The pex is nice as the toilet supply line goes into a chase around some joists to the basement. The tub supply lines head towards the door and into the chase to the basement. No way could copper or CPVC be used with the elbows that are needed. The plumbing used before I installed PEX was the grey tubing called polybu...... eventually I will be replacing all the grey stuff with pex. I could have gotten fancy and bought red and blue pex but white is more available.

The way I fished the pex thru was by using shark bite fittings. I cut off the end fitting on the grey tubing, installed the shark bite and connected it to the new pex. I was in the bathroom pushing while a friend was downstairs pulling. We go as far as we could, disconnnected the shark bite and fished the next section. As a result, I have a hole in my dining room wall that could have been avoided if I did the floor cutting first but oh well, the dining room is a room that hasn't been refinished and I have some other patches in that room.

OH, remind me at Raystown to show you a great way to mix concrete or mortar onsite. It's a bit complicated to explain in words...

I did some more plaster demolition in order to expose electrical devices. While doing so I found newspaper that was used for backing to plaster to hang wall mounted soap dishes. I pulled out what seams to have been the Sunday edition as there was plenty of it. Now that I think about it, there are two soap dishes and I only revealed one. Anyways, the paper dates back to 1949 and is the local paper that I read today. I uncrumbled it and tried to preserve it as much as possible. I will have to read it and see what was going on and how much stuff cost.

In my other house I found newspaper and the want ads had sections devoted to jobs for men and jobs for women and this was from an edition alot more recent than 1949.

A related note on finding stuff, I checked under the hot tub to see about shut off valves as my little one likes to turn the water on and then run. While doing so, I found a $100 bill. I guess that will pay for a few shut off valves.

$100, cool! Can I come over and help you with checking under things?

Depends on what you're checking under.

Doing some electrical work, replacing wires, outlets and switches. Making more holes in the walls for retro-fit boxes to be installed.

Electric is finished with the exception of installing a light fixture and outlets. These will be installed after drywall. Now back to plumbing so I can get water to my sink. I am also doing some painting, yard work, playing with my son so this is getting dragged out longer than I want.

My wife went shopping with her mom and my son. This gave me a full day of working on the bathroom.

My day started off buying paint for an outside project of repainting my basement doors. I sanded and put a rust inhibiter on. Went upstairs to work on the bathroom remodel doing plumbing (installing my tub mixing valves). I then went back outside to put my instant canopy up to block the sun as I was working on the west side of the house. I primed the doors and then went back upstairs to run my pex inserting shut off valves, elbows and tees. Back down stairs after the primer dried to paint the doors using oil paint in a colonial red color. I was just about finished and then my family came home. I wrapped everything up around 5 PM.

I have to crimp the pex connections and then install the tub and make sure all my connections are leak proof. Then drywall begins.

I'm tired after reading that.

This weekend I extended the mud bed a few inches as the new tub is slightly narrower than the old tub, put some wal board up, installed the tub, leveled the tub, in-filled some holes where old recepticles were, planed down some rough sawn oak boards so I can make my vanity in the very near future. All in all it was a good weekend of work.

This was suppose to be last winter's project but I didn't get started until March, then boating season came, fall came and I was still boating and now that the boat is winterized, I can start back up again.

I missed a few of my self imposed deadlines, the first being last winter, the second being Labor Day. My next deadline is the day after I get the bathroom finished.

I think I am getting to the easier part of this project as soon as I finish wrap up the plumbing drain for the tub. The electrical portion I was not as familiar with so I hired some help from a friend. It cost my wife a few home cooked dinners.

One thing that worked out great so far is the new wall that I added at the rear side of the tub (opposite the drain) I left unattached. Meaning that the wall is built but I can move it a few inches in order to place the tub. Once the tub is in its final place, I will permanmently fasten the wall.

A friend of mine who has his own construction company and I have hired to do my kitchen installation asked how the bathroom was coming along. He asked if I had hit the 1 year mark yet, I am only at month 8 so far. He also asked if I was in project management (I work for a general contractor in estimating). Basically he was giving me a hard time.

Well, this weekend I worked on some more plumbing and am almost ready to connect the bathroom plumbing to the main plumbing system to make sure I don't have any leaks.

I also hung drywall (except where I need to make sure my plumbing passes). By adding the drywall, it really makes the bathroom look smaller.

Another weekend of working on the bathroom, another weekend of not getting further along than I wanted but was still happy with the results.

My new deadline was to be finished by Christmas so we could host it but now it looks like we are going away for Christmas but will still work towards that deadline.

10 days to go...

Thankfully we are not going to be hosting Christmas this year as I have an 8 bedroom, 10 bath beach house waiting for us in OBX with my wife's family.

As to my Christmas deadline, it just got bumped to Valentine's Day. It will have to be finished by March as this is when the project started in 2009.

Not to mention that you don't want it dragging into boating season, especially since you will be on a new boat!

Happy holidays!