About Me

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Cedar, Leelanau County, Michigan (near Traverse City), United States
I am a 76 year old (born 7/4/1937) retired Public Radio Engineer from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Happily married to the love of my life, Teddy (nee Teddy Schlueter). Teddy is a retired Medical Records Clerk from Theda Clark Hospital in Neenah, Wisconsin. Two children, Michael and Lon. Lon passed away in 1994. Michael is married to his wonderful wife, Toni and lives in Appleton, Wisconsin. For photos click on link below or visit our photo site http://www.flickr.com/photos/igboo NOTE: Click on photos for full-size images.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Plumbers, and Carpenters, and Electricians, Oh My!

It seems that I do some of my best thinking after I go to bed while I am waiting to go to sleep The ole’ brain starts to rev up and new ideas float around in my mind.

A lot of my nighttime musings don’t hold up in the light of day but a couple of weeks ago I got to thinking about our bathroom. Although it never bothered me much, Teddy has never liked the fact that the bathroom is located off the living room. I suppose that she is right but this is an old farmhouse originally built in the late 1800s before most houses had inside plumbing. Teddy can still remember that when she was a young girl they had an outdoor outhouse and had to carry water into the house by the pailful.

What followed was that through the years as the family grew more prosperous and was handed down generation to generation, new rooms were added to the original structure. They were, in order, a kitchen on the east side of the house, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom on the north side and an entrance foyer on the south side. As it happens, the bathroom is adjacent to the bedroom which is also  entered from the living room. So as I lie all tucked in my bed, musings of bathrooms floated in my head, “Why not cut a door into the bathroom from the bedroom and make it the master bath”? “Hmmm, this, however, would necessitate constructing a new powder room for guests on the other end of the house off the foyer and extensive remodeling of the existing bathroom”....and right about then, I fell asleep.

The following morning when I had risen, a quarter after seven; I recounted my musings of the night before to Teddy and she liked the idea and urged me to call Gerrard Belanger, our contractor, to investigate the possibility.
Gerrard reaffirmed that it was possible, Teddy got all excited and started to rearrange furniture, and I thought, “Oh, no!, What have I done? There goes another chunk of our meager savings.”

So...for the past week we have had Erich Hallett, our plumber/electrician, Gerrard and Jason Belanger, our carpenter/drywallers, and Steve Stowe the drywall finisher all working feverishly to make it happen.


At this point the new powder-room is finished ..........





















and work is now progressing on the new master bath.

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This is a drawing of the new remodeled master bath adjoining the bedroom



















Hopefully we are all done with the farmhouse upgrading.............but...........no promises, if there's anything I've learned through the years, there are always new ideas that can slowly develop in the back of my mind and then suddenly erupt into a conscious thought.











It kinda' works like this!