Plans, The Pool, The Cat, and The Dog

Well, I'll tell you about the cat and the dog first.  Hubs pulled a dead rodent out of the pool a few days ago and left it poolside.  Big mistake with our dog who likes to roll on dead things.  The poor dog has been banished to the backyard for two days now - until our groomer opens up after the holiday weekend!

Then, Hubs and I were sitting in the living room at 1pm on Saturday afternoon of a long weekend, working on plumbing plans, and we heard a cat fight RIGHT outside our front window.  We DO allow our cat to go outside, so Hubs pretty much tackled me to get outside and make sure our cat was okay.  Turns out, she was bleeding small drips from the bum area, and she wouldn't let him get a good enough look to see how serious it was.  I scrambled to get the cat carrier, while Hubs corralled her and TRIED to look at her wound, then gave up and comforted her.  After she (and her bleeding bum) were contained, I called my vet.  No answer - it was after-hours already.  Of COURSE!  So I scribbled down the emergency vet's number, called them up for directions and to let them know I was coming (and that it wasn't life-threatening), jumped in the car and drove off.  Then I got to the end of my street and realized I'd forgotten my cell phone.  So I had to go back for it.  Fast forward 3 hours, antibiotics, a shaved and washed bum, and $200 later, and you'll find the cat sleeping on the drive home, acting like nothing's wrong. When I got home, we settled her into the bathroom, where she'll be making her home for the next 10 days... yay for us.  :/

So, other than all THAT adventure, we haven't really DONE much the last couple days, due to the need to plan the plumbing in the ENTIRE HOUSE before proceeding on a single wall.  But I'm pleased to show our progress!  (And Hubs' awesome grid-paper magic!)

Plan for the entire basement layout!

The top is the front of the house - the front half is pretty much open, unplanned space at this point.  The only main features of that space will be the fireplace and the electrical panel on the left, and the stairway to the main level on the right.

Moving on to the bottom half - the leftmost feature is a walk-in food storage closet for me - plenty of shelves and space for my upright freezer!  Also, where Hubs has written "Backfiller" along this closet's wall - that's going to be a open-and-close-able  pass-through wall for proper food storage rotation!

The next space over will be open, with the door to the backyard just outside my food-storage closet.  Right along the midline, you can see that Hubs has sketched in some cabinetry.  The precise usage will be determined later - entertainment, or daycare, or ... yeah.  We don't know.  (Yes Mom, I hear you.  "Dehydrator space!  Bread machine! Sewing station!"  I'm also thinking this will make excellent storage for my less-frequently-used appliances.)

The next space will be a utility room - my washer and dryer will be on the other side of the wall behind the cabinetry.  Um, actually... *looks HARD at this drawing* Please ignore the layout of THIS bathroom design.  It's wrong.  It's not what we're doing.  But that's the bathroom area.  The NEXT picture will show you the final layout of that space.

Lastly, the space all the way on the right is the space under our den, and will be used as a mechanical room.  We are likely going to install a geothermal system, forced hot air, and an instant water heater in there.

Under the stairs to the main level we will have the well accumulator tank, the whole-house filter, and the water softener.

THIS is the bathroom layout!

The top of this picture is the mechanical room.  The right side is the external wall to the backyard.  The left side goes out right next to the empty space at the front of the basement, and the bottom backs up to the counter space.

My washer and dryer will have a built-in countertop running over the top of them!  The sink will be a utility/laundry sink.  Just to the left of the sink, we see the space under the stairs - where the water softener and filter will share the drain with the utility sink.

That big pipe-looking line that runs through the middle is just that - Hubs' plan for the drain lines.

Layout for the upstairs bathroom reno - turning 1 bath into 2!

Along the left side of this drawing is our upstairs hallway.  The topmost wall shown here borders the attic area above the den.  The right wall is exterior, and the bottom will open into our bedroom (there will likely be a door, even though there isn't one shown here).

The top bathroom will be Lil C's - simple, cheaper materials that get the job done and are easy to clean.

The other bathroom will be part of our new master suite.  The toilet will be under a window, the shower will be nearly 5 feet wide by 3 feet deep, and we will have nearly 6 feet of counter space to house our double sinks!  Our closet will run the 8-foot length between what is currently the first window in our bedroom, and the current bathroom window.  We'll use elegant tiles, pretty glass, a more expensive toilet, up-scale fixtures, and Hubs plans to put some homemade built-ins in the closets.  (As I type this, he has run off copies of these pages and is still working on the exact drain lines of all of these fixtures.....)



Lastly, I went outside a couple hours ago to snap a progress update picture on the pool draining, and.... well... our devil horns came out.....

At my urging, Hubs threw the dog into the pool - at the deep end!

He made a bee-line for the stairs, although he seemed to be enjoying himself.

So much so that he turned around, swam a circle, and THEN headed for the stairs.

Have you noticed the water quality or the level of the pool water at ALL yet???  Or are you too busy reading captions?

Then, for good measure, Hubs threw him in again.  This time, the poor dog just went straight for the stairs.  Apparently, once is fun, twice is mean?