11/28/11 (Monday) John advised me to use silicone caulk to seal the bottoms of the drywall board in the bathroom. I bought a supply of paintable silicone caulk for that purpose.

11/29-12/1/11 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped and visited Uncle Charles in Monroe for a while. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:45. There had been no new snow since last week. I started a fire in the stove, moved my gear in, and had lunch. Then I caulked the bottoms of the drywall boards in the bathroom walls.

Then I went back outside and split three big firewood rounds and hauled the wood up onto the back porch and stacked it.

Back inside, I cut and laid the first three flooring panels in the bathroom. These had to be fitted around the plumbing in the floor so they took a little extra time. By the time I finished those panels, it was time for a shower and the end of the day.

On Wednesday I finished installing the bathroom floor except for under the toilet. I cut the two pieces to go under the toilet except for the drain hole and set them aside. I also used my home-made 120 lb roller to roll the new floor.

The weather was beautiful and sunny all day. The temperature stayed right around 30 degrees. I split and hauled up some more firewood, and while I was outside, Bert and Ernie showed up. We had a nice stroking and hugging session before I went in and got them some biscuits and some left-over gravy. I noticed a lump on Bert's side which I hope is not a serious problem. They are getting to be pretty old dogs.

On Thursday morning I bit the bullet and took the toilet out. With Bill Weaver's encouragement that I got when I discussed this process with him, I lifted the toilet up by brute force and awkwardness without using an overhead come-along like I had planned. I figured that if it ended up being too heavy to put back by hand, I could always rig up the come-along later.

I set the toilet on some cardboard in the corner of the bathroom while I went to work laying the last two flooring panels. The first one went in and fit perfectly. I was feeling good and confident as I cut the hole for the drain in the second piece and brought it in to lay it.

I had mixed up left and right, or front and back, or something, but the hole was not in the right place. There was no way to make it work, so I started over with a new panel and made a second one. This one fit perfectly but I still felt pretty stupid about the first try.

With the floor completed, I put a new wax ring down and replaced the toilet. I had no problem setting the toilet by hand. The problem I had had in installing the toilet the first time was that the anchor bolts wouldn't stand up straight. I had trouble getting them to go through the holes in the bottom of the toilet because they would fall over. This time, to avoid that problem, I used some of the wax from the old wax ring to pack around the bolts to hold them in place. It worked slick.

I was very happy to have the floor done and the toilet working again. But I was running short of time. Messing up on that second piece of flooring had taken a lot of time I hadn't planned on.

Dave is planning on coming up to Camp Serendipity with me next week and I had planned to use part of the morning to clean the place up. Now, I didn't have that much time. All I had time to do was to burn a lot of old cardboard that was lying around. The cardboard had been used for packing for the cabinets and the doors. I also had the empty boxes from the flooring that I had installed. I'll have to apologize to Dave about the mess. Maybe he can help me clean some of it up next week.

I had my lunch and left for home at 1:20 looking forward to Dave's visit next week.