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.