a fan for the blogfans

This will be a full-on, geeky home renovation post. No pictures of dead seedpod thingies, and only one cat picture. So man up, blogfans. We’re going in.

By the end of the day yesterday, Michael had laid in all of the new drywall around the shower and next to the vanity, and had smeared the magic joint compound stuff all over.

Like so. And by the way, this now brings me to potential paint color choice #3: PURPLE! At least on the wall you see at left. I started off on my usual cantaloupe/peach/orange planet, and flirted with a kinda greeny blue thing for a while, but now I’m completely jonesing for the same exact saturated lavender shade as the drywall itself. So far Kevin’s been easy going about my indecisiveness creativity.

Onwards.

Michael had a look at the bamboo flooring we picked out a month ago at Home dePo’, and pointed out that um, we can’t use it, because it’s the sort of thing that needs to be nailed down into whatever is underneath it. And since we’re leaving the existing tile in place, rather than get involved in another Sledgehammer o’ Doom adventure…

…it looks like we need to return the bamboo stuff and get ourselves some wood laminate stuff instead. Which is cool – that’s what the whole entire downstairs of the old part of the house is – we just need to find a color that we like. No worries.

So what was Michael to do today, since flooring was out of the question? Answer: mess around in the attic.

Welcome to the attic! A quick tour. In the deepest recesses of the under-the-eaves part of the attic (so on the right and left, in the picture above), we’ve got a boatload – specifically, $1,700 worth – of this powdery, fluffy insulation stuff. You’ll see more of this stuff in a minute. In the background, see that silvery square? That’s the top-secret door that leads into the walk-in closet off our bedroom. So far so good?

Here’s what Michael was doing up there: he was constructing a simple plywood frame around the bathroom fan, so that when he removes it so as to replace it, that fluffy insulation stuff doesn’t fall through into the bathroom. Having done that, he removed the fan.

Et voilà! There’s the hole he’s cut. You can see the broom in the bathroom below. Now. See the end of the white flexible hose? That used to be connected to the fan. All our nasty smells and whatnot used to travel throooouuuggghhh the hose…down the whole length of the attic, toward where that silvery door now is…OK, now bear with me, we’re going outside for a second…

…here’s the north end of the house before the addition. See the little gizmo that’s circled? That’s where that hose used to lead to.

Shall we have a look at that spot today? (Taken from indoors, the little window in the addition’s stairwell.)

Gasp! You got it! It’s gone! That’s right: when our beloved contractors (no lie, we love ‘em) added a layer of insulation to the outside of the old part of the house, and then re-sided it to match the addition, they sealed up the hole. Which means that we’ve been venting the bathroom into the attic for the past year – a major no-no.

Fortunately for Jonathan, I sit next to him in choir. And I have choir practice tonight. So he’ll be hearing about this. Soon. In just over three hours. Not that I’m looking at the clock or anything.

This is nothing we can’t fix ask Michael to fix for us. As I type, he is, with Kevin’s help, shoving the new fan into the hole in the ceiling. Lemme grab the camera.

Great! Here’s the new fan. And yes, those are pieces of drywall on either side. Why? Because see the textured ceiling we have? We loathe it. We’re planning on just popping in a layer of shiny new drywall on top of it. It might not happen for another few weeks, as Michael has some plans that will take him away from us for a bit, but no worries. Apparently we need little bits of the new layer in place right now. I’ll go ask him why.

Whoops, gotta run.