Jan 16th - More Work on McCarty Street House

Weather has been decent here during the past several days. Our snow is gone except where it was piled up when plowed.

Kathy is now to the point that she can lift Lydia again. She has watched her several days this week.

I helped Mel on the McCarty St house 3 days this week. We worked a half day Tuesday and then all day yesterday and today. I am amazed at how long we have spent under the kitchen sink and in the bathroom.

While we have worked on the house we took out the garbage disposal that didn't work and re-plumbed the drains under the kitchen sink. I tried to reuse as much of the old plastic drain pipe as possible, bad move. The pipe may not deteriorate but the joints/gaskets were scummy from previous leaks and I've had a bad time trying to make them stop leaking. Tuesday I ran hot water into each sink basin for 2 minutes and didn't have a leak. This morning we checked and one of the connections was slightly dripping AAARGH!!! I'm really getting  tired of being under that sink <grin>.

We previously removed the toilet, pulled the vinyl flooring out of the bathroom, patched a bad section of the floor, removed the old tub surround and removed the tub faucet assembly that was broken. This week put a sheet of luan over the floor to make it smooth.

Today, after working on the drain AGAIN, we installed the new tub surround, put down the new vinyl floor, re-installed the toilet (we now know the rubber washer between the tank and the base leaks so we have to replace it).

I've been working with Mel Calahan, he is associated the Missouri Baptist Builders group. Mel is in the photo below. We just finished gluing down the vinyl. The paper you see taped above the tub is to protect the new tub surround. Mel is going to try resurfacing the tub. It isn't in that bad of shape but the people we are helping wanted a new tub. The resurfacing is compromise.

There is a little storage area behind the end of the tub, in front of Mel. It is about 16" wide. I spent a lot of time wedged in it today while I put in framing to stabilize the new faucet assembly and to support a section of wall that could be removed if the faucet assembly needs to be replaced in the future.

We are taking tomorrow off. A guy lives in the building part time but he can use the tub/shower and toilet in the other half of the duplex. Hopefully we will finish up in another two days.

Our next job is replacing the floor under the kitchen sink, in a mobile home. Mel has looked at the job and met the lady we will be helping. He found out she needed help when he went to the wrong address to look at a job, it was definitely a "God incident" thing.

May God bless you and yours.