Why did you change it?!

I'm both embarrassed and pleased to announce that after 5.5 years in this house, our upstairs hallway bathroom is fully functional! 

Remember that one time when the people who owned the house before us put in a new shower but somehow put the shower liner under the shower threshold instead of over it, so water was leaking out under the threshold for years...and the entire subfloor rotted away...so we had to gut the bathroom down to the studs and start over from square one?

Remember how a pipe burst during the renovation and flooded the ceiling of the bathroom below and the whole thing collapsed into the other?

I literally have nightmares about that bathroom.

But, we paid thousands and thousands of dollars to fix and...it worked for a while...until we started noticing wet spots on the ceiling after the shower was used. 

So we stopped using it.

But, honestly, we paid thousands of dollars for that bathroom and we wanted to use it. And the kids are growing up and getting stinkier so we kind of need to use it. 

We tried diagnosing the issue ourselves, which first involved dragging the garden hose up through the window so we could have water flow down the drain without using the shower head or getting water on the shower floor. 

No leaks proved that it was not an issue with the shower drain itself. 

Next we sprayed water on the walls for a long time.

No leaks proved that the walls were not an issue. 

Next we put the hose away and just turned on the shower. 

No leaks! So that foiled our thinking that perhaps the handle or shower head connections were leaking somewhere in the wall.

Next we had a child shower just to see what would happen and...

The ceiling got soggy. 

We were flummoxed. 

We called the contractor who did the bathroom, but he never got back to us, so we called another faithful handyman (who recently fixed our roof and who did some of our basement work for us) and he did come and honestly was quite flummoxed himself. 

His diagnosis involved cutting a hole in the laundry room ceiling. And cutting a hole in the closet in Zoë and Phoebe's room. 

That meant everything had to be dragged out of their closet...which turned their room into quite the mess!

In the end, it was determined that when the shower people installed the glass walls they didn't seal it properly! The glass was sealed into the frame, but the frame itself wasn't sealed to the shower? It was just screwed on. So water was entering the frame and flowing directly into the ceiling somehow. 

I dunno. This guy tried everything to fix the problem—like I said, he cut into two different rooms, he tested the drain, he recaulked the shower. It was a days-long trial-and-error process. 

He finally took the doors and walls off the shower, found that they weren't sealed underneath, sealed them up, reinstalled the shower...and everything is watertight now. 

He patched the hole in the girls' closet the very first day (he stayed longer than he had intended to because he didn't want to leave a hole gaping in their wall over night—just a thoughtful guy!) and fixed the ceiling in the laundry room on the third day. And now everything is back to being beautiful and multiple children showered yesterday and the ceiling stayed dry! So we're very happy about that!

Of course, it meant even more money being thrown at that bathroom...but it should be good this time. 

We hope.

*****

All that was to tell you that we spent a couple of hours getting the girls' room put back together last night.

Grandpa came over with doughnuts to celebrate Grandma. And then he went to a fireside with our youth (to help Rachel practice driving to the Tucker building). We sent Alexander and Phoebe off to play Lego together and then put Zoë to work getting that room in order.

We decided to move Phoebe's dresser into the closet and move Zoë's dresser from one side of the room to the other, which opened up the room a lot. We went through papers and clothes and toys and organized things. 

When we finally finished, we had Phoebe come into her room to (1) get some pyjamas and (2) admire how nice and clean it was. 

Instead she walked in, threw her hands into the air and then collapsed on the ground, howling, "Why did you change it?!"

So she was as impressed as we thought she would be. But she'll get used to it.

That's what I told the primary kids when some of them complained about our new set-up in primary today. We put the kids in what one child described as a "rainbow" rather than having them sit in rows. There were mixed feelings about it. 

One boy said he liked it because it was new. Another boy said, "That's exactly why I don't like it!"

So I told the story about Phoebe throwing her arms up in the air and collapsing onto the ground asking, "Why did you change it!?" and assured them that they would all get used to it. 

More kids like it than did not. And I liked it better. So...it'll probably stick around...