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!