In Texas… But Not That Kind of Ranch
Spoiler alert: we have been living with the new, completed bathroom for several months now. It is transcendent, resplendent.
But when I left off we were putting in the plumbing. We decided to put the thermostat and on/off valve on the wall opposite the showerhead. That way, you can open the door and turn on the shower without having to get wet. Nice, right?
This is what the plumbing looks like in order to achieve this effect.
As I’ve learned in 8 years owning a 50-year-old house, nothing will ever go quite as you expected. Even when your contractor lives next door to you and has remodeled dozens of bathrooms built by the same builder in your neighborhood (including his own). Even when you thoroughly explain all your ideas beforehand and show him the exact fixtures you picked out. Even though the time it would take was estimated at 5 days, I multiplied the estimate by 2 and made sure I had no relatives coming to visit or other schedule squeezes.
When I last left off, we had left the shower pan for the contractor to remove, and he was able to pull it out with an enormous crowbar. But even he was surprised to see this…
Finally. First I had major, major surgery. Then the shower tile went out of stock, and more had to be made back in old Brazil. Then our contractor was booked up. But we demolished the bathroom down to the studs the weekend before last, and it’s finally coming together.
Our house was built in 1963, back when asbestos was still popular and my dad had a glow-in-the-dark watch where the numbers were painted with radium. Yeah! I felt fine about any asbestos risk, until I saw a label that said “fireproof” on the back of a piece of sheetrock. But I looked up United States Gypsum and read these marvelous words:
USG primarily made plasters, paints, drywall (although none of their drywall products contained asbestos)…
Theoretically the old joint compound or texture could contain asbestos, but it was all really well sealed under layers of paint. We wore respirators. And it was the drywall that was really the main source of dust. Everyone’s risk aversion is different, so I would never tell someone else what to do, but I felt comfortable doing it.
Actually, comfortable is not quite the right word. Dirty, dusty, and disgusting are far better descriptors.
Things have been a bit crazy here at the Ranchette lately, hence the neglect of this blog. But in the meantime I’ve been planning a big project for a little room. This house was built in 1963, so there’s not much hope of adding a Japanese ofuro or an enormous steam shower. My top priorities for this bath are that it be functional, that every component represents something I’ve always wanted, and that it be highly, highly cleanable. Since we moved in we’ve contended with a fiberglass shower stall and a glass/aluminum sliding shower door. The fiberglass is a sort of putty color with flecks of gold glitter in it, which is why I call it the Vegas shower. And like Las Vegas, it is perpetually dirty, both from 49 years of abrasive cleaners and the many unreachable crevices in the aluminum track. For seven years I have hated it, and I am finally doing something about it.
So first, here is my dream bath…
I just returned from a trip to Big Bend with my family, where we hovered on the edges of canyons, picked prickly pear spines out of our hands, and took a guided tour of the constellations. If you’ve seen the photos coming from the Curiosity, you may understand the Big Bend experience. Just think Mars with slightly more vegetation.
My sister is somewhat obsessed with scorpions and other venomous* creatures. She brought a special scorpion-detecting lamp
Unfortunately, having lived in Texas so long, most of our taste buds have been burned off by our overconsumption of chipotle peppers. She reported that the Stinger didn’t have much of a sting. The waiter told us that they used to serve them with a copper scorpion at the bottom of the glass, but they weren’t able to get them anymore, since “the border had closed.” (?!?) He also said that you could find a video about how to make them on YouTube. HELLO.