Fixing a Drip

Wisconsin is known for its rough winters. They don't call Lambeau Field the 'Frozen Tundra' for nothing!

Our home was a foreclosure property. The bank didn't want to pay the heat bill, so after a while the heat was turned off. Unfortunately, the water wasn't completely drained out of many of the pipes before that was done. Water in pipes and fixtures + freezing temperatures = burst pipes and damaged fixtures.

The faucet in the 2nd floor bathroom was one of the fixtures that was damaged. Chris at Sinclair Plumbing thought that the water freezing in the faucet may have expanded and created a small crack. Over time, and as the faucet was used more, the crack got bigger and bigger, until every time the faucet was used, a little puddle of water formed under the sink. We obviously needed to get a new one.

I wanted to make sure we got a new faucet that would look nice with the original pedestal sink, as well as one that was known for its quality.  We decided to get a faucet from the Leland collection by Delta. It's a cute little teapot-style faucet in a brushed nickel finish.

We had to survive without our sink for eight or nine days. Then, Rich from Sinclair Plumbing was able to come over with our new faucet and install it for us. As soon as I turned on the bathroom light, the bulb burned out. He offered to change the light bulb for me, so of course I took him up on it! Customer service at its best!

The new faucet looks great.

Our sink without a faucet.

Our new faucet, along with a clean sink and a de-cluttered bathroom!

New Garage Doors

Although the detached garage is not an original structure and was built years after our home, it is certainly old as well.  The doors on this garage were heavy wooden doors that probably took a small army to install.  When we moved in, only one of the doors actually had all its hardware and could be opened.  The other door was just panels stacked on top of one another, missing hardware and held together by gravity and a prayer.  

The original garage doors.  The one on the right did not open.

We knew that replacing the garage doors was something that should be done before winter.  Wisconsin winters are no time to leave a vehicle outside unless you want a healthy dose of scraping windows at least twice a week.  Since our previous house had only a one stall attached garage, we were anxious to actually have both vehicles inside for a winter.  

John from Alpine Sales and Service gave us many options to choose from for our new doors.  His website has a great tool that allows you to upload a picture of your current garage and see how various doors would look.  This gave us the opportunity to find doors that would compliment the age and style of our home.  

Two beautiful, working doors.

John worked for two rainy, cold days to remove our old doors and install the new ones.  Not only did he replace the doors, but he installed new tracks, openers, and a manual disconnect lock.  There is no service door on the garage and this might come in handy if we ever lose power.  He certainly went above and beyond for our installation and tackled the challenges of working with an older structure.  With our first snowfall earlier this week, it was great to have our vehicles tucked safely inside the garage where their windows remained dry and frost free.

Laundry Room Part III: Update of Ongoing Progress

Well a few months have now passed and our laundry room seems like that project that will just never end (Does anyone remember the deck at our previous house?).  However, we have been making some slow but meaningful progress.  Ralph's came back for this much smaller project to refinish part of the flooring and add new hardwood where the stairs used to be.

Before the new hardwood flooring was added.

The new flooring (left) and old flooring (right).  This is before the finish was applied.

The walls are now up and the lathe is all covered.  This was enough for us to at least get the washer and dryer in place, so we would not have to run elsewhere to do laundry.

The old lathe and the new plumbing and electrical.

The new walls with the washer and dryer all hooked up.

The room also needed venting for the dryer.  Drilling through several layers of wood, plaster and lathe yielded a nice 4" hole to fit the venting.  Seeing as though there is no insulation in the exterior walls it was relatively easy and clean.

The dryer vent hole from the outside. 

If there isn't any insulation, at least there is 3 inches of solid wood!

New dryer vent on the exterior.

Additional progress since the washer and dryer are in place has been slow.  We have been able to paint and place trim on a few of the walls, but still have a bit more than half of the room to do.

The washer and dryer in their new home.