On going going on

The house projects are almost at the end of the snowball. I didn’t
think I would get as deep into this as I did. I also realize that if I
had different standards I could have stopped before all of this
madness.

It started by ripping out some floor boards to run pipe to turn the
smallest upstairs bedroom into a bathroom. In the space between the
floors were the remains of a once thriving mouse civilization. Wood
chips from where they were gnawing the sub-flooring, rags in nesting
piles, corn-cobs, nut shells, and 150 years of rodent excrement were
heaped and scattered throughout. This necessitated the vacuuming under
the bathroom floor.

While vacuuming the crawlspace I decided I did not want the painted
pine plank flooring in the other bedrooms. I also didn’t want to remove
the planks, clean them, and then return them (pine planks don’t really
do it for me). For the same effort I could install a new hardwood T&G
floor which would look better and last longer. Taking out the planks
would also give me access to remove the sub-floor and vacuum away the
many mouse artifacts.

Well… with the floor up I noticed some old wiring that should be
replaced and I figured I could run some R19 insulation to help diminish
sound and thermal transfer between floors. The wiring turned into a
re-wiring of much of the upstairs, and also the running of some wire to
the downstairs lights that needed switches. The upstairs floor also
took a little dip at one end that could be leveled out, and expandable
foam could be used to tighten everything up and hinder future mouse
invasions.

So adding a bathroom has expanded to a bunch of work that ought to get
done, and if it doesn’t get done now it will never happen… So I got
to get it done now. I guess this is typical of many home improvement
projects.