Day One -- update

Hola again, amigos. So, a few hours later and I am already older and wiser. So, after one trip to the hardware store to get an even larger (but equally aptly named) plumber's wrench,  which did the trick, I was able to separate the two halves of the toilet, and move them, one at a time, out of the bathroom. That was my one clear goal for the day and it was accomplished!

Nothing but a direct open hole to the sewer, now filled with rags. So, the obvious next step is to remove the sink, which thankfully, is like 1,000 times easier and 1/10 the weight. 

Except — and this is how all home repair goes — there are problems. I know how to to do a sink de-installation, because I've disassembled and assembled sinks before. You shut off the water using the shutoff valves (one for hot, one the left, one for cold, on the right), disconnect the lines, and just yank the thing out (okay, it's slightly more complicated than that, but you get the idea). But the plumbing gods are frowning upon my hubris. I start disconnecting the feed line from the left hand valve, and water sprays. Huh. Righty-tighty? Yes, it's all the way off. I tighten everything and there's more water, and that's when I realize something's not right (when you tighten a valve and it leaks *more*, it means it's probably broken). Turns out, the right hand shutoff valve works perfectly -- and the left hand one NOT AT ALL. When it's screwed down all the way, fully closed, water flows through without so much as a by-your-leave. No reduction in pressure. In fact, tightening it more makes more water come out, which is a pretty good sign of a valve that has given up the ghost, departed this world, pushed up daisies. An ex-valve, really. I also suspect it's been leaking a bit into the wall, from the looks of things:

There's a bit of a bulge in the wall, and the board behind is crumbling. Anyway, this will have to get fixed before the sink can be removed, so that's tomorrow's challenge. It's a good Sunday challenge. I anticipate about 3-4 hours of labor to deal with this tiny issue, and then 7 minutes to remove the sink. 

In the meantime, I removed the handles, handle plates and mortise lock from the door to see if they are salvageable. Oh, yes, things are looking good! Check out the unreformed handle plates!

These will be amazing looking once the paint is stripped and they are returned to their former glory. The lock? Here's the version, already cleaned, sanded and oiled (sorry, but I at the start of these projects I often forget to take pictures beforehand). The silvery bits were all solid rust before; take my word:

This is the inside of the mortise lock for the bathroom, and there are several bits of good news. The first is that it needs a generic key, not a key with any sort of grooves or bumps -- just something that will push the long silvery bit in the bottom third up and to the left. The big chunky bit, silvery, bottom left, is the deadbolt that slides out to lock the door. All of the insides were, of course, rusted, covered in paint, unable to move, etc., but 2 minutes of cleanup and they all work -- dare I say -- like new. I just need a key that fits the hole (bottom right) and pushes that deadbolt over a half inch or so. If I were *really* anal, I'd take out all the pieces, sand them all, sand the entire case, re-paint it with anti-rust paint, put it all back and oil everything. That may happen -- but not tomorrow, which will be dedicated to solving the sink issue.