Master Class

This weekend I met a guy who fixes up houses professionally and who knows his stuff and actually seems to enjoy it, so I took advantage of his good nature and showed him the bathroom and asked every question I could think of (to the annoyance of his girlfriend and my wife, who just wanted me to shut up so that we could all leave for lunch)--probably a thousand questions or so, and today I've thought of another thousand that I wish I had asked and that I intend to ask in the future.

Otherwise, on Saturday I finished cutting and installing most of the furring strips for the shower; these strips of board, in various thicknesses, fit onto the studs so that the finished tile wall ends up inside the tub. Pretty important stuff.

I also installed the shower place-holder pipe, which I'll replace with the shiny, curvy pipe and the shower head once everything is done. Since I'm overly cautious about every single thing I do, the project is progressing at a painfully slow pace.

I remember back to my days in college, back when I spent hours and hours in the practice rooms working on piano and violin. A well-known violinist came to school to give a master class. She stood on the stage before 20 or 30 of us and played something really incredible and beautiful on her violin. Then she said, simply, "Playing the violin is easy. Playing music is hard."

Something in the pit of my stomach knew what she meant: "Until playing the violin is easy, you will never actually play real music because you will be too distracted struggling with your stubby fingers and little brains. So just give up, and quit wasting your time."

Fortunately I've learned to accept my limitations. And I try to keep an open mind and learn new things. Yes, home renovation is easy. Creating a new bathroom, one you can be proud of, is hard. But it is possible.

Finally, I'm Starting to Get It

By this time a normal person would have become suspicious or at least a little curious. What started out as a simple hobby for me has turned into a major corporate enterprise, with layers of bureaucracy and with me at the bottom, even though I'm just fixing up our house, just some minor remodeling, with no discernible financial interest to anyone else. A normal person would have wondered how this all happened.

Possibly it's because I've spent so much money at Home Depot that the store now considers me an asset, a sort of branch company? Maybe Willow and Berkeley are really here to make sure that I dump as much money as possible into Home Depot--but only so much as we can afford over time (considerating the recent financial meltdown) without going bankrupt.

Then recently (and again, a normal person would have seen this coming, but what do I know about economics?) this new corporation had become successful enough to attract attention and some investors, so that speculation over how much stuff I might buy in the future (or how much I wouldn't buy) is now fueling its own revenue stream.

It's no wonder that these corporate lackeys and professional gamblers are not interested in my opinions about how things should be done, even though I am the do-er of those things. Even more so, now they insist that my opinions actually poison the process, quick to blame everythng on me.

Notice how they pose with such sincerity for the cameras. Corporate dogs.

Yes, I have been naive, but this is not over.

Twittering the Project

Just like I thought, the recent flurry of news about demonstrations, social media, collective bargaining, credit crunches, etc., etc., have left our operation here in a state of flux, with management behind closed doors for a couple days until, finally, this morning they emerged for a press conference.

Normally they would have just called me into their office for a talk (or from my perspective, a listen), but this time Willow (the project manager) and Berkeley (who somehow is her boss now) went straight to the cameras and for a prepared speech.

Ever since my Power to the People diatribe the other day--which was said mostly in jest, as anyone would know--I've noticed an icy chill around here, so I should have seen this coming. I should have known that management would be on pins and needles worrying about what might come next, whether I might start Tweeting about them or Facebooking about them (even though I abstain from such technology) and bring about a collapse of their regimes, if such a thing a possible for two silly dogs who have no business being in charge of anything.

I'm listening to Berkeley now. She's very serious, talking about how it is no longer possible to negotiate with me directly. Instead, she says, in the interest of the project, in the interest of fairness (what she means is: in her interest), we will all be entering a new phase. From this point forward, they will do the telling and I will do the doing.

My cell phone rings. "Stop work now. We are with you," the voice says.

"Who the heck are you?" I ask.

Power to the People

It turned out that the triangular brace was in the path of the tub spout, so I had no choice but to remove it, gently and with some respect for its nearly 100 years of service. Here is it turned upside down, looking like some Medieval candelabra or implement of torture.

Instead of trying to salvage the existing shutoff valves, I just cut them off (they are the candles in the picture above) and I put in some new Sharkbite push-on valves--no adhesive, tape, flux or solder. They just press onto the pipe. To my mind this is most unnatural--witchcraft, perhaps. I had Cheryl turn on the main water to test it while I sat upstairs and watched.

Except for a small piece of drain pipe, all of the original plumbing is now gone, and because this achievement was a major milestone the project manager stopped in to celebrate and take all the credit (no surprise), through she did grace me with some stealthy looks of appreciation from time to time, which is what all of us worker-bees live for--to make the boss happy, right?

I have a sinking feeling that she's been watching the news and that my collective bargaining rights are about to disappear (just like Wisonsin).

With the triangle out of the way, I was able to position and install the shower faucet body today (it has a black plastic shield to protect it while I do the tile work).

Just for fun I turned on the water for a second, sending a gusher out the bottom. Ooops. Power to the people.

A Matter of Trash

My antique triangular bracket provides a convenient way to hold up the supply pipes--the pipes fit through the nice sleeves in the back, supporting all the weight above. This probably will all be unnecessary after I get the new shower faucet assembly today, but for now I get some satisfaction in the sturdiness of my old plumbing.

Meanwhile, I hear the garbage pickup guys drive up and stop beside the pile of 50 garbage bags, which if filled with leaves and twigs would be a big enough job for them, but these heavy-duty bags are loaded with mortal and tile. My fear is that they will simply drive away without the bags after they discover what I've done, so I am peeking out the window and watching them like a scared little girl.

If I were a man, I'd go out there and take them some beers or maybe a fist full of 20-dollar bills. I'd apologize for the big pile, but I'd do it like a big man, explaining that big men do big work, etc. Instead, I'm squinting though a small opening in the curtain, craning my ears to hear. Chances are, if I did go out there, they would not be amused by me or my attempts to make things better, and very likely an argument would ensue, ending with them driving away without the bags.

And to be honest, I had put some of the lighter bags on top of the pile. Deliberate deception, I know. I hear voices but can't decipher them. Three or four men are in the crew, and they are discussing the matter. Not happy.

Then I think: why should I be sorry about this? I'd piled up the bags neatly. And isn't it their job to take the bags away? But I know the reason for my guilt. I should have gotten one of those big waste containers for the driveway, and they could have just driven it away.

Finally I heard a bag drop into the back of the truck with a loud bang, then another and then another. It only took them about 5 minutes, but it was not a happy 5 minutes. Maybe next week I'll take them some money.

The Old Guys

My back feels a little better today but not so much better that I regret calling the plumber. I was pleased to see him use the same approach that I planned to take yesterday before springing my back--he cut into the drain basket just enough to loosen it, then was able to unscrew it.

The drain basket (the top part) screws into the piece under the tub, which then leads away to the drain system, all of which is very nearly impossible to access between the first and second floors. What I suspected was a rusty drain was just a tarnished one (made from solid brass). Oh well, it had to come out.

I explained about my blog to Doug, the plumber, who is a real pro with John's Plumbing. The idea, I told him, is that I will complete this project on my own, keeping a sort of journal as I go, only resorting to professional help when absolutely necessary.

Of course, I was trying to butter him up so that he would give me some advice and validation about other aspects of the project, about how I planned to support the pipes, install the new shower faucet, etc. This a delicate process because these guys don't have any real incentive to reveal the secrets of their trade, and they have no stomach for stupid do-it-yourselfers. So I didn't push it.

It turned out that the new drain assembly that I bought from Home Depot dips down lower that the existing tail piece, and this is a no-no for professional plumbers--water should not be sent up hill, not even a millimeter. I could reuse the brass tail piece but I need to find a new drain basket that fits into it. They exist on the Internet but take 4 to 6 weeks to deliver. Between the lines he let me know that the Home Depot drain was OK but not something he was allowed to install.

Finally he took some time to give me advice on several things and he let me know that I'm on the right track. Then he said that his bill would actually be less that what he estimated. Instead I gave him some extra money. "One day soon," he told me, "all of the old guys will be gone, and no one will know what to do."

As one of the old guys, I couldn't agree more.