After installing the new toilet over the Labor Day weekend, Jess noticed that the sub-floor under the toilet, as seen from the basement, had become moldy. A bit of picking with a screwdriver showed that it had been leaking long enough to rot the sub-floor. Ugh. What this meant was our plans to replace the floor with a nice one needed to be moved to the top of the priority list. So I took off a couple of days of work the week-before-last to get into it before the weekend.

Here is a sort-of photo journal of the process.

Filed under:
Home Improvement, Pictures by Jack

Yeah, the site was down for most of the day. Yeah, it had been replaced with some funky web search thing. Yeah, it was completely my fault.

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News by Jack

Our Labor Day weekend was spent as the name implies: laboring. This weekend we finished the retaining wall, mowed the lawn, changed the oil in the Jeep, stained and polyurethaned some more windows (I don’t think “to polyurethane” is a verb), installed a washcloth rack in our shower, helped mix concrete for another driveway pad at Jessie’s parent’s place, and replaced our toilet.

(Click to Enlarge)

This should give some idea why I haven’t been updating this site that often lately. Oh, I did have time to whip up some yummy Thai-style food for dinner on Sunday.

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Home Improvement, News, Pictures by Jack

“No, Puppy! Potty Outside!” That was our battle cry for the first week or so that we had Simon, before he even had a name. House-breaking him really wasn’t that hard, but I bet it would have been much easier had we been better equipped, like we are now:

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Pictures by Jack

Yesterday was a very sad day, by all accounts. The machine went home. After taking up residence in our back yard since mid-May, it climbed onto a trailer and headed back where-from it came.

Here are some pictures of it leaving me behind. Notice how the sky becomes increasingly grey as it prepares to leave and heads on down the road.

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Home Improvement, Pictures by Jack

With our driveway a dusty mess awaiting a nice layer of limestone gravel, I was presented with a cool photo-op:

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Pictures by Jack

Today I finished up our new Versa-Lok retaining wall. The best before picture I could find of the area is from when the trench was still there, but I think it gives a good contrast to the after picture.

Before:

After:

Filed under:
Home Improvement, Pictures by Jack