Two days ago I was putting together a two piece puzzle. Both pieces were creations of my making. Cut from 19/32″ plywood, they form the third layer of my bath floor, if you count the floor joists and those diagonal boards atop them.

Why, you ask?

Years ago the faucet snout in the tub started leaking and I didn’t get to the source of it. I assumed wrong about the origin of the water evidence. Leap forward to today and you find my bathroom gutted. The toilet, sink, tub, flooring, and some sheet rock are out.

Now I’m putting that room back together and the two piece puzzle in plywood is the floor upon which the tile hardboard will go. It all started with a small leak. Had it been serviced right away, none of this  would be necessary.

One of the first discoveries I made was that there has to be room around the edges because this stuff will expand. I had it cut so perfectly at first that it would have had no where to go and probably would have tented up and busted the tile. So I cut the edges in a bit. Originally I had the fit so tight that I couldn’t remove it for the cuts and had to use a Dremel in place. Not fun, but thank goodness I didn’t find out a harder way.

During the repairs I needed my vacuum cleaner, but it barely worked.  I’d sucked up a styrofoam bit that lodged in the hose. Two bolts were found also. and then hair and debris clogged it. A simple, innocent mistake had disabled the tool.

The lawn mower also ceased to work. It didn’t cut the grass. I discovered that the blade clutch spring snapped off. Innocent problem, big results. The yard went long before I finally found and fixed this.

My practice going forward will be to expand my already frequent approach of jumping on problems and correcting them as soon as they’re apparent. Every time I’ve not done that, the troubles have magnified many fold.

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.There were more photos that could help tell this story, but I’m having a heck of a time getting them.

Tomorrow I prepare to install the tub!