Our Bathroom Fiasco

This weekend Josh and I decided to tackle our bathroom. It all started, innocently enough, with a trip to Lowes after work on Friday, where we picked out a new vanity, sink, and mirror, as well as a new Moen brushed nickel faucet, which I am in love with. We also bought a new light for the dining room and office, both of which I also love, as well as piping and other random junk that we needed for around the house. $400 later, we left Lowes. We had two $100 visa gift cards and a 10% off certificate that deflected some of the cost, thank goodness!

Being the weekend warriors that we are, we got home and got started right away - me taping, trimming, etc. Josh putting up the new light fixtures and putting together the new bathroom stuff. A bit later, it gets to be about that time where the old sink needs to be removed for paint, and the removal goes fine until....Josh took off the coupling joining the old sinks plumbing with that in the wall. The cast iron exit pipe, having been installed in 1955 when the house was built, had seen its better days, so we wrapped a plastic bag around it and kept painting.

Go to bed, wake up, finish painting the bathroom (its small, and I am a good and efficient painter, so this goes very quickly). Make a run to the city dump looking like hillbillys in sweatpants, carhart jackets, bedhead, and unbrushed teath. Beautiful. Clean up the house while the final coat of paint dries - although I am a good painter, Josh and I have a tendency to DESTROY our house while doing such projects. Do laundry, etc, go out for pizza because I don't feel like cooking. The diet will still be here tomorrow.

Come home. Its time to install the new sink, and for a fleeting moment, our bathroom looks spectacular. Pray the pipe holds out - it doesn't. In fact, it literally crumbled and disintegrated into the plaster wall before our very eyes upon being touched. $hit. Lowes is closed. We have no choice but to light a fire and drink our sorrows away. Get completly loaded on wine, chocolate martinis, and crown royal special reserve. Pass out.

Wake up Sunday morning...no hangover! Score! Start calling everybody we know who might know about plumbing. Get a few similiar answers. Decision is...rig it up and pray it works, or call a plumber. Rig it up wins sheerly due to the cost factor. Back to Lowes for pipes and a hack saw, some couplings and glue.

Goodbye freshly painted plaster, hello gaping hole where the wall should have been.

Luckly, the story takes a turn for the better right about here, and Josh was able to cut the pipe off and run PVC out of the wall and attach it to the new sink without major incident. There was a slight problem with our wall having only one stud to anchor the vanity to, but we wont get into that, except to say that our wall looks like it had the chicken pox. The gaping hole still remains today, but only because we are waiting a few days to ensure no leaks - far, so good. Keep your fingers crossed for us, because if this doesnt work, we might have to shower at the gym and drive down the street to use the restroom at the gas station while a plumber guts our bathroom to replace the pipes.

Oh, the joys of home ownership.