Already a lot and then more
So I went into this weekend with a lot of ambitions. Not only did I want to get the yard fully manicured to take advantage of the temporary lack of standing water I also had a number of Prius maintenance tasks to do such as changing the transmission fluid, inverter coolant, and replacing yet another dead headlight. My plate was full enough that I actually had Cindy come outside with me when I got home Friday to knock the weeding out to help clear the deck for the other work to some degree.
On Saturday after we got the chicken maintenance done we headed out with Elsa in hand to run some errands. It turned out to be one of the longest errand runs in recent memory. We hit Home Depot, Pinch A Penny, Dunkin Donuts, Racetrac, and Rural King which took us all morning. However a big part of the reason it took so long was the time we spent at Home Depot. Out of the blue, despite my already having more than enough to do to hit my quota of work for the weekend, we spontaneously picked up supplies for two additional projects, a ceiling fan for the great room, and a new quartz counter top/sink combo as well as a new faucet for the bathroom. No, I’m not kidding.
I had given Cindy the go ahead to do a small remodel on the small bathroom but we did not plan to work on it this weekend, at least I didn’t. The fan was another knee jerk purchase because I wanted to have additional lighting in that area for the NFFL Fantasy Draft party I am hosting once again this year. We wound up getting a sweet looking three blade model with a bright LED and remote control.
So although we returned with all of these goodies, we still had all of our original list of things to get done first before we could be concerned with the next projects. Mowing/weed whacking the grass was pretty brutal. It was well into the 90’s and since I have not been able to do a full lawn session in several weeks due to rain and vacation it took even longer. I probably spent at least two hours out there whacking away in the stifling heat. Cindy spent three hours plus on the tractor mowing the regular yard PLUS the rear section which was reaching jungle like status.
After that fun I wasted little time before jumping into two of the Prius maintenance items, replacing the transaxle fluid and the inverter coolant, neither of which I have done since we have owned the car. Since both things are supposed to be done roughly every 50-60,000 miles I was WAY overdue. As always there were bumps in the road and lessons learned doing the work. I made a pretty big mess in the driveway.
So we were both BEAT from the long day of labor, however a little before 9PM I looked at the outlet cover on the ceiling where the fan would go and told Cindy I wanted to try to install the fan now. I am not sure what drove me to suggest it at that point, well I do, my relentless, unyielding inner taskmaster. Cindy was excited about the fan enough to be enthusiastic about getting it done, even at that late hour, which was nice.
I have installed every ceiling fan in the house, a total of 5 or 6 but they were all the exact same model. This fan was much different in appearance and installation technique for sure. Cindy did most of the work required on the floor, I was the one working at ceiling height, hanging the fan and making the electrical connections, it was not an easy install.
The fan from the diagrams seemed to be designed to be attached to full size junction box. The fan outlets in the house are roughly half as deep as a full box which created a lot of challenges getting all the wires stuffed inside the casing. In addition to all the wires, the remote control receiver, instead of being integrated inside the fan body was a separate thing that had to get jammed into the already limited space as well. To be honest, I am not quite sure how I got it all in there but after a ton of struggle I was eventually successful. Both of us were very happy with the outcome, it sort of finishes off the space and helps keep the air circulating in the large open floor plan.
So normally I would have drug my ass out of bed and forced myself to run this morning but I had to wave the white flag today. I was so sore and aching from Saturday’s work it would have just been plain stupid to try to run. I was walking around like a veteran AARP member when I crawled out of bed. Instead I again headed out to say hi to and tend to the chicken chores. After I finished I came in and worked on editing and publishing my YouTube content from Saturday as well as printing a case for the Raspberry Pi 3D printer related project I will be working on soon. (more on that later)
Katie decided to join us for an EUC ride out at Ave Maria. We all had a lot of fun. Katie is simply amazing on her wheel. Not only is she gifted, being able to ride forward, backwards, and one legged with ease, she is also fearless. She rides backwards much, much faster than I would ever feel comfortable with doing. Cindy rode her Inmotion V5F as well instead of the Msuper. She is getting much better as well. She is taking the baby steps towards learning backwards riding and also successfully rode on one foot for short periods of time. She really has the natural ability to be a better rider than me.
So once we got back our attention once again turned to the bathroom. Years ago Ali and I repainted the bathroom and installed some updated fixtures. It was the first room of the house we ever painted so it felt like a big deal at the time. However the bathroom sink still had the plain veneer topped counter with a decidedly dated and unattractive faucet. In addition to replacing the sink countertop Cindy wants to paint the bathroom a happy blue as well install wainscot.
While I was replacing the headlight bulb in the Prius Cindy started cutting the caulk on the backsplash pieces and the countertop to aid in the removal. When I came in I got under the sink to disconnect the plumbing and four screws that secured the top to the cabinet.
Like so many other things in the house, the shoddy workmanship in the guest bathroom was evident. The unsquare walls were revealed once the backsplash pieces were pulled that hid the gaps. The sink itself was centered on the cabinet but not on the countertop itself. As a result all of the plumbing lines were stretched to the right.
So the removal of the old sink was not as difficult as I feared. After removing the screws the old top lifted out pretty easily. We had identified a potential issue with the new sink. The integrated backsplash was about 1/4 inch too high to fit under the big mirror above the cabinet. In order to address it we decided to use a 1/2 in thick backing board under the mirror to attach the backsplash to. We did not have a suitable board so we made yet another trip to Home Depot to grab the board as well as nice package of wainscot.
We picked up a few other things like some liquid nail, caulk, and some screws I need for my Pi project. When we got home we jumped right back in, attaching the countertop and backsplash.
I then crawled underneath once again to hook up the new faucet. We got the same Kohler faucet we put in the master bathroom however the chrome version to match the other fixtures in the guest bathroom. Since I already installed this faucet last year I did have some familiarity with the process but I still did lean heavily on the directions at times. The end result looked great though.
One negative about the countertop is it only came with 8 inch spaced faucet holes instead of 4 inch. We plan to fill the holes with either chrome fill pieces and/or a built in hand soap dispenser which might be cool. Other than that, Cindy and I are really happy with the way the new countertop, sink, and faucet look. Most of the remainder of the work is going to be in Cindy’s court with me assisting where needed. The end result should be a pretty significantly transformed space. I’m anxious for the end result.
If you are wondering why this blog is coming out late in the weekend, it’s because yet again I am expecting another hell week at work, a rather common occurrence nowadays.