Running water - a gift from the gods

     I feel like I just completed a boot camp for home owners. The holidays celebrations were pretty minimal: Christmas consisted of one fairly simple meal and opening gifts, and New Year's Eve was the night we all went to bed early because we were so tired. Almost every day, I woke up and had coffee with my mother, then she started painting. My dad, the night owl, woke up around 9 or 10 am most days (but he would have preferred a less early morning routine). We'd work at a steady pace, stopping mainly for meals and dog walks. I'd crash by 11pm, because I'm now used to an early work schedule, but my father would keep going. In fact, he pulled two all-nighters, something I haven't done since my undergraduate days.
      We were vindicated when my father sawed out the 70-year-old galvanized steel pipes. The corrosion was so thick in the water supply pipe that all the water for my house was coming through a pea-sized hole at a few points. Replacing them has definitely made a big difference: I can run two water-consuming appliances at the same time, and the washing machine doesn't take ten minutes to fill.

 Behold the corrosion.

An expert plumber and his proud apprentice, showing off our handiwork.

     The house was completely plumbed on Saturday morning, and by Saturday at 2pm my parents were packed up and had begun the trip to their next destination, Minnesota. I definitely couldn't have done this without my father's expertise. He soldered to the existing copper, devised creative solutions to the inevitable difficulties that arise when you work on an old house, and taught me as much as he could in nine days. (I suspect that he rather enjoyed the teaching.) 

     I still cannot plumb a house on my own, but if you need a single fixture like a new sink, I'm your woman.