So today I found out what I will be doing for the next month or so. I went to “brunch” with my sister and brother-in-law and knew when they invited me that something else had to be involved since the only real contact we have is on holidays and birthdays and such.

“So come back by the house and look at the upstairs bathroom, we think something might be wrong since we can see daylight thru the wall while sitting in the tub.”

They were not kidding, the exterior sheathing is rotten, the studs are rotten, the wall sill is rotten, the flooring is rotten, and the floor joists are damaged but salvageable. Besides which they also have termites just to add insult to injury. I got as far as tearing out the drywall on three sides of the bathroom, disconnecting the tub overflow and drain, removing the rusted out tub, and then cutting off and putting new shut off valves on the hot and cold water lines that went to the tub fixture valve that I also tore out.

When I say the exterior wall is rotten I mean it already looks like someone blasted it with a shotgun, there is a 4”x6” hole under what used to be the left corner of the windowsill and multiple small holes underneath and to the sides. The wall studs are so rotted that you can grab fistfuls with your bare hand and tear them out with almost no effort.

So tomorrow morning bright and early I will be accompanying my brother-in-law to the city zoning and planning department and walking him through purchasing a “Home Owners” permit to gut and remodel his upstairs bathroom.

Well, at least it will give me something interesting to do, new plumbing, new tub, new exterior wall, new sheetrock and wonderboard, new tile, new flooring, new insulation, new bathroom window, etc, etc, etc…

Besides which I kinda like being given the chance to build it over from scratch, the layout sucks, the materials suck, the installation of the materials sucks, I be hard pressed not to wow them with pretty much anything I did as a major improvement even if I was asleep on my feet half the time.

Now if I wasn’t “loaning” (yeah, right!) them the money to buy the materials and working for free then I suppose it would probably be even more fulfilling. But I guess maybe I just need to accept that all I’m going to get out of this job is a chance to hopefully create a really nice and also larger bathroom from the crap that was there to start with. That can work for me…