Sunday’s Column – Nothing Quick About Home Projects

Jun 9, 2013 by winjaw

Yeah, like you’ve never been there

There’s something to be said for those “quickie” do-it-yourself home projects.

Namely, there is nothing quick about them. They will cost more than just hiring a professional despite an hourly fee similar to corporate attorneys. That cost includes new tools, time and aggravation.

I digress.

I am embarrassed to say the Little Black Dress has been without hot water in her master bathroom sink for some time. It was always one of those things I was going to get around to. But since we had two sinks, she would just use mine. And then the hot water handle on my side broke as well. So something obviously had to be done. The Dress is off in Oklahoma serving as Chaplain for the Miss Oklahoma pageant, so why don’t we surprise her and get those pesky handles replaced in a jiffy.

Yeah.

I enlist the help of Eldest SON of Thunder. The plan is to hit the BIG DIY STORE and just replace the handles. Naturally, those handles haven’t been made in eons. And the “universal” handles that fit anything apparently only fit handles made in this universe. This becomes important later because it becomes obvious our bathroom fixtures were made by Klingons.

So we decide we will just get all new bathroom sink fixtures. As an aside gentlemen, this is a very, very dangerous idea. There is something about chrome verses bronze verses rubbed bronze verses black and so forth. And I haven’t even decided on the actual style. So I do what any self-respecting father would, ask Eldest what he thinks. This way I can always blame the decision on the offspring.

The set the SON picks out says it takes about 5-7 minutes to install. We will soon learn this refers to the aforementioned Klingon time, which uses Earth minutes as hours. We also learn it says nothing about “uninstall time.”

Anyway. We head back and start dismantling. And hit the first of many snags. One would think you would just undo a line here, a bolt there and everything would just fall down. That would be expected. That would be a no in our case. Because for the life of us we can’t unscrew the top part of the handles or faucets. So we get under the sink to find some bolt or screw that will undo everything and are met with some medieval torture device.

We see two large cooper pipes — the hot and cold — going up through the sink counter to where the handles used to be. Unfortunately, there is a large copper bar joining the two copper pipes. And there are no bolts, no screws, no nothing. It’s like the sink counter was built around the fixtures. We go so far as to remove the entire sink counter with the remaining fixtures from hell and lay it on the ground. Still can’t figure it out.

So I do what any self-respecting father would do who is not ready to teach his son words he does not need to know at his tender age. I go to bed. Yes, it’s been that long. I wake up for battle the next morning and again hit the BIG DIY STORE and pick up the biggest vise grips, channel locks and other assortments of weapons and return. And we’re pulling and yanking and banging and… nothing.

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The lady in the plumbing section is very nice. I show her the photos and she just stares and says something like “oh my.” It’s sort of like when the dentist goes “oops.” So she calls over the plumbing expert and I once again show the photos. And he’s like, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” That is never a good sign.

He finally says, “you got a Sawzall?” I do, thank God, or else this project would end up costing about as much as replacing my roof.

So we head back once again and fortunately, the Sawzall does what it’s supposed to do. Namely, cut through a total of four pipes and one screw and the Klingon plumbing fixture is freed from the bathroom sink.

So I start to go through the instructions to put together the new 5-7 minute time-limit new fixtures. Eldest glances at all the parts and says, “this is easy. I’ve got it.” Kid, don’t embarrass your dad.

We start putting everything together and then hit what we refer to as a roadblock. Basically, the sink counter has three holes — one for hot water, the faucet and one for cold. Pretty common. The uncommon part is the three holes are too close together for the new hot and cold water fixture and faucet to lay flat. Not going to work. I hate Klingon plumbers.

Those Dremel hand-held power devices are the greatest thing since sliced bread. But man can they throw some sparks because I just know I’m going to lose a finger trying to make holes wider so the stupid bases will fit. My digits remain intact. Success.

The SON is down below hooking up all the pipes and hoses and constantly complaining about how being upside down on his back on a shelf is killing him. And I’m like, “cry me a river. I want to be done before dinner.”

And the key thing we’re working on is to make sure we put the handles in the right spot because the last thing we want is to have them backwards. By that I mean the handles would be in the off position when they should be in the on position. So we tighten everything up and Eldest hits turns the water back on.

We installed the handles backwards.

Fast forward, as this column is already too long. Eldest goes back under and switches the handles. And yes, I promised to fund his doctoral studies. My side took about 1/100 as long, as we sort of knew what we were doing by this time.

The Dress will be home tomorrow. I pray the only words out of her mouth upon seeing her new fixtures is “It’s perfect.” Otherwise, I may be using that Sawzall on myself.