If this were a movie...

We'd call this the climax. Alli with a pick-axe and a garden spade trying to do the impossible - find a 4" Cast iron waste pipe somewhere under our house. Finding only a 30 pound boulder 4' down from our dining room floor. How did we get here?


In the interest of the movie theme we'll "Tarantino" this story line... I'm going to start at the climax, at the worst, at our lowest moment - at the point where, after 2 days of digging, the shovel rang off of the first significant solid mass. Where in the span of 30 minutes we went from celebration to ritual suicide - when the reality sunk in that it wasn't the drain line it was a hoax - set in motion 106 years ago when an excavator decided to skip the loose fill in favor of landscaping boulders.






Act 1: Across the SEE

The project began with a need to tie our new bathroom waste line into our existing waste line. Because our only bathroom is at the back of our house, and our new bathroom is closer to the front of our house our plumber advised it's "best to avoid running shit backward just make it run forward again". Armed with this logic, we set about locating the existing waste pipes that run under our house and out to the city sewer lines at the street. For this we employed a plumber with a "see snake" which travels the length of your waste line video taping the path of your effluent while also charting a course along the floor of the house. With a modern divining rod, the plumber can find the exact depth and location of the see snake as it slides along.


Not a lovely image to watch but oddly fascinating as we now own a complete VHS recording of the insides of our pipes. Good news, no cave-ins, no roots, no real headaches to speak of. At the end of the day, i had an X mark on my dining room floor that said 4'10 down.


Act 2: Coal Miner's Daughter(s)

Saturday morning we brought in the help.... Neal and Leo, cut a hole in the floor, [again] and we started digging.

and digging


and digging


Act 3: Shawshank Redux


by the end of the day saturday we had a hole, big enough for a dog, but not deep enough to for the pipe. we closed for the night at about 3'6" depth.


Act 4: Easy like Sunday Morning

With the help gone, Alli and I settled in to the task of finishing the work. which now brought us to that sisyphean boulder... ultimately a moment of triumph.

With the boulder freed, we were renewed, and pushed on until,



finally, 2' to the side of where we thought it would be, we found the pipe!


almost like we were never there...

A single 3-way switch to end a marriage

Sure, it looks harmless, even simple in its finished state but this photo represents 2 weekends of futile efforts and petty name-calling. The idea was simple - 3 lights, 2 switches, one 14/3 wire. I now respect the simple act of turning on and off a light from two seperate locations.

Please enjoy....

This series of terribly photographed electrical successes..

the shower is in

the final layers are built up, and the cement board is on. note the drain and vent line for the vanity installed as well.

15.3 lbs soaking wet

Fender's growing... but not as much as we thought he would. He's about 4 months now...

Electrical work...

8 additional electrical lines were needed to bring the house up to its safe electrical usage. The Panel had been upgraded years ago to service 150 amps... the previous owners only utilized 4 seperate lines continually adding use to the end of the lines...

Shower Continued...

Note, when it came time to drain this ^



it was coming out of this
into a 5 gallon bucket in my arms...

it was a disaster that nearly flooded the dining room.

Allison = Plumber 2

It's been a while since the last update, but work has been progressing. We've installed the shower in the bathroom - we've built the multi-layered base up with new subfloor...


thin set...

mud set...

and a seamed vinyl pan.
We then stopped and filled the pan with about 2 inches of water for 12 hours to test for any leaks or problems - better to find them now...


Post Script:

We found them now... We seamed the pan incorrectly and had a small leak... had to cut the pan back out - re seamed it, re-layed it. and fixed the leak.

Killer 'D'

The church on the corner of our block had a rat problem this summer - occasionally a few made their way into our yard - but thanks to Turkish were held back.

I found this old image from cleaning Turkish after his first Kill. Alli will tell you I was freaking out - but in retrospect he looks like it was no big deal.

His name is Fender and...

he is 7.8 lbs. of fury.


Two weekends ago, on a drive back to DC through West Virginia we almost hit this dog. He came out of nowhere into the road. He had no collar, fleas, and looked like he'd been outside alone for a while. Fearing that the local Humane societies in those parts share billing with the local gun gun club we took him back to DC to find him a home. It's easy to get attached so it looks like we've got another dog...

Turkish on the other hand, well... Turkish abides.

Kitchen Door

One of the final [major] projects remaining is to move the kitchen door... ultimately it's moving about 11" to the left from it's original spot and it will be about 38" wide (originally 28"). The challenge is that it's in a bearing wall and the wooden sill atop the foundation it sits on turned to swiss cheese long ago.

Undeterred by limited time, Alli tore into the floor saturday night to get at the sill while i braced the bearing load at the second floor. We found similar rot and replaced studs with new bearing at every point.








we are perpetually changing the working drawings.



we keep finding a disturbing amout of "Indian Burial Grounds" under the main floor



the dog's cute but he can't swing a hammer so he's of no use.




Finished late sunday.

Elephant in the room

Finally took it to the Radiators this Saturday. The radiators in the dining area, and the future bathroom needed to come off the wall so that we could work behind them. These old cast iron things weigh about 300 lbs... and we have been avoiding this nasty work for months. Needed to drain the entire system first and then unfasten them with a big-ass pipe wrench. Thanks to my father for the help.



We needed an extra 2 1/2' of leverage on the end of the pipe wrench to get the old galvanized pipe fittings to turn.

bathroom framed

In a weekend Leo framed our new bathroom...


alli approves

fussy-ass drywalling

I totally credit [blame] alli with the idea of exposing the ceiling joists and drywalling in between.








Big thanks to Sean for lifting all the heavy boards and to Javier showing Sean where to put them.

The First coat of mud is on the walls now on the second layer of drywall. We've now have two layers of drywall with a Visco-elastic-sound Damping compound between them. a lot of work later - the place looks just like it did before we started.