@!*?’ing Progress

I don’t curse very often. It isn’t that I’m opposed to the use of particular words, it is more that I think it is important to allow those words to maintain a special place in the language. If you use them everyday, I think they lose their emphasis. I found just such an occasion to need emphasis this weekend.

We’ve written about our many buckets and leaks in past posts. We have improved upon our bucket brigade. We used to haul each bucket, or bail the larger containers, or shop-vac up the puddles and empty them into the toilet. It is hard, messy, slow work. We now have a small pump that we can hook up to a long hose. The pump is dropped into the full bucket and the hose carries the water down the toilet. It has moved our bucket management into the 20th century!

There is something I learned tonight, though, about improved technology. When it goes wrong, it goes big. If we stumble with a hand-hauled bucket, maybe a couple gallons of water sloshes on the floor. With a pump, you can really displace a lot of water. I was efficiently emptying buckets for about 20 minutes, only to discover that the toilet end of the hose was no longer in the toilet. Water was efficiently pumping all over the floor. It covered the bathroom floor with about an inch of water. It poured down the plumbing stack, into the room below where the boxes of our stuff are stored. F***!, F***!, F***!, F***!, F***!, etc. I guess I cleaned up about 50 to 75 gallons of water. What a self-inflicted mess!

There was progress, of course. Once again, fortunately, the apartment remains dry!

Progress!

The kitchen is ready for cabinets

 

The drywall is painted, most of the electrical and plumbing work is done. Fixtures and cabinets are next.

The stone tile is installed in the bathroom.

The shower is tiled

It looks terrific! There is electrical heating under the tile floor which will make  showering on cold mornings, like the ones we’ve been having, much more pleasant.

Bathroom floor is tiled