It's always something...

As the second weekend of the great bath remodel comes to a close, I realize (and you may be wondering what took me so long) that there is always some unforseen problem that makes a simple job take hours longer than it should have.

Yesterday, I painted the ceiling and gave a second green coat to the green walls. I then did a bit of clean up but really, I just needed a break. Too much up and down the ladder and squatting low to get baseboards had my legs cramping up and I just didn't feel like doing anything.

Today, I started out with something simple. I hung the new shower curtain rod. Oh, it's not just ANY shower curtain rod, but one of those fancy jobbers like hotels have with the curving rod. Our shower is somewhat narrow and Darling Man needs a little more space around him when showering.

After experiencing the triumph of adding the rod, I dragged my new vanity upstairs and fitted it in its space to check for leveling issues and exact placement. It leveled up beautifully with no shims, but some of the tile baseboard was missing (no idea why). Two pieces to be exact.



Oddly, there were tiles between the gaps, and since that area would be covered by the vanity anyway, I pried them off carefully and glued them into place with Liquid Nails (a questionable move, but we'll see how it goes). It turned out pretty well.

Tile issues taken care of, I turned to vanity and sink installation. I took the sink out of the cabinet and installed my very sexy faucet set, the supply hoses and the drain flange.

Then I got an old shelf and nailed it to the wall, using it as a spacer for attaching the vanity to (the tile baseboard moved the whole vanity out about 3/4 of an inch), then hammered the vanity in. Double checked the level both across and deep and it was perfect! Hurray! Time to install the sink!

I ran a bead of caulk around the top of the vanity, picked up my masterpiece sink/faucet combo and placed it gently on top of the vanity. Ah, perfect! I opened the vanity doors and after applying teflon tape to the supply faucets, hooked up the lines. Then I got the drain pipe, threaded it into the flange and tightened everything down.

Now, let me assure you that I'm no dummy. I've been watching those DIY and HGTV shows for ages. I've redone one bathroom in this house already and made every mistake possible. I learned the value of teflon tape early on, of having a wrench handy at all times. I even learned that there are times when you just say to hell with it and leave it be. I did that on the toilet downstairs. The tank was leaking at the bolt holes. I messed with that thing for a week - gingerly. See, if you tighten the bolts too tight, the tank breaks. Too loose, and you've got a leak. It's a very touchy thing - and after a week, I said "F*** it!" and put a plastic cup under the leak and emptied it out every few days. About three months later, the thing quit leaking and hasn't leaked since. Sometimes, you just say "to hell with it!"

Back to my story... where were we? Oh, yeah. Drain pipe threaded and tightened down.



Oh, for the love of Mike!!! What fresh hell is THIS? These two pipe don't even come CLOSE to meeting. I sat back on my heels and scratched my head. I tried swinging the joint over but it never really got any closer AND I managed to loosen the nut enough to make the darn thing start leaking. Crap. I turned on the supply hoses while I thought things over and BAM! More leakage. That one was my fault. I figured I could reuse the old hoses, but apparently the threads in the couplings were shot. Looks like another trip to Lowes.

Supply hoses are easy, but I really wasn't sure what to do about my drainage problem. Thank goodness there was a helpful and knowledgable young man there who came to my assistance as I rather bleakly looked at piping to replace the whole shebang from the wall out. I had taken pictures so I could illustrate the problem if I got lucky in the help department, and after looking, Helpful Plumbing Guy suggested a flexible adaptor. I wasn't sure what size my pipe was, but it looked like the bigger size. And of course, the drainpipe coming out of the sink was the smaller size.... Thank goodness for adaptable washers! Armed with two sets of everything, I checked out and drove home, mulling things over as to how I would do this.

First, I attached the smaller pipe to the larger one, and.... oh, crap again.

More contemplation.

One of my Christmas gifts to myself this year was my very own tool kit. NO ONE is allowed to touch it except me. In fact, Darling Man doesn't even know it exists, as I carefully hide it after every use. I have bought myself tools before, and they have all disappeared into the chaos that is our garage, because no one ever puts them back where they belong. So, my own tool kit. Anyway, there's a lovely little saw in my kit and when I thought of it, I knew what to do.

The final product is a jerry-rigged thing of beauty.

After much fiddling around, I got most of the leakage to stop. That darn blown out washer on the main fitting is going to be a problem, but I'll be damned if I'm going to take the whole thing apart just to fix that. It's a very small leak - nothing a bit of "Mighty Putty" can't fix. In the meantime... there's a cup under the sink.

Ain't it a thing of beauty???