Under Pressure

It's been an interesting week here at Casa de Goodfriend. On Thursday I had an asthma attack, which, as Mike realized, was a coordinated effort to stay out of the attic. And after seeing Derek today drenched in sweat and in his third shirt, I realized that the hospital copay was worth it.

I did, however, manage to pull myself together in time for my first ladies night party. It was a great night painting wine glasses and drinking with some fabulous ladies.

But while I was preparing for my big night, Derek was preparing for more and more and more plumbing. He made some new cut off valves and a new hose spickett to replace the rotting ones outside.

But after the big night was over, it was back to another day of plumbing, and I even got involved and helped pull this pipe through the wall...

It was while Derek was up in the attic though that I discovered who he really is... a peeping tom. I thought this was a little odd to see in our only working shower...

And then I realized that there was a hole on the other side so he could see the goodies without me noticing. Who knew I was married to a voyeur?

Other than that there wasn't really anything more exciting to blog about. The basic synopsis of the week is plumbing, plumbing, plumbing, and we're under more pressure than ever because of Beryl...

This is not the first, but the second named storm this year, and the hurricane season hasn't even officially started yet. Why does it matter? Because until this plumbing is done our homeowners insurance will leave us totally screwed. To add to this pressure, Derek is at a point where he can pressure test the plumbing to see if there are any leaks...

 The result, I think there's a leak. A small leak, but a leak. So will out plumbing get done before storm C? Stay tuned to find out.

I'm Sweaty And I Know It

It was another glorious weekend in the attic for Derek. It's a delightful 120 degrees up there, so as you can imagine, Derek was just a tad sweaty. I even decided to join in on the fun and spend a little time in our personal sauna...

While there, I found out that Derek hasn't been spending the last month worth of weekends enjoying our sauna. He's actually been working up there, and he's done quite a bit!

He's adding turn-a-majigs...

Checking out our vaulted ceilings from the other side of the ceiling...

 

And he dove into pink itchy snow...

 His goal was to finish this weekend, but in true contractor style, that didn't really happen. But with this looming in the Atlantic...

 Derek decided that this project would finally see some week night work time. Today he started our bathroom remodel by finding a new and innovative place for our toilet...

While our toilet washes up in the shower, he started the plumbing into where the toilet will actually be...

He even had enough time to install our new toilet...

My week, however, was counter productive. This is what our office looked like last week...

But unfortunately I found out that my contract at my school was non-renewed, so I needed to start moving my career into this office. Ever wonder what a first grade career looks like? Something like this...

And I'm not even done yet! I did get one good thing done though! I made fancy wine glasses by dipping their bases in chalk board paint (Thanks Pinterest!). Now My guests will be able to write their names on their glasses...

Then I decided that chalk boards are a great form of communication, so I decided to paint some of our kitchen grout...

After all that productivity, I wanted some fun time, and I was in luck because this weekend was our community's annual Summer Sizzler featuring a DJ, a water slide, food, and friends...

It was great! The best part of the week though was taking our family picture. Derek and I want to send out we've moved post cards, so we had a friend come over and take our picture for the post card. This one was cute....

 but it didn't make the cut. You'll have to check your mailbox for the one that did!

Plumber's Crack is Wack

It's been a productive week. Monday night, we realized that we had a 10% Lowes coupon (courtesy of Erica) that would be expiring, so we decided to meet after work Tuesday for a romantic evening in the plumbing section. For those of you who so graciously sent us Lowes gift cards as house warming presents, look at the fanciness you bought us!

A new water heater (our current one is 21 years old), some copper piping, and a garbage disposal. Now that's a house warming gift! Nothing makes a house feel more like a home than a garbage disposal. While there, we ran into Mike, who shared his sympathy for poor Derek's adventures in the attic, and who apparently thought Derek was planning on putting in the water heater in the wee hours of a weekday night, because later on we had this text message conversation...

 The rest of the week was spent mainly fighting off the massive grasshoppers that have taken over our lawn. They're so huge, I'm afraid they'll eat Lucy...

The most productive part of the week though is the weekend. Poor Derek. Long gone are the days when he gets to sleep in on a weekend morning, or enjoy a leisurely day of DVR clearing and putzing around. Now he must wake up early and stay up late plumbing, plumbing, plumbing. He tried to get Charlie to do it for him...

but his lack of imposable thumbs really put him at a disadvantage when using the drill. So, Derek got to work. First thing, he closed up our hole of communication. Apparently he had had enough of all this openness....

and in the process of closing up our hole of communication he moved the dryer and made a discovery...

water damage. Every renovation is said to have some unexpected discoveries, but when you're doing as much renovating as we are and are already dealing with so much, can't Murphy and his stupid law cut us some slack?!? Apparently the damage was caused by this...

which, if you haven't guessed already, is supposed to be attached. Now the mystery of the water damage in the garage and shower has been muddied up. We thought we solved it and promptly blamed it on the crummy DIY skills used on the master shower remodel completed by the previous owners. Now it could be this instead. I'm going to go ahead and continue believing it's our shower though, because that means I get a new and prettier shower. :-)

But Derek wasn't in the AC long, he spent most of the weekend in the scariest place in the house...the attic. The attic is dark, hot, has the potential to leave your legs dangling through your ceiling, and is full of itchy insulation. I mean really, this isn't very inviting.

But he braved it well. He even managed to find his plumbers crack in there...

It's not a true plumbers crack because it's his underwear you see not his tush, but it's getting the job done none-the-less. The most challenging part of the attic is the space above the guest bathroom. Because of the slant in the roof, there is only a small space through which Derek needed to fit...

At first I didn't think it would be possible, but he managed...

In fact, he even looks comfortable in there...

Perhaps this should be his man cave, and I can use the shed for my arts and crafts. I'm sure his friends will love to hang out with him up there, after all Mike offered multiple times to get up there and help out.It's decided then! The shed will no longer look like this...

It will contain lots more of this...

On second thought. I'll let him have both spaces. Now that's Wife of the Year material right there!

Now introducing the revolutionary product Hole in the Wall!

Have you ever been concerned about the level of difficulty you experience while trying to communicate with your spouse while you're in the shower and she's in the laundry room? Well, you're in luck! Now introducing a revolutionary product... Hole in the Wall!

With Hole in the Wall, you no longer have to worry about the difficulty in communication with your spouse while she is on the other side of the wall! You can just peer through the hole and give her a holler!

The plumbing has finally begun, and as you can see, we now have a few holes in the walls. It all started earlier this week, when Derek took the backs out of all the cabinets that have sinks...

But it didn't stop there. He spent most of the weekend in the attic, which is how we discovered that even two people, who can barely hear/understand each other while sitting on the couch next to each other, can communicate through a ceiling (Hole in the Ceiling hasn't hit the market yet).

Derek also began fixing the sprinklers, but since the lawn was looking pretty brown, and our rain dance was unsuccessful, we decided to water our lawn old school style...

And did you know that the most effective way to make it rain is to water your lawn?

I'm curious though as to why the water coming out of our gutters is sudsy.

In other news, we had our first party. It was impromptu and involved a few friends hanging out drinking and grilling...

So it's been a good week in the Goodfriend household, the plumbing is started, we had our first party, and our lawn is a little less dead. Best part is, communication while doing laundry is at an all time high!