A little Wet

     I've been working on the floors and the bathroom floor was completed without to much of a problem and I learned a lot along the way.  One of the things I learned was related to the reason the floors were bad in the first place. What I thought was a problem related to water from plumbing turned out to be a problem from moisture from our dryer.  As I was tearing out a section of the bad floor, I started getting blasted with hot moist air.  Apparently the dryer which was vented down through the floor was venting into the space between the floor joist and above the insulation.

     I did get the bathroom floor finished but by the time I got done I was too sore to do anymore that weekend.  The floor itself, while it's not perfect, is done. I had the kids helping me nail down the underlayment and I failed to check to make sure it was all nailed down so we have a bit of a bubble in the floor.

     As for the laundry area floor - slow going is the best way to sum it up. After an area of the floor was cleaned out, I managed to tear up a 4'x4' section with relative ease learning from my experience tearing out the bathroom floor. Once that section was opened up I started to work on stuff that needed to be done with the floor up like the dryer problem. Because of the dryer problem I decided to pick up supplies and put a dryer vent in out through the wall to the back yard.  It's not easy putting a 4" hole through log siding and a floor joist but after many days at picking away at it I managed to get it done.

     Along with the dryer vent I wanted to install a outdoor faucet so I put a hole through the wall and put a frost free faucet in.  That was easy - hooking it up to the water line, well, I got a little wet.........   Turns out the two different size "T"'s i picked up to splice into the water line with are both the wrong size.  We have flexible hose type water lines and the bigger of the t's wouldn't go in to the water line at all and the smaller one was too loose but I had the line cut and for the time being I mad the smaller one sort of work.  I've got it clamped on as tight as I can get it so leakage at the moment is nill or very little but I don't trust it so I'll be looking for another option before I start in on tearing up more floor.

     In the mean time, I did finish tearing out a closet in that area and started to tear out the walls around our hot water heater - I have to drain it, disconnect it and move it to replace the floor under it to - I was going to do all the walls around the water heater but after opening things up I learned that the wall is holding the water heater up as the floor under it is that bad. So that waits as well.

     Hopefully, by Thanksgiving I can have the water problem fixed, and the first 4 feet of  floor in place.

Shampoo Scents

     The other morning my 8 year old daughter climbed up on my lap and I got a whiff of campfire smoke from her hair so we started joking around about different shampoo scents we could come up with and of course CAMPFIRE was the first on the list.  We also came up with BACON, DOG BREATH, NEW CAR INTERIOR, SWEAT, SWEET TART AND PINE SOL.

     So, what kind of shampoo scents can you come up with?

Floors

     Last week, on the 22nd of October, I took a day off from work and went with my wife and another couple to Grand Forks, ND to spend some money.  Me at Menards and her at Sam's Club.  I won but now I have to work - on - the - floors - at home.

     Starting this weekend I'm going to be replacing the floors in the main bathroom and the laundry area.  To do so will mean ripping out the entire floor down to the floor joist. A long the way I'm going to have to rip out some walls and in the laundry area and shut down all the water to the house, so I can work under the water heater and the water softener.  While the floor is all ripped up, and I can get to the plumbing, I'm also going to put in an outdoor faucet so we don't have to run a hose through the house in the summer time when ever we need water outside.

     I must be crazy to take on such a project but it is something that needs to be done as the floors have become unsafe to walk on.

Back to Normal?

     Yesterday brought the conclusion to our soccer season with a beautiful day in Karlstad, MN, the host of this years soccer tournament.  Our junior players played hard and won the first game in a 1-0 shut out but must have been tired and lost the next game 0-5.  As it turned out the win was enough to bring about a three way tie and force a shoot out.  unfortunately we lost the shoot out and ended up in third. On our way home we treated the kids to French silk pie - thanks to my oldest daughter and than to DQ for Chicken strip baskets and blizzards.

     With soccer over I can put all my soccer stuff and soccer thoughts away and get back to normal which at our house is still crazy.

Opposites

     This past week has been a week of opposites. Last weekend we had the air conditioners on trying to cool down the house.  This weekend the ground is covered with snow.  Earlier in the week we were under red flag fire warnings and two days later a winter storm warning.

     As for the fire warnings - there were several fires in northern Minnesota.  One of them happened west of us near Karlstad and brought a postponement of what was to be our last regular season soccer game.  The team was on it's way but the fire decided to burn into town and part of the town was evacuated.  Needless to say, they had more important things to take care of than a soccer game.  Friends of ours in the town lost a building and their neighbor lost their house.

     Another of the fires was south of us and Tuesday night we were able to see the glow of the fire from the end of our driveway.  I heard later that the fire we were able to see had almost been contained before they pulled everyone to the Karlstad fire.

     As for the snow - some areas received up to 14 inches.  We had several at our house and the kids have been having fun making a snow fort.  The snow storm extended our soccer season as well.  Our tournament was to be in Karlstad this Saturday but while the soccer field escaped harm from the fire, it was buried in snow.  On the plus side, I may have my missing players back from their sister's wedding in NY.