Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Susan Nino...This One's for YOU.

Susan sent me an email the other night, letting me know that she was impatiently awaiting my newest post. Okay, so it's been awhile. Here goes...

We've been enjoying the end of summer before gearing up for Devin's Pre-K this coming year. He's been scheduled all along to go to ParkHills Church for Pre-K, but we got a call yesterday that Crown of Life has an opening. We've decided to go to Crown of Life, as it is only a matter of blocks from our house and we can walk there. Devin is very excited, as he went to Crown of Life for Summer Camp and just loved it.

We're also finishing up on our bathroom renovations. We've gotten the room painted -- this time in a color that is not remniscent of a canary on crack -- and got the mirror framed. Todd painted all of the hardware a matte black and reinstalled it on our white cabinets. It looks beautiful.

Our contractor fell a little behind and wasn't able to start the tiling until today. True to his word, though, he rang the bell at 8:30 and immediately started ripping up some pretty awful looking carpet and (old linoleum in the water closet).

But he didn't get far. It turns out that our home builder did not put any kind of plywood down underneath the carpet. The carpet pad was nailed directly to the decking of the second floor! A big no-no in home building, from what I understand.

So that was going to add a few days and dollars to our project.

They went on to work on the water closet and pulled up the toilet and then the linoleum.

Surprise, surprise! Apparently, the toilet was never properly installed (or was re-installed after some repair prior to our buying the home) and a wax ring was never put down, allowing the toilet to leak every time it was flushed. We've lived here for over five years and never touched that toilet, so you can imagine how long this was going on.

The wood underneath and around the toilet was completely rotted. When the contractor stepped on it, is actually buckled under his weight. How that heavy toilet hasn't fallen through our ceiling is a huge mystery and an absolute miracle.

So all progress has stopped on the bathroom. I have only a bare, particle board floor and no toilet. The toilet is sitting in my bedroom next to Todd's side of the bed. And nothing can happen until the claims adjuster comes, looks at the damage and decides what we need to do.

Fabulous.

I just keep thinking to myself, "We were so close!" All I needed was the floor to complete my bathroom. I was *this close*. UGH!!!


The rotten wood beneath where my toilet used to sit



Where my toilet now sits. This is what greets you as you walk into our master bedroom.



My poor bathroom


In Other News

Last weekend we had a great time with our good friends, the Ahmanns. Jeff and Todd have been friends since college and Jeff's wife, Alicia, and I have become good friends. They have a son, JamesThomas, who is only months older than Devin, and a two-year-old boy named Tate who is so cute I could just take him home with me.

The Ahmanns live in Austin and we decided that we needed to get together, since it had been since JamesThomas and Devin were only a year old that we last saw them.

We decided to meet halfway in between our respective cities, in the town of San Marcos. San Marcos is a college town and happens to be where Todd and Jeff went to school.

We met up at Aquarena Center. This is the place where both Jeff and Todd worked in college. At that time it was called Aquarena Springs and, along with the glass-bottom boat rides and the gift shop, they had an underwater show where visitors actually got into a submarine and watched mermaids and mermen swim around (this was Jeff's job!) with Ralph the Swimming Pig. There were gondola rides, nature walks, a hotel and even a bird show in which a handsome young man trained and showed off McCaw parrots to the delight of visitors (that was Todd's job!). In its hey-day, this was quite the place to visit!

Alas, with Sea World and Schillterbahn and Six Flags Fiesta Texas coming into the market, Aquarena Springs just couldn't compete and had to get rid of some of its locally famous shows. It's now more of a salute to the natural beauty of the Texas Hill Country and still features the glass-bottom boat rides, a boardwalk over the wetlands and an aquarium.

The boys just loved running around from exhibit to exhibit and the boat ride was a hit until Faith decided to scream so loudly that the tour guide had to actually cut her speech short. I know that the rest of the folks on the boat with us breathed a collective sigh of relief when we made it back to the dock.

After Aquarena, we decided to visit Jeff and Todd's old haunt, Valentino's Pizza. Again, the boys had a blast together and Todd and I enjoyed catching up with Jeff and Alicia as best we could in between trips to the potty, diaper changes, and two boys who did not want to sit still.

It was a great day and, as always, we had a fantastic time with the Ahmanns. Here are a few pictures from our day.


Devin fell asleep on the way to San Marcos. This looks so uncomfortable!



Devin and JamesThomas hit it off!



Me, JamesThomas and Devin



Jeff and Alicia


So that's the exciting news in our house. I'll post more as the saga of the bathroom remodel continues. Until then, here are some photos of my adorable children. :)


Tuckered out on the couch with Daddy



Pasta night at the Pruetz house! Faith loves pasta!



Grace is not nearly as impressed



The girls love to play in the dog's bed. I've just given up and let them do it. I'm a fabulous mommy. :)

6 comments:

Claremont First Ward said...

Cute new pictures of the girls. It seems that renovations are never straight forward. I'm sorry to hear about the problems that have arisen, but thank goodness you decided to renovate BEFORE the toilet fell through the ceiling. WOW! Hope the finishing touches go really smoothly!

Meg said...

OH MY GOSH, Erin! That toilet fiasco is WAY too familiar... This summer our kitchen ceiling started dripping -- dripping! It turns out our upstairs toilet had the same issue; probably 11 years old... Matt replaced the floorboard and now we still have a lovely hole in our kitchen ceiling where I can see the toilet plumbing clear as a bird. Still need to fix the ceiling. I'm glad you found the problem before it became an even bigger problem! I hope you don't hit any more "surprises" in this renovation except, maybe, a hidden box of diamonds from the last owners? :)

Doug & Stacy Fournier said...

so sorry to hear about the bathroom fiasco! isn't it sooo frustrating! i hope things get striaghtened out soon. i love the new pictures, looks like you guys had alot of fun! i'm so happy that you got to get caught up with some ols friends!

Casey's trio said...

As frustrating as the remodel glitches must be, I think it is hilarious that the toilet is patiently waiting next to your bed until things are fixed:) I can relate though....When I was in Labor & Delivery the 2 weeks before the girls were born, I was at an old Kaiser hospital with terribly small L&D rooms. Guess where the toilet was? Right next to the bed...no private toilet. If I had to go, I had to pull the shower curtain thingy in front of the door to my room and then holler at people if they tried to come in while I was going. Yah, I pretty much lost any sense of modesty with my pregnancy.
Anyway..thanks for the update. I was also wondering where you've been!

Laura said...

I was also waiting for a post! I have so many home repair stories gone bad it would make you cringe. I have also had a toilet experience like you mentioned. My insurance would not cover it because it was leaking and was not a sudden event or something like that. Our toilet took my husband months to put back in. I really appreciated that when I was pregnant with my twins, throwing up all day and all night and had to run to another bathroom. Sweet!

Alicia said...

Somehow I had missed this post!
I feel so famous. :)
I laughed out loud at the sight of the potty next to the bed . . . the 12 year-old boy side of my personality, I guess.
:)
Sorry about the hassles with the work in the bathroom. We, too had a toilet issue upstairs . . . woke oen morning to find a puddle in the kitchen. . . such fun, eh? Hope it is all fixed soon!