What do you mean, no flange?

So, on Saturday morning the toilet came up. We were sure we'd find something pretty questionable down there, based on our general experiences in this house and the puddle of water that formed on the basement floor. We weren't (were?) disappointed; the last person to install the toilet did so without using a toilet flange. They just stuck a wax ring onto the top of the drain pipe and dropped the toilet on top. Then they screwed the toilet to the subfloor.

Needless to say, non-standard toilet installation is not a good idea. In the decade that toilet was sitting there, bit by bit the floor rotted due to water not quite getting into the drain. So Nick & Dad spent the better part of Saturday morning digging out what was rotten and getting a flange put in place.

By the time I got home it was time to actually install the toilet. That wasn't as easy as we'd hoped, and we had to make a second trip to the hardware store to get an extension for the socket wrench. Somehow I got the job of reaching around the toilet to try to attach the tank to the bowl. I'm obviously just a weekend warrior - I had to rethink which direction an upside down "righty-tighty" was several times. Still, it's finally in. Here's the new (and incredibly tall) toilet in the bathroom, and the old (shall we make it a rabbit-proof planter?) toilet in the yard.
Now I just have to paint the sections of wall that were unreachable when we had the old toilet. That is, of course, if I'm not spending all my time working elsewhere. I have another Saturday shift at work, and every moment I have free seems to be spent working at mom's. Saturday afternoon was painting the exterior of her house (while Nick helped dad with the deck), and Sunday was painting the interior. Thank goodness I took Monday to work for myself, or I'd still be microwaving in the dining room, wearing dirty clothes, and crawling over piles of tools everywhere!

I even took enough time to play with Moxie and her tent. After sitting on the floor for three years with almost no activity, this tent is now Moxie's favorite toy. It's already been through one repair, and needs a second stint with my sewing box very soon.





So, what's next? I've still got to go through everything we took out of the basement and get that space set up. I've put in my order for a new laundry shelf, which I'm hoping Nick will get done over the weekend while I'm at work. I've also got to get our last boxes out of the storage locker and all the junk sorted and moved out of the spare bedroom. We have to move all the furniture at mom & dad's over the weekend and there's supposed to unload a bed that'll be going into that spare bedroom! Right now I can barely get through that room to water the plants . . . I guess I know what I'll be doing when I'm not watching LOST this week. That, and figuring out how to stuff an old toilet in a Chevy Malibu.

Three Down, How Many More To Go?

First the drain tile in the basement (no water yet . . . it works!). Then the plumbing extravaganza (pipes, chimney lining, shut-off valves, and water heater). Finally, the new kitchen counter and sink. I thought that all would go smoothly with the tile at least. How difficult can it be?

We have learned it can, in fact, be quite difficult. First came the electrician to install some under cabinet lights. We (fools that we are) thought that would be a simple job lasting a couple hours. No such luck. The curse of the handyman special came back with a vengeance. Our kitchen electrical was so confused and not up to code that it took the electrician a day and a half to get it all sorted out. So, as you can imagine, that one ended up costing about four times what we'd hoped. Instead of actually counting up the real job, you can just estimate our electrician costs by the number of outlets we end up with in the end; it's about $300-$400 per outlet. Of course, our first call to an electrician was far less than that (only about $50 per outlet), but that electrician came to fix up our bad wiring job. Apparently we are only slightly bad electricians, whereas the previous handyman electrician was a real loser.

Of course, the budget busting electrical work came before the actual counter tops. The tile went in pretty well, with no major hangups until the finish work. Then came my beautiful, Kohler cast-iron, special order sink. It didn't fit in the hole. It wasn't that the hole was cut too small or too big. It was the actual cabinet that was too small. The deranged gnome who built my lower cabinets 2 inches too shallow also built the sink cabinet about two inches too narrow on each side. You can't fit a fabulous cast-iron sink into a space with cabinet walls infringing on it. The bowls don't fit inside. You also can't fit a snazzy stainless steel sink, since there's no way to clamp it in place. Goodbye beautiful sink (and $35 in restocking fees). Hello cheesy acrylic.
And since no home improvement stores provide handy specs for their goods, there's no way to figure out which awful sink will actually fit unless you either look at every possibility on the sink manufacturers websites, or open up the sink, flip it over, and measure it yourself. We did a combination of both. At least the acrylic sink fits.

Then we had to install the faucet and drain pipes. Nick failed to look at the big red letters on the side of the plumbers putty - the ones that say DO NOT USE ON PLASTIC - so we installed the drains and faucet using the wrong stuff. Finally Nick was sent out to get some silicone caulk and we had to go through the process of uninstalling and reinstalling . . . at 10:30 on a Sunday night!

And then, finally, we had our new counters, sink, and lights. It's really lovely, and now all I have to do is try to keep it from being ruined!But wait . . . There's more! As soon as we were done with the kitchen, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Before I could even switch on the light, my foot landed in a puddle. I have never wished I had stepped in cat pee so much in my life. Unfortunately the cats have all been relatively well-behaved. The puddle was actually water that seeped from the base of the toilet. It looks as though our wax ring has failed. And to top it off, the mechanics in the tank seem to be off: there's a constant sound of refilling unless you manually lift the float at the end of a flush.

Now, pulling up the toilet to replace the wax ring wouldn't be so tough, but remember, Satan's handyman worked on this house. The shutoff valve won't budge, and instead of being bolted in place, the toilet was just screwed to the subfloor. And those screws are completely rusted. Nick is going to attempt to replace the valve, and he's already memorized what Menard's carries in their plumbing section. Once that toilet is up, we don't know what horrors we'll find. And that damn thing is the ONLY TOILET WE'VE GOT!

Wagon Train!!!

Kelly & I went to check out the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Wagon Train as it went through Saint Paul. Here are some pics:Tomorrow they start tearing out the kitchen counter tops. No more ugly multi-colored tile. We're almost done with the major jobs for this year (I hope). And, finally, here's a bored kitty with an African Violet.