UPDATE!

I received an e-mail from Jeff from HWC and I am happy to report that the shower door for our second bathroom remodeling project has been received. The plan is that the new sink and shower door will be installed together next week. With a little luck, the sink will arrive at HWC next Tuesday and it will be installed on Wednesday. Updates to follow as conditions warrant.

Grout and Samson Supervision

Today was the day that the bathroom really came together. Jim arrived at his customary time and he immediately started his work for the day. His plan was to apply grout to the floor and shower, mount the medicine cabinet, install the trim along the baseboards, and finally to pack up all his tools and equipment. Tomorrow was to to have been the day the bathroom was completed, but since the company that custom makes the sink sent the wrong sink, the project will not finish up until sometime next week.

The photos of the shower with the grout applied to the spaces between the tiles really do not do justice to the look of the shower. The shower is nothing short of fantastic. The floor looks great, too. I also think that we picked a great color for the walls. It is very similar to the color of the grout.

Samson was very interested in how the project was going. He would frequently check on Jim and see if he needed any help. Samson also wanted to inspect some of Jim's tools for the grouting job. Specifically, Samson was very interested in Jim's sponge. After a a quick inspection of Jim's sponge, Samson allowed the project to continue.

Jim finished up everything that he could do today, and I helped him put his tools in his truck as well as some of the empty boxes which held the medicine cabinet and the new cabinet. Tomorrow, Paul the electrician will pay me a visit and install the light over the cabinet. Hopefully, the middle of next week,the new sink will arrive and Jim will return and install it.

Days 10, 11, 12 and a "Whoops!"

The bathroom project is moving along with all deliberate speed. Much was accomplished on Friday morning and afternoon. Jim added a few more bullnose tiles to the shower and then he set the cabinets in place. Jim and I had a few discussions about the placement of the cabinets. I wanted him to wait to the last minute, so I could paint without any "hardware" in the bathroom. Jim was focused on production, so I saw things his way! The cabinets went in without incident and before I knew it, he was laying the floor tile. Of course, Samson had to keep an eye on things and he appeared happy with the work Jim was doing.

The "Whoops!" mentioned in the subject line of this post is that the factory shipped the wrong sink to us. The cabinets require that the sink be "left justified." The sink that was shipped to us has the sink centered smack dab in the middle of the countertop. After looking at the tile, cabinets and one of the backsplashes for countertop, I picked a paint color called "Drifting Dune." No, I did not make up the name! The paint is Olympic, which I have used with great success in the past. I discovered the error when Deirdre got home from work, as I showed her the sink to compare paint colors. I contacted HWC Homeworks and they put a new sink on order for us. With a little luck the new sink might be here by the end of the week. Dave, the owner of HWC and consummate professional, offered to install a temporary sink for us to make the bathroom operational, but I flatly refused. Dee and I have waited 7 years to re-do this bathroom and waiting a few more days is not going to kill us.

My task for the weekend was to apply a few coats of Kilz to the walls, and then put a few coats of white semi-gloss to the ceiling and then a few coats of "Drifting Dune" to the walls. For any of you who have never painted, there are two type of paint on can purchase: Latex based or oil based. Oil based paints require mineral spirits or turpentine to clean up, while latex paints are water based. Kilz is a great primer, but it is oil based and it stinks to high Heaven. I started to apply the Kilz first thing Saturday morning and I was able to get two coats of primer before 10AM.

Late Saturday afternoon I applied a coat of white semi-gloss to the ceiling so that I would be ready to paint the walls on Sunday. Our good friend Deb, who has helped us with many of our painting projects, helped us once again, While I did the walls and the open spaces, Deb worked the cut in, deftly applying paint to the edges between the walls and the ceilings, as well as some of the intricate work near the cabinets. We are now ready for Jim to return tomorrow and grout the shower and the floor tiles. Again, I could not be happier with how this project is moving along.

LOBSTERPALOOZA!

I know that many of the frequent visitors to this blog are on the edge of their respective seats each day, waiting for an update on the remodeling of our second bathroom, or perhaps some information on the taming of the once nearly feral Samson. Both of those stories will continue to be told, but I have to document an event that occurred here on the western plains of the Enchanted Mitten last night.

Deirdre and I were the lucky recipients of a Lobstergram. I did some pro bono work for a friend of mine (ask your lawyer friends what pro bono means) and to show his appreciation, he sent us the Lobstergram. On Friday morning the FedEx truck paid us a visit and delivered a white styrofoam cooler to our door. Inside of the cooler were the following items:

• Two live Maine lobsters, ocean-fresh
• Two 4 oz. Premium Lobster Cakes
• 20 oz. Lobster Bisque
• 12 oz. Lobster Ravioli in Lobster Alfredo Sauce
• A 20 oz. Chocolate Heart Cake
• Fresh whole lemon and butter
• Two Shell Crackers and Seafood Forks
• Two Lobster Gram Bibs and Moist Towelettes
• Lobster Gram Cooking Manual

I opened the cooler to check on the lobsters. While a little sluggish from their recent trip to our door, they were definitely alive and well. Samson was a little inquisitive about the cooler, as he could hear scratching coming from inside of it from time to time. I decided to make this dinner a Surf & Turf meal, so in addition to the lobsters, I would cook a couple of filet mignons to round out the meal. Ever the guardian, Samson is shown here guarding the lobsters to the left in this picture, and the filet mignons are out of site on the counter to the right.

Deirdre got home from work and we reviewed the cooking manual that came with the lobsters. I fancy myself a pretty good cook, but up to this point I had never cooked live lobsters before. Dee positively loves lobster, but she has some ethical issues about putting the lobbies alive into a pot of boiling water. I, however, have no problem with such a task! This fantastic gift gave me the opportunity to expand my cooking experience and I looked forward to the evolution. We could not resist introducing Samson to our visitors, as we were fairly certain he had seen one in the flesh. Needless to say, he did not quite know what to make of the lobsters!



My sister Patty (who is a great cook) has prepared many a lobster dinner, so I called her to ask for some advice. To be frank, cooking lobster is very simple. You bring a cauldron of water to a rolling boil, pop the little devils into the pot and cook them until done. The hard part is knowing when the lobsters are fully cooked. If you overcook the lobsters, the meat, while still flavorful, can be downright rubbery. Patty told me that for the size of our lobsters (1 1/4 lb) that they should cook for 14-16 minutes. I brought up the largest pot we had from our basement, filled it with water and brought it to a rolling boil. As soon as the water was ready, into the cauldron our two crustacean went!

After putting the lobsters into the pot, I set one of our kitchen timers for 15 minutes and patiently waited for the buzzer to go off. This period of time allowed me to make the Turf side of the meal, which was Pan Seared Filets in Cabernet Sauce. The arrow of time continued and in what seemed like just a few moments, the timer went off and we removed the lobsters from the pot. The lobsters looked fantastic, developing a bright red to pink hue during their immersion in the pot. Next, I had to pull out the meat from the tails and that was a much simpler evolution than I had thought it was going to be. And yes, that is steam rising from the lobsters in this photo!

I set to work to remove the tail meat from the lobsters, as we made the command decision to forgo the meat from the claws and legs for now, which was the right decision. I was able to quickly separate the tail meat from the lobster and with in a few minutes of the removal of the lobsters from the pot, dinner was ready to be served. Of course, Samson was now even more interested in what was happening and he was my shadow throughout the final preparation moments of this meal.

The meal could not have turned out any better than it did. Deirdre and I feasted on the lobster and the filet mignons, and enjoyed some white wine and red wine with meal. We made the right decision to go after the tail meat and put off collecting the claw meat until after the meal was done. When dinner was done, I went to work on getting the meat from the claws and legs of the lobsters, ensuring that none of it went to waste. Samson was once again quite interested in what I was doing and we discovered that he, too, likes lobster as we gave him a few small snitches of meat. I was able to gain experience cooking a dish I had never made before and the confidence that I could cook it again with similar results.

Days 8 & 9 have been a blur...

My goal was to update this blog daily with photos and descriptions of what had been accomplished, but Days 8 and 9 simply got away from me. As some of you already know, we are taking our dog Samson to an intermediate obedience class, which meets on Wednesday nights. Well, by the time I got home from class and had dinner on that night it was almost 9PM. I planned on updating my blog Thursday morning, but that time, too, got away from me. I spent the morning conducting some computer training with one of the employees of HWC Homeworks, then I went to the HWC home office to show another employee a few tricks in Gmail. Well, Dave (the owner of HWC) saw me and said, "Paul, do you have a few minutes?" So, I spent half an hour showing Dave a few things as well as importing his contacts into his Gmail account from his old e-mail application. It was time well spent as Dave was quite pleased that I was able to help him import all his old contacts into his Gmail account. Enough of my excuses, I need to tell you about the project!

Days Eight and Nine were pretty much all about the tile. Jim's craftsmanship and attention to detail were very obvious. I never realized how much work went into finding just the right pattern and cut for each tile. Sure, in areas that are not marked by corners or funny turns, putting up the tile is straightforward. However, the shape of this shower is out of the ordinary. Most showers are either a square or a rectangle. Well, this shower is neither. It is essentially square, but one corner is cut off so it is actually a non-linear pentagon. Thus, Jim's skill and experience were constantly used to fit each tile into place.

Day 9 was also the day that Paul from Roper Electrical returned to wire in the controllers and switches for the lights, fan and heater. Again, I am constantly amazed at his quiet professionalism as he crawls around the attic, getting the wires in just the right place for the electrical loads in this renovated bathroom. Paul will return next week to install the light which will go over the sink.

One unexpected benefit from this project is that it is introducing our rescue pup Samson to all sorts of new people, sounds and smells. During the first renovation project, Samson spent most of the time HWC was here in his crate. There was just way too much excitement going on for him to remain calm. Well, he has mellowed considerably and he has spent the day by my feet, sleeping and basically "chillaxing." Of course, at one point Samson needed to supervise Jim while he was putting up the tile. The original plan was to complete the renovation by Friday, 25 January, but the tiling in the shower took a little longer than expected. Today (25 January) Jim will put the tile down on the floor and finish applying mud to the walls. Once those two evolutions are complete, I will be cleared in hot to paint. I plan in painting the entire space with two coats of Kilz on Saturday morning, then I will paint the ceiling sometime late Saturday afternoon. This will then set me up to paint the walls on Sunday so that I will be ready for the plumber to return and the electrician to return early next week. Updates to follow as conditions warrant.

Mud & Tile

This was Day 7 of the project and the work is coming along. Jim is in the "detail" part of his work, putting up all the custom fitted tile for the shower. He completed the niche and also installed two Corian shelves in the shower. The project will appear to slow down for the next few days because of the exacting work needed to fit each tile, but as soon as he finished the tile in the shower, there will be perhaps a day's worth of work left.

The dust is not as great in the house anymore, and I think that we have turned the corner with respect to overall entropy. As Jim sets each tile, the randomness and chaos abates a little bit more. What I am really starting to get excited about is applying the first coat of Kilz and painting the walls!

Day 6: Electrical work begins

This project is a little more than half way done and the bathroom is really starting to take shape. Jim arrived a little later than usual, as he spent part of his early morning at the HWC shop making the Corian shelves for the shower. Also, the electrician Paul from Roper Electrical started the electrical work. Paul installed the vent fan and put in the wires for the lights and the fan control. Jim was his normal persnickity self, carefully measuring and cutting the tiles for the niche in the shower, was well as the tiles for the walls of the shower.

I am pressing Jim to get his permission to start painting. I will have to put down at least a single coat of Kilz primer before I can paint the ceiling and the walls. Thankfully, this is a much smaller project and all I will need is a few hours to accomplish this taks. What I want to do is complete the painting before the plumber returns to install the sink, toilet and drain from the shower. I did a little paint shopping over the weekend and I think that I am going to paint the ceiling white and the walls a light tan. More to follow on the final color decision.

Day 5: Mortar and Mud and Tile

Day 5 of this project has come and gone and the project is really starting to take shape. Jim was able to apply mortar to the drywall in the shower, tape the gaps in the other drywall, apply mud to the aforementioned drywall and add some insulation along one of the walls. I am amazed as to how warm the bathroom is now, and the tile still has to go up. While it does not look like much happened today, Jim made enormous strides in shaping the overall look of the bathroom.



The next couple of days will be devoted to tiling the shower and the floor. Progress will literally be measure in feet as he carefully measures and cuts and applies the tiles to the walls and ceiling of the shower, and eventually to the floor of the bathroom. The color of the tiles in the shower and the floor are the same color as the tiles used in our first bathroom remodeling project. This weekend I will need to stop at Home Depot and shop for paint. I will not need much to paint this bathroom, but I will need to find the right color. I am thinking that a light tan might be the trick. As anyone who has ever looked at paint samples, there are as many tans or light browns as there are stars in the night. Whatever color I pick, it will not be the hideous blue that still adorns a few of the bathroom's walls!

Day 4: Drywall Tales

Our craftsman Jim was here at his usual time this morning and he did not dilly-dally. He set right to work, with his goal today to have all the drywall up and installed so he can start to apply mortar and mud (not to be confused with Marble and Mud) first thing Friday morning. The photo to the right shows the insulation, studs and firring strips Jim had put up the day before. He installed even more insulation and the effect was almost immediate. This formerly cold and dank space was now warm and inviting, and he has yet to put up a single tile!

Jim spent a few minutes this morning installing the hardware for our first bathroom project. Jim expertly installed two hooks and a towel bar. I am happy to say that project is now complete!

It never ceases to amaze me the care and craftsmanship that Jim constantly exhibits at each point of this renovation. The best word I can use for him is persnickity. He will look at a joint or a piece of drywall or the shower base and say to me, "There is something not right with this. I need to add a few pieces of shim to make this square." He also came up with an idea that will make the even shower better. The contract called for two niches to be built into the shower, but after Jim looked at it he said to me, "You know, I can make a couple of corner shelves out of some scrap Corian we have back at the shop. I think that you might like having two small corner shelves instead of two niches."


All I could say to him was: "Sold!" He will now make a single niche in the shower, and install a couple of small corner shelves. It is actions like this that endear me to Jim and will make me keep using HWC for any future remodeling projects. Additionally, Steve the production manager stopped by yesterday and today to check on the progress of the job. It is apparent that HWC prides itself in the quality of its work.

Tomorrow will be a bit of "Hurry up and wait" as he will apply the first few coats of mortar to the shower and mud to the drywall. Updates
to follow!

Day 3: "There will be blood"

Yes, today's blog entry has a title similar to a new release from Paramount Pictures, but it has nothing to do with a Western. Rather, the first blood was shed during the course of this project. Today was "rough in the plumbing day," and Jeff, owner (and master plumber) of Grandville Plumbing showed up soon after Jim arrived to plumb in the supply and drain lines for the new shower and sink. Well, soon after he began his work, he cut his hand and he asked that I document the injury. Thankfully, Jeff took his injury like a man and he sullied on, replacing the old galvanized steel piping with copper pipes. Years ago, some plumbers used galvanized steel piping instead of copper because it was cheaper to use. The problem with using galvanized piping is that there is the possibility for bi-metallic corrosion to occur. I will not bore you non-science types as to why it happens, but what happens is that the steel pipes slowly corrode. It is simply a matter of time until the steel pipes dissolve and we have what Deirdre terms a "liquid incident."


Today, the new bathroom really started to take shape. Jim and Jeff installed base to the shower, after Jim carefully leveled the base using lots of wooden shims. Jim and Jeff showed their respective craftsmanship and attention to detail. Jim went about his work quietly and quickly, stopping only occasionally to ask for Jim or me to give him a quick hand, holding on to a pipe or straining out a drain line. At the end of the day, all of the rough plumbing work had been completed, the base to the shower had been installed and insulation was stuffed between the studs and the exterior walls. I immediately noticed how much warmer the bathroom was even before a single piece of drywall has gone up.

As I wrote earlier, you can't make an omelet unless you break a few eggs and quite a few eggs have been broken in this project already. For those of you reading my words who have never experienced a remodeling project, it is a lot messier than you could possibly imagine and your chi will definitely be disrupted. I have turned over the house to Jim and his co-workers and things are pretty much a shambles here. Not that this is a bad thing, but there is lots of dust (though not as much as was generated in our first project) and there will be novel and exciting uses for things in your kitchen. The photo to the left shows our rolling butcher block being used as a storage place for a couple of portable power tools, a place to put the charger for one of those aforementioned power tools, and did I mention the portable air compressor and the plumbing tools and supplies on the kitchen floor, too? Yes, the entropy in our home has been increased but I just need to remember that in our house we obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics, confident that with the introduction of energy that order will once again be restored.

Life is like a box of chocolates...

Last night I said to Deirdre, "I am sort of hoping to hear back from at least one of the companies where I have applied for a job." Well, I did hear from a company, but it is one which did not have an active application for me. In my "Inbox" this morning was an e-mail from a recruiter at Lockheed Martin. The text follows:

From: chris hyland [mailto:DoNotReply@lmco.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 2:26 AM
To: pkratochwill@comcast.net
Subject: Lockheed Martin – FM role - Fairfax, Va

I saw your (text) resume in our Db and wanted to arrange an interview with you for a Facilities Management related role with us on a new multi-year contract in the Fairfax/Centreville area in VA. We have several key executive level positions covering the following FM disciplines in a Facilities Infrastructure Support program:

Program Management, Facility Engineering, Logistics, Mail Processing and Courier, Physical/Technical Security, Telecom Infrastructure, Daily Operations, Central Plant, Life Safety, Procurement, Contracts, Logistics, Space Planning, and System Recapitalization Management

We are looking for at least 10 years experience in these areas..preferably in a management capacity. We will also be recruiting for more Jr positions in the near future, so i encourage you to send your resume in even if you do not fit the specs above.
This position requires an active TS/SCI clearance. If interested and qualified please:
1) send me a word resume and indicate the best fit from the categories above

2) complete the attached screen sheet

3) Provide a telephone # and best time of day to reach you for a phone interview should we decide to move forward (due to the number of resumes we receive we will only contact those we intend to interview..pls do not send more than one reply to this email).
4) Lastly we are considering a potential interview day at our Fairfax HQ on Friday 1/18/08..pls indicate availability for an interview on that day

**please email both documents to me **

Sincerely,

Chris Hyland

Sr. Recruiter

Lockheed Martin Mission Services

Well, I sent Mr. Hyland a current version of my resume and I answered a few background questions. So far, I have not heard back from him. I will update my blog as this develops.

Day 2: Mousicles and More Surprises

Day Two of our remodeling project had just begun when our master carpenter Jim said to me, "Paul, you should come see this." I walked over to see what had caught his eye and plain as day was a mousicle. Yep, there was a dead, frozen mouse who had met his end while living in the spaces above the shower at some point in the distant pass. Jim had pulled down some insulation from where the ceiling of the shower used to be and the dead mouse, along with lots and lots of mouse dropping, fell to the floor. You can see me holding the little guy in the photo to the right of this text. It was clear that he had been dead a while. We quickly cleaned up the mess left by this mouse nest and Jim went back to work, demolishing what little the tile that remained in the space that used to be the shower.

Dee and I have been living in this house for seven years and we keep finding surprises. It became apparent soon after we moved in that the previous owners were not very adroit at home maintenance. Each time I began a home improvement project, I would find that they had done something interesting, such as painting over an electrical outlet instead of removing it. Also, at one time there were five incoming telephone lines for this house and it is quite a nested mess whenever I have to trace a phone jack. The demolition of this scond bathroom was no different: the walls hid surprises. The shower in this bathroom was always cold, and I chalked it up to the fact that three of the four walls on the shower were exterior walls. Well, once Jim pulled down the tile, I also saw that there was little to no insulation between where the tile used to be and the exterior walls. We also discovered that at one point in the area which was now the shower used to be part of the front porch. Yep, we found the remnants of the exterior brickwork on two of the shower walls. Jim will put lost of insulation between the studs so that will hopefully warm up the bathroom.

Demolition is essentially done. The vanity, sink and toilet are gone, and all of the tile in the shower area has been removed. I helped Jim pull up the underlayment that was under the existing white tile and found that there had been a slow leak from the valve which regulated the flow of water into the toilet tank. Thankfully, the underlayment absorbed all the water that had leaked because the floor joists which were exposed after the tile and underlayment were removed was bone dry.

Tomorrow Lance the plumber will return to rough out the plumbing lines. He will install new supply lines to the shower and the sink, and he will also plumb in the drain lines for them as well.