Not a Quiet Week

It may have been a quiet week at Lake Wobegon, but it was a very busy week here. 

One big thing that happened this week was the long-awaited shower conversion. You may remember that when we moved into this house more than 3 1/2 years ago, the master bath had this soaking tub, which we knew we would never use, other than for storage. I've been keeping my woolens in it in plastic bags.

We had this tiny shower.

You can't see it, but the end of the shower that's obscured by the towel is taken up with a bench. I'll show you later, when the demo is underway.

Monday, late morning, the workers arrived to begin putting in our new shower. They had to drive down from Portland and spent Monday night in a motel in Bend. They set up shop in front of our driveway, so all the sawing, etc., could take place outside.

They ripped out the soaking tub, the tile and the sheetrock. The window and the two closet doors got masked off with plastic. (The closets don't really show in this photo. They're on each side of the space for the former tub.) Already having the plumbing to the tub made this a logical choice.

Part of the deal was that they would take out our old shower. We will put a cedar closet there. Here you can see the bench I mentioned earlier. They used it to hold their tool box. It took up nearly a third of the shower space and made it difficult to get in and out without having water go everywhere. We figured if we need to sit down to take a shower when we get old 😂, we can put a small plastic yard chair or stool in the shower.

Here's how the future cedar closet looked after the demo and our workers had gone back to Portland. In the photo, it looks ike a pipe sticking up from the floor, but that's just the odd shape of the hole. We will put down a new subfloor, flooring on top of that, cedar panels, shelves and maybe a pole to hang clothes on. 

We're busy now selecting doors and deciding exactly where to put the wall between the closet and the rest of the bathroom. We're thinking of a 24" wide bifold door centered on the wall. We are also thinking of bifold doors for the two existing closets. We had taken the doors off them, because they were regular room doors and opened INTO the closet, eliminating a lot of storage space. The other closets in the house all have bifold doors, and we will try to get something like those, but narrower, of course, because the space is smaller.

Back to the new shower: By Monday night, the new shower space looked like this. The shower pan was in, the pipes for the water had been lengthened and now reached higher up the wall. The drain had to be moved from one end of the tub to the middle of the shower. They would shorten the drain pipe later.

I got this photo on Tuesday after the back wall was in. That black thing is a grabbing device they used to help them carry the walls of the shower into the house from outside, where they did the messy work.

On the left wall, they installed the shelves. They are adjustable, to accommodate tall shampoo bottles as well as shorter items. There's an open space behind each shelf for drainage, and the  bottom of the unit is slanted to drain water and provide a good place to put a foot, so you can wash or shave a leg. The grab bar you see goes the length of the shower,

We selected a European-style dual shower arrangement. It will come in handy if we need to wash one of the dogs. It also gives you the option to remove the lower shower head and use it to rinse your hair or to wash soap off the shower walls.

Here's the finished shower. There's a smaller grab bar just inside the shower to the far left in the photo.

The fixtures and the enclosure are all by Kohler. The shower sort of happened around us. We were hardly inconvenienced at all. 

That was far from all that was going on here this week. What do you guess is coming up?

Yes, a new book will be coming out. I have a title and the template for the cover, but I'm keeping that secret for now. I needed a new template for the cover, because the first two books were 60 pages each, but this one will be 70. I still need to take a photo for the cover, because a portrait won't do. However, the inside pages were finished yesterday (Sunday) and went off to my two proofreaders. This book will have smaller type, and many of the photos are smaller to make room for extra text. I had to learn to use MSWord all over again, but it went faster this time. Now I hope I can remember how to use InDesign, which is needed for the cover. I think I'm a little ahead of where I was last year, at least by about four days.

For some cuteness, here are Peter and Soren./

I did get some knitting in, and Rocky visited the Groomer. One of my hearing aids quit functioning on Thursday. I borrowed one of Charlie's because he doesn't use them anyway. I had to turn it up a bit, and could only pair one with my phone, so it's an inconvenience. I need to have my ears checked again, though, so I'll try to get that taken care of this week.

As always, if you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: A few more rounds done on the Hinterland Pullover. Progress on the Seattle cardigan for Pippa. Almost to the sleeve divide. No progress on the emPower People Kerchief.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: It's cover.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole cloth quilt, no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story is Time on the Beach. Pippa and Pauly participate in a photo shoot on location in Florence, OR. They find a lot of sand and learn a few new things.

Someone from a Canadian dentist's office left a nice comment on The Doll's Storybook blog regarding the story, A Field Trip to the Dentist's office.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app. Just a couple of hours left. It's fascinating. Wish I had time to just listen.  

What's in my wine glass: Hook or Crook Cellars Reserve Field Blend, Lodi, CA, 2018 Delightful.

What's my tip of the week: It may be time to mask up again. I called the vet to get a prescription refilled and found out that they had closed early on Friday because several staff members had COVID19. Fortunately, Paxlovid is now available for high-risk patients. I don't know about you, but I'd just as soon not get sick to begin with.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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