soooo… it’s been a couple of weeks since our last post. two weekends ago we took some time off from the house.
i saw friends in the bay area while mathew was in new york visiting his brother, misha.
last weekend: valentine’s day marked 15 years that mathew and i have been together. and how did we celebrate? with plumbing! i helped with cleaning and prepping recycled copper pipe, while mathew (left) added them to the bathroom plumbing. (right) i even sweated (soldered) my first joints! sorry, no action photos, i think mathew must have been supervising so that i didn’t burn anything… i was nervous but it was quite easy. and mathew says that none of my joints had leaks. yay!
later mathew decided to take a perfectly good, round heating duct and make it rectangular. (left) he started by stomping on it. at that point i couldn’t figure out where he was going with it or how it would end up…
but it’s mathew. so, of course it turned out just fine. (right) his finished “squct” (square+duct)!
(left) meanwhile i was putting insulation on hot water pipes. (right) and connecting cast iron pipes (heavy!) with rubber connectors and metal clamps.
(left) mathew drilling a hole in a fir joist below the bathroom, for a pipe to run through. (right) that circle cut from wood nearly 100 years old, smelled so amazing, like really sweet, warm pine. too bad you can’t smell it, all you get is this photo.
(left) a heating duct connection that i sealed with aluminum tape. (right)) our recycled “plumbing store”! magically it always has exactly what we need, even the lengths are just about perfect.
(left) on monday morning mathew was downstairs working on something that felt and sounded like an earthquake. i went downstairs and found him working on the double, sliding doors in my office. somehow he’d removed one side and was cleaning the track. (right) and i’m excited to introduce you to my new office door! sorry, i hadn’t removed the plastic film on the glass yet,… and the photo is blurry… but isn’t it pretty?
while i sat in the kitchen, quietly cleaning tile for re-use, mathew came along and cut a hole in the floor. i have often mentioned his love of cutting holes in floors… this one is for a heating duct and will eventually have a register, hopefully a pretty one.
(left) it is exciting to know that the beautiful victorian hinges that came with the house (that were covered in gloopy paint) can be cleaned up and made to look like new again, thanks to a heat gun and a wire brush. (right) mathew’s squct installed!