Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Has it really been a month.

I can't believe it's been over a month since the last post.  The bathroom project was moving along smoothly and the end was in sight.  But of course the ideal world of DIY home renovations just doesn't exist in reality, especially if you own an old home and have 3 young DIYers at home who always want to help.
 
The slow down of work in the bathroom started with the grouting of the wall tiles.  I'd like to say it was a rookie mistake, but it wasn't.  It was part over confidence and part poor planning.  We are still working on the grouting and hope to finish it soon.  Well, "soon" is a relative term and if used relative to the length of time the bathroom has been taking...  I'm sure you get the point.
 
The next slow down of work was caused by the sink installation.  We had put in a pedestal sink before so I figured it would take a half a day to complete.  Now "half a day" is not a relative term; it's a definite amount of time and if multiplied by 28 gives you 14 days!  It took about a day and a half of actual work, the rest of the time was accounted for by: 
  • figuring out the very limited instructions for the faucet
  • a trip to Lowes to get an escutcheon or parts of escutcheon that would work for the drain
  • a trip to Home Depot to get an extra P-trap for the off center drain stub out coming from the wall
  • waiting for the correct valve piece to come in the mail so the cold water would open clockwise rather than counterclockwise
  • testing and correcting the drain for leaks (multiple times)
Well here it, props go to Mrs. Forest for making me test a portion of the drain prior to putting the basin back on the pedestal (would have added another week to account for frustration).

 


It's amazing how having a sink upstairs again makes such a big difference to everyday life.  Not having to run downstairs to brush our teeth has been awesome!