Shower Saga

I had been having problems with the shower leaking recently, and had it resealed around the bottom of the  shower twice over a period of time.  But that didn't seem to fix it, and when I noticed the damp going up the wall, I knew I had a serious problem.  Oh dear, with Robin not here, it was something I would have to tackle on my own.  One of the neighbour's recommended a plumber who had done some work for her, so I called him to have a look, and give me a quote.  Seems the only way to fix the problem was to replace the shower to see exactly what the problem was. 

It has been a very interesting and rather noisy time. In fact the weeks dragged on with different tradesmen doing their own part in the repairs.   Gemma was locked in the bedroom to keep her safe and out of the way, and she wasn't at all happy about that.  I had to remove my car from the garage to give the workmen room to put their tools and workbench.  When the old shower and the wall boards had been removed the water damage was clear, the leak had been dripping from the mixer behind the shower wall.  So no amount of resealing around the base of the shower cabinet was going to fix it.

Gib board removed

After the plumber came to replace the shower mixer and what ever else he needed to do, the builder replaced two sheets of aqua gib board.  Then the man installing the new shower cubicle had his day, followed by the painter.  I was up bright and early each morning, locking Gemma in the bedroom before the tradesmen and their noisy tools arrived.  Then the plumber was back with the new shower dome, which had to be cut to fit.  It was a busy old time, and the weeks rolled around with tradesmen coming and going.  Poor Gemma was getting quite stressed really, what had happened to our quiet peaceful home?

Cutting the shower dome

The final job was replacing the lino flooring, that was several weeks after the other work was done.  Getting the lino scraped off seemed to take ages, and the workman told me how the adhesives used had changed so much over the years, since he started as an apprentice.

Scrape, scrape, scraping away

Then at last the job was all finished.  A new shower, this one has curved doors different from  our previous square shower.   New lino, I managed to find something very similar to the previous one, just a different colourway.  New paint on the walls, everything looks nice and fresh.

All finished

Of course, being a quilter's home, I had to rehang my bathroom decorations.  This is my beautiful hand made seahorse, sent to me quite some time ago from Janet in Cromer, England.  I didn't realise how dusty he was till he was taken down, but he is dust free now and ready for bathroom duty again. 

Beautiful seahorse from Janet

And my little tropical fish wall hanging was given a clean and rehung after all those noisy men had finally departed.  I purchased the fish fabric during our trip to Hawaii in 1993, and finally made the little wall hanging in 1996 to commemorate our trip.  

Memories of Hawaii

There really is a sea theme going on in my tiny bathroom.  These lovely shells were brought home by Robin's Mum after her trip to New Caledonia.  We gave them a new home after she passed away some years ago.

Beautiful shells

So that is the end of the recent bathroom saga.  I'm pleased that it is finally at an end, and that I managed to deal with it myself.

Another Roll of the Dice

Here we go again, another week, and another dice roll.  Oops, don’t think it happened last week, but who’s counting these days?  This week I will be working on number one from my List of Six, my neutral strings blocks.  This was started quite some time ago, so I’m pleased to have it to the top of the list again.  I had stitched a whole pile of neutral string pieced blocks, made ages  ago when I started on “Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll”, a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  This was as far as I got with the quilt, and last year I made a child’s donation quilt using some of these blocks.  This is number two using these squares, and believe it or not, there will still be enough for a third small quilt!

Put any quilting on the floor, and the cat comes to check it out!

I’m using a teal blue fabric for the sashing, and the rows are now being pieced together.  Let’s see how far I get this week.

Assembling the rows

We had a busy day yesterday when we had a tradesman in the house.  Finally, our heat pump was getting some attention, after weeks of being in Lockdown.  Now that New Zealand has dropped down to Alert Level 3, some businesses can now operate as long as they adhere to the strict rules now in place.  In these Covid 19 days, having a tradesman in the house takes some planning.   While the tradesman was working, for social distancing reasons, we were asked not to be in the same room as him.  I decided to distance myself in the caravan, taking Gemma with me. 

I had packed my library book and knitting and with the kettle on the gas hob, a cup of coffee or two, I was quite happy.  It was a lovely morning, the sunshine was streaming in the windows, and Gemma soon settled down for a snooze.

Relaxing in the caravan

We had decided to get a new replacement heat pump, rather than repair our existing unit.  Jonathan was busy outside at the back of the house replacing the outside unit, while Robin stayed inside.  These units have gas inside (I didn’t know that) which had to be sucked out and safely contained.  The new unit was installed, and as the unit is complete with new refrigerant gas, when the system is sealed the  gas is released, and that part of the job was completed.  After a socially distant lunch break (Jonathan solitary outside on the patio and us inside) the second phase was done, installing the interior unit.    Finally the job was complete after a satisfactory test run, and we were good to go again – ready and waiting for the next cold spell.

Installation complete

While Jonathan was busy working, with the company van parked outside, two neighbours came knocking on the door wanting some work done on their own heat pumps.  With two extra jobs to be logged, the company will be pleased with that, I’m sure.