Our New Old House

At last!  We finished the bathroom sink last week.  We’ve been happily using it ever since.  As you can see….

 [tags]bathroom, photos, plumbing, sink, bathroom sink, pedestal sink[/tags]

I am just a six inch piece of plastic tubing away from completing the bathroom sink installation.  I made my third trip to Menard’s last night and STILL came home with the wrong size tube.  I just wasn’t paying attention!  Gah!  I wanted so badly to get up this morning and brush my teeth in my new sink.  Oh well, as my Great Grandpa Rivera would sigh in resignation at the end of the day: ”mañana.” (“Tomorrow.”)

Meanwhile, here are photos of my progress so far:

I used a hack saw to cut the drain pipe to the right length.

Then I used the hack saw to cut the PVC drain pipe too.

The PVC pipe was a little messy after I got done cutting it.

I used a steel wool pad to scrape off all the burrs and clean up the shavings and grime that might keep the PVC cement from bonding.

Here’s the sink after we mounted it to the wall.

The faucet now in place. We got the one from the same line as the one in the kitchen. “Savannah” from Price Pfister.

Ooh shiny! (This photo should come with a sound effect: “Ting!” Like the little chime it makes when someone on TV winks or smiles brightly.)

Last night when I realized I was missing one final part to hook up the sink, but it was too late to go back to Menard’s, I decided to take a break and go hang out with my friends at a bar. After a gin and tonic and sampling my friends’ drinks, I decided to come home around 11:30pm and at least hook up the drain stop before going to bed. Let’s hear it for plumbing while under the influence!

Zoot says, “Ur doin it wrong. No waterz comin’ out.”

Hooking up the drain stop.

Almost got it.

There was a big hole in the wall behind the back of the vanity from where they’d taken out some water damaged plaster from the old leaky sink. The top of our drain pipe branches up and over to the left somewhere. I can’t figure out where this extra drain pipe goes. It’s pointing toward the outside wall, but there’s no evidence of it exiting the house. Quite mysterious.

Tonight, I will be making what will hopefully be my final trip to Menard’s for this project. Hopefully.

[tags]bathroom sink, bathroom, plumbing, pedestal sink, faucet[/tags]

 Hopefully this will be the last of it. But don’t worry! I got to do the fun part today: demolition!

Today’s mission: demolish the old bathroom sink to make room for the new bathroom sink!

Scratch can’t understand why he can’t sleep in the sink anymore.

Tore out some of the carpet to reveal some really… um… interesting flooring.

And what’s left of the water damage from a leaking toilet.

Zoot got to sniff in the wall.

Some of the… um… interesting paint colors the bathroom had been.

Coming up later this week: the installation of our new pedestal sink! (It’s shiny!)

And a bonus photo for you: Scratch got nosy when Brandon was making garbanzo salsa.

[tags]bathroom, flooring, plumbing, photos, cats, vanity, sink[/tags]

Turns out we DID have a frozen pipe inside the house, and boy do I feel silly for not having found it!  Brandon had someone from the water company come test our pressure at the meter.  They said the meter was fine, so we must have a frozen pipe inside the house.  When I took the heat gun to the pipes last night, I did the whole section of pipe that runs near the front of the house close to the foundation, but that didn’t seem to fix it.  I was specifically avoiding about a 6 inch section behind a beam because it’s a very old wooden beam and it’s covered in coal dust so I didn’t want to risk setting it on fire with the heat gun.  Well, turns out that’s exactly where the pipe was frozen!  Brandon tried again with the heat gun this morning and sure enough, the pipes cleared.  I guess when those previous owners 60 years ago wrapped that pipe and stuffed all those clothes into the crack between the front porch crawl space and the water pipe, this was exactly what they had in mind. 

Consider me newly educated in hindsight.

I’m cranky.  This morning we woke up to find we have no water running to the house.  We heard from the water company that there was a main break somewhere on the east side and that the water should be back on in a couple hours.  Many hours later it was not.  I called the water company again and the nice lady informed me that the break had been fixed hours ago and asked if I thought my pipes might be frozen.

I checked the pipes.  The basement was cold, but not cold enough to freeze the pipes inside the house.  They must be frozen outside the house.  She put in a ticket to have someone come check our pipes tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, on a whim, I tried using my heat gun to heat the pipes inside, just to make sure.  Nope, still no water.

So I need a shower.  It’s about 2am as I’m writing this and I’m looking at having to take a shower at my mom’s house before work if our water’s not back on in the morning.

Anybody have any words of wisdom that might help me out with frozen pipes possibly frozen outside my house?  Pretty much inaccessible to me?  Am I going to come home from work tomorrow to find my front yard dug up?

As I go to sleep tonight I have visions of impending expensive disaster.

Somebody please cheer me up.