Weekly construction update
18 May 2007 
around evening time 
Matt Winckler
I figure I ought to check in once a week or so just so that my blog does not become an empty graveyard, like some other folks I could mention, but won’t.
I am mortally tired. This is because I’ve been staying up too late drinking and playing computer games. Every single night. For two weeks.
Now that we’ve got that token bit of rampant hilarity out of the way, down to business. The kitchen still isn’t finished, but I am telling you that tomorrow is the day. I have the entire day blocked off to finish every last project, or at least finish them to the point that there is nothing critically lacking in the house. That means that at minimum, there shall be a working kitchen, and in the process I must not destroy any other vital parts of the house, such as the plumbing.
For I am seriously considering tackling the plumbing job tomorrow. At minimum, I am going to have to run PEX up the kitchen wall so that I don’t have to tear it out later after cabinets are installed. My goal is slowly morphing into “not only run PEX, but actually start moving water through it.” Let it be said beforehand that I completely despise all things related to plumbing, and the only thing I detest more than doing it myself is paying out thousands of dollars to have somebody else do it.
The thing is, in order to get all the plumbing run, I will have to moderately destroy the upstairs bathroom. Mystie considers this a fair tradeoff, because in exchange for having to take showers in the basement, she would get a working dishwasher and washer/dryer upstairs. That is assuming that I get the shower in the basement functioning, of course. Further inspection of the previously-hacked-together copper plumbing in the basement bathroom indicates that the previous occupants bordered on the malicious and they were negligent at a diabolical level. Apart from the fact that it looks like they had a barrel full of fittings and were under some strange obligation to use them all (via meaningless loops, switchbacks, and the like), the copper is connected into the cold water supply lines in no fewer than three places that I can see (and I suspect a fourth, but exactly what goes on behind the drywall is as yet a mystery to me). To my way of thinking, that’s two more places than it needs to, and it makes the whole thing dashed inconvenient, because I wanted to keep the copper pipe in place and just replace its galvanized supply line with PEX. That task becomes less rewarding if I have to cap off copper in three different places. Furthermore, the only way I could be sure that I’d got it all would be to either turn on the water supply and listen for gushing water, or tear out all the drywall and follow every last pipe. (Judging by what I can see already, anything is possible. For that matter, anything is probable.)
I must go to bed now. I am not finished with my narrative, not by a long shot, but if I do not retire at this instant I will sorely regret it in the morning. And the morning promises to be a red day. A sword-day! Ere the sun rises!