Thursday, November 20, 2008

Taking The Plunge

Now that the roof doesn't leak, Pat's next project is the bathroom. The leak lasted so long we had mold in the ceiling and some of the walls and the window (which wasn't that great to start with) swelled and tried to fall apart. Ugh! This is the worst part of the entire remodeling project.

However, I have plans. (I ALWAYS have plans!) I want to find a different sink because the cabinet style sink that is presently there is too large for the room. I want more storage. I can't get all of the towels in that small cupboard above the toilet. The medicine chest mirror is dinky. A larger mirror will open visual space in this 6x9' room. Then there is the problem that there is only about 10" of space behind the door. I've placed a small armoire there to hold linens, but we can't open the door completely because it's 18" deep in a 10" deep space. Finally, I don't liked the glass shower doors. They constantly fall off the track and the opening is so narrow it is impossible for me to bathe the Labrador Retriever in the shower.

A few years before they died, the folks had the bathroom redone. This was when they replaced the bathtub with a shower that had a seat in the corner, installed handicapped accessible grab bars for the shower and the toilet, moved the toilet from behind the door to the spot near the window where the hot water heater used to stand, and moved the hot water heater out of the bathroom into the utility room. The crew that did the work removed the old walls and put in a particle board backing that was covered with Masonite paneling. You can see the old Masonite in the first picture that show the wall above the tub before Pat finished that area. The second picture shows the same view after he had the sheet rock in place. The upper picture in this section shows the particleboard in the area over the sink. It was darkened by the mold, but could be salvaged. (Chlorine bleach is wonderful stuff.)

Last is the new sheet rock! Isn't it lovely? Now if we can get rid of that disgusting window...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Oh, No! Don't Let the Rain Come Down

We have had a water leak in the bathroom since before we moved here. Pat had tried patching it but couldn't find the source of the leak. I know Dad fought leaks in the utility room and bathroom for years because that section of the house has a flat roof. Could the source of the leak be at the joint to the sloped roof? Pat didn't think so, but it had happened before.

When one last temporary measure didn't work, Pat had had enough. He would remove the entire section of roof. Let the leak escape him then!

Mike, our neighbor, came over and he and Pat started stripping shingles off the roof. Pat still isn't sure why some of the things he found were there. The first two layers were asphalt shingles. Then there were two layers of what appeared to be tar paper, but turned out to be sheets of heavy black plastic, maybe a plastic tarpaulin. Under that was the strangest part of all: He found a layer of felt paper, sand, another layer of felt paper, more sand, and then the original wood. He said he first thought the sand and felt paper were rotted wood, but later inspection showed it to be sand and felt. Now, the question is WHY sand and felt??

The black plastic may have been something Dad did to fix that leak at the joint between two roof lines, but the other stuff was before we lived here. WHY sand and felt?? We have no clue.

It turned out the leak was caused by a satellite microwave dish my son Joe had mounted on the roof when he lived here. There was a small leak while the dish was in place, but it REALLY started to be serious after Pat removed the dish. He thought he had patched the screw holes at the time, but there was a bigger problem underneath that he didn't know about.

I'm so glad it's fixed now. Come Spring Pat is going to replace the main roof. That will be a job. There are seven layers there -- going back to the original wood shingles.