Gone to the Crapper
Recently, Brian and I decided to start in on two projects to spruce up our house. He bought materials to build a deck for our backyard, and I bought supplies to update our hall bathroom. In my head, the bathroom project was going to be an inexpensive update. Although I'd really like to gut the room down to the studs and start from scratch, I figured a new floor and some new, clean parts for the toilet would spruce the room up for about $100.
As is, unfortunately, typical for projects at the Stratton house, neither project has gone as planned. Brian is battling a corner on the deck that isn't level, and...well...my bathroom story has had a few more hiccups than that.
Let me give you some background...
When we pulled up the old linoleum from the bathroom floor, we were confronted with an ugly, musty-smelling disaster. Parts of the subfloor had been damaged, and I think the person who installed the linoleum used a combination of liquid nails and roofing tar to secure the nonsense to the floor. I spent HOURS picking at tiny pieces of linoleum and felt backing, trying to get us down to a clean surface. Frustrated, I was convinced we should just abandon the "cheap fix" solution and go miserably into debt to have someone else tear everything out and hassle with it. Brian convinced me to persevere, however, so we went to Menards and found some sort of self-leveling floor glop that was supposed to cover the funk on the floor and give us a clean slate from which to work.
Brian managed to get the floor patch down without too many curse words uttered, and I was then able to put down our new vinyl tile. Laying the floor, grouting, and cleaning up the mess went well, and I was feeling optimistic. Brian put in a new floor register to cover the vent opening, and he caulked everything. Much to our delight, the bathroom finally looked presentable.
But, of course, I couldn't leave well-enough alone. Today, I convinced Brian that we needed to revisit Menards to pick up a new toilet seat, bolt covers, and a lever. Total investment: $20. After Anna went to bed tonight, I happily set about giving our older toilet a much-needed facelift. The seat went on without any issue, so I opened the tank and set about changing the lever. Much to my dismay, the nut securing the lever to the tank looked as though it had been submerged with the Titanic for however many years. There was absolutely no visible metal showing beneath the layers of white and green corrosion. It made me frown.
Anxious for something that would, indeed, be a quick fix, I set about loosening the bolts at the base of the toilet so that I could secure pretty little white covers over them. Rusted beyond recognition. Well, dang it.
At this point, I still believed there was hope for this toilet, so I did a google search for "loosening corroded nuts" and found a how-to video on eHow. The Mr. Rogers-style friendly man on the video made it look easy. His "rusty" parts were still recognizable, though, and the water supply to his toilet actually turned when he grabbed hold of it to turn it off. I felt like punching him in his smiling face for wasting my time. I resumed my google search, and this time, I come across a website with a few pointers, the first of which was using WD-40 to saturate the joint between the bolt and the nut.
Growing impatient, I used approximately half a can of WD-40 on the three small areas of my toilet, creating a puddle of corrosion gunk at the base of the stool and a virtual oil slick inside the tank of the toilet (which I hadn't managed to empty successfully). While I cranked on the parts with any crescent wrench or other tool that appeared remotely useful, I fought the desire to gag on the WD-40 fumes. After 30 minutes of no luck whatsoever, I decided I would caulk the stupid white caps over the bolts if absolutely necessary, and I began fiercely yanking and bending the tank lever, opting to put all my energy into that particular piece of this project. The lever itself, after being bent beyond recognition, surrendered.
I refused to re-google my remaining dilemma and opted instead to fly by the seat of my pants--using some sort of nugget of information housed in the back of my head that convinced me that I might be able to use a hacksaw to accomplish my task. I snuck out into the garage after the hacksaw, trying desperately to be quiet so that Brian wouldn't come upstairs and ask me why I was taking a hacksaw into the bathroom....or why the whole house smelled like WD-40.
I'm starting to wish I hadn't been so stealthy--starting to wish Brian would have intervened. In my furious hacking, I inflicted a few battle scars to the front of the toilet tank, got corroded metal shavings on my new bathroom floor, and just as I thought I might be making some headway, I heard a distinctive splitting noise and watched as a small hairline crack shot upward from the lever hole in the porcelain. I held back the desire to scream and pitch an unholy fit.
I resorted to cleaning up my mess, feeling utterly defeated. As I bent down to wipe up the random bits of gunk, corrosion and metal from the floor, I noticed that the toilet had been dripping water--leaking ever so slightly behind the stool--even before I started this mess. It explained a lot all at once about the condition of the linoleum we had just replaced. Hmm...probably should have taken a closer look at that BEFORE I put down a brand new floor...that went around the toilet instead of under it since the blasted thing has rusted itself in place.
Brian still hasn't seen my attempt at bathroom repair. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the moment he does. For now, I suppose I need to have a better attitude about the whole thing. On a more positive note, the flooring we used is now on clearance at Menards, and I have enough primer and grout to (*sigh*) redo the entire floor if I absolutely have to once our toilet problem is solved.
I understand why people live for years with sub-par bathrooms or why they shell out obnoxious sums of money to professionals to have work like this done. Maybe if I would have selected either of these options, I would have a functioning toilet right now...and I wouldn't be at risk of smelling like WD-40 for the next three days. I'll chalk this one up to a life lesson...or something.
As is, unfortunately, typical for projects at the Stratton house, neither project has gone as planned. Brian is battling a corner on the deck that isn't level, and...well...my bathroom story has had a few more hiccups than that.
Let me give you some background...
When we pulled up the old linoleum from the bathroom floor, we were confronted with an ugly, musty-smelling disaster. Parts of the subfloor had been damaged, and I think the person who installed the linoleum used a combination of liquid nails and roofing tar to secure the nonsense to the floor. I spent HOURS picking at tiny pieces of linoleum and felt backing, trying to get us down to a clean surface. Frustrated, I was convinced we should just abandon the "cheap fix" solution and go miserably into debt to have someone else tear everything out and hassle with it. Brian convinced me to persevere, however, so we went to Menards and found some sort of self-leveling floor glop that was supposed to cover the funk on the floor and give us a clean slate from which to work.
Brian managed to get the floor patch down without too many curse words uttered, and I was then able to put down our new vinyl tile. Laying the floor, grouting, and cleaning up the mess went well, and I was feeling optimistic. Brian put in a new floor register to cover the vent opening, and he caulked everything. Much to our delight, the bathroom finally looked presentable.
But, of course, I couldn't leave well-enough alone. Today, I convinced Brian that we needed to revisit Menards to pick up a new toilet seat, bolt covers, and a lever. Total investment: $20. After Anna went to bed tonight, I happily set about giving our older toilet a much-needed facelift. The seat went on without any issue, so I opened the tank and set about changing the lever. Much to my dismay, the nut securing the lever to the tank looked as though it had been submerged with the Titanic for however many years. There was absolutely no visible metal showing beneath the layers of white and green corrosion. It made me frown.
Anxious for something that would, indeed, be a quick fix, I set about loosening the bolts at the base of the toilet so that I could secure pretty little white covers over them. Rusted beyond recognition. Well, dang it.
At this point, I still believed there was hope for this toilet, so I did a google search for "loosening corroded nuts" and found a how-to video on eHow. The Mr. Rogers-style friendly man on the video made it look easy. His "rusty" parts were still recognizable, though, and the water supply to his toilet actually turned when he grabbed hold of it to turn it off. I felt like punching him in his smiling face for wasting my time. I resumed my google search, and this time, I come across a website with a few pointers, the first of which was using WD-40 to saturate the joint between the bolt and the nut.
Growing impatient, I used approximately half a can of WD-40 on the three small areas of my toilet, creating a puddle of corrosion gunk at the base of the stool and a virtual oil slick inside the tank of the toilet (which I hadn't managed to empty successfully). While I cranked on the parts with any crescent wrench or other tool that appeared remotely useful, I fought the desire to gag on the WD-40 fumes. After 30 minutes of no luck whatsoever, I decided I would caulk the stupid white caps over the bolts if absolutely necessary, and I began fiercely yanking and bending the tank lever, opting to put all my energy into that particular piece of this project. The lever itself, after being bent beyond recognition, surrendered.
I refused to re-google my remaining dilemma and opted instead to fly by the seat of my pants--using some sort of nugget of information housed in the back of my head that convinced me that I might be able to use a hacksaw to accomplish my task. I snuck out into the garage after the hacksaw, trying desperately to be quiet so that Brian wouldn't come upstairs and ask me why I was taking a hacksaw into the bathroom....or why the whole house smelled like WD-40.
I'm starting to wish I hadn't been so stealthy--starting to wish Brian would have intervened. In my furious hacking, I inflicted a few battle scars to the front of the toilet tank, got corroded metal shavings on my new bathroom floor, and just as I thought I might be making some headway, I heard a distinctive splitting noise and watched as a small hairline crack shot upward from the lever hole in the porcelain. I held back the desire to scream and pitch an unholy fit.
I resorted to cleaning up my mess, feeling utterly defeated. As I bent down to wipe up the random bits of gunk, corrosion and metal from the floor, I noticed that the toilet had been dripping water--leaking ever so slightly behind the stool--even before I started this mess. It explained a lot all at once about the condition of the linoleum we had just replaced. Hmm...probably should have taken a closer look at that BEFORE I put down a brand new floor...that went around the toilet instead of under it since the blasted thing has rusted itself in place.
Brian still hasn't seen my attempt at bathroom repair. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the moment he does. For now, I suppose I need to have a better attitude about the whole thing. On a more positive note, the flooring we used is now on clearance at Menards, and I have enough primer and grout to (*sigh*) redo the entire floor if I absolutely have to once our toilet problem is solved.
I understand why people live for years with sub-par bathrooms or why they shell out obnoxious sums of money to professionals to have work like this done. Maybe if I would have selected either of these options, I would have a functioning toilet right now...and I wouldn't be at risk of smelling like WD-40 for the next three days. I'll chalk this one up to a life lesson...or something.
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