Start of the Shower

The long weekend is being used to redo my shower.  Friday, while I was at drawing class, Dad removed the old masonite 'tile' and the plumbing fixtures that were outside the wall.

That afternoon, we bought the new fixture and all the plumbing pieces we would need to make it work.

Saturday, Mom cut out the window hole in the sheetrock.  (A window had been in the bathroom at some point in the past and had been removed, but only sort of.  Sheetrock covered the hole on the inside and some outside cover had been created, but the basics of the hole were still there.)  I framed the new window since it is to be 24 x 12 instead of 24 x 24.  (I know it looks funny, but the 'garden' room is behind the bathroom, so the window 'sort of' goes outside.

I then patched the sheetrock and hung cardboard on the outside of the hole because the window that will go there has not arrived yet.  During this time, Dad was doing the new plumbing.  We also found out that my smoke detectors work quite well - soldering makes a bit of smoke.  Luckily, my bathroom fan also works well, so we didn't have the ringing the entire time we soldered.  We really should have turned it on at the beginning.  Hindsight is 20/20.

Once all the new connections had been made, Dad wanted to pressure test them.  Makes sense because I sure as heck wouldn't want to find out they leak after we've put the wall back and the tile up.  First one checking the copper soldered connections went fine, even the one Dad was worried about.  Then we added the CPVC pipe running up to the shower head and tested it.  All of a sudden, water was flying everywhere and I was yelling at Dad to turn it off.  He hadn't screwed one of the end caps on all the way!  We fixed that and then discovered that the new connection was, indeed, leaking.  A couple more turns of the pipe solved that problem.

Then we patched the giant hole with sheetrock.  Enough work for the day.  Backerboard and tile next time.

During this, Mom was outside doing physical labor.  I previously had cut down a lot of brush - more than would fit in one can of yard waste.  Mom cut a bunch and filled another bin for me.  After lunch, she then moved a bunch of dirt around - taking it from beside the house (where we don't want it) and filling various random holes in the backyard.  It will be nice to have a relatively level backyard.  I'm anticipating her feeling sore today and taking it relatively easy.  We'll see.