We had a plumb good time

Weekend, top 25% - I need to keep track to make sure there are actually some that fall in the bottom 50% to make sure the statistics work. I bet, we all think most weekends are good.

Friday, had our official marathon celebratory dinner at Andy's which is in my top ten list of favorite restaurants. They have a great casual/cool atmosphere and awesome food. Plus, despite the new smoking laws, you can still have a hookah. We ran near Andy's about 8 times during training and I kept saying we're going there after the marathon and I'm going to smoke. That we did. The Bertlin, Chrissy (Bada$$) and Jason, and Ryan (Bada$$) joined us. Random group but we had a great time together.

Saturday, I began the plumbing for the kitchen and bath. Honestly, the hardest part of all this is the design. It seems pretty easy to get the stuff to flow down, and it is, but venting the pipes is difficult, especially with codes governing how far certain pipes can go horizontal. I worked on the design on Thursday quite a bit while reading a pretty good handbook I grabbed off Amazon. Then Saturday morning I reviewed it, tweeked it for a couple hours and did a take-off to figure out all the pieces I would need at the plumbing supply store. I went to the supply house and filled up a box with fittings and grabbed about 100 feet (no exagerration) of various PVC pipe diameters. I'm only doing the sanitary lines right now, the supply lines (copper) are cake to work with so I need to get the plastic stuff in place first.

My old neighbor, Mark, who basically built his house, came over to help in the afternoon. We modified the design a bit and then started tearing into it. We first realized we needed to get the tub in place which went pretty well. My measure 9 times, cut once philosophy seemed to work and it fit snuggly into the new bathroom. It sure opened the space it had been sitting in (where the old bathroom was) since the notorious Jenn sitting in the tub in the back of Walt event of a couple months ago. Once in place, it definitely made the whole project seem like it is starting to take shape. Also made me realize just how small the bathroom will be, YIKES! No surprise, but when you have been walking amongst walls with no drywall or fixtures, it really makes things seem big. The same thing is going to happen with the kitchen once we start installing cabinets. Both are going to be extremely functional though for the space we are using. Plus, I'm glad the bath is small, less wall tile to install. :-)

Anyway, after the tub was in place we started into the new bathroom drain connections. We didn't seem to get much done but we really did. Basically joined 4 connections and then realized we needed to rework one connection, which I did on Sunday morning, and then realized the old way was the better way. Unfortunately, the problem with plastic, there isn't much turning back. So, I had to go rebuy the same fittings and do it over again. No big whoop. More pissed that they were the most expensive fittings in the whole system. Wasted about $50. I might save them for the modern sculptures I plan to create after this project.

The rest of the day Sunday I got a most of the downstairs bath done with the exception of a few connections that should be easy. Then it will be onward and upward, which means I am just getting closer to actually tapping into the existing lines. Yikes. At least copper is on the horizon which means I get to have fun with a blow torch.