janedavitt

Well, apart from a new lighting fixture and threshold, but the door is on, the loo flushes, and it no longer leaks under the sink!

We did it all ourselves, taking hours here and there over the last three weeks.

Word of advice; avoid Ralph Lauren metallic paint. It's hellishly expensive and goes on terribly.

Totally gutted the room, replaced bits of drywall, painted (ten bloody coats, thank you for nothing, RL) replastered, put down new subfloor and granite tiles, installed new loo and granite topped vanity.

Total cost, around $1500, which isn't bad. The vanity was 80% off b/c it's last year's color or something.

( pix )

Luckily the Davitt flood this year was me going into the basement and noticing a patch of wet carpet about the size of a coffee table. The copper pipe leading from the furnace to outside, presumably to carry away condensation, was dripping slowly, barely anything, but even so, wet patch.

I channeled Buffy and muttered 'full copper repipe' several times.

Honestly, we will never dare finish that basement. Ever. At least with the pipes exposed we can see when they leak.

As those of you who've been reading this LJ for a few years might remember, we've had a couple of floods, some leaking into the basement, some from the basement. So when I heard water rushing in a pipe down there with no obvious reason, that carried on running after we shut it off at the mains, I got antsy and called in the city. They came yesterday and confirmed there is a leak in the main line running to the street. They came back this morning and with this machine dug a hole down and said it's on our side so we have to deal with it. They shut off the water to stop gallons more leaking into the soil and I'm waiting for a plumber now. I filled the baths and lots of buckets.

The only tiny shred of good news is that we won't be charged for all the water wasted as it's happening on the other side of the meter.

The city man said he thought it was all happening under the basement floor, right where it comes in, so to start there, dig up the concrete and hopefully it can be fixed there. Otherwise, we'll have to dig up all the front garden and replace the old copper pipe down there with plastic; six, seven thousand dollars or more.

And the insurance company said it isn't covered. Meep.

Cross your fingers for us.

ETA Man came, I okayed it to all be dug up (5,200 to replace all pipe, 1900 to do exploratory dig in basement with no guarantee there isn't more than one leak; no brainer). He said no reason not to turn water back on and he's booked us in for early next week. Got to get permits and such.

Sigh. Could be worse, I guess.

Unbreakable :-)

Still working on art for the walls, but I found a cute funky faux-leather storage chest and some interesting mirrors...

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I saw a wall in a magazine painted the most delectable purple; think a Cadbury's bar. Amazingly, all the family agreed it was stunning and David suggested we use it to paint the only room in the house left the way it was when we bought it nearly 15 years ago, the computer room.

It was their dining room, and had a chandelier but hello, we're not the kind of people who need a dining room.

Or a chandelier...

Anyway, it was also wallpapered, a dark green with a pattern. I had a go at stripping it off with the usual hand tools, failed, and rented a steamer thingummy yesterday, confident that thusly armed, the stuff would be coming off cleanly in great big swathes instead of tiny shreds.

Ha! I worked from ten to seven then stopped, exhausted, bruised and spattered with scalding steam and drips. All the actual paper is off, but the paper lining is mostly still on there. The idiots only went and papered directly onto the plasterboard, apart from a border of red paint running around the room to waist height. I'm pulling off bits of the skim coat and gouging it with the scraper...it's a mess.

I think we're going to need to get someone in to skim it again. If we try to patch it, it'll show through the paint and reskimming the wall, eh, it's a job for the professionals. We fixed a small, dark corner of our bedroom ourselves but it's far from perfect and a whole room? No.

I keep staring at the magazine and trying to psych myself up and not burst into tears at how much work there is to do.

I've done one wall now, getting every scrap off and washing it down. That was an easy wall with double glass doors in it. Still took an hour. Gah.

Not quite done; need to paint the woodwork, get a new duvet cover and some art for over the bed, but we're almost there.

Thanks for all the advice and interest! The room looks way lighter now.

Nothing too long, but going behind the cut.

( episode thoughts )

I'm an idiot; there's a VCR in the basement. So I taped House down there (sound iffy but watchable) and watched/taped NCIS upstairs.

So I've seen them both, no waiting :-)

( episode thoughts for NCIS and House, but not promos )

Going behind the cut. Not squeeful, just to warn you.

( episode thoughts with spoilers )