Potty Parting

Yesterday Jym repatched parts of the giant crack and I have to say that the premixed concrete patch he bought works way better than the stuff we had to mix ourselves that we used on the rest of the concrete.  This looks way smoother and filled in much better.  And without all that pesky measuring and mixing and mess.  He also tore up the hallway and bathroom baseboards which was apparently exhausting.  I got home and he was crashed out in bed.  I think he needs a vacation as much as I do.  

Jym glued the baseboards for the kitchen and cut the ones for the pantry.  I want to get my kitchen back in order so badly.  It feels like my house is a disaster.  

We had a moment with the door stoppers that we bought.  There were no instructions and there was a screw inside that we struggled to get out.  Finally upon inspection I realized that we needed to spin the end piece off and presto!  We had the screw out and it was then obvious how we should install them.  Little victories.  We are certainly learning a LOT on this adventure.  That is for sure.  It seems we learn something new every day. 

Jym thanked me today for never saying anything when he flips the tiles.  I always hand him a tile to lay and he flips it around to see which way he wants to put it down and he throws it literally into the air and grabs it.  He says I always make a face of horror but I never say anything.  LOL.  

Jym mapped out the tile pattern in the hallway and guest bath.  This has worked well for us since it allows us to not focus on the pattern with every single tile which slows you down.  It does take work upfront but it is worth it.  Jym goes above and beyond and actually measures the tile space.  I would just mark a rough grid on the floor. 

We removed the toilet today.  It had to happen. We needed to get it out for the trash and it was time to stop avoiding the inevitable.  It was actually not awful in as far as difficulty.  We turned off the water and then flushed it to remove the water from the tank.  Left water in the bowl itself.  I guess we could have shop vac-ed it out (or as we call our shop vac...R2 Suck2.) But we didn't.  We then had to unscrew the bolt beneath the tank and disconnect that.  The excess water then came out onto the floor so we grabbed towels and tried to soak that up...but it was toilet water so those towels needed to be thrown out.  Jym removed the tank and the lid/seat and removed the pieces out to the trash.  We then unbolted the toilet and he carried it out but when he reached the lawn he tried to awkwardly grab it as he laid it down and his wrist bent backward so we iced it up (he had to have a beer while he iced it...beer makes it all better) and gave him a break while I swept the floors for the 30th time.  I swear I sweep and sweep and there is always more to sweep. 

I then spent a long time trying to clean the area around the toilet flange.  It was so gross.  The wax gets down in the flange and its hard to scrape off and sticky and then you just think about that fact that the wax is what has been sealing the toilet for 15 years and then you are cleaning around the hole where all the poop goes down and it was making me think I was surely going to end up with some terrible poop bacteria.  To make it worse I ended up with the wax and gunk under my fingernails.  I DESERVE a manicure.   

We mortared in some tiles and honestly I did not realize how trapped we would be.  Smaller areas require so much cutting and usually we could just lay all the middle tiles but now because the hallway and guest bath are so narrow there is really no way to lay the middle tiles until you cut and we found ourselves cutting as we went again.  This process did not work well at all before and did not again.  So I felt very unaccomplished with what we got done.  It seemed like we worked so hard and got so little done.  But there is always so much prep work you don't count on.