My Shower Nemesis

I know that my shower problems are but a minor hiccup in our new house adventure, but this week I swear the shower has done everything in it's power to frustrate me. 

Monday morning after we had moved, I turned on the shower and a tiny dribble came out of the shower head. Being the nerd that I am, I know that this house has high water pressure in the 80-90 psi range, so it was not a water pressure issue. Since I was headed to work, I decided not to deal with it until I got home, and went downstairs to take my shower.

That night I took down the shower head and sure enough, it was clogged. I ran to the store and picked out a shiny new environmentally conscious low-flow shower head. 

The next morning I am ready to take a nice shower with my new shower head. About two minutes after getting in...ya know...when my hair is super soapy....the water turns ice-cold. As soap is running into my eyes I turn the handle as far as it will go to HOT and wait....finally hot water....then 2 minutes later...cold water...and the cycle continues.

Since I knew that our tankless hot water heater was working just fine, I figured that it must have something to do with the new shower head. I did some googling and sure enough, my eco-friendly shower head was not going to work with the tankless hot water heater. Apparently they need a certain flow to trigger the unit to deliver hot water. 

Back to the store to find an not-so-eco-friendly head. So I figured - problem solved - time for a wonderful shower experience! I hop in, everything is going well....until about 3 minutes pass and the shower starts slowly filling with water. By the end of my shower I was standing in about 3" of dirty water - GROSS! 

As we speak I have a concoction of baking soda and vinegar hopefully working their magic on my drain...

Tomorrow morning will be the test...fingers crossed!

Moving Day and Settling in....

I was so ready to get moved into our new house! We have been putting time, money, and energy into this beast - let's enjoy it! We will truly miss St. John's and our amazing neighbors, but we were ready to enjoy some of our hard work. Of course - we picked the best weekend possible for moving - Mother's day weekend! Thanks moms! 


Friday night we picked up the U-haul and drove it to Lowe's to buy molding for our house - it is crazy the discount you get when you buy it in 12' or 16' long bundle packs. Kyle did a great job driving the 17' long U-haul truck.


Our family and Melissa worked so hard to get everything loaded up into the U-haul, pick-up, Subaru, SUV, and my car in less than 3 hours. I hate to admit this but we needed an entire pick-up to handle my garden art and flower pots...everyone needs a decorative bike in their yard - right?


Since we do not have carpet in our downstairs yet, everything needed to stay in the upstairs or live temporarily in the garage. So my immediate focus was getting the kitchen all unpacked. Our washer and dryer are now in the garage so we have a pantry! We were going to buy new shelving for the pantry, but since our budget is tight we used some existing bookshelves and re-purposed a DVD stand to work as temporary shelving.


I also got most of my garden art and pots to new locations in our backyard with Luna's help of course. Speaking of Luna - she is loving all of the new smells and places to explore and is adjusting well. Here are some pictures of our progress...

Steve was a HUGE help as our "master U-haul packer"

 Buff Melissa workin' hard

 Carolyn in action

Make-shift pantry shelving

 Garden art finds a new home

 Veggies are starting to pop up and tomatoes and basil are planted

Luna lounging in the grass

Cinco De Mayo

Saturday was a productive house work day! We discovered that back in the 50's they could not run to Home Depot to pick up backer-board, so they created their own. This was the third and final layer that we needed to remove from the entryway to get down to the sub floor. Armed with the pry bar and sledge we started prying up this final layer. What we found was layers of metal mesh nailed to the floor with mortar. We figured out a method of pulling on the metal mesh while prying up the nails to slowly get the last layer out! We are ready for a new tile floor!


I also created a small brick area next to the raised beds using the mossy bricks that my mom and I moved over from our old house. The paths around the beds are still a work in progress but I did get the pea and bean trellises in with Luna's help! Luna had a great first day exploring the backyard and garage. She was exhausted from smelling and checking out EVERYTHING! Oh and we grabbed some taco bell for dinner...we went all out for authentic Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo!

Third layer coming off!

 Kyle using the brute force approach

 YIPPEE for sub floor!

 New home for my mossy bricks and succulents

 The start of a slate pathway

Luna checking out the new digs!

Nerd Alert! Moving by weight!

You had your warning....the engineer in me loves numbers....so here it is- over the last two nights I have moved 200 lbs of sand, about 100 lbs of bark nuggets, about 100 lbs of slate tile, and with my mom's help - 500 lbs of bricks!!!


I mixed the sand into the garden mulch to increase the drainage in my raised beds and allow my carrots to grow nice and straight! Most of the garden beds are planted - I just need to pick up a few tomatoe and basil plants. Thank you Connie for giving us some bonus lemon cucumber seeds! The bark nuggets replaced some of the massive (and partially dead) heather plants that I ripped out. Note on heather - it has super shallow roots and you don't even need a shovel to remove it - you can just pull it out with your bare hands...insert evil laugh here...I do find joy in ripping out plants with my bare hands.  

Raised beds planted with veggie seeds

New bark nuggets in a small area cleared of heather

And my mossy bricks that used to be a little patio will now line the raised beds. Hopefully tomorrow I can pick up more sand so that I can form a slate path through my raised beds and then line them with bricks. Thanks Joe for the slate!

Mossy bricks ready for placement!

While I was at the house working outside, the hardwood floors were finished! There are two sneak-peek pictures. I ran in the house while holding my breath to get these because the smell is horrible but I could not resist the urge to see them!

 Super shiny wet floors!

Adios stair carpet!