What does it take to get the Klug family to Hawaii in the midst of the 9th highest snowfall Washington has seen in recorded history?  A friend’s wedding provided the impetus for the island journey, and in the throes of winter we decided to tack on a week of vacation time before the big day.  We’ve been on O’ahu for five days now, enjoying choke food (especially the BBQ at Miles’ house yesterday!), learning the spirit of aloha, and hitting the local beaches.  Here are a couple of pictures for those back home to enjoy, and also to give our friends back home even more reason to keep the hate emails coming.  Here’s a walk through our trip thus far:

The snow outside our plane window while we were stranded on the tarmac for an hour waiting for them to find/manufacture/steal more deicing fluid after they’d finished all but one wing. Following takeoff, Alan was able to narrate for me exactly what the plane was doing every ten seconds. Some things, like ‘oh cool, the wings are flexing’, I didn’t really want to know.

After picking up our rental car, we headed for Kailua, a small town on the windward side. Here’s Mr. Cuteness himself enjoying Turtle Beach, where we were able to spot some signs of our shelled friends: flippers waving in the water, and turtle heads popping up to check out the people on shore.

Hitting the sights on our first full day in the islands, we took in the local history. Visiting the USS Missouri, “Mighty Mo”, the battleship where the WWII peace treaty was signed, we were able to tour the massive vessel.

Alan enjoying himself sitting in the gunner’s seat near the Arizona and military museum. Disabled torpedoes, missiles, and ICBM’s rounded out the tour.

A sobering sight: the USS Arizona memorial, built above the sunken battleship Arizona, the tomb to more than 1,000 soldiers killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A not-so-sobering sight: Alan on the deck of the Mighty Mo. Get it, “guns”.

Mysteriously, many of the cars in Hawaii are broke beyond mainlander’s comprehension. Beyond rusted out fenders, fender-benders left unfixed, and flaking paint, we found this beauty. Be sure to check out the plastic ‘chrome’ hubcaps on this “G’d up” ride. Someone clearly pimped that Hyundai.

One of the oddest sights of our trip: Waikiki beach, while not much of a beach, is close to a number of high-end shopping complexes. Atop Hermes, we found a shooting range. Somehow, this fits with the ongoing theme of the trip.

It may seem from all accounts that the trip has revolved around ‘guns’. While in many ways, that has been one of the threads of the trip, we’ve also enjoyed another theme of the journey: food. Many thanks to our great Hawaiian locals who provided food suggestions and to the Quest gang here for putting together the mother of all BBQ’s. We’ve enjoyed cocoa puffs, malasadas from Leonard’s (sorry, after an hour’s walk, we were too tired to take pictures and could only stuff our faces on the bench out front), poke from Foodland, Rai Rai Ramen, Pepper’s sandwiches, coffee from Saturna, breakfast at Cinnamon’s, and breakfasts cooked in our own kitchen here at the homefront. In our next installment: the wedding!

Two years ago yesterday, I took a two-and-a-half pound blacksmith’s hammer and put it through a perfectly nice wall. I still haven’t finished covering up the holes I made that first day. It begs the question, “why?” And for that, there are no satisfying answers.

You hear stories all the time about “the project car” (got one of those too) that takes 12 years to restore, or the guy who has been building his home-built airplane since the Regan administration. I never thought I’d be the guy who’d undertake a multi-year project. That’s not to say I never anticipated undertaking big projects; it’s to say I never expected for this to take so long.

When I looked at the house as an eager first-time home buyer, the presence of a single bathroom was a definite downside, but one overruled by the presence of a garage. Like all 60 year old houses, this one had been modified over time, with the results being a mixed bag. An addition gave the house a “master” bedroom, but turned the old second bedroom into a strange c-shaped space, unusable for anything other than storage, or an oddly shaped office. My miscalculating brain immediately thought “MASTER BATHROOM” and before I knew it I’ve gone down a two year path that has involved a toilet sitting in my living room for most of that time and a never ending sense of duty to finish the project. It’s been fun, but it’s also be tremendously stressful, and not surprisingly, much more complicated than I ever imagined. We’re not quite there, but I’m so ready to be done.

It’s a pattern for me. I wanted my bike frames to die before I finished them. I want the M5 to die now. I have this strange impulse to take on projects, and even to finish them, but by the end my energy is gone. Fortunately the finished product remains.

Before moving on, it’s important to give thanks to a few people. First off, thanks to Leah for being patient and understanding. To give an idea of how long this process has taken, we were not yet engaged when demolition began. She’s never lived in the house when it wasn’t half blown to hell. It’s prevented us from doing a lot of entertaining and hosting, and I know that’s been hard. Second credit goes to Dad, who has served as master electrician, wisdom source and hard worker. I don’t think this would have ever made it this far without him. Thanks also to Brad for cutting the holes in my roof, Terry for sanity checking my plan, Mr. Schmitz for the use of his compressor and finish nailer, Mansur for the tile saw and Gerry for helping hook up the pipes.

In the end, I’ll end up with what I hoped for: a new bathroom, a new computer room, and a bigger closet in the second bedroom. Is it a good trade for two years of my sanity? I’m not sure, and honestly I don’t want to think about it. However, it’s been a path to greatly expanded my knowledge about many things construction related.  What other room could make you deal with tile, plumbing, heating, electrical and wallboard?  Oh, the kitchen.  Is that next?  Crap.

Below are some pictures from the journey.

The evening of March 1, 2007. Look at this perfectly nice, odd little room.

Here I am putting the first holes in the walls.  By strange coincidence, I wore that sweater yesterday.  My wardrobe is the only thing that changes slower than my progress on this project.

And in a flash demolition was complete.  Actually, it took three whole months, but who’s counting?  Lath and plaster sucks to deal with, as does old insulation.  This was the first part of the project that took three times as long as I thought it would.

Test fitting the appliances led to some interesting photos.

By January of 2008 all the framing was complete after a long lay off for things like getting married, traveling, going to nationals etc…  All the plumbing was effectively done by this point.

One of the truly scary parts of the project occurred while Leah was in Denver for a week.  Dad and I punched out the wall between the master bedroom and the new bathroom.  Until it was finished (a few hours before she returned) you could see from our bedroom all the way down the house to the living room.

Many parts of the project were dirty, all in their special way.  However, drilling holes in cement board might be the worst.  Here I am standing in the master bedroom, and you can see all the way down the length of the house.

I got a quick education in wallboard work.  If I never did it again, it wouldn’t bother me.  I’m still getting wallboard dust out of my ears.

Slowly things started coming together.  This is what the space looked like in October. 

In an effort to return the house to normalcy, the computer room area was finished first.  My custom bookshelves look pretty good.

Here’s the desk and the floor in the same room.

Ever seen a BMW hauling 2×4’s and cement board?  One of the hallmarks of this project has been trying to make due with just slightly less than optimal access to certain tools and products.  It’s amazing what you can haul with duct tape and bike rack.

Tile work and grouting was a complete departure for me. It’s harder than I thought it would be, and it’s not perfect in the bathroom, but it looks pretty good for a first project. I don’t think you would notice if you weren’t specifically looking for errors.
 

Two years later, here’s how it looks.

There are plenty more edges to caulk, trim to paint and threshold to construct, but it’s close.

Of course Toto (the company that makes the sink and faucet) customer service told me “it just does that” when I asked why is sprays water on the walls. Sigh. Nothing is perfect, and that’s exactly the way things seem to be.  Sometimes it’s harder to start with something existing and make it into what you want instead of starting with a blank page, but in some ways it requires more cleverness and the results are even more satisfying.

Did anyone notice the various hairstyles through the slides?  You’ll be happy to know that the final shots were taken wearing a beautiful handlebar mustache.

Now, about that parts car sitting in the garage…