Jerry & The Cabin Progress

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we spent Friday and Saturday up on Palomar Mountain at our Cabin.... I hadn't been in months ... think I went in the Spring but Jerry's been going up one or two days a week for awhile now working on getting the place liveable... and shareable (is that a word?) so we can have family and friends up for some relaxing time together! He had been so busy with work this past Spring that the Cabin was pretty much put on hold... but we're excited now think it's getting closer.

As you know Jerry is Mr. DIY ....  he should have patented the phrase... we'd be set for life. Don't get me wrong,  I so appreciate all the incredible things he's done over the years as a result of it.. Now when we purchased this Cabin we knew it was a "fixer upper"... thus Mr. DIY was ecstatic. He's an incredible woodworker, paints like there's no tomorrow, knows how to wire just about anything, and leaps tall buildings in a single bound... er uh wait.. that's another hero.... but even he admits that plumbing is not his favorite past time. He's capable mind you, gets the job done (eventually) .. so what if it takes 29 trips to Home Depot. And while we're at it, let me confirm the well know fact that men, in general, will not ask for directions, instructions, guidance, suggestions nor helpful hints. X + Y = Z. It's gotta be as simple as that, right?

If a picture's worth a thousand words... let me share this one with you....

the caption should be "Bathroom in Progress".

This is how the bathroom has looked since about last March....

.. and he wonders why I only went up to the cabin once this year... hummm....
in case you didn't notice... there's no plumbing hooked up at all, except the toilet does flush... note the hand sanitizer... need I say more?


All kidding aside... Jerry is amazing! He has nearly single-handily is restoring our cabin... It's still a work in progress, but I'm confident that he will complete it, in our lifetime or at least before AARP sends me 1,000,000 more notices to join their membership (I'm still in denial about that subject).

Here's the "before" picture...

We actually looked at this picture when we came

home this weekend and wondered what was so bad

with it to begin with???

You can't see the rust stains in the bathtub....

did ya notice the floor tile job around the toilet? nice...

I could'a done that much!

Originally I liked this wall with the wood strips...

but at closer look the water damage from the

bad plumbing had ruined the walls... they were all warped and bulging...

the vanity was a bit dated... not like the entire house wasn't..

my mother would have loved this bathroom...

so the first thing out was the vanity.... now when you watch the guys on HGTV remove vanity's when they're remodeling... think it takes them about 39 seconds... right? Well they don't show you the 3 hrs prior while you're hammering at the thing to loosen it from the wall... oh and talk about loosening things.. the bathtub was the old cast ion tub...  Jerry did take his friend Phil up with him the day he removed that... between the two of them using sledge hammers and who knows what else... it was a mere 6 hrs to get that sucker out... and the noise.... ewwwhew.... think his ears are still ringing....

So here's the In Progress picture... actually we're excited how good this looks... the new bathtub is in..  some of the walls are rebuilt and plastered and painted (they all had to be replaced because they were rotted out from water damage) .. the new vanity is "sitting there" still needs to be hooked up.. but still the old toilet (with the same bottle of sanitizer)... still no running water... but behold... this weekend he got the plumbing in the shower fixed... it took getting the Water District guy to turn off the water to the community... digging a trench outside (38 degree weather) to cap off the pipe and install new pipes underground.

On a brighter side... our bedroom is about done... that was the first room Jerry wanted complete so he could stay overnight (and it also increased his chances of getting me up there more often to stay over as well)....

Before picture of our Bedroom.... don't ya love the orange?

and the shutters had quilt batting with chicken wire on them...

We had already tore out the carpeting as we couldn't handle the smell....

previous owner loved cats.

And here's the nearly finished bedroom... just needs some decorating and furniture.. but for the most part Jerry's job is done... knotty pine tongue and grove planks on the walls, installed new forest green carpeting and he even hung new curtains for me on his trip before we went up together..

I'll keep you posted on the progress.... the kitchen is nearly done too...

he's finishing up some woodwork in it

so once that's done I'll have pictures to share.

Until then, appreciate any plumbing prayers you may wish to utter.