Stick a fork in it!

Whew. It was a bit of a slog, I have to say.

So, at the end of last time's blog, we had toilet and sink in place, but nothing was quite working yet. The toilet was the major concern -- the feed was leaking just above the shutoff valve, from a rather dubious-looking piece of complicated hardware. The plan was to crank off the whole shutoff valve and add a new one. I hadn't done that before because when I tugged at it with a wrench, it didn't move at all. I really went at it this morning, though -- to no avail. I believe it may be welded on. Huh. Next move -- see what I could remove, and very happily (although with some force required), the whole piece came loose. When I examined it further, it's really perplexing. The old shutoff valve has a standard ⅜ opening; the complicated doohickey (which really is made of about 5 parts) essentially appears to designed to go from ⅜ to ¼ to ⅜ and then to ⅜ about two more times. In short, when this jury-rigged (and jerry-rigged) doo-dad came off, I was able to just straight up attach the line from the toilet to the feed. No trip to the hardware store needed. First flush, 8:56 AM, no leaks!

Doohickey

I was on track to be done by 10 AM, since the sink would be even easier. Ha, ha, ha! Just kidding. The whole story that follows is a classic lesson in home improvement.

When I left off yesterday, the sink was assembled and in place but I hadn't quite figured out how to connect the outflow pipes in a satisfying way, so that they would allow the cabinet to be correctly placed. I went to the hardware store, explained the problem, and got what is essentially a giant Flexi-straw for one of the parts -- that would in fact allow me to get everything in place once I trimmed the Flexi-straw to the right length (on the non flex portion, obvs). PVC plastic is easy to cut with a hacksaw, which was out in the garage. But before I could get into the garage, I needed to fix something, because the garage door opener wasn't working -- the breaker had been tripped the day before. I'd re-flipped the breaker and closed it yesterday, but when I tried to open it, it was dead again. Odd. The breaker was tripped again, so I turned it back on — and it flipped back instantly. I tried a few more times, but something was obviously really wrong with the circuit. So I switched it off, and opened the garage door manually. I got the hacksaw and then started looking for what might be wrong. Connections looked okay -- and then I remembered that I'd moved a board that's been leaning up against one wall for years yesterday and heard an odd sound when I did so. A somewhat electrical sounding click. I moved the board completely out of the way, and lo and behold:

An electrical socket with a bare live wire hanging out. No insulation. No covering. And now it is touching the metal box it is enclosed in, and hence instantly shorting out every time the circuit breaker is tripped. Or not quite instantly, because if you look carefully, the wire has welded itself to the box. 

This is obviously BS

Alarming as that is, the system worked just like it's supposed to -- it detected a fault and shut down right away. I pulled the hot wire out farther, and taped a note to it saying "lick me!". Or rather, I covered all exposed wire parts in electrical tape, shoved it into an electrical cap, and tomorrow I'll hook the whole thing up to a proper GFCI outlet so this won't ever happen again. There are still some major electrical issues out there, including some other spots with exposed wire, so more work will have to be done. But back to the sink (all this, you'll recall, was to get the hacksaw)!

The pipe was cut and eventually I figured out how to arrange everything in the right fashion so that it all fits nicely. 

I connected all the outflow stuff, got it semi tightened and then looked -- and realized that neither of the included IKEA feed lines would reach the shutoff valves. Sigh. Back to the hardware store for two connecters and two 12" lines (I needed about 2" on one side and 5" on the other, but that's as short as they go. 

Long story short, after several episodes of slight leaking and testing and re-testing, I got things working just past noon, and I was able to go to lunch, where I enjoyed a burger, fries, and champagne to celebrate. And why not?

I also had the pleasure of going through all the stuff from the old bathroom that I'd saved, and was delighted to discover a razor that I bought in graduate school. Seriously, I've owned this razor since at least 1998. I don't think I need a 21 year-old razor any more (especially since I shave with an electric razor now). The end of a big project is also a great time to let things go. And it's amazing what we save without thinking about it.

Still reasonably sharp

Lots more to do, of course, like the rest of the caulking, and Amie will have to get in there and break everything I put in to put in the window, but you get the idea. I'm going to assemble some before and after pics as a capstone, but right now I've got friends coming over for wine and cheese in about 20 minutes, so that'll have to be tomorrow.