itchy and scratchy

Itchy & scratchy is exactly how I felt today after insulating the bathroom wall with fiberglass. I wore a long-sleeved shirt well buttoned up and still those nasty fibers sneaked in under my coverings. This photo shows the beginning of the bathroom demolition I started last week. "That stupid man", as we call the unknown "handy"man who performed half-assed repairs to the house was calling down our wrath again. He had installed a vinyl shower-surround over regular drywall and had not bothered to caulk properly along the edge that met with the bathtub, but had instead put something resembling vinyl shoe-molding around the edges. this allowed water to leak readily into the crack and the result was the sheet rock was crumbling all round the tub, the tub edges were darkly mildewed, and black mold was beginning to creep up the back of the sheet rock. The shower-surround HAD to come out.

I found some fairly inexpensive tile at Lowe's made with recycled material that creates unusual organic patterns on an aqua-colored base tile. The 3x3" tiles come on a 12x12" sheet, enabling you to place 16 of them at at time. I splurged on some dark blue mudcap tiles to give the tiles a more finished look. The mudcaps had to be specially ordered, but arrived yesterday. I hope to pick them up on Sunday (tomorrow).

I finished demolition yesterday and today I installed batts of R-13 fiberglass insulation between the studs. There was also a square place where the "stupid man" had removed a window and then nailed clapboards over some 2x4's he'd screwed into the original studs. I covered the inner side of the clapboards with roofing felt, hoping to keep out some of the wind and moisture and will be caulking them on the outside in the coming days. I have to re-build the "wall" that the "stupid man" built at the plumbed end of the tub and have a real plumber come out to install some cut-off valves for the water and the new tub/shower fixture that I bought. Then the cement board goes up and the tile follows. I'm psyched about doing tile, but today I'm so tired I can't think much about it. I worked 3 days in a row last weekend and 3 days this weekend and when I got home after driving the 40 miles from McKinney I was so stiff I thought I might not move again for a week. The itchies and scratchies had set in full force by then, so I took a shower, applied a heating pad to my shoulders and conked out for about 2 hours. I plan on conking out again shortly, after I get my last clock turned back. It's a great weekend for me to receive an extra hour of sleep!