No Rest for the Possessed

The Bible says that Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but I think that Rick skipped that particular passage.  He agreed to try his new pants today for going to church, but since church did not start until 10:00 a.m., we could not possibly "waste" all of the time before the service, so we went to Home Depot first to buy a counter top for the main bathroom.  Since it is only 72" long, it easily fit into the bed of the truck, so from there we were off to church.

I have never felt more welcomed than I have in going to Christ the Lord Lutheran Church in Clearwater.  The congregation is small, and most of the congregation is elderly, but the church does support a school so there are a few younger families in the mix also.  When we went in, the pastor saw us sitting in a pew.  Before the service started, he came over, sat next to Rick, and welcomed us back. A nice woman named Gretchen sat in front of us all last year when we were here, and she welcomed us back also.  After service, the pastor's wife asked us if we were the "teachers from Wisconsin."  She said that she and her husband were just discussing us this week, wondering if we had made it back to Florida.  (We did not take the time to relate the story of Sam and the pants.)  We just said that we were glad to be back. Once we come back in January, we will officially change our membership from Messiah in Green Bay to Christ the Lord in Clearwater.  We think that this congregation can use our help and financial support more than Messiah (which has grown quite large), and the change will help us support our claim of Florida domicile.

Our new vanity, mirror, light, and working faucet!
Note the new towel rack and toilet paper holder
to the left of the sink.

The repositioned cabinet--the picture is
crooked, not the cabinet!

After church, my darling husband was back to work.  He is paranoid about the inspector coming in on Tuesday.  He wanted the whole master bathroom finished, so he is obsessed with getting everything in place.  He works like a man possessed by some demon that drives him forward.  The two pictures show the transformed master bathroom.  You will note that the cabinet, which we thought would open toward the toilet, is now positioned so that it opens toward the center of the room.  The reposition makes the upper shelves accessible, but we had to sacrifice the plug inside the cabinet in the process.

Today (Monday), Rick was further obsessed with getting the vanity up and running in the main bathroom.  He always underestimates the time it will take to complete a project.  He envisioned having the whole cabinet complete with drawers, doors, and a working sink by noon.  Ha!  Right... and I will totally re-landscape the back yard,  build a lanai, dig a pool, and re-roof the house in that time, too.  He is SO unrealistic with time.  I estimated the vanity as an all-day job with no working sink, and in the end we were both wrong.

The main bathroom vanity, with drawer slides in place,
awaiting the counter top.

First, I must admit that the vanity drawer slides fought Rick every step of the way.  He measured correctly, made templates, and did everything else right to make sure the slides were an easy task. However, the cabinet gremlins of the world all conspired against him, and the slides did not go smoothly.  I will spare you the gory details; let's just say that if the vanity had ears, it would now possess an entirely unprintable blue vocabulary.  In the end, Rick triumphed by getting the drawers all in, and he even had time and determination left to cut the vanity counter top, set in the sink, and get the plumbing flowing smoothly!

He still has to add drawer fronts and handles, and cabinet doors tomorrow, but right now I am thrilled to have a working vanity in the master bathroom.  The pink sink in this bathroom was one that we found at the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Green Bay.  It is a cast iron Kohler sink in beautiful shape.  Originally, the sink was very expensive, but its color and age have made it "outdated"; however, the materials and care that it received from the last owner make this the bargain of the year.  Oh, yeah, and the price was right too: we paid $10.00 for this gem.  I told my brother-in-law that when we get rid of it in a few years, I will sell it on Craig's List for $50.00.  (Just kidding... when we are finished with it, I will donate it back to the Habitat for Humanity Restore to get sold once again.)

Vanity with a counter top and working plumbing.

                                                               

                                                                                The $10.00 Habitat for Humanity Restore pink sink.

We still have some work to do before the window inspector comes tomorrow, but the last two days of hard work have resulted in complete transformations of both bathrooms in the house.  The main bath still needs lots of work and attention (eventually the tile and the pink will be a wistful memory), but our renovation of the main bath will have to wait until we have the time, energy, and most of all, budget to complete.