Renovation Solo Parenting

2019-11-04Us Standard

[Photos taken 04 – 16 November 2019, posted online 22 May 2020. The outside is getting greener by the day, with temps in the 16-18 C range this weekend!]

November was mostly a solo parenting month, with Finnur working in London at the very start of the month, and then transitioning to California for much of the remainder.

Meanwhile, the bathroom renovations continued, under the watchful eye of our architect/project manager. (60-ish images total)

Monday 04 November 2019

Few things are as emblematic of my solo parenting than hamburgers on the BBQ. It’s one of my go-to meals, whereas Finnur (aka The Master Chef) is not so keen.
The daily peek inside the ‘bathroom’. Some plumbing had happened.
The wall-towel radiator had been removed to make space for the tilers.
In the garage, the new water pipes were inching closer to the water-heat-exchanger.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

When I arrived at work that morning, I noticed these funny patterns on the sidewalk.
Upon further inspection it transpired that this was a functional demonstration of what happens when you throw grains of salt on top of frozen water (and it’s not too cold outside). It was pretty cool!
At home, the masons had been busy filling up gaps in the walls, and making a smooth floor!
Charming. Should we just leave it like this? 🙂
… and all the way to the shower, undiscovered hookup-mistake included.
Anna was on a week-long break from school, so she’d spent the past two days making croissants FROM SCRATCH, filo-dough and all!!!
So good!!!!!

Wednesday 06 November 2019

Picking Emma up from gymnastics practice. These thick-fleece whole-body-suits where all the rage this winter, and very convenient when wearing gym clothes underneath.
Wednesdays were such music-school-and-gymnastics-practice-shuttling-chaos-days, that I threw in the dinner-making-towel and just took the kids to Ikea for dinner. From Ikea we drove to pick up Finnur from where the airport shuttle dropped him off.

Thursday 07 November 2019

Celebratory day at work that morning, to highlight that 1000 SensorX machines had been sold worldwide. (It’s the x-ray scanning machine my group works on.)
There was a doughnut lottery, you picked a doughnut, and sent it through the machine. Some of the doughnuts had an iron pill (the supplement kind) hidden inside, and when detected you got a price.
So. Many. Doughnuts!
The team got t-shirts with the immortal slogan and drawing of one early employee.
Later that day, the bubble-mobile was set up in the atrium, and there was a big party.
The original team, telling the story of how the SensorX came to be.
Back at home-base, the walls had been smoothed, and the toilet box covered.
All the way up to the ceiling!
The shower corner.
Here be buckets!

Friday 08 November 2019

With no shower at home, I ended up mostly using the shower/dressing room at work. I also found that if I laid out gym-clothes the night before, and packed a gym-bag with my actual clothes, it was hard to not go to the gym at work a bit before showering.
The status of our hallway for the better part of two months.
Oh, look! Tiles on the floor, and a light-holding-frame up by the ceiling!
Looks convincing.
Better look at the ceiling frame.

Sunday 10 November 2019

Photos in daylight, they put in what I hope is a water-sealing paint-layer.
The pros have tools. We were happy to have a garage to accommodate the tools!
All hooked up!
The view from the ‘bathroom’. Finnur had been planned to take off for California that day, via a direct flight, but due to horrible weather the flight was cancelled, and he left a couple of days later.

Monday 11 November 2019

A relatively slow 15 minute rowing-ride I’m guessing.
After work we took the kiddos to a birthday party in Finnur’s family.
Cozy couch-ers.
Anna, still on vacation from school, but not for very much longer.
Tiles on walls!
Approaching the windows… In retrospect we probably could have saved a bunch of money by not having the whole room tiled, but oh well.
Shower dealt with.

Tuesday 12 November 2019

Happily, Finnur was still in Iceland when the call came to pick electrical fronts. We chose the top left one.
The what-to-do-about-the-door issue also crept up, so we went looking at doors. The end results was that we bought a cheap white door, and punted the problem into the future.
Demo-ing the tile that was scheduled to go on the box. I think this may have been the time where the tiler got sick for a few day.
A few hours later Finnur was on a plane, headed for San Francisco. Luckily he discovered he’d forgotten his reading-glasses before he boarded the plane, and managed to get new ones in the terminal!
I wasn’t feeling inspired to cook dinner, so I outsourced it.

Wednesday 13 November 2019

Tooth check-up about to happen. This is at 9 am, and it’s still pretty dark outside.
This was Anna’s last vacation day, and she spent it playing with colors.
In the bathroom, there was evidence the electricians had made an appearance.
It’s been nice having easily accessible plugs in the room, the old one was hidden in one of the cabinets!
Ceiling action.
This being a Wednesday, the pick-up-routine concluded at Bjarki’s gym practice. We arrived a bit early, so Emma spent some energy running along the spectator platform.

Thursday 14 November 2019

My task that day was to pick a toilet-button-front. The selection wasn’t great, but I decided on this one.
The tiler was feeling better, and made good progress that day.
Putting the toilet “front” on the tiles it would sit on. I claimed success!
Down in the garage, tile covers were piling up.
Cool gadget!

Friday 15 November 2019

Emma chose this as a reward at the dentist’s office. It turned out to be the slowest growing dinosaur ever.
Animated gif. Emma began practicing how to jump rope, and her mother chimed in with advice, taking a bunch of videos to illustrate her points on hand usage and timing. 😉
Innocent looking snow. This would end up being a pretty harsh and snowy winter.

Saturday 16 November 2019

We dug out the winter clothes. I’m not sure where we were headed though.
My calendar tells me there was a Pokemon Community Day going on at the time this photo was taken, so I was probably out and about hunting pokemon, when I bumped into this raven looking over his kingdom.
That afternoon I met my coworkers at Fly-Over Iceland, and we went on the ride. First though there was a very touristy video of an older gentleman in woolen clothes talking English with a strong Icelandic accent.
A neat map that’s located after the ride of where the videos were taken. The group then went to the home of one of the guys, and we ate dinner together and had fun.