How To Make Springs

[Kellemora]

We have had severe thunderstorms here nearly all week.
Debi and I just went outside in the bright warm sunshine to look to the northwest, a solid black sky was heading our way, and fast.
She went in the house and I went into my office, and no sooner than I closed the door, high winds hit, followed by a heavy downpour.
I just hope it lightens up light enough to get up over Bluff Mountain, else it will get stuck in our valley and just keep going back and forth until it runs out of rain. Basically, anything that climbs over the Cumberland Plateau, if it doesn't get lighter by the time it reaches us, or higher up, it gets stuck down here in the valley. Although Rodgers Ridge where I live on the top of, is a tall foothill, Bluff Mountain is much higher, so all the Ridges below it are down in our valley.

I'm on the north face of Rodgers Ridge, and it is tall enough, that those who live on the south side only get about 1/2 or less amount of rain that we get on this side. Then there is another Ridge further south that is not very high, so rain usually passes over that valley, and ends up getting stuck in the next valley like it does in our valley.

[yogi]

You have some interesting micro climate conditions there. I've heard other folks describe similar storms that get stuck in the valley so that it's not such a rare occurrence. All I have to look at is what's on the weather websites and all of those are models, not real time weather. I recall when weather web sites first became available up in Chicago. There was one I liked because it showed an actual radar screen with the sweep hand going around the circle. Of course you had to know something about radar and weather to make sense of all that but it was pretty accurate. The models I have access to today are on a time delay and not always accurate.

The 11 inch rain was part of a storm system that was shaped like an arc across several states. The projection of its development showed the lower part of the storm cells to just be touching the northern border of Tennessee. That arc came back through the center of St Louis and on westwared past Kansas City. We got so much rain because this line of storms was traveling west to east wit the middle of the line hovering over us for almost the entire length of the arc. My guess is there was no rain 50 miles to the south and north of us. I can't recall a time in my enti4re life where we got 11 inches all from one storm and in less than 24 hours.

It's not all dry yet but all the flooded roads seem to be open now. It truly amazes me that the water drains so quickly in thees Missouri hills.

[Kellemora]

Compared to down here, most of Missouri has excellent and well maintained watersheds, and in the urbanized areas, a marvelous sewer system.
The only real floods I remember was when the entire town of Valley Park went underwater. Other than the expected floods when they started building levees that naturally would overflow and then break open destroying much more than before the levees were built.
Heading out your way, where the outdoor ampitheater is or was, I've seen that go underwater over the tops of the seats at least three times. But that was expected also since it was built in a flood plane.

Down here, we have very little maintenance of the watershed, and very few storm sewers either.
Although I'm at the top of the local foothill, half way down the hill from us, when we get a heavy rain, you can watch it go past Debi's aunt Georgia's house and sometimes washing her sidewalk out, and a few time, the cross street right below her house. From there it goes down to Sim's road to a small creek that quickly overflows and most of Sims Road is then underwater. Then you have floods all the way from there to the Tennessee River. EXCEPT for the part called Fort Lauden Lake, which they maintain within 2 inches, never 1 inch too high, or 1 inch too low, because all the rich folks built mansions and boat docks there, hi hi.

[yogi]

The news around here showed some of O'Fallon under water, but it was not a large area. Tishaura Jones, the mayor of St Louis, however declared her city to be a disaster. I guess that would make them qualify for FEMA assistance. Apparently FEMA also has a program for individuals, but I don't know much about it. Floods are one of the things normal insurance companies won't cover, probably because they are inevitable. If you have a mortgage the lending company generally wants you to have flood insurance, but from what I understand it can only be purchased from the federal government. My old house was about ten feet east of a flood plane so that we didn't have to get that insurance. LOL Unfortunately that plane was tested out for accuracy the first year we lived there and we passed the test. No water in the house. There is a lot of damage around here and I wonder how the people are faring. I suppose it's better than fire damage because you can usually move back in to clean up the mess. Not so with fires.

There is one highway that leads from our subdivision to the Main Street in the middle of town. That is the highway that has a low spot about a mile down the road and was flooded. It was blocked off when I tried to go out Tuesday. That's when I got curious to see what it would take to get out of here to some higher grounds if necessary, or more likely to just get to town to buy groceries. Well, you can't get there from here. There seems to be a shallow valley just south of my house. It runs quite a distance east and west and is maybe a mile wide. All the water from floods accumulates there and all the roads to town go through that valley. One road about three miles west of here is on high enough ground to get through and around the valley. It's the same situation going north but the depression in the land isn't quite as extensive as down south. I'd have to go to that road to our west and go north a couple miles to get past the low land. I can see mass gridlock if we ever had to evacuate. There may be a lot of good drainage, but there aren't any high and dry routes for escape.

[Kellemora]

I just happened to have both flood insurance and water damage insurance on my house in Creve Coeur.
Ended up being flooded out twice, by water backing up in the sewer system when twice contractors made wrong connections to the sewer system, sending storm water into the sanitary sewer system.
The insurance company paid us NOTHING either time. They said it was not flood waters for that part of the policy, and water backup only are valid if your own sewer is clogged up and you had a water pipe break inside your house, that couldn't drain away.
In other words, insurance companies always have loopholes to get out of paying valid claims!
The insurance company I have down here will cover me for water damage no matter how the water got there. This worked out well for us, because after the hailstorm that destroyed our roof, they covered the hail damage, but then they had to also cover the water damage that occurred before we could have our roof repaired. It wasn't a lot of damage, because I did tarp the roof right away. But from the wet insulation, it caused the ceiling to cave-in in our living room. They covered that also.

My mom and dad's house in Ballwin was almost at the lowest point in the subdivision. There were only a few houses lower than he was. But whoever built the subdivision made massive storm drains down there, so despite the subdivision next to us getting flood, none of the lower houses ended up with any standing water, not in the street and not in their yards.
Now some families on the other side of the road that had a natural creek over there, although the creek did overflow due to volume of water, it didn't overflow by much, because it ended in a large storm sewer that carried the water to the Sulphur Springs watershed. The Sulphur Springs watershed dumps into a massive 6 foot diameter pipe that runs all the way to the Meramec River, so the intersection of Manchester Road and Highway 141 would never go under water ever again.

If we go out of our subdivision here, going North, which is all downhill to the next subdivision before it goes back uphill again. There is a low plot of ground there, normally where a house would be, but that small spot is considered a flood plane, so nobody can own that piece of land. Knox County actually owns it, and because of our sandy soil it won't hold water.
So, what they have done there is brought in a dozen or so trucks of B-sized gravel or larger and filled it up, then over the B-sized gravel they put smaller gravel, about 3/4 inch limestone. They added a couple of swing sets, and a low slide, and called it a public park, hi hi. All of that has happened since I moved down here. Before then it was a mud hole, hi hi.

Although we have to go downhill to get out of here. Valley Drive runs into Sims Road higher than the water ever gets and we can go south on Sims to Brown Road, but during flooding, it is best to turn right onto Brown Road which takes you way out of the way, but to a whole different shopping area that is always high and dry.

Since we don't have storm sewers here in my area, or natural gas for that matter, we are left with whatever the weather decides to do.
I read somewhere yesterday that some new subdivisions, don't remember which city or state, can no longer have natural gas either. All the homes have to be total electric, like my Gold Medallion home was supposed to be, but still had a gas furnace and water heater, because at the time the subdivision was built, the electric grid could not handle another total electric subdivision, Still Can't, hi hi.

[yogi]

We had flood insurance while we had a mortgage on the old house, and some kind of water damage insurance that was tied to the sump pump. If the pump failed and the basement flooded that was covered. If the pump failed because there was a general power outage, that was not covered. And there was a drainage ditch running though our back yard which I always feared would some day wash us out. Too bad if it did because that too was not covered. You would think all those things are valid cause to make a claim, but they were not written into the contract. It might have been possible to get it all covered for a very high premium which makes sense. Anything that is likely to happen cannot be insured for more than the premiums collected. Those insurance people are not like the government where they can print out money with they run short. It all goes back to what you have been telling me about businesses and how they make money. Any increase in costs are born by the consumer. In the case of insurance those increased costs, or claim payouts, are precisely calculated in advance. The buyer has the option to pay for the full coverage or not. Most people don't and a few regret it.

The stream in our back yard was part of the flood plane. The origin of the stream was about a mile away from an underground spring so that it passed through many home sites before it got to ours. The neighbor to the north had a small swamp associated with the stream and all of that was considered flood plane. He had to get the Corps of Engineers involved when he built his house because it was illegal to destroy swampland without replacing it. It turns out that only applied to 5 acres or more of swamp. His swamp was not even half an acre but it still was mushy and wet a lot of the time. He solved that problem when they built a subdivision next door to him. The builders paid him to use that swamp land as a detention pond. It was still his responsibility and he owned it but now it was serving a useful purpose. One year, however, the detention pond filled up and overflowed into my stream. That was exciting but we never got water in the house because the stream overflowed into the street before the level got too high.

All of that and more are reasons why I thank the gods of rain for this well drained Missouri subdivision.

[Kellemora]

You will probably laugh if I told you I had a named item insurance policy, back when I had some really expensive things at home. I also had another insurance policy on some things I carried with me to various jobs as well.
The only problem with named items is they are depreciated over a certain period of time, but the rates stay the same.
Some items become worth more over time, so those rates go up every year.
Probably the most expensive of my insurance policies was on my Lowery HR98K Theater Organ I took with me to play music jobs. It was insured for catastrophic loss, vandalism, damage incurred while on a job, and other perils. It was not insured for consequential damages like from moving it from place to place or while in a truck being transported. But I did have contents insurance on the truck which stated it covered my organ in the event of an accident that would damage it.
All that money I paid out over the years, and never needed to make a single claim.

A friend of mine lived in a mobile home park. A really nice one too, but it was way out in the boonies at the time.
The whole park was supplied water by a large well, but for wastewater, all they had was the huge lagoon down far away from the living area of the park. It worked more or less like an open septic tank, but it rarely had any odors from it. They put a huge chain link fence around it after they saw kids playing down around it. It had an overflow that ran into a creek, but the effluent from that nasty thing was considered safe clean water. Go figure.
About ten or so years later, a septic sewer system was installed and they had to tie into it and great cost, and of course they passed that cost on to those who lived in the park. And that is when the backups and overflowing sewage problems appeared.

[yogi]

I don't find your "item insurance" policy humorous at all. While our home insurance covers contents of the home there are certain things the normal policy covers only to a point. A genuine fur coat, for example, would be covered under clothing. If it were mink or some other expensive fur it had to have a rider attached or a separate policy of its own to cover full replacement. In the early days of computer ownership, they didn't cover it fully. After all these years that same policy has increase the dollar amount it will reimburse for contents so that this computer is covered. Not sure the laptop is, which is worth more than this tower.

It's kind of a crazy concept when you think about insurance of any kind. You the buyer of coverage are betting that disaster will happen. The insurance company is betting it will not. In your case they won the bet because you never made a claim. The system is rigged legally in that insurance companies know the odds or likelihood of any loss occurring. Thus they adjust premiums accordingly. You may not know the odds, but the trick is to get a quote first. If the premium is sky high that means the insurance people know they will have to pay out. If it's a small amount then the odds are in your favor and there likely is no need to purchase a policy. I use that strategy all the time with extended warranty coverage. It's dirt cheap in most cases and pure profit for the insurer because they know it's not likely to happen. Well, if they know it won't happen, then there is no need for me to extend the coverage.

[Kellemora]

I've only bought an extended warranty on something twice in my lifetime.
I figured most things I could fix myself, so why pay for it.
Back when VHS recorders were new on the market, and very expensive, plus I heard a few bad things about them, I decided to get the extended warranty, and it clearly stated it covered the recorders heads, motor, belts, etc.
I also got an extended warranty on a window air conditioner, because the price was cheap, like only 10 bucks.
The heads on the VHS recorder became clogged, so I sent it in to the place the warranty folks told me to send it.
They said, the warranty covers a failed recorder head, not one that is just clogged up.
They did clean it for me for 35 bucks, but I still paid the shipping both ways, since what they fixed wasn't a warranty issue.
Now the window AC was a different story. The blower in it quit working after about a year so was into the extended warranty period. The warranty service center was nearby so I took it out and brought it to them. They did replace the blower motor for free. The new motor they put in only lasted about another year, so I took it out and brought it back to them again. They said the extended warranty only covers replacement one time. OK, I brought it home and bought a new blower motor myself and installed it. It continued to work just fine the remaining 3 years I lived there. Since it was my AC unit, I took it out and stuck it in my garage, where it sat for like 5 years before I had a use for it. I put it in a little patio room at a friends house where we would gather to do things like play cards or games, or just sit and talk. It was in his patio room all the years he lived there and never gave him a bit of trouble. He left it when he sold his house.

My wife got the extended warranty on a multi-purpose blender. Those big ones with all the attachments. They replaced the power head on it for her 3 different times while it was still under warranty. She never bought that brand again, hi hi. She didn't get the warranty on the new one she bought later, and here it is still working over 20 years later like a charm.

[yogi]

I have a Nikon digital SLR camera. It's old and the photo sensor is something like 4 MB, or perhaps less. I forgot already. The camera and every accessory I could buy for it set me back around $1,000 - the camera itself was about $700. It came with a limited warranty as all new cameras do. I'm not sure if it was one year of something else, but the camera shop wanted to sell me extended warranty coverage. I did not take it. The camera worked fine well past the end of it's factory warranty. Then the image screen no longer functioned properly; it looked like snow on an old TV screen.

There was a camera repair shop for Nikons not too far from me so that I took the camera there. They sympathized with me but said they only do light repairs and cleaning but would send the camera to the Nikon factory in New York. It seemed like a fatal failure but I agreed to let them do it. It took more than a month to get the camera back. They called and told me the problem was the photo sensor had to be replaced. A tear came to my eye knowing that was the most expensive part in the camera, but me and my credit card drove over to the shop to pick up the revived corpse. The repair was free. There was no charge at all and the lady at the desk didn't know anything about why. All she knew was how to take in broken cameras and hand out fixed ones.

I was elated and confused about it all but the camera worked fine and is still working today. After that repair incident I ran across an old review for the camera. People were saying not to buy it because the photo sensor is crappy. One comment, however, rebutted the bad review and mentioned that Nikon decided after they discovered all those bad sensors to replace them free. Just send them the camera, working or not, and there will be no costs whatsoever. That was a good decision on Nikon's part and they fully impressed me in that the repair came to them well after the warranty expired. Kudos to them.

I just read a few days ago where Nikon will no longer manufacture digital SLR cameras.

[Kellemora]

Wow, you did really luck out on that deal.
The only Digital cameras I ever owned were fairly cheap and used in my home renovation business. They all worked great, and still do, but I never use them anymore. Too easy to use an old Schmartz-Fone that no longer has service associated with it.
And I think the quality of the pictures is even higher than my old Digital camera was.

I had a VHS camera that used the standard size VHS cartridges, so yes it was big, hi hi.
When I bought it, I opted to get the Low Light sensor which cost a couple hundred bucks more, but I'm glad I did.
When everybody else's little movies were coming out dark, especially indoors, mine were nice and bright with no light bar being used. I gave it to Debi right after we got married and she used it for a while, then got a smaller one that used a small diameter CD disk. Which work in any CD player by the way.

I have my Yashica TL Electro-X and all the associated lenses and stuff I had with it up for sale, but since I'm not advertising it anywhere, no one has stumbled across my pages for things I have for sale, hi hi.

I don't blame Nikon really for not making any more digital cameras. Everybody has a Schmartz-Fone these days, and professional photographers have pro-equipment.

[yogi]

My experience with the Nikon camera was similar to what automobile people do with recalls. A defective component was used to manufacture the camera and Nikon felt obligated to correct the problem in all their cameras with that particular sensor. Apparently there was an announcement somewhere to the effect that Nikon was recalling the cameras and fixing them for free. I missed that, but was utterly shocked when they still honored the recall so late in the game. Speaking of automobile recalls, I got two recalls from the old Saturn I owned. They were mailed to me even though the car was eight years old. I think in the case of GM, however, they were legally bound to make the recall. Nikon was just being nice about it.

Apparently Nikon isn't the only company migrating away from DSLR cameras. I read where Canon will do the same in the near future. There probably are others. You are correct to note that smartphones harve cameras that take pretty good pictures, which are not true images by the way. They doctor them up to look good and also use a non-standard color pallet. Professionals are not using smartphone cameras for their work nor are serious hobbyists. They are using mirrorless SLR cameras. That's what Nikon and Canon will be focused on (punny) and it seems to be the direction the industry is moving.

I recall looking into getting a Hasselblad to replace that Nikon, which was dozens of years ago. At that time Hasselblad only made film cameras even though digital cameras were well entrenched. They didn't have a digital camera per se, but they did have some kind of pack that you could attach to the camera after you remove the film carrier. That pack was a digital back end in a literal sense and only sold as an accessory. I didn't go that route because I had to buy the standard camera and the digital attachment. Even back in those days it was several thousands of dollars. I didn't want to spend that much because I only intended to use half the camera.

[Kellemora]

Because my Yashica used a focal plane shutter, I could have bought a new back cover for it that would turn it into a digital camera. I thought my add-on 100 foot film spools were big, but you should have seen that digital attachment cover. Besides the electronics, it held two really large batteries about the diameter of a D sized flashlight battery and as long as one and a half D cells. Big suckers. The price of it was way out of my range too. Seems like it recorded on a mini-CD disk too. Once I heard how much it cost, I didn't venture much further into how it worked, hi hi.

One of the super old cameras I owned was 5x7 speed Graflex, which used glass plates. Got it from Francis Scheidegger when he retired and was selling off everything in his studio. I really couldn't do anything with it until I got an attachment that used sheet film I could have developed at Schillers. It wasn't very practical, because you had to by the film carrier for each photo you wanted to take. I bought like six carriers, would load them at home in the dark of course, so that way I could take six pictures before I had to make a trip down to Schillers, hi hi. They were the only place that could develop sheet film, all the way up to 12x18 if need be. They had a fellow looking for a large format camera and after seeing the pictures I took he made me an offer for the camera. One I couldn't refuse at the time, because I was near broke, hi hi.

[yogi]

When I was in college I was a photographer for a school newsletter. Well, it was me and a few other guys with a lot more experience. I had the pleasure of using a Hasselblad camera which had large square film. I think it was 3x3 but might have been something else that was close. We had a darkroom and developed our own film which was done using trays if I recall correctly. We also had a very dark red light in the room which didn't seem to affect the film. We only used it when necessary but you could in theory go through the whole developing process with it on. Using the camera and developing the film was a pain in the drain. But the contact prints made from those films were superior. There was detail you could never get using an enlarger.

Here in my seventh decade of life I am perfectly happy with the fake pictures my clever phone takes for me. Oddly enough I could probably afford all the things I could not buy when I was younger, but I don't have the interest anymore. I love taking pictures and the Pixel has produced some remarkable photos. I just don't see myself in a darkroom full of chemicals hoping it all turns out. Besides, technology has changed things quite a bit. I don't think they sell amateur darkroom equipment anymore. I'd not have a clue where to buy a bottle of short stop or fixer, or even if it's possible.

[Kellemora]

I used to develop my own black and white 620 size film at home, just for the sake of doing it is all.
I would go into a dark closet with a towel under the bottom of the door to take the film off the paper and feed it onto the developing spool that fit inside of a black plastic tank. Once it was inside that tank, I could go over to the sink and pour the developer into the tank, and then empty it and put the fixer in, empty it and put the distilled water in. Then take it out and hang it up to dry. I didn't have an enlarger, but did have the little light box you laid a piece of print paper in, also in the dark, hi hi. Then you laid the negative over the print paper and put the black cover on, then under a desk lamp you removed the cover for so many seconds, and put the cover back. Then it was lights out time, and you opened the black box, took out the paper and slip it into a tray to develop, then you moved it to another tray, and then you could turn the lights on and watch it until it was the darkness you wanted, then move it to the wash tray. Then they had to dry too.
Doing all of that became old hat after about a year or two, and I just took my film to the drug store, hi hi.
Do you know I still have my Brownie Hawkeye camera sitting here on a shelf in my office.
Wish I still had the Kodak with bellows camera I once had, but it was falling apart. Chunked it.

I was doing home renovations when I bought my first very cheap digital camera. I bought it mainly to take pictures of the work I did so if called on, I could show them to the inspector, so he knew I didn't cut corners, and wouldn't have to open a wall back up again for him to see first hand what I did. Normally, after you do an electrical rough-in, you have to wait for the inspector to approve it. I never once failed his inspection, so he said just take me some pictures and keep on working. Ironically, even with all the pictures in hand, he knew my work and usually never even looked at them.

I even amazed the plumbing inspector a few times. But the big one was putting a 5 foot bathtub in a 3-1/2 foot wide bathroom. He was dumbfounded when he saw it. Couldn't find anything wrong with what I did, so it passed with flying colors, hi hi.
This same inspector once called me to study a situation at his house. He wanted a sink and toilet in his mud room, which was a walkway between his backyard and had a door from his garage on one side, and a door to the kitchen on the other side. It also had a door to one end of the front porch. The hall itself was only 36 inches wide.
Since nobody used the front door at the end of the porch, he thought about maybe putting it there, but his wife was against that. His garage was a normal two car garage, but with enough room in front of the cars for a place to put his riding lawnmower, and a workbench he could use when his car wasn't in there. The garage floor was also like 26 inches below his mud room floor. The other plus was, the mud room was heated, not like a breezeway would not be heated.
I built up from the floor of his garage, 30 inches from the outside wall, and 4 feet from the mud room wall. The allowed room for the bathroom door to open in instead of out. Since the garage itself was not heated, I ran all the plumbing under the floor of the new bathroom, including a small heating duct that had a small vent under the floor as well as one inside the wall. The toilet tank was only 3 inches away from the exterior wall, and the sink was on the back and right wall tight. But because that wall was to the unheated garage, all the plumbing went straight down to under the floor, which was heated, and I placed a panel under the sink to hide the plumbing and left the floor are open a bit under it so the heat would rise up under the sink and keep those pipes from freezing.
I also added a medicine chest mirror behind the sink, and a rack that held six rolls of TP under the sink you could reach while seated on the throne. I built the TP roller into the exterior wall and added coathooks on the wall behind the door.
This was another one of those jobs I did where I got a $500.00 tip from the guy. And his wife liked the fact I added a tire stop on the floor in the garage, so she didn't have to worry about hitting it. She could pull in until she hit that wedge. So she was happy too. After all, the bathroom was mainly for her anyhow. The closest bathroom to the kitchen was down two hallways heading to the bedrooms. Which by the way was a mighty long run for me to run the waste plumbing as well. I couldn't tie into the kitchen waste plumbing for a toilet. I did use a smaller than normal pipe size for the vent through the roof though. Still up to code size though.

[yogi]

Putting a 5' tub into a 3-1/2' wide room sounds like a fantastic feat. I don't see how there could be any room to do anything but step into the tub. Then there is the problem of getting the tub into place. I suppose you simply tore down a wall or two and didn't have to deal with 30" doorways, but it's still a very tight fit.

I guess one huge advantage of being a building inspector is that you get to see the handiwork of many different tradesmen. You know who the good ones are when you need something done for yourself. Finding that "good" tradesman can be a costly endeavor without prior knowledge of who you are dealing with. That is one of the big problems with living in O'Fallon. I don't know who the good guys are, or even if there are any.

The camera in my clever phone has come in handy more than a few times to document things. Sometimes unexpected things. A few years ago I was involved with an automobile crash. The damage was minor but still pretty expensive to repair. The driver of the other car was a kid with a new license; maybe only a couple month since he got it. We both had cameras in our phones and took pictures of each other's license and insurance cards. I also photographed the damage on both cars even though I figured the insurance company would not need it. It was a good thing that I had my camera/phone with me because I didn't have a pencil and paper in the car to write down any details. We called the police and supposedly they made a report that neither one of us ever saw. They just took down the details and gave us a crash report number for the insurance people. On another occasion I ordered a medicine cabinet from Kohler. it was all glass mirrors except for the trim and fairly expensive. It arrived with one of the mirror doors shattered. Looked like somebody put something on top of it and crushed it, but who knows. All the driver knew is where to deliver the pallet with a box on it. We called to tell the people we bought it from about the damage and asked how they wanted us to return it. They didn't. They shipped us a new one with no need to return the old one. All they wanted was a few pictures of the damage. Again my clever camera/phone came in handy. I also take pictures of s/n and model information tacked onto most things I buy new. That saves me the trouble of trying to get that information later on should I need to. I photograph the packaging most of the time because it typically has more information on it than does the model # plate attached to the unit. I also photograph the UPC barcode. Scanning that or entering the number into a web browser always brings up a complete description. I suppose I could do that with the Nikon too. But the cleverphone makes sure I have a good readable picture every time. That's not always possible with the DSLR.

[Kellemora]

I used to have an article with pictures on my original website showing how I did it, and how well it looked when completed.
I had to use some fancy tricks to do it, but it worked out well.
Old houses, built before plumbing, or even after plumbing, would have the waste stack exposed, usually in the bathroom behind the toilet.
The particular house I was working in, originally did not have a bathroom, and a small porch was converted to a bathroom with ALL the plumbing exposed. I wanted to hide all this plumbing, which required moving all the plumbing as well.
The room to the west of the bathroom at one time had a door to the porch, hidden when they added the bathroom. And an old cook stove with a chimney was on the far north west corner of the kitchen. They installed a new door to outside on the north wall in the corner, and built a covered small porch outside this door with steps down to the ground.
The only cabinetry in this room was old white cabinets on the west wall of the kitchen. From the new door to outside, it was a walkway to the door to the living room, but just far enough to the right, they could add a small bedroom on the east wall.
Needless to say, I took out that small bedroom because it could not pass code, it did have a window, but the room only measured like 4 feet by 7 feet.
This was also a two-story house which offered its own challenges as far as working with vent pipes.
In the end, I went ahead and used the existing vent pipe, but built a new false wall over it. This false wall became the North wall of the bathroom. The bathtub was tight against this wall lengthwise with the head of the tub facing the kitchen or west wall, and the foot of the tub into the east wall.
I cut out the kitchen wall to slide the tub in that way, and also removed the lath and plaster from the east wall for the foot of the tub. I also notched the 2x4s on the foot end of the tub to gain about 2 inches. So I had enough room for insulation and to put greenboard up that covered the lip of the tub, and then 4x4 tile over that so it met the top of the tub in front of the flange, but just far enough that none of the curving of the tubs top was covered, so it looked correct.
Now the faucet end of the tub, and all the water supply plumbing was actually inside the kitchen.
So the bathtub faucets and spout, and drain control handle, etc. were all in an alcove of about 1 foot deep. Then at the top of this alcove I built back out to the bathroom wall size and placed the showerhead up there. Once in the tub you could easily reach the faucets without banging your head on anything. Or if you wanted to, you could sit down on the edge of the toilet and reach in to turn the water on from there too. The toilet tank was 2 feet away from the edge of the tub. Which left a 2-1/2 foot walkspace between the tub and the toilet, and a little over 3 feet in front of the toilet bowl.
A Vanity was placed to the left of the toilet. So the plumbing for it was also inside the kitchen walls, not on an outside wall like the original sink. Come to think of it, because of the door, I may have left the sink on the east wall, but ran the plumbing down to the basement at this house. Seems like I built a shelf also to hide the original exposed sink vent, although I added new plumbing down into the basement then over to the vent stack.
On the kitchen side, where all the plumbing was for the tub, and for the kitchen sink, that was all covered inside the wall, and made so it came out flush with the end of the kitchen counter, where I installed a corner cabinet, along with the rest of the cabinets. I also installed several electrical outlets behind the kitchen counter and under the overhead cabinets. It looked really great when completed, if I don't say so myself, hi hi.

Interesting you brought that up, because I used to take pictures of everything I did in a house, not that the customer got all the pictures of course. But they received the make and model numbers of everything I installed, plus got the paperwork that went with them too, if there was paperwork that is. I normally gave them pictures of the electrical rough-in but after the walls were up, just so they could see the wiring inside the outlet boxes, so they knew how a room was wired if they had a problem. I was a heavy user of 3-way and a few 4-way switches, and they needed to know what type of switches were used, especially a heavy duty switch I used to power a heater/fan unit in the bathroom.
I have this old habit, which is a good habit, of making sure to use at least two separate circuits for bathroom lighting. One goes to one side of the breaker panel, and the other to the other side of the breaker panel. And none of the outlets are on a lighting circuit either. However, should they trip a main breaker, or the electric only go out on one leg to their panel box, they would still have light inside the bathroom. Well, unless the electric went totally out.
In fact, one of the inspectors thought it was overkill to run a separate lighting wire for each fixture in a small room like a bathroom. But he liked the idea and when I was working in his house, he asked me to do the same there for him.
I've always used an independent circuit for the refrigerator, a separate for the dishwasher as well.
You would love the bathroom I built here. Especially how I did the wiring.
If you are seated on the throne, there is a switch to your left hand that turns on the ceiling fan, another switch by the sink also turns on this same fan. Next to the switch by the sink that turns on the fan is a heavy duty switch that turns on the heating element in the ceiling fan. And inside the lighting area of the fan/heater is a secondary small 7 watt lamp that is on 24/7, but it uses an LED bulb. No way to turn it off either, hi hi. I designed it so you would have light in the bathroom for the 3 am jaunt when you don't want to wake up because of lighting, but don't want to miss the throne either, hi hi.
Plus the lights around the vanity, top and both sides. The top lights are on an on/off switch, the side lights are on a dimmer switch. Plus I have a medicine cabinet on each side of the sink, and a large three door mirrored medicine cabinet behind the sink. The reason for doing it that way is you can see the back of your own head by looking right or left while standing at the sink. It's all these little tricks I've learned over the years that make a bathroom fully functional and filled with amenities.

[yogi]

It's not likely that I'll ever be designing my own bathroom again. I did on the last house but had limited flexibility there. An architect drew up the plans and we modified that slightly, but the routing for the electric and plumbing was up to the general contractor. I like the description of what you did and probably would do something similar with the wiring. I have one of those heater/vents with a bunch of lights in it, which was a replacement of the original fixture. The electrician who came out to wire it all didn't have the proper switch in his truck so that the always-on LED is not always on. It's not even functional. I get around that easily. In the middle of the night I simply do not turn on the bathroom lights. I sit down in the girlie position and do what has to be done that way. Never missed the target yet. LOL The Kohler medicine cabinet has two mirrored doors hinged on the cabinet's sides. Thus when both are open I can do exactly what you do to see the back of my head. My old house had a mirror on the opposite wall of the medicine cabinet so that it was not necessary to open the doors on that one.

I have an idea what you did to build the tub into the wall and notch out the studs to get some extra room. Doing that is basic enough, but getting the wall tiles to look good where they join the tub is no small trick. I tried to do exactly that in the first house I owned and, well, I'll say it was acceptable but obvious. There is no room for mistakes in that situation. The tub and the walls don't move after they are mated. Any measurement errors are there forever.

Not everyone likes them but I think I would have a bidet in my dream bathroom. I've seen ones that integrate into the conventional toilet seat and are very inconspicuous. There is a control panel on the wall that sets things such as temperature and spray pattern, but some models also have a hand held remote to adjust things on the run. They even have hot air blow driers as part of the installation. The ads make it all sound amazing. The price of such a set up is indeed amazing. Several thousands of dollars in fact.

[Kellemora]

It takes a lot of extra wires to have the switched lights to the main lamps, the unswitched light that is always on, and then of course the heavy duty circuit for the heater unit. I wired the ceiling like you would do for a ceiling fan w/light on separate switches. Meaning I used 4 wire Romex, Hot red, Switched Hot Black, Neutral White, and plain Copper ground. So the switched Hot Black went to the lights, the unswitched Red to the night light. I ran a separate 3 wire Romex to the heater unit.
I used 14 gauge for lighting and 12 gauge for outlets and the small heater.

The particular tub I bought had a fairly wide flat area before the curve started, which is one reason I picked that particular tub for that bathroom. It is normal to put the greenboard over the mounting lip of the tub, and it leaves room for tile, and it all looks right when finished. If you stick a straightedge on the tub in most bathrooms, you'll see the greenboard is out about 1/16th inch, because it goes over that little lip. I always make a small notch when I install a tub anyhow so the greenboard is perfectly vertical, not bowed in at the bottom.
But on the tub I did at the house I was talking about, that tub had a very wide flat area, so I could really notch out those rear studs a good way. Why it was made that way I have no idea, but when I spotted it in the warehouse, I told the salesman, that's the one I wanted. Turns out there was a chip on the front left bottom corner, so I got a good discount on it too. Didn't matter because that end of the tub was hidden behind a wall anyhow, hi hi.

I've stayed in a couple of motels that had bidets in the bathrooms. Tried them, didn't like them, hi hi.
Neither did my wife of that era either. The bidet was a separate unit from the toilet also.
So you would have to stand up from the pot and move over to the bidet with your britches down, hi hi.

The only time she thought she could have used one was after she had her two kids, that warm water would have worked miracles. But other than that, she didn't think she would ever use one.

[yogi]

I first saw a real bidet dozens of years ago at my cousin's house. She had one of those old styles that you describe. It actually looked like a water fountain that you would sit on, and I wasn't too sure which direction you would face when seated. She claimed she loved it about once a month, and I could see the utility of it in that case. I never tried to use a bidet even when we stayed in some fancy hotel. We stayed at the Kohler factory resort in Wisconsin and they had state of the art fixtures in the rooms. I did take a shower in their $40,000 stall, which was outrageously priced for back in the 90's. That's a shower I'll never forget for all the options. In any case they have bidets today that integrated into a normal toilet. You sit as you normally would and then hit the remote to move the bidet spray into position and start the process. I guess it also has instant hot water which is a hidden expense people don't talk about. It costs a small fortune to install an instant hot water feed. Apparently the spray can be a steady stream or one that sort of massages you in all the right places. And, to make it a totally paperless process there is a hot air dryer as well. I think the one I looked at priced out around 6 grand. I can get a lot of toilet paper for that price even with inflation factored in. LOL

That ceiling fan with a heater looked pretty simple to me, but we wanted two installed. One in each bathroom. Thus an electrician was called to keep the project time down under one week. The electrician was somewhat limited in what he could do because the old fan didn't have a heater in it. Nor did it have a night light. Thus whatever wiring existed had to be modified or some serious rewiring at $75/hr (might have been more now that I think about it) had to be done. In the end the fan vent didn't match the existing one. 3" pipe verses a pre-existing 4" pipe. He said I would have to get an HVAC guy out to install an adapter. That was three years ago. I have yet to call him out.