Here comes the rain

So, we were feeling pretty good about the progress on the bedroom. After all, once the ceilings are scraped, we're just a short distance away from painting, which then lets us get to the floors. No, not the easiest thing in the world, but also not an impossible task.

That is until I woke up last Monday and went to the fridge for some milk. As soon as I opened the door, water poured onto the floor.

My first thought was that somehow the ice maker had malfunctioned, until I realized there isn't a water line even attached to it. So I look to the top of the fridge, and notice there's pooled water, coming from the cabinet and ceiling above it.

The bathroom is directly above the fridge, and by my calculations it seemed the leak was coming from either the washing machine (brand new, just installed two days previously) or the tub . The bathtub seems the most likely candidate, so we decide to quit using the tub and shower in the first-floor (awful) bathroom. The water must be from the previous days' showers, so it should dry out.

The next morning, it's still going. Time for a visit from the plumber. As I wait for him to show up, it occurs to me what must be happening -- the washer's water valves have to be the culprit, because this water's still going. Unfortunately, the washer/dryer are deep inside a niche and imposible to get to without completely removing them.

Well, we'd always intended to take the laundry out of the bathroom and move it about six feet to the left, into a weird, unused part of the hallway. No time like the present. While I wait for the plumber to show up, I bust a section out of the wall outside the hookups, which lets me see what's going on. As I suspected, the cold water valve is leaking like a seive.

Doug the plumber shows up, we wrestle the washer and dryer out of their hole -- and discover the valves are in such bad shape they won't even turn off any longer. No time like the present, so I set Doug to tearing them out and moving them to their new place. While he's there, I have him cap off the bathtub supply lines so that I can begin tearing out the old tub and setting the new one, which will be in this week.

Here Doug's finished his work, with the lines ending up in the linen closet I intend to demolish.

The old washer/dryer niche will become a linen closet from inside the bathroom, but I have no interest in making another hole in the outside of the house. Since the dryer will be moving over only about two feet, let's just run a hose through the wall (courtesy of the hole I already had to cut anyhow) and connect it up.

Might as well make it look good.

So just two short days later, the closet is history, the vent is re-routed, electrical is moved, and I'm a mess. The closet was ridiculously over-built, which doesn't upset me at all. I have a feeling the rest of the house has this kind of overkill, too -- not a bad thing, considering this is the only demolition we intend to do.

Next: Removing the old tub and scraping that awful popcorn from the bathroom. Fun.