Splish, splash, I was takin' a bath...

...long about no time soon, but eventually. When the drought is over. But, we have found that shopping for the right bathtub takes a lot of time. The angle of the back slope is important, especially when the homeowners met in a chiropractic office. We hear different things at each place that we shop, so we will be doing some independent investigations to narrow down our choices. This is proving to be one of the more challenging choices during our little project. But, we are grateful to be able to have the choice in front of us.

:-)

"You've got to be a submariner to run that shower," said Bill. I would not know where to begin.

Quaaaaaaack.

Tubz in Fremont claims to be the world's largest bathtub showroom.

Soooo, I called out, "Bill!" to get his attention. He turned around and could not find me...

...he had to zoom in a little and look down.

You must try out each tub to see if they are comfortable.

Every time that Bill says that we need to go to RV Cloud, I think of recreational vehicles and become confused. Then, I think about clouds, and I am even more confused. Perhaps our visit will stop that. Here's hoping!

Why, yes, that -is- a $6,000 toilet!

Awwww, this silliness never gets old. -snicker-

The piece on top controls the flow, which comes out of the ceramic spout.

Plenum, plinth, or purlin?

Even after all these years with a carpenter, I am still learning new words in the course of our little project. Bill said today, "We have a new plenum!" and I thought of a plinth. Whoops. Turns out, there's something called a purlin, too. Thank goodness for Google.

Rub a dub dub...

...only three gallons in the tub, at least until California's severe drought is over. We went shopping for tubs today, and learned some important information. At our first stop, we saw acrylic tubs and cast iron tubs. The worker guy recommended against putting a cast iron tub upstairs, since they weigh over 300 pounds, water weighs 8 pounds per gallon, plus human weight = too much weight to bear on the house's structure. Since we didn't think we wanted an acrylic tub, we were left a little flummoxed about our choices. But! On our second stop, we learned about porcelain over stainless steel which weighs 3.5 times less than cast iron.

It's amazing what happens when you ask more questions to inquire a bit further than you originally thought you would, but in my business, you think that I would know that. ;-D

The shopping experience for tubs is really lame. You stand on the ground looking up so much at tubs that your neck starts to hurt. And, you can't test them out. Harumph.

The angle of tub slopes is very important, but the weight is more important.

A myriad of tub traps

Shall we ask The Swedish Chef about Schluter-KERDI?
(We have no idea what a "shower in a box" is...)

Friday night lights

Today and tonight, Bill is preparing the framing for the shower pan. So, this blog entry was going to be something about cooking in the shower, but, alas, the project continues into the evening, so it shall be called Friday Night Lights. Some young-ens might think that this is a boring Friday night, but we feel so fortunate to be able to work towards our goals, so we wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The shower pan is the waterproof surface that makes a shower drain properly. Yeah, I didn't know that, either.

The shower pan must angle down towards the drain.

Bill works his way around the master shower drain.

The very last time that the dogs will be in the shower willingly.

The shower pan framing continues into the evening.

Light stands  enable Bill to keep working after the sun goes down.

Fire up the decision-making

Today, we visited Fireclay Tile, just two miles from home. They make a variety of tiles from glass, white clay, and recycled materials. We were on an exploratory mission to look at ideas and talk about how their design assistance works.

This tile is a bit spendy, so we have not made a final decision, but it's definitely fun to think about design possibilities.

Lots of choices

This design uses three different sizes of tile, all in the same color.

 

Not the best photo, but a cool design.

Three sizes, two colors

The colors that spoke to us for our master shower. If we go with this look, the tangerine
will be used sparingly for little pops of color.

The tile design that we liked for our shower, neutral subway tile with thin bands of color about four feet from the ground.

MiMi's Remodeling Service

As much as we truly love our little canine beauty queen, Kyro, she is intermittently frustrating to unheard-of levels. Her nickname is MiMi, as in "Is that food for me?", "Why aren't you petting me?", and "What have you done for me lately?" One day awhile back, she was sunning herself in the front yard as she does nearly every day (getting, as we call it, sun drunk) when she wanted to come in the front door. Instead of walking around to the back where a door was open, she chose to claw and scratch at the newly completed front door. Now, this is the very same door that took a very long time to finish, after we were sold two products that when used together caused bubbling and a horrible result. So, Bill dutifully sanded off the bubbly stuff and re-applied the proper finishes and hung the beautiful door. That's when little Mimi decided to knock at the door in her own special way. Little did Kyro know that our first dog growing up was, ahem, returned when he couldn't stop scratching the custom doors. We aren't ditching her, but sure wish that she would stop sckritching doors.

"Very bad doggie. Very bad. V-e-e-e-r-y BAD."

"What? You talkin' to me?" She does not seem to care about the amazingly repaired door. Her loss.

(Extra)-Ordinary Wednesday

After more than 20 years of marriage and, ahem, several years of a large-scale remodel, I find myself still amazed by some of what I see around the job site. I find tools that I have never seen before, building products I don't recognize, little bits of beauty in the most ordinary of items, and fun reminders of Bill's extensive skill set. All of these things in the span of just a few minutes. I hope that we can always approach our lives as a child does, appreciating much of what we see with amazement and wonder, seeing cool stuff just about no matter where you look. It makes an ordinary Wednesday into something extraordinary, and we like that.

Where has this little cutie Dottie been? We were just introduced this afternoon.

Is it just me, or is this blue tape fun to look at? Don't answer that.

It's not until I see him doing stuff like this that I remember how much he really knows. I just work in an office.