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The bathroom reno reached a vital turning point today, one that caused me to beg out of the Saturday writers group (in which I'd be told this sentence is too long), and one that has now added some urgency to the completion of the wall demo and re-tiling:
We took the toilet tank out.
As with most of this job, it wasn't easy. Shutting off and disconnecting the water supply went pretty well, but then came removing the bolts holding the tank to the throne proper, which likely have not been touched by a human hand since I was in diapers. I suppose that's one way of dealing with the issue if this takes longer than expected. Depends.
Initial attempts to remove them from a hominid stand-up position failed, so it was time to get down and dirty about it:
Needless to say, I did not take that photo. Eleanor did, with this caption:
Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear tee shirts and shorts and take the nuts off the bolts holding the toilet together, so we can tile around it!
I replied (later) that if I had been wearing a cape, the kittens would've just started batting at it. Sure enough, Bronzini got right up in my face when I was lying down there. They finally came out, the tank came off, and it was on to clearing the crud that was pretty much all along the wall behind the tank from its level and down.
Four hours or so later, I was done with as much as hands, shoulders, knees and toes could handle:
The splotch to the right of the remaining pink is where the former TP holder was. We've never used it since we've always had cats who think it's a permanent toy. The crap at the very bottom on both sides I just couldn't handle, so I soaked, napped and chilled while Eleanor began the retiling.
To paraphrase the famed slogan on a bridge in Trenton, New Jersey:
Ray breaks, Eleanor makes.
We do have a second shitter in the house, but it's downstairs, so she asked me to rig an indoor outhouse setup from sometime after a surgery or somesuch she had a few years ago. Then she had second thoughts about that, and next I knew she was in there, scraping off those final patches of goo and preparing to finish the tiling behind- so the tank can go back on.
We're ordering out tonight.
----
Despite the work and the sore, I'm generally feeling better emotionally than a day or so ago. Being away from the clients for over 24 hours has certainly helped with that. I also have very childlike reactions to junior high social media bullshit. Eleanor asked last night if I'd seen a post from a woman in the poetry group we're in, and I said I hadn't sent her a friend request because of how shitty I feel when someone unfriends me. That's included one other woman from that group and, more recently, a neighbor of ours who had a lot in common with Eleanor but had added me also- and then, without a word of explanation or offense, subtracted me. Turns out she also unfriended Eleanor, which I did not know until just then.
I took the plunge and sent a request to the friend in question; no response yet. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out who two different people are who "accepted" friend requests from me this week. They're from two different circles of my life, and I vaguely knew of them, but I have no recollection of ever sending either a request. I do remember that earlier this week, I sent one to Dave Jauss, who is the bench coach of the Mets and who managed the team for three games this week and won two of them. This probably gives him the highest winning percentage of any manager in team history. He got this job after their regular manager got ejected, and then suspended, for a run-in with an umpire last Sunday. Dave accepted my request almost immediately. His other not-regular gig was serving as pitcher to Met star Pete Alonso during the All-Star home run derby earlier this month, serving up meatball after meatball for him to blast into the thin air of Coors Field. He says he doesn't post much, but appreciates comments from fans. I can do that:)
ETA. Tiled and everything reassembled. Truth, justice and the American way of plumbing!
We took the toilet tank out.
As with most of this job, it wasn't easy. Shutting off and disconnecting the water supply went pretty well, but then came removing the bolts holding the tank to the throne proper, which likely have not been touched by a human hand since I was in diapers. I suppose that's one way of dealing with the issue if this takes longer than expected. Depends.
Initial attempts to remove them from a hominid stand-up position failed, so it was time to get down and dirty about it:
Needless to say, I did not take that photo. Eleanor did, with this caption:
Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear tee shirts and shorts and take the nuts off the bolts holding the toilet together, so we can tile around it!
I replied (later) that if I had been wearing a cape, the kittens would've just started batting at it. Sure enough, Bronzini got right up in my face when I was lying down there. They finally came out, the tank came off, and it was on to clearing the crud that was pretty much all along the wall behind the tank from its level and down.
Four hours or so later, I was done with as much as hands, shoulders, knees and toes could handle:
The splotch to the right of the remaining pink is where the former TP holder was. We've never used it since we've always had cats who think it's a permanent toy. The crap at the very bottom on both sides I just couldn't handle, so I soaked, napped and chilled while Eleanor began the retiling.
To paraphrase the famed slogan on a bridge in Trenton, New Jersey:
Ray breaks, Eleanor makes.
We do have a second shitter in the house, but it's downstairs, so she asked me to rig an indoor outhouse setup from sometime after a surgery or somesuch she had a few years ago. Then she had second thoughts about that, and next I knew she was in there, scraping off those final patches of goo and preparing to finish the tiling behind- so the tank can go back on.
We're ordering out tonight.
----
Despite the work and the sore, I'm generally feeling better emotionally than a day or so ago. Being away from the clients for over 24 hours has certainly helped with that. I also have very childlike reactions to junior high social media bullshit. Eleanor asked last night if I'd seen a post from a woman in the poetry group we're in, and I said I hadn't sent her a friend request because of how shitty I feel when someone unfriends me. That's included one other woman from that group and, more recently, a neighbor of ours who had a lot in common with Eleanor but had added me also- and then, without a word of explanation or offense, subtracted me. Turns out she also unfriended Eleanor, which I did not know until just then.
I took the plunge and sent a request to the friend in question; no response yet. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out who two different people are who "accepted" friend requests from me this week. They're from two different circles of my life, and I vaguely knew of them, but I have no recollection of ever sending either a request. I do remember that earlier this week, I sent one to Dave Jauss, who is the bench coach of the Mets and who managed the team for three games this week and won two of them. This probably gives him the highest winning percentage of any manager in team history. He got this job after their regular manager got ejected, and then suspended, for a run-in with an umpire last Sunday. Dave accepted my request almost immediately. His other not-regular gig was serving as pitcher to Met star Pete Alonso during the All-Star home run derby earlier this month, serving up meatball after meatball for him to blast into the thin air of Coors Field. He says he doesn't post much, but appreciates comments from fans. I can do that:)
ETA. Tiled and everything reassembled. Truth, justice and the American way of plumbing!