Show and Tell

Okay, mostly show.

Three...

...days until the party!

Here's what's left to do:

• Have the stairs carpeted. This one will be checked off in about an hour--much to my surprise, the guy actually showed up today, an hour late, after missing four appointments. I was begining to think I would have to preface the party by saying "please excuse the twenty-year-old carpet in the entry." Fortunately, that's not the case.


• Nail down the trim in the dining room. I will try to do this sometime when my neighbors aren't asleep.


• Buy a bed and mattress.
• Install threshholds on the bedroom, bathroom, and closet doors.


• Find some way to hide the holes where the floor doesn't meet the wall. A finish carpenter, I am not. My miters don’t match, my trim is dented where I banged and crooked where it doesn’t fit in because of the paint, and ... you get the idea. But there must be a product for this.

It's really not such a bad list, considering.

Etruscans: 1 Gardenia: 0

Okay, so here's the update. I took the faucet back to Home Depot and showed it to the first guy I saw in the plumbing aisle. He remembered me from the last time I was there ... or more likely, he remembered the faucet ... and went to find another guy, Andre, who I had also met before. Andre took one look at my faucet and the mutilated hoses and said "What the heck have you been doing?"

It turns out that Manny gave me the wrong connectors. He gave me a female to female compression nipple (I SWEAR that's what it's called) but unfortunately I needed a female to female ... something else nipple. IU? UI? Some acronym that means do not try to screw a compression threaded piece in here. Well as you can imagine, I put quite a bit of thrust into trying to get the pieces connected yesterday, and now it turns out that I probably stripped the faucet.

(Jeez, stripping and thrust and nipples and female to female connectors ... but I digress.)

Andre helped me out and talked to the manager, so I think that Home Depot is going to replace my faucet, but what a PAIN in the BUTT this has turned out to be.

But here's the thing. I said that I needed a man for the screwing, BUT if the first man I talked to had given me the right advice, I would have been able to do it myself. However, Andre was very helpful, and also not bad looking, so perhaps there's something to be said for the damsel in distress.

The first room is ALMOST finished.

Don't look too closely at the faucet yet! But you get the general idea.

It's all in a name.

I learned that faucet handles are called escutcheons, but I keep geting escutcheons confused with Etruscans. So as I'm fiddling with the chase that I'm building (it's built, looks like crap, but it's built) I keep thinking "Where do the Etruscans go?" This is surely not the question I should be contemplating.

I wasn't even sure what, or who, Etruscans were until I looked them up on answers.com. Here's my favorite quote from the entry:

• The Etruscan language also presents difficulties to the scholar. It can be easily read (the alphabet is of Greek extraction, and the sound value of the signs is known), but, with the exception of only a few words, the vocabulary is not understood.

I'll bet an Etruscan could help me with my hoses. The problem is, how would I ask him?

Okay, I finally found one good reason to say I NEED a man.

Plumbing.

Actually, it's not the plumbing part that's the problem. It's the screwing.

I tried to turn my faucet on today (I finally connected the drain with a series of j-bends, p-traps and sawed-off plastic pipe) and water spurted EVERYWHERE. This is not a good thing. The water is spurting everywhere because the female to female connector that I'm using is not tight enough.

I screwed it in as far as I could, which seemed to be about halfway. I thought to myself "well, that's as tight as it goes" and bravely turned on the faucet. Apparently, that's not as tight as it goes. Which is the first legitmate reason I can think of that I need a man. I mean, I suppose I could find a woman who is stronger than me and could tighten the hoses all the way, but lets face it, I'm not that likely to find a woman who's stronger than me!

(Okay, let's face it for real: I'd rather ask a man for help with the screwing. Screwing of the hoses! What were you thinking?)

A day without Home Depot ...

is my biggest fantasy.

A mile in their ... uh ... aisle.

Remember how I was scoffing at the people in the toilet seat aisle in Home Depot? Standing there agonizing over something as simple as a toilet seat! How absurd! Pick on and get on with your life, like I did. Well ... I had to return the wooden toilet seat I picked out. It just wouldn't make sense any more, now that the bathroom floor is tile, not wood. Returning was not the problem.

The problem was picking out the new seat. There really are so many different styles! And my toilet is almond color, not white, but which shade of almond is it? And if I get the nicer seat and it's a little too big, will it look ridiculous? Will it even fit? What if I open the box and change my mind? What's Home Depot's policy on that?

I think I went back to the toilet seat aisle four or five times, but I'm happy to report that I have made a selection. I still have to see if it fits and if the color is okay. And don't worry, I have learned my lesson about how hard some choices can be.

I'm impressed.

I have to admit that I was pretty impressed when I wired a chandelier in my kitchen. It's not the most remarkable thing I've done, but it is something that you don't do every day.

I'm about to become undeservedly impressed with myself again. I just bought a hole saw, and I'm not afraid to use it. A hole saw is a metal circle with saw teeth that has a drill stem, so you attach it to your (really hot, really useful) drill and use it to cut round holes in ... well in whatever you want. In my case, I'll be using it to cut holes in the wainscoating for the drainpipe and the faucet escutcheons. I actually got a little set of FOUR hole saws with an interchangable drill stem, so I can make holes of multiple sizes.

How cool is that?

I GIVE!!!

27Taylor - 101
Originally uploaded by gardeniajoy.

I have purchased EVERY plastic drain piece known to man, woman or child and legally available at the Home Depot, and I CANNOT get my sink connected to the drain!

I GIVE!!

The problem, I think is that the tailpiece of the sink is 1 1/4" and the wall pipe is 1 1/2" and as far as I can tell, never the twain shall meet. But seriously, I cannot be the first person to wish to connect two dissimilar pieces of pipe. Has nothing been invented to solve this?

Fortunately, this issue has not reached a critical point, because I can't connect the sink yet anyway. But after tomorrow, when I build the little case for my sink ... THEN it's going to be a problem.

Nothing like the smell of Home Depot in the morning.

For the last two days I've been going to Home Depot first thing in the morning. It's a great time to go. The aisles are empty of customers, except for serious contractors picking up the day's supplies and Home Depot associates who are all in pretty good moods for 7:15 in the morning. This provides a nice atmosphere for me to wander around and try to figure out the last few pieces I need to finish my projects. And maybe I'm crazy, but I find that people are very helpful when I'm dressed for work.

I will always wear high heels to Home Depot from now on.

And to think I doubted myself.

I opened up the wall in the bathroom today to start installing the faucet. It seemed like it should be as easy to put the new faucet in as it was to take the old one out. After all, all the instructions say that removing the old faucet is the hard part.

Except that my faucet didn't come with instructions.

In the interest of helping anyone who wants to install the wall mount faucet pictured a few posts below, here are the instrucitons I wish had been included:

Step 1: Drill a big hole in the drywall.
Step 2: Check your Leatherman for a saw blade.
Step 2 a: Shake your head in frustration.
Step 3: Try to figure out if you should go to Home Depot for a drywall saw without knowing what else you might need because you haven't seen the inside of the wall.
Step 4: Try your hand saw--it will work.
Step 5: Contemplate the copper pipes.
Step 6: Call your dad.

I did manage to get the hand saw into the drywall and cut out a big chunk. I took a few pictures of the escutcheons and the pipe sizes, and trooped off to Home Depot. Fortunately, my dad called me back while i was still there and I learned that it wasn't a crazy idea to want to mount the faucet on the wall and build a little case around it. Apparently, this case is called a "chase." My dad told me the bits and pieces I'd need, and and I found a few nice people at Home Depot to help me find everything.

Although I didn't finish the sink tonight, I did get the faucet hooked up and mounted to the wall. I've also roughly designed the chase and will be able to go get the wood at Home Depot tomorrow.

Bit by bit by bit by bit ...

And speaking of bits, what is the deal with drill bits? I needed a 5/16ths bit to drill holes for the mollys I got to mount the faucet with. But in my giant case of every drill bit imaginable, there was nary a 5/16ths to be found. I had 7/32 and 1/4 and 3/16 and about a hundred others, but no 5/16ths. I faked it with a 1/4. Seemed to work. I guess truth will tell when the faucet falls off the wall.

Not in your average tool belt.

When I was cutting the laminate flooring, I was pretty much doing it by eyeball. (An aside: someone on NPR this weekend identified "eyeball" as her favorite verb. It took me a minute too.) Eyeballing a crosswise cut on a 7.44 inch board is not much of a problem, especially when you take into consideration the 1/4" space that you're supposed to leave for the floor to expand.

Eyeballing a lengthwise cut on a 44.7 inch board is a different story, however. Especially when, for reasons unknown and best not contemplated--it looks FINE--the last row that you are cutting lengthwise is wider at the top then the bottom by about three inches.

I realized quickly that scratching in an approximate line with my carpet knife wasn't going to work. Neither was my ballpoint pen. Oh for a china crayon from chemistry class! Oh for a carpenter's pencil! But alas, I had none of these items. All I could think of was a Sharpie marker, but those are all up in the attic. Somewhere. And then it hit me:

Eyeliner.

Pros: makes a nice dark line; sawdust adheres to it so you don't obscure the line while cutting; wipes off easily if your hand slips while tracing; and most of all, easily available.

Cons: at $7 for two to three inches of usable pencil, it's a little pricey--but then you are supposed to replace your eyeliner every three months, so think of it as an economical way to recycle.

It finally hit me.

I was brushing my teeth in the kitchen tonight, like I've been doing since I ripped out the bathroom vanity last week. So I was standing in the little space between the bedroom and bathroom doors, looking at my bed, which is now set up in the living room. I'm camping in here now that the floor is finished so I can work on the bedroom.

Suddenly, for no reason at all, this place felt like my home. Maybe it was seeing my things strewn across all three rooms, a breadcrumb trail of shoes, purses, tools, video tapes, Bose remote controls, blankets, towels, unmentionables, laminate flooring and partially assembled flat pack furniture. Mine. All mine. All here because I put it here. All mine because I paid for it with money that I worked to earn. Mine mine mine!

But it's not a selfish kind of "mine," although it sounds that way when I say it repeatedly. It's an accomplished, proud, happy "mine."

I wonder how I'll feel when this place is finished and decorated and everything is put away. I wonder if I'll ever put everything away.

This is getting very 'spensive!

Now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I can also see that I'm going to need a pile of cash to make it all the way out of the tunnel. I've been trying to do this as affordably as possible, but even if you get a great deal for something at $100, if you have to buy ten things, it adds up fast.

One way I'm saving is by getting a DIY sofa. Hey, my motto is DIY or die trying, so I might as well carry it through to my furniture.



Here's what I still need to buy:

• Bookshelves for the living room (I found a set for $55 that I ignored because I figured they were cheap, but I'm going to go try to find them again. Cheap is good!)


• Bed frame (I've got my eye on one from Overstock.com that I'll probably order in the next few days. They're running a 10% off sale and my job has a program that gives me 5% off. I wonder if I can combine the two offers? Shipping's only a buck, too.)


• Mattress (I'm thinking Memory Foam mattress because it can be rolled up--I have learned my lesson from this move, which I did ENTIRELY by myself. I will not buy anything I can't move on my own.)


• Box spring (need to hunt online for this; locally they appear to run about $300)


• Dining room table (Overstock again)


• Chairs (no idea)


• Sideboard or buffet (I may have to wait on this one)


• Some kind of shelves for next to the fireplace

That is all going to add up pretty quickly. I think I'll just close my eyes when my next credit card statement comes in. If I don't look at it, it goes away, right?

Pose of the day: Sawasana (SAW-ah-sah-nah)

I've chosen to cut my laminate flooring by hand. With a pull saw.

My cutting technique has evolved during this process. At first I was using the stacked boxes of flooring as a sawhorse, holding the board I was cutting with my knee, but that soon became a bad idea. (Ouch on the knees, even with the Rollerblading knee-pads. And not real smart to whisk a moving blade back and forth next to the flooring boards.) Being older and wiser, I've moved my sawhorse to the landing of the stairs, which is still covered with nasty carpet. By "sawhorse" I mean my painting step stool, which is a low stool with metal legs and a rubber covered top. I've discovered that the saw works best when perpendicular to the floor, so now I lay the board on the stool, stand on top of it to hold it down while saving my knees, and squat a little so I can use the saw with both hands.

Viola! Sawasana. I guess I don't feel so bad about missing yoga class.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday was a major day! The dumpster was finally emptied, so I took down all the accumulated bits of DIY refuse that I've been creating for the last week (paint cans, rollers, brushes that I'm too lazy to wash, the bathroom sink, the bathroom linoleum, ripped up carpet, etc) and I stripped the rest of the carpet out of the living room and took that down too. (Sorry, neighbors, for filling up the bin so quickly.)

I also put a few more things in the attic. Have I talked about my attic? I love my attic. I love having an attic, and most of all I love that my attic is reached through a trap door in the ceiling. I have always wanted a trap-door attic! The ladder is a little dubious, but it's held up to the three hundred or so times I've climbed up and down it this month, so I guess it's okay. Actually, the attic ladder is on my list of things to upgrade at some point.

I spent the rest of yesterday doing the floor in the living room. It was a BEAST trying to get around the fireplace, but I did it. It looks amazing! I need to finish up the farthest strip (where every piece needs to be cut lengthwise), and then it's done!

Well, done except for the trim work. I need to make a decision about the moldings. I saved the old moldings, which are very dark, dribbled in paint (mostly not by me) and a little broken (by me when removing them and taking out the nails). I could paint them and reuse them and buy what I need from Home Depot to replace the broken bits. Or I could order all new. I haven't decided yet. Neither option seems like fun. Maybe this is where I flex my other DIY muscle: Dial It Yourself. I could call someone to do this part for me. (Somehow I doubt that will be the choice.)