Saturday

Early Saturday morning we picked up our plywood for the bathroom floor (the correct stuff this time) and a few odds and ends. I can't speak for Erika, but I felt pretty official doing this sort of errand in a pickup truck. We got back to the house and started in on the handful of floor frame and crawlspace-related things that we wanted to finish up before laying the subfloor.

One thing we needed to figure out was where to add "blocking" in the part of the floor frame that we intentionally left open for the tub drain and toilet. We had thought through engineering a strong floor frame but somehow we forgot that the subfloor would need a lot of support in that one area. Erika's Dad took one look at the situation and whips up a series of angled spacers, a diagonal, and a cross member. DIAGONALS! Why hadn't we thought of that?

The support blocking goes in, Erika and her dad rough in the sink drain as I run to the hardware store for a few items, and then we lay, tape, and glue a plastic vapor barrier over the entire crawlspace area under the bathroom, up the foundation walls and to the sill. Also, I drilled holes in the joists and braces for the radiant tubes that will eventually be installed.

It's lunch time, and how about a nice walk? We walked down the street along the creek to where it turns into a dirt access road and follow it in a ways. This is our first time past the end of the road and we think about running, riding, hiking, and swimming up here one day when we're not spending every minute renovating the house.

Back to work! Now it's time to start measuring and cutting the 3/4" plywood subfloor. By the end of the day, the subfloor is cut and resting in place on the joists. We call it quits and can hear rain on the roof. We sit down on our new floor and eat red lentil coconut curry soup that we reheated. A sleepy, rainy drive home to rest.

- John



Erika here: In addition to inventing the triangle, my dad showed us how to douse for water. This was in response to a question about where our septic field might probably be. Got two insulation supports (pieces of wire, essentially), bent at one end, held loosely and walked slowly around the yard. Yep, those puppies go out sometimes and in other times. If they go out and you stop and back up the way you came, they swing back to where they were. It's a spooky feeling! I'll be even more impressed if we find out the dousing rods spoke the truth. But hopefully I won't be finding it out because we're forced to replace our septic system.