And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

If you look at the first picture of the last blog, you will see where the old shower door used to hang.  That space looks entirely different now.

We started the day with a trip to church.  We love our little church here in Florida, but it is small and the congregation is mostly elderly.  In the past three weeks, two people have died, and the pastor announced today of yet another person from the congregation who is in hospice.  I whispered to Rick, "This church is dying."  That is not quite true; rather, the church is dying off as the congregation shrinks with little influx of younger families.  We used to have some families with children, but once we closed the school, those families have left for other congregations that support a school.  I hope our little church can survive.

After lunch, we changed into work clothes and went back to our task of removing the shower.  Most of the work today was centered on the front wall facing the bathroom.  Rick worked very hard, but the pictures below show the results.

Rick chips away at the wallboard inside
the shower enclosure. 

One disconcerting discovery was that the wooden frame under the shower threshold was eaten partly by termites.  We know from three years ago that termites were in this house; that is why we had the house tented to kill everything inside.  The bottom threshold showed that at one point, termites were munching away at our shower.  Now remember that that wood was under a wire mesh, an inch of cement, and very solid tile.  Nothing would have creeped into our bathroom, but having termites eat the wooden structure of the house is not a good feeling... even if they are long gone.

With the front walls removed and the side opened where
we moved out the wall to the bedroom, we have a great
enclosure for a fabulous new shower.

The blue tile (with red paper taped on top
to plug the drain) shows the original
footprint of the old shower. 

Building seems to be "in the air" today.  People were working on the house behind our neighbors.  Our neighbor lady told me that some organization is buying up foreclosed homes in the city, refurbishing them, and then giving them to needy families.  That could be both good or bad.  I am totally for helping people get back on their feet, but I am not thrilled that someone may move in there who has no intension of keeping the house in good working condition.  Our neighbors were replacing part of their privacy fence to block off their yard from the neighbors.

The vacant house behind our house also shows signs that someone has been inside trying to make some improvements.  We both think that perhaps putting up our privacy fence this year will be a good thing.

Tonight we are both tired, but how we feel is a "good tired" because of the sense of accomplishment we have with the progress we have made. Tomorrow is another day.  We plan to get the rest of the structure out and hopefully to talk to our tile contractor about the best way to precede from this point.

Gladys continues to get better and better, and we cannot wait to try our new shower when we finally get it completed.