BBMD – Breaker Box Moving Day.

It’s been on the “family calendar” for two weeks, which means it’s for real.  BBMD.  Staring at me every time this fat kid opened the fridge (and trust me, I have been known to open the fridge from time to time).

“This job is too hard for you, The Boy,” BBMD would taunt me.  “You can’t be moving the breaker box around all willy-nilly, The Boy.  That’s a job for a REAL man.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT BBMD!”

Well, as it turns out, BBMD knew what it was talking about.  Fortunately, our neighbor is a real man, so we never had to find out whether or not I would have survived moving the breaker box on my own.  The Girl and I came up with a plan, which involved re-routing the conduit in the attic, cutting a portion out of the horizontal run, cutting a piece out of the vertical part, thus moving the breaker box up about a foot, and re-connecting all the wires.  The first step, however, would be to pull the meter outside the house to cut all power to the home.

That was the plan.  It sounded good in my head.  The Girl gave it a thumbs up, but The Girl and I have no idea what we’re doing.  Our neighbors Brad and Kristine are GREAT neighbors, and  Brad is a professional electrician.  I’m sure you can all see where this is going.  Seriously – no joke – the plan was to ask him to come over to see what we were working with (electrically speaking) and just get his opinion on our “plan.”  ADMITTEDLY, I felt like there was a chance that he might OFFER to help, but we didn’t want him to feel obligated.

Cut to noon the next day (BBMD, as it were).  Brad shows up with a wheeled tool box full of the stuff he uses every day to do EXACTLY what we were planning on doing.

Brad, a/k/a BEST NEIGHBOR EVER.

He nonchalantly pulled the meter while I stood a few feet back.

He then spent the next three hours ripping wires out of the breaker box, sawing the breaker box free, climbing in the attic, and basically just impressing the heck outta The Girl and me.

Playing the role of The Girl during electrical work – “Expert Tool Handler” – not as dirty as it sounds!

I dutifully handed him whatever he asked for, and The Girl made sure to keep our waters full, and also picked up a case of Corona as a “thank you” for all his help.

3.5 hours later – BBMD complete.

The newly moved breaker box looks amazing.  It’s clean.  It’s organized.  It’s functional. And let’s be honest: if I had tried to tackle this myself, I would have started at 8am on Saturday, hopefully finished by Sunday night, have forced myself to add a junction box in the attic (which Brad managed to avoid needing), made myself bleed my own blood, and possibly taken a trip to the hospital.  It was really impressive watching someone who really knew what the heck he was doing, PLUS it was a great learning experience. Next time I’ll try to tackle it myself.  (Let’s hope there is no “next time.”)

We also want to thank Kristine for lending us Brad for the afternoon. We hope to be able to return the friendly neighbor vibe when they start working on their patio.

So, BBMD was not the boss of me.  I mean, technically we didn’t actually fight, but I’m still here, and the breaker box is moved, so I’m counting this as a win.  YEAH!

PROGRESS! (Disclaimer: The Boy wrote this post, but The Girl totally titled it.)

I really enjoy taking things apart. Breaking things. Taking a whole and turning it back into parts.  I was very gung-ho about the demo of the bathroom and closet that we’re turning into a walk-in and master bathroom.  Now that we’re almost at the end of the demo process, however, I am less enthusiastic.

The reason I like demo so much is that you really can’t screw it up, at least if you do controlled demo (which the girl is NOT fond of).  Sorry DIY network and HGTV, we have to do clean-up ourselves, so controlled demo wins out over throwing a hammer through a window just to watch stuff break.

Unfortunately, it is VERY easy to screw up the building process.  Hang the drywall wrong or don’t mud it properly and the walls will never be smooth.  Forget to secure every piece of plumbing and you’ll end up with a mold problem.  You get the idea.  For the bathroom project, we are actually knocking down old walls and putting up new walls, so we have to get everything right all the way to the framing.

I tried to tackle this myself.

This is wrong, for so many reasons.

I didn’t secure anything in place, because I did everything wrong. So, I did what I always do when The Girl and I have gotten ourselves in over our collective heads: I called Miguel.  Miguel has the right tools for the job, and in this case that included a brain that contained all the requisite knowledge of how to frame a wall.  In exchange, I promised Miguel that I would bbq some ribs.  This is our standard deal: he provides information, tools, and knowledge, I provide bbq.  Hey, know your strengths.

Except, I forgot to take the ribs out of the freezer to thaw them.  Basically just a fail weekend for me.  So, I ran out and grabbed a couple of t-bones and threw ’em in a marinade while Miguel and I worked.

Here’s what we accomplished: frame out the new walls in the bedroom to close off the old closet and create an opening for the new door to the walk-in; frame out the wall in the hallway to close the old entrance to the bathroom; take out all the old framing that we didn’t need anymore.  Looks simple, but it took a while considering we killed the old air compressor and had to go pick up a new one.  Yay unexpected costs! (sarcasm…deep deep sarcasm)

New compressor – yay.

Miguel, doing things correctly.

He’s so good he can do it with his eyes closed.

Now, all we have left to do is just swing that electrical box on over to the new wall which should be TOTALLY easy!  (I will be looking to recruit Miguel for this job too, so I hope he’s not reading this particular post.)

So Miguel held up his end of the bargain.  New walls were framed and old walls were removed.  My turn to at least make good with the steaks since I forgot to thaw out the ribs.  Oh wait – out of propane for the grill.  Yes, I use propane and not charcoal.  Yes, I know charcoal makes the food taste better, and yes, I know I won’t truly be a real man until I learn to cook with charcoal.  Although, every commercial I see on tv tells me that after I hit 35 years old, my testosterone levels plummet, and I stop being a man, so it might be too late for charcoal to help much.

SO. No ribs. No propane. I ended up cooking the steaks on the stove.  I was embarassed.  It felt like a material breach of the contract between Miguel and myself, and to be honest, I’m not sure I can convince him to come help again.  Unless I add beer to the offer.  That usually works on me.

The Girl cut a piece of drywall to cover the new framing in the hallway so that you couldn’t just stare directly into the bedroom from the hall. So productive she is!

THAT is a hallway.

The drywall worked out great until my brother crashed here late one night, and he hadn’t been to the house since the bathroom reno started.  He stopped to catch some zzzzs after performing at a music show locally (check out his music!).  He got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and walked right into the newly hung drywall. He was thoroughly confused, but found his way to the other bathroom and everything worked out alright.

Now, about that electrical box…ugh.  Another day. February 16th, to be exact.

BBMD = Breaker Box Moving Day!

A few things have been happening around here … a few. The bathroom is veeeerrrrrryyyy slowly taking shape. I’ll take you on the guided tour.

First we had to open up the walls in the existing closet, so we could get a handle on where and how this breaker box is kindly moving its metal arse out of our way. (Oh, and I lied when I said I was not going to offend your eyes with any more pre-fancy-camera pictures, because there are still a few ones left …)

That’s the face of excitment.

We used a utility knife to score along the ceiling and at joints with any walls that are staying, so that we do not ruin that drywall in the process. Then we got to work ripping out the drywall to expose everything.

I wear the strangest outfits to demo. Probably because I suddenly get a hankering for some demo on a weekday when we are lounging on the couch, so I have an odd combination of lounging/working clothes on. Here is the breaker box with the panel removed.  Kind of scary and intimidating, huh?

The guts of the beast.

No, that hammer is not levitating. I hope.

At this point The Boy declared a “true master bathroom” since we could access it from the bedroom. Yay?

Once we got it all exposed we had a better idea of what we are working with, but we promptly put the cover panel back on the breaker box. We were both nervous with it being exposed! Also, I am quite certain we are going to leave fun artifacts (our tools!) in the walls when we close everything back up, because someone in our house (The Boy) loves to just put tools haphazardly around a work space.

We followed the same procedure for removing the walls enclosing the hallway closet, and had a little fun with it:

Why are hammers photobombing everything?!?

So special. We took a similar photo of me, but it is horrifying, and if I posted it my mom would know I was doing demo in my fuzzy slippers, and lecture me, so I didn’t.

This is the long and short of where we are at with demo. We have plenty more drywall to take down, but we are waiting to remove the drop ceiling in the bathroom until we have drywall guys lined up to come in the next day, since we will then be exposed to the attic. We will also wait to remove the one wall in the hallway separating our bedroom from the rest of the house until then too. One reason is privacy, but the other reason is The Dog. She is on The Boy’s schedule, which means she gets up at 5 a.m. on weekdays, and she would love to wake me up for playtime, but The Boy locks her out of the bedroom so I can sleep (love that boy!). However, this morning, I was very confused when I woke up to a waggling tail and a wet nose in my ear. By the time I fully roused she was gone, so I wondered if I dreamed it. Then I realized – she went into the bathroom, came into the bedroom through the wall, and left that way too! Now we have to make sure the bathroom door is closed. What a sneaky girl!

Now to the rebuilding phase, which still seems pretty far away, but I am getting excited about. I have found a few great deals lately, and put together a little “mood board” of sorts with everything we have so far. All of the items are sitting on the buffet which will be the vanity that we are STILL in the process of stripping so that we can refinish it.

I went to Floor & Decor’s annual liquidation clearance, and just as I hoped, a stack of the tile we want was on sale! The catch with their sale is that you have to buy the entire stack that is left to get the discounted price, but it was less than the amount we need, so it worked out.  We will just buy more later when we actually calculate the total amount our job will require. Also, we love the 12″ x 24″ tiles, and these were 24″ x 24″ tiles (huge!), but we will simply cut them in half. The key to getting good deals and renovating on a budget is to browse often, jump on good deals when you find them, and be flexible!

The pendant light (one pictured, but I bought two) came from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for only $25.00 each. I wasn’t sure about them at first, so I picked them up and carried them around with me while I browsed and contemplated. When I finally decided to purchase them, I went up to the register, where I discovered the double sink from Ikea! It isn’t exactly what we wanted initially, but it was a bargain and it will look great. Since the lights had a tag on them with a brand name, I looked them up, and it turns out they retail for $117.00 each. Wow! I am glad I snagged them when I did!

I took a few close up photos so you can see the subtle colors running through the tile, which will be on the floor of the bathroom and the walls of the shower. We will use the pebble tile for the floor of the shower.

We haven’t decided whether to keep the vanity lighter or stain it dark, but with all of these lighter items, I am leaning towards staining it pretty dark for some contrast. Not pictured is a shower system panel I bought from a guy on Craigslist for $50.00. It is sweet, and mostly chrome, so our debate over which metal finish to use for this bathroom was decided by that purchase. Finally, I bought this very nice closet system in mocha (click for link to their site) from yet another ReStore one county over. I saw them a long time ago when I was in there, and they posted on Facebook that they were going on sale, so I rushed over as soon as I could. Score!

Although I am happy with the progress we are making, while the bathroom renovation is ongoing, our office looks like this:

Solution? Close the door. So far, it is working.