Score: Bathroom 2 Linda 2

Yesterday was the first day I feel like there's light at the end of the bathroom tunnel. Together, Rod and I managed to get the backer board laid, taped and mudded. Not as simple as it sounded when I read up on the process.

Step 1 included ripping out the old floor. There were two layers of linoleum on top of wood planks over the sub floor. A dusty mess. The original builder (Sargent April) did an amazing job cutting in the wood floor to the tub (the tub has a curved side), I didn't even see the joint at first -- it was that precise. And I live in what is probably the only bungalow with exactly square corners in the rooms. Amazing. It made cutting the backer board much easier, since we could work with square corners. Backer board is a cement board that, once in place, creates a bond with the sub floor and the tile, effectively creating a single unit of many different materials.

As we were cutting the board we laid it out in a jigsaw-like pattern, around the plumbing and the old radiators to make sure it would fit before we added the mud. Then I troweled the mud down in sections and placed the backer board and then Rod added fasteners to hold the board down. Finally I mudded and taped the joints. This process is remarkably similar to joining theater flats, here instead of ripped muslin or canvas dipped in paint I used nylon mesh tape and lots of mud. Messy. Very messy. But it's done now and with a little cleanup I'll be ready to spread the waterproofing this afternoon.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

It's been a very busy year. Quite possibly that last sentence was an understatement.

After dating for a year, Rod and I moved in together last summer and then bought a cute little bungalow in Snohomish last fall. True love sounds a little cliche, but that is what we seem to have. School was taking most of my time, and when I wasn't swamped with homework I spent my spare moments curled up on the sofa with my sweetie. Letting my brain uncramp.

I graduated just two weeks ago and have jumped into job-hunting with a vengence. The problem is manufacturing hasn't really recovered yet, so the jobs are far and few between. Combine that with a specialized skill-set and I'm having a harder time than I'd like finding work in my field. So I've widened the net a bit and am managing to send out a half-dozen or so resumes a week. I've never been unemployed for more than a couple of weeks before and though I've been out of work for a year and a half, most of that time was in school so it felt like I was working. I'm trying not to stress too much. Really I am. But I am not the type to sit around eating bon-bons and watching the soaps.

I managed to connect up with the fine folks over at the Thumbnail Theater here in Snohomish. Tim Noah and Cyndi Elliot are two very talented performers, and there's a cabinet of Emmy awards sitting in the corner to prove it. They put together the sweetest children's shows and the kids just eat them up. I'm also working on a vaudville show called Tap Happy that is running monthly at the theater. Tap Happy brings together a group of actors and dancers for a light-hearted musical review. So back to theater in a very low-key sort of way.

Currently I'm getting ready for an invasion of the Currey Clan. Rod's family is coming to visit in just 10 days. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the guest bathroom wasn't quite functional. And since we were tidying it up a bit, we decided to re-tile the floor and paint the walls. I'm learning that home improvement projects are never quite as simple as they appear on the surface. The major setback was removing a cheap wall mirror and discovering that the former owners, when they pulled out the old medicine chest, left a gaping hole and two electrical boxes hidden behind the mirror. They had used a saw to cut off the face of the old chest and left the frame in place. While that explains the large, ugly wall mirror, it left me with the chore of repairing the hole. Thank goodness Tim Hickey stepped in and patched the hole. But waiting for plaster to dry has put me a couple of days behind schedule. If we are in there working on the wall, we can't be in there working on the floor, since the various layers of thinset, grout and waterproofing do much better setting up if nobody is walking on them.

Tim's knocking on the door....off to work.