New House Blog: Episode XIIII - All Is Vanity

In this Episode, number XIIII, by the way, we will be talking about our replacement of one bathroom vanity, which took a lot longer than we had anticipated.  Before we get to that, however, we would like to extend another hearty Thanks to the awesome Amy for helping us out again at our house.  Amy now knows the names of two of our paint colors, and we request that she refrain from discussing them for the time being.  We would also like to remind all geographically close friends and/or family that the invitation to help us out is an open invitation that will not expire for quite some time.

Before we get into the actual housework I'd like to take a moment to talk about tools.  But before I talk about tools I'd like to talk about paint.  As you begin to see glimpses of new colors on walls, some of you might make incorrect assumptions about color choices and who picked what.  All we'll say at this time is that if you think the color you see is something Becky would have picked, you're wrong.  Now, let's extend a warm welcome to Bari, the ax, or newest tool team member.  Bari is a standard 36" hickory-handled chopping ax, with a standard 3.5# head.  We could not find any wood-handled axes locally, so we had to order Bari off of Amazon.com.  Here's a posed picture of Bari.  

Bari's name comes from the fact that sometimes saxophones are called axes, and I like the sound of the bari sax.  Bari + ax = Bari the ax.  

Another tool worth mentioning is Becky's not-new, AA battery-powered cordless drill/screwdriver.  It doesn't look like much, and the fact that it's powered by AA batteries would seem to indicate only a limited usefulness, but I continue to be impressed by the amount of torque this little thing can put out.  It has turned out to be very useful on several of the projects we have done, and are doing, at our house.  Here is a picture of it with its included bits, not posed.

But enough about tools, for now.  Let's get on to talking about vanity, or rather, one specific vanity.

Vanity

The cabinet thing that holds the bathroom sink is called a vanity.  We don't know why; that's just what it's called.  We recently undertook to replace the small, plain, white vanity in our 1/2 bath.  This job turned out to have a lot more steps than anticipated, and it took a while to complete.  We also decided to replace the faucet and all of the leaky plumbing connected to the bathroom sink.  Plumbing issues caused a lot of the delay, and sealing up the wall behind the old vanity caused more delay.  In the end we think you'll agree that the new vanity and faucet look very nice.  The tour starts with the removal of the old vanity, and there is no picture of the complete old vanity. 

With the sink and most of the plumbing removed

The space where the vanity used to be

Notice the beautiful nail holes in the wall.

The old linoleum and the gap between the wall and the floor

Now we come to the story of the shutoff valves.  Our story begins late one weeknight, in the 1/2 bath of a 1971 house that was recently purchased by us.  This particular night I was working alone on this part of the house.  The house water was turned off.  I had removed the old, leaky shutoff valve from the cold water inlet pipe and I noticed that the threads of the pipe were actually crumbling and would never form a good seal - the section of pipe would need to be replaced along with the shutoff valve.  Water was continuing to trickle out of the pipe, and I believe this was due to the fact that the cold water pipe comes down from above and the water was draining out due to gravity.  Silly me, I had thought that turning off the water main meant that the water would all stop flowing in the house.  As I had nothing with which to cap the pipe (the pipe was too deteriorated for me to even put back on the old valve), I blocked it with a shop towel, put towels down around my water-catching tub and called it a night.  I figured it would be okay until our next visit to the house, two days later.  Even later at night, however, I had some serious doubts, and we searched in vain for a 24-hour hardware store.  While driving home I had passed by a Lowes Hardware store, but it was already closed.  However, it would open up at 6am the next day, so we decided that it would be best for me to head to the store at 6am, get the needed shutoff valves and pipe sections, and do a quick repair before heading in to work.  At Lowes, at 6am the next day, I found what I thought I needed and headed to the house and made my repair (yes I paid for the parts before leaving the store (and plumbing stuff is expensive)).  Lowes, I was soon to discover, carries an inferior type of shutoff valve.  In the store I noticed that they looked kind of cheap and inferior, but there was a big placard explaing all of the benefits of the shutoff valves that Lowes carries.  My gut told me these valves were no good, but the placard told me they were superior, and I listened to the placard.  At the house I removed the bad pipe section and put on a new shutoff valve.  I also did the same, including pipe replacement, for the hot water line.  When I turned on the house water the leaks began - from the threads.  I tightened more.  Still leaks.  More tightening.  Still leaks.  Pipey and I were at our wits end.  We could not crank down on these things any harder (and I can crank down mighty hard, let me tell you), yet they still insisted upon leaking.  Had I done something wrong?  Did I use enough plumbers tape?  I had done other plumbing work in the house that wasn't leaking.  What else cold it be but inferior shutoff valves that didn't grip the pipe properly?  I turned off the house water and went in to work.  It would have to wait one more day.  After work the next day we went to Home Depot and got some proper shutoff valves.  I put them on, tightened them down, and no more leaks.  I have never been to a Lowes Hardware store before, and I may never go to one again.  Sometimes my gut instinct is smarter than the store's placard.  I later found out that Home Depot also opens at 6am.  Anyway, below is a picture with the new pipe sections, new shutoff valves, and some wall repair.

The new shutoff valves

The vanity story continues, and so do the pictures.  Since we are going to repaint the 1/2 bath we figured it would be a good idea to paint the walls behind and around the vanity before installing the new unit.  Can you guess the name of the paint color?  Here's a hint: one of the two words in the name of the color is a weather phenomenon (just a reminder - Amy may not give away the answer at this time).

After the first coat of paint

New inlet hoses

Can you tell which drawer is the facade and which is real?

Is that a cool faucet, or what?

Lighting

We also decided that it would be a good time to change out the old, 1970's-era light fixture, and bring the lighting in the 1/2 bath into the 21st century.  Some people may like the old style, but we prefer our new light fixture.  Thankfully, this job was very straightforward with no hidden surpises.  Enjoy.

The old, but still functional, light

The light turned on

What you can't see is that there are two different types of light bulbs in use here - one regular incandescent, and one compact fluorescent.

The new light fixture

The light turned on

Sneak Peak

Here is a bonus sneak peak.

And that's all we have time for in this Episode.

The light is on, but no one's 

   bIsh