Update On Demo

Matt finished working on the shower around 1 am last night-ouch! He was able to get the shower far enough along so that we could use it today. Unfortunately we forgot to turn the hot water up before we went to bed, so we were unable to all enjoy a hot shower in the morning. Matt and Cole made it to church spit spot and I spent the day getting the rest of the bunch squeaky clean . Noah needing it the most since he had decided to wear his plate, full of syrup, as a hat when he had finished his pancakes yesterday!

We still have a bit of finishing up to do-we are going to trim the edges with a row of tile, which will be fun to pick out. The window also needs to be sealed and caulked, hence the lovely garbage bag decorating the shower! It is nice to be done with the work that ruled our time with no choice. We are thankful that no major or unexpected disasters occured, and thankful for the help and fun encouragement helping us to get through it with a sense of humor! And we are so very ready for our day of rest tomorrow!






Here are a few more pics from along the way.

Noah was happy to pitch in and would be ever so offended every time we would remove him from the bathroom.






















Around 12:30am I propped some tension rods up to help seal the surround to the wall. I thought it may be a better plan than making Matt stand there for hours. I think he appreciated it. And I was also able to clean up the tub to get it ready for today. Oh how good my pillow felt!

Nearing the End of the Forced Bathroom Demo

Well, it is nearly 10pm, and Matt is completely wiped and still pressing on! He is still planning on completing the surround this evening. I know he feels he doesn't have a choice and I so incredibly appreciate it, but I sure wish he could just rest. The poor guy sprained his ankle last week playing football with the sr high guys at church. If he hadn't of gotten it x rayed and looked at by a doctor, we both would have been pretty worried just by the looks of it. It was completely swollen and purple from the tips of his toes to a quarter of the way up his calf. He was supposed to stay off of it and use crutches, but you know how it is. Finally by Sunday last week, his birthday, he laid on the coach all afternoon with it up. What a surprise, the swelling and lovely shade of purple began to go away! So, this day has certainly taken it's toll and his ankle is pretty bad, an unfortunate casualty of this war with the bathroom.


Both of us are thankful though that this hurdle is almost finished! And I am quite happy that our guests for Easter will have a nice shower. Tomorrow will be a race to see who gets the first shower and how long the hot water will hold out! I think dad deserves first dibs! I will restle off the wee ones for him.

So, all of you at the Mission's trip meeting tomorrow, do me a favor and tell him to prop up his foot!

Update On the Forced Bathroom Demo

2:30pm and we are in good shape! Praise the Lord! We may just show up to church all showered tomorrow! And for all of the youth-you should pray for that because Pastor Matt doesn't function all to well without a shower!:)

Our blessed plumber was here and gone before lunch, having saved us from disaster! What an amazing blessing! He was able to replace the tub drain perfectly and we saved the ugly tub! YEAH! No more leaks-no more buckets-no more towels-and finally a lower water bill!

Now it is simply putting in the new surround and fixtures. Still a ways away from the finish line but we can definately see the finish line with victory in sight.

Cole has been Matt's sidekick in the project and Madi happily keeps Dad company on all the trips to Menards! Hey-it is shopping!! That is all that matters. Joslyn and Bell are busy bees playing and Noah even took a nap amazingly(his crib is right against the bathroom wall) Other than the extra dust, the loud sawing and pounding, and mass potty breaks, life is pretty normal and we are all still getting along!!! And..... I am NOT cooking today!

Forced Bathroom Demo

You know how it goes....putting some major repair off in hopes that you can save enough to pay for it or come up with some miraculous fix that does not involve pain in the budget!!! But does disaster ever seem to wait for you to be prepared-I think not!! We bought our first home almost 5 years ago. It is a pretty modest ranch from the sixties with the fixtures to prove it! Of course, we still gets tingles every once in awhile when we remember what it was like to drive up that first time after closing on the house-or those nights sitting out on our front steps when the weather began to warm up, looking at our street and being so thankful! We, in many ways, thought that we would never own a home being in ministry, so this was a pretty big surprise from the Lord! But, yes, the reality set in pretty quickly as the repairs began to come. Can't we call the landlord for this-oh yeah, I am the Landlord!

About a year and a half ago, the plumbing decided to begin to bid it's farewell. One day we noticed that the water in the kitchen was barely coming out. So Matt learned how to put in a new faucet-no biggie-we can do this! Then the same thing happened in the bathroom-OK-we can fix that. We still didn't really get it. When the kitchen faucet went in a week-we actually thought it was a faulty faucet-duh!!! It wasn't although I think we actually did change it out again with a more exspensive one-because I guess if you buy cheap, it is cheap-right?! What we finally realized was that our pipes were so clogged with rust from our water, it was effecting the flow, and every time we turned the water off to fix a problem, turning it back on just made it even worse!! I found that out when my laundry would take 5 hours to get through a load! Not good when you have 5 kids! So... Matt learned how to install a water softener. Do you know that they actually built this house with only one shutoff valve-not the brightest idea! We had to have the city come out to turn the water off until we installed the water softener and install proper shut off valves. We actually learned how to survive without water quite well!

This was the first major redo in the bathroom over a year ago. We happily ripped the sixties vanity out and put in an antique dresser vanity in it's place. I had found the dresser at a thrift shop a year before that knowing we eventually would need to put a vanity in the bathroom. Someone had already used it as a vanity but the wood on the top had been warped by water. We decided to put a marble top on it instead of refinishing it and having it warp again. How exactly would I keep the kids from getting water on the counter? Remember, it is the one and only bathroom! I don't think so!





















We have known that the tub and shower had major work needed on it, but coordinating the time and the money never seemed to be on our side. We have faithfully been nursing a slow drip...drip...drip...in the basement for quite some time. Matt has replaced the fixtures in our shower multiple times in an attempt tom prolong the inevitable for as long as we could. Well-it finally began to rain in the basement this week, forcing us to face our fears. Thursday afternoon and evening Matt worked on replacing the pipes and fixtures within the wall with our friend Bill's incredible help and guidance! Yeah, for such selfless friends who sacrifice time, rest, and precious time with family to help! Our suspicions were confirmed unfortunately that there was no cement board behind the tile-meaning mushy drywall and a complete makeover needed. They finished work around 11pm Thursday and we had a partially functioning shower for the time being.






















Now, comes the really tricky part! Today, we are having a plumber come in to try and save the bathtub, as ugly as it is!! The pipes are so old, Matt fears not being able to fix them by himself and we would really like not to have to replace the entire tub!!! Before the work on the pipes begin, Matt has some wonderful little helpers on demo duty! They are working on ripping the tile out so that we can put in a new surround. While we would love to have some beautiful tile work in there, time, funds, and commen sense just seem on opposing sides. With five little ones right now, simple to clean and maintain seem best.






















Yes! I think Matt is actually enjoying this!!!








So hopefully we will all be showered and clean for church tomorrow! But if not, be kind :)

I will keep you updated on the Drietz bathroom redo!!! Pray hard!!!