Done!

So when we last left off, professional help had to called in to remove the old, leaking angle valve and replace it with a new one; as it turns out, the exact same thing happened to me the last time I did a bathroom remodel, but I was able to resolve the situation without replacing the valve. Not so this time -- in both cases, there was a "ferrule," basically an immovable clamp holding the valve in place. I gather these are uncommon (no one's ever mentioned them, it took a bit go Googling before I found out about them, etc.), and you need some special tools and/or skills to get them off. I'll just say that Roto-Rooter has been expensive, but timely, super-competent, and really nice both times we've had them come out. 

The only new thing that happened last night was putting in the drawers. They're in. They work. They open and close properly. They look good. They just need to be filled with toilet paper rolls or whatever. You can perhaps see the whole "if you give a mouse a muffin" problem, however. Those towel holders have to go; they clash and look off center now. 

Today's task was simple-ish: dealing with the now-unacceptable light fixture over the cabinet (another "mouse-muffin" problem). It's crowded and also clashes in style. Happily, rather than getting a new fixture, the cabinet has its own built in lighting solution, and that just needed to be hooked up. (I say just, but of course, this involved a half dozen minor problems, but ultimately, it's just connecting the old black wire to the new black wire, old white to new white, and -- unlike our previous house, everything here is modern wiring and everything has a functional ground wire! Very exciting.)

Here I am, all glowy

But every creation begins with some destruction. The old fixture left behind a big patch of the original green paint, not covered up by the plate from IKEA, which was kind of industrial looking to boot. 

So, some wallboard compound, some sanding, some drying, and some painting, and some more painting, and it'll be ready to start service by the time Lilya gets home!

Almost perfect

Well, things went fast again this morning -- I was 100% certain I would need 10-20 trips to the hardware store and lots of weird adapters, but after some careful thinking and eyeballing, I got it all installed without any extras or trips to the store, and without any problems!*

The final step before hookup was assembling and mounting the faucet. Easy, peasy:

And here is the final hookup, in all its glory. Water goes in, water goes out, it all works just like it should!*

It's so, so... beautiful!

* There was in fact, one annoying problem that has to be taken care of. The last time I hooked up a sink, this same thing happened. The angle valves are those guys that stick out of the wall and have the shutoff valves on them. They don't last forever, even if you never turn them on and off. And when I turned the cold water valve (the one of the right side there) back on, it felt a little wonky, and it is now, very slowly, very gently, leaking. So to the hardware store I go, and then I will need to replace the angle valve, which is not super hard, but not super easy, either (unlike everything I just did, for this one you have to shut off the main water to the building). 

** Sadly, we've been reduced to calling a plumber. I *cannot* remove the old angle valve (I mean after 100-120 turns, several sets of me working until I was red in the face and sweating and shaking). It twists, but never loosens.

Rapid progress?!

 Indeed, dear readers, after giving a final exam, meeting with a grad student and returning a shirt I didn't like to Banana Republic, I could have called it a day, but instead, I went straight back to work, which began with (1) adding legs to the cabinet and (2) mounting the cabinet to the wall. I think I did an amazing job securing the mounting bar, and it should be able to take about 300 lbs of force, but then you imagine an unwatched child climbing on it -- and better to have the extra support. Anyway, it took surprisingly little time to secure the mounting bar, and then the actual mounting is just... lifting it up and settling it onto the bar. 

Just hanging out

Then come the inevitable and endless finicky adjustments to get everything level, except, wait, what does that level say?

BOOM!

I then put together the medicine cabinet, which wasn't too bad, but I was not looking forward to getting it onto the wall. I could only imagine what kind of hell IKEA had prepared for me. But I started reading the directions and discovered...

Look familiar?

It's exactly the same mounting bar, and this one also just took a few minutes to install. And hanging the cabinet was as simple as lifting it up and setting it down onto the mounting. Well, followed by the hour of trying to get things level. Except once again...

BOOM!

A quick trip to the hardware store for some silicone, and then the sink goes into place:

 

The hardest part of the was probably mounting the mirror doors for the cabinet, but even that was pretty straightforward. The scariest part, however, was mounting the little shelves inside, which are very thin, made out of glass, and require a very large amount of force to snap into place. Somehow, reader, they did not break. 

 

What's left? After my two-hour long 9 AM Zoom meeting, all the plumbing is what's left. This is normally extremely difficult, but we will see.

Every creation begins with destruction

The plan is to put a new IKEA vanity and sink into the upstairs guest bathroom, as well as a new mirror/cabinet. But to put in the new, you also have to take out the old. Here's the original mirror and pedestal sink (for some reason, we don't like pedestal sinks, plus we clearly need some extra storage in the space for basics (TP rolls, Kleenex boxes, linen, the accessories for the vacuum cleaner which have strangely decided to live there, etc.)

It's all in perfect shape, just kind of blah. I had the usual fight with fixtures that haven't been touched since they were installed, but eventually got this disconnected and free from its hoses, and then pulled away from the wall. Here it is immediately after removal, and then again after popping in the partially assembled vanity to make sure there's enough room for everything (it will be 6 to 8 inches higher up when actually installed).

 

A quick trip to the local hardware store where I had an alarming conversation with an employee who sounded like he was ready to take out the entire store (literally, "other people just, you know, try to totally invalidate you, like, as a person. Your co-workers. Every day. I just can't let that happen to me, you know?"), full of massive confusion about what I was looking for, which got worse when a more senior employee got involved, but anyway, it all ended well and I came back with what I needed (two ½ inch compression caps for the angle valves and two ½ inch to ⅜ inch adapters for the new faucets connection hoses). 

The vanity will be wall mounted (see below for IKEA's idea of what it looks like), the "floating" vanity that is all the rage, but I am going to add some adjustable legs to the front -- I just don't trust there won't be some little kids trying to basically climb on it at some point, and I've watched friends who have them and the sink just gets shaky and tilted over time. I say no. 

Then there's the disposal problem (I know, put it on the curb and LA waste will just pick it up). But in the meantime?

Things are coming

Since moving to our new digs in Los Angeles, things have been strangely quiet on the home improvement front. This has been largely due to now owning a house built in the 21st century, so less than 100 years old. Sure, I installed a lot of bookshelves, replaced some door handles, re-did the outdoor lighting, and replaced some toilet-paper roll holders, but nothing major in any way. That said, an IKEA purchase went in this morning (and will be delivered tomorrow morning because we now live in West Hollywood and not rural Illinois!), so there will be a more significant update soon. 

The move-out ends

Yesterday, the packers came and packed. Today, the movers came and moved. All was relatively uneventful; both days, they were there by 8:30 and done by about 2. The house just has the items the buyer wanted to keep, and many rooms are almost totally empty, particularly the downstairs. Here's the view from the bay window looking back into the sun room:

Here's the sun room, with only a couple of items left:

And the master bedroom, totally empty:

And finally, the truck carrying everything (we hope) to Los Angeles (we hope!):

I'll have one more update after the closing, just the put a final (?) capstone on this blog.

The move-out progresses

 For a while, the house was getting emptier. First the piano went:

Then, one of the most frustrating things about moving out: finally cleaning up things the way they always should have been. For example, this is the garage after removing some things, but mostly just cleaning up and organizing stuff. Why didn't I do this when I lived here?

Then, this past Monday was the first real mini-move. I disassembled the main bed and the wardrobe in the primary bedroom, and hauled them (and the mattress downstairs). Some strapping (and quite bilingual) fellows from Habitat came and hauled that away, along with a love sofa (see the previous post), a giant wooden desk with chair that came with us from Berkeley), and a small end table. The back room feels quite different. (For the record, Habitat will not take mattresses -- or love sofas with huge tears in them.)

Since them it's been pretty much all day going through every drawer, every cabinet, and clearing everything out and packing it into boxes; the goal is empty, clean drawers and shelves everywhere. (And of course you have to pull the drawers out, because there is some gross stuff back there behind them -- it's unclear how it gets there, but somehow it does!)

As that's been happening there have been almost daily trips to Goodwill; so far, between 10 and 20 cubic feet of stuff, plus about the same amount in trash and garbage. Today's final bit of work was moving the last dozen wine crates that we've been using as bookshelves since Berkeley (and I think Lilya brought a few from New York before that). Here they go!

As all that stuff is being pulled out of drawers, however, it has to go into boxes, which are slowly filling up the spaces depopulated by furniture moving out. 

As of today, we are at one week until the movers show up for the day of packing; then Friday is for loading (which I'm assuming is not going to take a whole day, but who knows). Tomorrow, I feel like the rest of what needs to be done in the basement can get done, and then I think everything else gets left to the professionals.