This post won’t be very long, but I wanted to share a few photos representing another bit of progress from this past week before I head down to the Ace Hardware store to pick up a few more pieces of sheet rock.

Here’s the first picture:

Followed by this one:

And finally, there’s this shot:

Sharp-eyed readers might notice that these are three shots of the same pressure gauge all showing 40 psi and they would likely wonder why I’d bother posting the same picture three different times.  Sharper-eyed readers might notice some slight differences in the shots, and my answer to that is; they were taken over a span of two full days.  The significance, of course, is that our replacement pipes and fittings are holding pressure and there are no leaks.  Obviously, if it holds air, it will hold water, so we’ve taken another giant leap forward!

I finished running all of the red (for hot water) and blue (for cold water) Pex the other day and went through the house to ensure that all of the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room fixtures were turned off, and fired up the air compressor to charge the system.  At first, I could barely get the needle to move at all and it wouldn’t hold any pressure.  I began getting discouraged, fearing that we still had some major problems, but I decided to call it a day and try again the following morning.  I actually woke up that night with a flash of realization:  the plumber that installed the hot water heater also ran a small, copper line to the humidifier attached to the furnace.  Just as I suspected, that tiny, 1/4 inch line was open, and once I closed it, I saw a vast improvement on the gauge.  It would take pressure, but wouldn’t hold for long, so I shut the compressor off to listen, and clearly heard hissing air.  I had overlooked one crimp clamp on a ‘T’-fitting, and once I tightened it, the hissing stopped; just like magic!

I filled it to 40 psi and took the first photo.  The next morning, I took the second photo, and yesterday, I took the third.  My Google searches all said that if the pressure holds for 15 minutes, it’s good, but obviously, it wasn’t good enough for me (a tiny bit of OCD, perhaps?)…..  though 48 hours was.  I’m convinced now, and pleased with the results, especially considering I’d never done anything like this before.  It was fairly simple, didn’t require any soldering or glue, and was cheaper than the alternatives and far less expensive than hiring a plumber.  In fact, I’d estimate that we saved somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 doing this ourselves.

The next step is putting up sheet rock in the basement ‘closet’ where the main water supply line comes in from the well and where the new pressure tank will be installed.  Once all that is taken care of, we’ll be able to replace the air with water and we all know what that means…….  flush toilets coming soon!!!

Ace Hardware needs some more of our money, so I’m going to wrap this up and head down the hill.  We’re going to take a couple of days off this week and head down to Colorado Springs for the holiday.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I have to apologize in advance.  It’s been a few days since my last post, so this one is a bit long.

The Weather  We’re still trying to figure this one out.  Unfortunately, the ‘local’ news isn’t very helpful.  Even though Colorado Springs is a mere 15 miles away (as a crow flies), the temperatures there are typically 15 – 20 degrees warmer than here, and it seems to be  far more windy up here in the mountains.  As for snow, I think they got more than we did the other day, even though we’re about 4000 feet higher.  And, despite the fact that the local ABC affiliate claims that “Channel 13 is where Cripple Creek gets it’s weather”, they don’t even have us on the weather map.  I think they’r just trying to get us to watch.

I mentioned that it snowed.  It was only a couple of inches, but very pretty.  The next morning, it started melting, and was practically gone by noon, but the temperatures never got above 25 degrees and the sun never actually broke through the clouds.  How, exactly, does snow melt while it’s still freezing?

Animals  I think I mentioned before that this is a free-range area for cattle.  This means that someone has a herd of cows that just wander around, eating our grass and leaving their ‘pies’ wherever they want.  As we understand it, we would need to fence our property to keep them out, as opposed to the more logical idea of requiring their owner to fence his property to keep them in.  Anyhow, they’re gone for the time being.  I suspect they’ve been moved to a lower elevation for the winter.

We’ve had a number of deer wandering around, along with at least one fox, a den of coyotes, and a lot of rabbits.  Our least favorite are the mice.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re welcome to run around and play outside, but they just aren’t welcome inside the trailer with us.  It’s been an on-going battle, but I think we finally figured out how they were getting in.  Last week, we removed the stove and used an entire can of spray foam to fill the gaps and holes under that cabinet.  I’m not sure why the manufacturer thought they needed a six inch hole to run a 1 1/2 inch drain pipe, I’m not an engineer, so it’s not really my place to judge their methods.  I did take it upon myself to fill those voids, and for the last several days, the snap trap has remained set, with the peanut butter, just like I left it.  The poison bait trap appears undisturbed, and the sticky trap is empty.  I don’t want to jinx it, but maybe we’re on to something.  It seems to be just the two of us living in here again.

We’re still waiting and hoping to see elk and turkeys (after all, it’s nearly Thanksgiving), but yesterday, we were treated to an awesome surprise.  Down at the bottom of the property, Sandi saw a large dark animal just slowly wandering around by itself.  We needed the binoculars to be positive, but it was a bison.  Pretty exciting and very cool.

The Kitchen  This project is sort of on hold.  The counter-top measuring guy came out last week, but we’re still waiting to hear when we’ll be moving forward.  They called today and told us that the actual price will be about $1000 more than what we were quoted.  This overage, they claimed, was due in part because they ‘have to’ cut the opening for the range onsite since it was not installed at the time of the measurement.  Mind you, it was sitting in the very same room so that dimensions could be taken, but okay.  They also said there was an increased charge because we supposedly changed from a drop-in sink to an under-mount sink.  Likewise, the actual sink was in the room, along with the paper template included by the manufacturer.  I told the guy that called that I just wasn’t certain we’d be staying with them.  Looks like we may have to find a new counter top place.  He said he’s doing some checking and he’ll call me back.  I can’t wait.

A New Wrinkle  I’ve said before that it often feels like we take a full step backwards for every couple of steps forward.  We’re making progress, but it’s slow and costly at times.  When I was working on moving the cabinets and the kitchen plumbing, I noticed that one of the elbows in the copper sink pipes was split.  I figured that water had been left in the system when the house was abandoned, it got cold, and they ruptured.  I don’t solder well, but I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to make a couple of minor repairs.  But then…..  I was in the crawlspace looking a little more closely, and I discovered the true extent of the problem; nearly every piece of copper pipe was split.  This photo shows just a few of them.  Again, I’m not an engineer, but I feel like this will be a problem supplying the various sinks, toilets, and showers in the house with the water they all need to function properly.

We considered hiring a plumber to come in and completely replace everything, but after examining the problem and exploring our options, we decided to go a different direction.  We’re fortunate that the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms are all on the same end of the house.  All of the plumbing is visible and accessible in the ‘crawl space’ under the east side of the house.

It’s a warm, relatively clean work-space that I can sit up in, so it’s not terrible.  I’ve spent the last couple of days pulling the damaged copper out and replacing it with pex.

It’s a fairly low-cost alternative that is far easier for a do-it-yourselfer.  It requires just two special tools and involves no soldering.  Fingers crossed, we’ll have it all completed by early next week.  I’ll pressure test the system and hopefully get the well re-directed to turn on the water in the house.  Flush toilets, unlimited water, and a real shower…..  Coming Soon!!!

And Finally…..  Hold On to Your Hats, Folks  After discovering that Digger Guy had bounced a check to the county for the septic permit, we exchanged a few text messages, he made good on the charges, a couple of phone calls went back and forth between us and the County, and a new re-inspection was scheduled.

We were gone that day running errands, but I checked online and…  wait for it…..  we have final approval on our septic!!!  Yep, it’s done.  Complete.  Finished.  Final.  All Wrapped Up.

We miss seeing Digger Guy and his little dog everyday, but this project has finally come to a close and we’re another step closer.

 

I’m beginning to just accept the fact that none of our projects are going to go as smoothly, or as quickly, as I want them to.  Aside from replacing our windows and a couple of doors, which required some fairly major re-framing of the living room and kitchen walls, nothing has taken so much time as our kitchen remodel.  Okay, maybe the septic tank installation technically qualifies as our longest running, as-yet-still-unfinished project, but I digress.

The kitchen / dining room is likely the most important room in any house.  It’s where we cook and it’s where we eat.  It’s often a gathering spot, homework and school projects are frequently done at the dining room table, and it’s probably the one room in the house with the most systems and the most complications.

When we first started planning this remodel, we knew the cabinets would need to be replaced and the walls would need a fresh coat of paint.

The windows were broken and oddly sized and the sill was actually behind and lower than the back-splash.

The island was huge and needed to be shortened to accommodate a larger pantry.  The ceiling was partially open, with shop-style, florescent lights in the open rafters.  Despite the effectiveness and ready availability of bleach and latex gloves, the odor coming from the sink meant that it was simply going to the dump.  Also, the range was beyond usable, so we knew that our finished kitchen would have to have all new appliances, too.

We quickly realized this was going to need a lot of work.  In fact, the first step actually turned out to be a complete tear-out.  Cabinets, counter-tops, the island, the flooring, the ceiling light ‘framing’, the windows, the window wall…….  All gone!  This left us with a clean slate and a fresh place to start from.

We moved outlets.  We changed out switches.  We added light fixtures, and we discovered that someone cut the supply wire for the range, so the range outlet was useless.  We built an all new island and added the necessary wiring for the stove, the downdraft unit, and the extra outlet.  We modified the sink wall and changed out the window.  We patched the ceiling and the back wall, and fixed the cracks in the ceiling.  We went through nearly two rolls of paper tape, several pieces of quarter-round, and several large buckets of drywall mud to get the walls smooth enough to finish.  We went through several jugs of pre-made texture before we discovered it was much cheaper to buy a 50 pound bag of plaster and mix it ourselves.   We went with a knock-down look and it came out terrific.  We painted, connected all of the electrical fixtures, installed the lighting and and then got to work installing the cabinets.  We still have a couple of pantries to install, along with a couple more upper cabinets, but we’re far enough along that the counter-top installer can come out and take his measurements this afternoon.  They say that the turnaround time is about three weeks, so we’ll be moving on to new projects in the meantime.  Eventually, we’ll get the flooring down and trim everything out.  We’ve talked about how to finish the back splash, but we haven’t actually picked out the tile, yet.

First up on the to-do list is plumbing.  I crawled under the kitchen the other day and discovered that every piece of copper pipe has a split from freezing and bursting, so it’s all going to have to be replaced.

It’s okay, though, because we still don’t have a working septic system.  Digger Guy finished up a little over two weeks ago and called for a final inspection to show that the risers had been installed as required from the first inspection.  I checked the status of the permit online and it kept showing ‘pending’, but no one ever came out.  After a week and a half, it was still open, but with no inspection requests pending, so I called the County to ask.  It turns out that Digger Guy’s check bounced, so we’re basically just in limbo.  After all the challenges we’ve had with him, I’m not really surprised.  I think it’s cool in a way, though…  it provides a fitting finish to our septic saga!