Happy Mother's day

Cherish every ordinary day with your kids.

The remodeling has begun

After almost two years of retirement, I have finally started remodeling the house.

This is what the bathroom, the only bathroom, looks like before I started ripping it up. Now mind you, I need to do this in stages so that we are only minus one of three items at a time (tub, sink, toilet); the rest of the time it will be worked around.

Nice bathroom!

The antique tub surround, but brand new showerhead (which will be replaced soon).

Our other two fixtures that will be replaced.

The shower doors and tub surround are gone.

 Plaster wall number one is now down.

Walls number two and three are down. I needed to be careful and had to cut through the plaster to make clean cuts (along the ceiling and window), rather than taking big chunks out that should have remained. This step took a couple of hours.

Most of the plaster walls fell into the old cast iron tub which made cleanup easier.

What is left after the first major demolition and cleanup.

So now it was time to start whacking the side of the old tub. After a couple of minutes, it started to crack. Then you just continue up the side. The porcelain coating was flying all over the place and the pieces are sharp. The cast iron was on average 3/8 of an inch thick and the tub weighed about 300 pounds and as I discovered, sat on the floor with four teeny tiny feet (probably not more than a square inch touching the floor).

This is a Whoops! I thought I was very careful where I was swinging that sledgehammer (between the sink and toilet and I didn't want to hit anything except the tub. But it happened anyway.

This is the correct way to fix a broken sink. I learned this trick from Red Green on PBS. Well it won't stay this way for long, because it will also be replaced in phase two.

After about fifteen minutes, I was completely through and the tub was in two pieces. Whew!

Now to get it out of the house. I started moving one piece out and that piece was over 100 pounds. So a furniture dolly was used to roll it out the door. Since the drain was still connected to the other half, I ended up breaking that part in half, through the drain and it fell into the basement.

The tub is out and the mess cleaned up.

I started un-boxing the new Whirlpool tub and noticed as I was installing the inline heater that it was cracked. The motor had come off the motor mounts and was banging against the front of the tub. Now Judy and I struggled getting the tub into the house and now I had to put my small trailer together and we had to bring the tub back outside to get it back to Home Depot. I was a bit mad. They had another in the store and I made them open it and checked it before they helped me get it on the trailer. Then the second one had to come into the house. What upset me was that I don't take the trailer out when there is snow on the ground and there was and the roads salted. So that meant that before I could put it away I had to pour a lot of hot water on the exposed wood and metal to get the frozen salty slush off.
I called a contractor friend to get some advice and he offered to come over to help me, because you cannot do this yourself.

 So in preparation, I installed backerboard to the floor and a ledger board to level the tub.

I also cut out the old faucet and copper and installed the new scald-proof faucet and added about four feet of new copper.  It is fun working with fire.

I also removed the door and vanity to make room. But these old houses do not have any extra room, as we found out. the new tum is 60 inches long and the opening is 60 1/4 inches. Plus this house has plaster throughout the house which makes the walls thicker than just sheetrock. And the window sill was in the way. so we needed to lift it up, jockey it around, tilt it, taking care not to break it in the process. We finally got the tub in but the ledger boards were a bit high so it would not blend with the floor. We raised the tum to the ceiling and I lowered the boards. Perfect. Then we needed to raise it once more so that we could put Custom Float mortar under the tub for support. It was set on the mortar and we pushed it down to the ledger boards. Done.

 New tub installed with backerboard on the walls. Jared Barnhart was really the key to getting this tub installed and I couldn't have done it without his help.  Getting closer to ending phase one, but there is a lot to do yet.

But of course I needed to install the new faucet and showerhead. We may not be able to have shower doors because the shortest ones we can find are almost 56 inches high and that puts it 4 inches to the ceiling. We will see.

Finish, working and no leaks anywhere. After I got the tub unpacked, all I saw were stickers all over the tub and in the instruction manual to check for leaks before bringing it into the house by filling it up to over flowing and turning on the motor. I couldn't do that because it's winter and I didn't want 70 gallons of ice on the driveway. I crossed my fingers and all was well. I claimed the right to have the first whirlpool bath. Det var flott!!!

Class/Senior pictures

Getting class pictures can get very expensive if you have more than one attending school. So go ahead and get the school picture taken but just don't buy the packages.  Instead ask Grampa if he would take class/senior pictures. So I spent two days taking them, 150 for the Barnharts and 454 for Andrew.  Thank goodness for digital technology.  Here is a sample.

Joseph

Lorelei

Gretchen

Couldn't just take individual pictures; we needed a group shot.

Andrew. I can't believe we have a senior in the family already.

So I am placing this post ahead of many others so keep looking at older posts because they will be posted before this one.

The outdoor theater.

While the gang was all here, it was time for some outdoor fun and a camp out in the backyard.  The activity was watching a movie on the big outdoor wide screen in the backyard.

The four Larsen kids were there as well as their Barnhart cousins.

Mingah loved the grass.  She loved it so much that she would grab a bunch of it and try to eat it. See all her fun moves below.

Ellie with Lorelei and Gigi.

Playing inside the phone booth.

 This is our mosquito proof theater.

This is the after the show sleeping quarters.

During show time, there was a log of excitement with all kinds of treats and drinks.  Who else could have root beer floats at a movie?

The sleeping quarters were divided into a boys side and a girls side. Kyle stayed with the boys

and Tana stayed with the girls.  They actually stayed there all night.  The rest of us slept comfortably in the house.

Picnic at Snail Lake

With Kyle in town, it was time for a picnic at Snail Lake, with the Smenteks.

Mairin showed us the best way to eat a strawberry.

After playing on the playground equipment, and a quick lunch, the kids wanted to go to the lake and throw rocks, sand and snail shells in the lake.  Grampa was elected to take them there.  I told them not to get too close or they would get their shoes wet and their parents would not be happy. One had crocs on so I didn't mind that but it was his younger brother that had shoes and socks on that didn't seem to mind just walking right in.  So much for listening ears.

The next day Judy had promised to pick her Norwegian relatives at the airport in Minneapolis and bring them to the Mall of America during a five hour layover.

We met up with the Barnharts at the MOA along with some other cousins. We took a break with some ice cream.

 

Calvin was there doing what Calvin does best.

Lorelei

 

 

We all met up with them: Olav, Nils Magnar and Vilde. I dropped Judy and Erik off at the airport to pick up the Norwegians and hop on the light rail to the MOA.and then I drove to the MOA and waited for them to arrive.

 Marit and Olav.

Vilde with her two cousins Britney and Janie.

Erik waiting patiently at the airport. Judy and Erik brought the Norwegians back to the airport on the light rail and waited for me to pick them up for the ride home.

Going home - with a few extras

It was time to say goodbye to Glendale, AZ. We helped clear out the house and pack up and deliver Kyle's household goods to a storage unit. We spent several hours cleaning their house top to bottom. We split up three of the four kids in two cars and headed out to Minnesota.  Tiffany and Amelia stayed behind to tie up any loose ends and they will fly to Minneapolis at the end of the week. We will spend 2.5 days getting back home.

Ellie is ready to go, watching a movie.  She was in the Honda with Judy and I.

Erik and Charlie were in the van with Kyle. They are all smiles.  We left Glendale right after lunch and spent the first night in Albuquerque, NM. Ellie and Erik traided spots the second day.

Charlie was so tired he fell asleep and stayed sleeping.  In the morning I found him underneath the air conditioning unit.

It was lunch at a fast food joint.

Charlie likes to eat out, but he also loves to run around alot. The second day was long but we made it to Wichita, KA and the third say was even longer and we made it back home before it got too dark.  We already had Charlie-proofed the house for an extended stay of the grand kids and had beds ready for those tired kids.  Tiffany and Amelia flew in on Saturday.  The best part of their stay with us is that while they were here, Kyle landed a job with Hertz in Oklahoma City.  To go along with that there would be another move for them. This is how it happened: Tiffany flew down to search for a house to rent and stayed with my niece Rosie while searching; Kyle flew to Arizona to get a big rental truck, get their household goods and start driving to Oklahoma City.  The kids stayed with us and Judy and I left the next day with their van and our car and made it there in 15 hours, with several stops. This has been their longest drive ever. By the time we got there, Tiffany already had purchased a fridge, dining room table and benches, and washer and dryer. And after that got a couch - all on Craig's list. But in the middle of all this, Kyle needed to start his job and his first week was in New Jersey.  So it was up to me to get the truck to the new house and unpack it and return it to the rental agency, while Kyle was out east.  It is just amazing how with all this turmoil, everything seemed to fall right into place. The kids were registered in school (within walking distance), and started school the day Judy and I left for home.  Another plus is that Kyle's office is a 5 minute drive from home.  The distance between our two homes is 798 miles and can be driven in 12 hours or less, depending on stops.