Tag Archives: Bathroom renovation

Special Order Lamp Fix

Look closely at the photo above.  Maybe you see it, maybe you don’t.  If you don’t, look a little closer.  I promise this isn’t like one of those Magic Eye puzzles that everyone used to lie about in elementary school.  “I see the boat!”  “No you don’t.”  “Shut up!”

I’ll admit, my talent for tearing trees out of the ground does not always translate into projects requiring a delicate touch.  It also doesn’t help that as I approach the end of a project, there can be a tendency to rush to the finish line.  But this one really made me frustrated with myself.  I was hammering in nails to secure the new mirror frame to the wall in our recent bathroom renovation, when I thought to myself “gosh, that nail I’m about to hammer in looks dangerously close to that glass shade of the $80 lamp we just purchased and installed.”  What did I do?  Proceeded to hammer.  -Clink-  Don’t tell me that’s what I think that was…

I broke it.  The beautiful new lamp shade.  Broken.

“Maybe I can just spin it in another direction and nobody will notice,” I thought.
-Still visible.

“Maybe I can just paint it using frosted glass spray paint,” I thought.
-It’ll still be visible.

I finish hanging the mirror, then start looking online for a replacement.  We bought the lamp at Menard’s.  It’s a Patriot Lighting Olympia 4-Light Satin Nickel Vanity Light.  I search all around on the website, and while I find plenty of options for replacement glass shades, I can’t find any in the “Olympia” style.  I decide to go to the store to ask about it.  A woman in the lighting section is very helpful, but can’t find it in the system.  She takes my information and tells me their expert in the department will call me to help the next day.  When I get a call the next day, I learn that Menard’s can make a special order for the item, but that it could be months before it ships, because the company is having such a hard time meeting demand for the product.  I guess we picked a popular lamp!

Around this time, a thought pops into my head.  “Do I just buy the same style of lamp in the single bulb variety?”  It would cost $30, which is $10 more than the price I was quoted for the special order.  The decision is really pretty simple.  I really don’t need the replacement at this moment, and it would be wasteful for me to buy a lamp only to throw away most of the components to keep the glass shade.  I place the order.

I’m a little amazed when the package arrives just a few weeks later.

Much better!  A $20 lesson in patience, but much better.  I’ll remember to just remove the glass shade if I ever encounter the same situation again. (I hope)

$100 Down the Toilet

The Sh*t!

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

I just finished this bathroom and now I have a broken toilet.

Grr!

 

I’ll rewind.  This all started because I consider myself a bit of a perfectionist in certain areas of projects.  I don’t always care about minor details, but a leaky toilet tank and wobbly toilet just aren’t going to float in my life-boat.  The teetering toilet bowl was likely the result of my tile installation.  The small leak was probably caused by the toilet being dry for an extended period, and the tank/bowl gasket cracking.  The easiest way for me to change the gasket was to pull the toilet up completely, so that’s what I did.  This is where the fun moment happens.  I had just finished cleaning the old wax seal from the bottom of the bowl, when I started flipping the ceramic beast back around, and to my utter amazement, crunch!  The thing falls no more than 4 inches, but at a terrible angle, so part of the thing breaks off.

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Now that we’re all caught up…  After cleaning the old wax seal, I noticed the flange (where the toilet bolts to the floor) was looking pretty rough.  In the photo below, you can see rusty metal on the left side of the hole (of stink).  The old flange could be responsible for part of my wobbly toilet issue.  The cracked grout to the left of the flange shows how the entire thing would move when the toilet shifts from side-to-side.

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In order to install the toilet flange repair kit you see above, I needed to buy a set of mason drill bits.  As you might remember from my post about this renovation, there is a bunch of concrete (the foundation) beneath these tiles.

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This is the first time in my life I have been toilet shopping.  It’s really quite an experience.  There are so many options, ranging in price from a sale model for $45 all the way up to $300+.  Who knew there could be so many different classes of toilets!  We went with a Glacier Bay Two-Piece Elongated Bowl Toilet in White, which cost $98.  The old toilet was a round bowl, but we’re fancy, so we upgraded to an elongated model.  Something I noticed during installation:  New toilets are SO EASY TO INSTALL!  I have replaced seals and mechanics in toilets for years, but might consider just buying a new one the next time something serious goes wrong.  It also gives our remodeled bathroom an even cleaner appearance.

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After fitting the wax seal and bolting the new throne to the floor, I used some toilet shims to level it with the floor.  They’re a little ugly for the time being, but I’ll give the toilet a couple of weeks to settle, before going back, cutting the excess material and covering everything up with a bead of caulk.

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Life is filled with unpredictability.  A broken toilet one day is a winning lottery ticket the next.  Fingers crossed.