Half Bath Renovation: Where We’re At

I know I haven’t blogged the progress of the half bathroom in a while. I decided it was best to step back from the project for a bit to prevent harm to both myself and others.

On a good note, we have a functional, working second bathroom in the house. It has a toilet that flushes and surprisingly fits into this small space. It has a sink that both runs water from the hot and cold faucets and drains without said water bursting from the pipes onto the beautiful slate floor which is completely grouted and sealed and looks fabulous.

Yes, there have been setbacks, mainly the sink which I am convinced simply doesn’t want to live at our house and is sabotaging every one of my efforts to properly install it, but I tried to push through them so that we could decide whether or not we wanted to slate the rest of the linoleum floors and vinyl tile floors. On that issue I am quite certain a resounding yes is the answer.

However I must admit I have trepidations about removing the sink in the other bathroom after the horrifying ordeal with the one I installed in the half bath. After the bolt to secure the sink to the wall snapped in half, I decided to get the metal wall piece the previous sink was attached to and use that to keep the sink in place, which of course couldn’t just go back where it was before because the new sink is about four inches higher than the old one because it was obviously put in for little people. The only problem now is that the water line has, well, some leak issues that need to be resolved while in the off position, so removing the hose that connects it to the sink means removing the hose and letting the dribble happen. I grabbed a towel, figuring it would only take a minute to screw the plate into place and began to loosen the hose from the water line, immediately getting sprayed with a massive about of water escaping the line which was too much for the towel as it was sopping wet. At least I got to test out the sealant on the slate tile which works great, right? I triple checked the valve to make sure it was in the off position, which, by the way, yes it was, and quickly reconnected the hose to prevent flooding the house. Putting everything somewhat in place, I turned the faucet on while the valve was off and it was gushing as if on full blast. To double check that there wasn’t a surge in water pressure causing the water line valve to fail, I tested the hot water, and only a drip every couple seconds came out, which is normal for our house with the valves off.

Great, so now I have a sink that won’t stay in place and a water line that has been compromised. I decide to simply hold the sink with my body while screwing the metal plate to the wall, which by the way was no easy task as the hoses were still connected to prevent water damage so I couldn’t use a power drill, which yes, I did try to fit but there physically wasn’t enough space between the furthest point I could move the sink and the wall and I had to use a miniature screw driver with a big head that I am so glad we have. After the metal plate was completely installed, I moved the pedestal back to approximately where it was and slightly lifted the sink over it and into the drain pipe which, I am quite convinced, is where a third or fourth hand would have come in super handy. With everything set, I put the only good bolt back into the wall and tightened it into place and test out the sink’s stability and watch as the bolt wiggles out of the wall and onto the floor. I screamed various obscenities then decided to just walk away. I’d fixed the leaky drain issue, which stemmed from not having tightened the sink drain to the pipe enough and the sink was mostly secure. The only thing really I had to do was caulk around the toilet, so I did that and walked away from the whole matter until I could look at that damned sink and not think of plotting its demise.