Monday, May 23, 2011

Remodel at Dad's house

 My dad and stepmom have a house on the banks of a river in a quiet little town. The river is called the Withlacoochee.

Say it with me Y'all, Withlacoochee.
With La Coochee.
?
Really?
You gotta love a river with a coochee. There is power With la coochie. In fact if you have one, you can do almost anything. Better yet, have it done for you!
Then there's the Willacoochee. The Willacoochie isn't nearly as strong and while it may be beautiful, it simply can't handle a big boat - and when I "a say big boat" you know what I mean. I mean a pretty dang big ole boat.

While I was writing this post, I became interested in the word coochie. I started exploring coochie ... slowly at first, with just two fingers, then adding another finger and thumb. I know. I'm not the best typist. I looked up coochee creek road. Coochie Creek Road. What can I say. Everyone should take a ride on coochee creek road. Ride slow and easy on a bicycle or fast and furious on a motorcycle, just enjoy the scenery and love the ride!

It's a beautiful place - a timber frame house right on the river, minutes away from the Gulf via boat.
(view up-river from the sun room)


I love the head light, Dad! It works great!


Dad has always been my hero. Nothing will ever change the way I feel about him and lucky for me, he has never let my status change the way he feels about me. I am so lucky! He's easing up on eighty years old and still loves to get into work. He beautifully restored a nice sized sail boat that took him and his crews on long trips to the islands. He eventually sold it and now he's restoring a catamaran, his favorite kind of boat. I remember flying a hull (!!) with him a few times in smaller one. His boat waits for him to put together a crew and sail South but first he has to finish the house. I'm just so happy that he hired me to help him finish it up! I mean I'd do it for nothing but he wouldn't have it that way, so thanks Dad!

There are some things I'd do differently, like rip out some odd door casing but it's hard to second guess your dad, yanno.

(pictures are clickable)
Because of plumbing issues, both the shower pan and the water closet had to be elevated. This is Dad's cool solution.
This was the first time I've ever used a wet saw, never did much tile work. It's pretty fun,though. All that crawling around on the floor...You know how trannies love to be down on all fours.
I'll take a picture of the little saw and explain how I made the inside radius cuts next time I post. Blogger software isn't as flexible as I'd like, and has been frustratingly flaky lately, so I'll just post this crap as is, without the other pictures and text I'd intended to include.

Oh, one more... see ya later, gator.