go away to Europe and that was the end of it, 7 long years ago. So "we" (me) have restarted the project now that the little house project is nearing completion. Yesterday I removed the now aged faucet from my sink (yes it has a his and hers sink arrangement) and began the labors of Hercules by chipping out (the word REMOVAL doesn't adequately describe it) bit by well adhered bit, the two affected tiles from the back on the sink. Then the new faucet can be mounted properly with two new tiles sans holes. The cuts though are oval in shape and not the easiest to achieve with even an advanced tile saw. I gought a pair of scroll saw blades that are coated in tungstun carbine hoping they can achieve the necessary cuts, Thanks ACE HARDWARE! Now we have done a LOT of tile work both here and in France to our own homes, thousands of square feet actually and love the end results but sometimes there are problems and difficulties that wear us down to a full stop. The chipping out of these tiles from the well adhered thinset underneath is just such a project as it the cutting of odd shapes. Against this charge is the fact of having exactly 4 whole tiles to work with as they have neatly gone out of production of this size and color. Fun. So this work has to be done carefully to say the least or else we are going to be in full stop again. I DID get the offending old tiles with the three holes in them removed after bashing the hell out of them with a hammer and cold chisel. That done I tackled the replacement install this morning. We shall see. Oh yes, here's a link to a This Old House video of the basic cuts needed to do MOST (but, of course, not ALL) tile jobs.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid823433173/bclid823361889/bctid823321811