Damage Report, Progress and Life

It took me about 12 hours to clean and reassemble my family (rec) room and laundry room on Saturday. In the process, I tossed out more stuff, and even cleaned out my crawl space. I was laughing at the point at which I took the vacuum cleaner into the crawl space! I ditched a bunch of beer mugs and pilsner glasses (or at least they will not be going back up on the bar).

Yesterday morning, I woke up and really began assessing the damage from my Saturday morning stupidity. My right shin has a big (5" or so) bump that will turn all sorts of colors in the following days. I have a little 3/4" gash there, too, and from the looks of it, I'll have a nice scar. Something to remember this period of remodeling by, I suppose!

Both of my knees got banged right in the kneecaps, too. I didn't know until I motivated to the Y to try and do stationary bike and elliptical that also my ass is probably bruised. The fall sequence went something like this: low back muscles pull to try and protect me, butt hits floor (effectively concrete), shelves fall on top of my knees and then hit my shins. I wish I could have seen the video! It all felt like it was in slow motion, and my biggest fear was how jacked up my back would be.

The good news is that when I woke up yesterday, I didn't feel particularly gnarly. I slept OK (for how I've been sleeping the past 5 weeks--been averaging about 6 hours a night) and didn't awaken to any big restriction of movement. But when I got on the bike, that's when I could tell my butt took a good hit and also my knees.

Oh well! I managed an hour stationary bike and an hour elliptical. Extremely boring, but it had to be done. I ended up getting in about 9.5 hours of "training" last week, and at least I got back to something consistent. This morning I'm going to give swimming a go, although I'll be careful to abandon ship if my back objects to twisting.

After my workouts yesterday, I hit up Home Depot, Target and the grocery store, since I had no time or energy left after Saturday's cleaning festival. I scored a bunch of hooks for the laundry room, a number of storage bins, and another pair of silver shoes (damn you, Target!). I finished organizing the laundry room this morning, and here are some pics. The floor mounted cabinets don't have tops yet because I'm ordering a green custom laminate, and I've got ceiling hooks where I'll hang my race wheels and spare tires:

I made the little ruffle. It's inspired me to hunt down a Henri Rousseau print for the empty wall.

Yeah--the washer/dryer are almond. I may have my guys spray paint them white because I know that eventually it will annoy me.

One of my topless cabinets

Yes, I have many helmets (aero helmet not shown) and many swimsuits

I know it seems silly to get so excited about a laundry room, but I've finally got places to organize a lot of my triathlon crap so that's it's not spread all over the house. Who knew I could get so organized like this?

This morning begins the upstairs bathroom remodeling, which I am very excited about--it's going to be gorgeous. Anyway, last week, I took the liberty of taking anything off the walls, emptying the vanity and tossing the drawers and doors. Here's the ugliness that is being demolished today:



That mirror? It is being saved!!! I'm having it mounted (sans frame) over the head board of my bed. I do like mirrors ;) It's 52" wide and about 36" tall, and there are no scratches on it. The idea of saving it came to me on Saturday in the midst of cleaning.

I have all my chrome for the new bathroom, and I'm such a geek that I took pictures of the pieces. The pictures won't do them justice, but you can get the idea:

Hand towel bar, toilet paper holder and robe hook

Tub spigot. I wanted a waterfall, but they don't make them for the type of tub I have :(

Shower head, control and spigot

Waterfall lavatory faucet and handles as if looking down from above

Waterfall lavatory faucet and handles as if looking head on

The hardware is just so beautiful! I know that once the bathroom is finished, I'm going to go in there and just watch the water coming out of the faucet!

I've already purchased towels, waste basket, etc. I was trying to design a funky black/white pattern for the tile floor, but I'm going to just let my guy do it white with some random black tiles, since there is going to be a lot of black in there! The black Kohler tub should be going in today, and I'll take pictures in progress as everything comes together. Assuming the furniture arrives this week, the room should be completed Friday.

This morning I'm moving my computers and minimal bathroom accessories downstairs for the week. In some ways, I've felt like I've been staying in a hotel, only I'm getting weekly room upgrades! Once the upstairs bathroom is wallboarded, I'll unroll the zebra carpet in the living room, as the dust will be gone.

In other news, things are looking good for finalizing the last piece of my Dad's estate. How cool is it going to be for me to have effectively a new house, finish that and be able to just, well, live? Pretty fucking cool, I think. It's going to be odd for me to have so much free time on my hands, but it's not like I don't have other things to do--Thanksgiving weekend will be spent doing the final leaf raking and cutting down and covering my rose bushes. And then it will only be 2 months until my first race!!!!

Now, if I can just heal up all these bruises and muscle strains, I'll be good to go!