Author: Greg

Renovations Recipe

I’ve been interested in doing some small home renovations. Lack of knowledge, tools, and desire to use all my weekends all the time stop me from doing anything larger than a small project.

The downstairs was renovated recently, and the downstairs bathroom painted. Sue and I decided after the fact to replace the tap on the sink to something newer. The old one didn’t work all that well, leaked, and was going to get expensive when buying replacement parts.

We bought a new faucet at Home Depot and I set about replacing the old one. Here is what we started with.

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The first step is to take the old faucet off. Sure, no problem right?IMG_5724.JPG

 

One question, how do I fit a wranch in there? Easy answer is you don’t. Instead you take the sink off the wall (this sink is wall attached). Hitch number one can be seen above in the first picture. See all those little tiles that go right down to the edge of the sink? Well, they have to come off.

 

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One row off and the sink came off the wall easily.

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Of course, when puting the final assembly back together, I really didn’t want to glue those tiles back on, so instead I took all the tiles off. The glue used made a mess of the wall, so out I went to buy some spackle, and some other tools. I also bought some new hardware for the sink’s p-trap and water lines.

Turns out the water lines I bought were way too long. Returned those, got the proper ones, patched up the wall. Since we just had the bathroom and basement painted I went to grab the leftover paint to match up this area, but wouldn’t you know it, I couldn’t find the can. I guess the painter didn’t have any leftover.

Out to the hardware store where I bought the paint. They had to hand tint my 1 quart can since the color recipe was only for gallon cans. After a few issues with the p-trap, I got the whole thing assembled, cut to sit, resituated and voilá a new faucet.

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Only took 5 trips to the hardware store, and about 10 days/evenings of time. This is why I don’t tackle larger projects. 🙂

Worlds Recording

Last weekend we did a whirlwind trip to Vancouver to take the kids to Science World to see the Body Worlds exhibit. To do the trip on the cheap we took transit while there. Overall it’s cheaper and convenient, but still cost quite a bit. $50 each way for the ferry, parking costs for Victoria, then $27 for transit.

Science world was a blast and we had a pretty good time poking around, playing with things, and learning. The Body Worlds was fascinating, but Amy had a hard time with it and felt a bit queasy at times.

   
   
  

    
   
  
  
We caught a show outside titled Reduce, Reuse, Rescience. It was mainly showing new and interesting ways to reuse 2 litre pop bottles. There were rockets, mentos in Diet Coke, a cloud in a bottle, then the dry ice bomb. Funny thing was the dry ice bomb was taking forever to go off. The person running the show eventually decided it was a dud and as everyone was standing up to leave, it went BOOM! Pretty spectacular, but sadly I had stopped recording the movie I was working on.

Sunday we took the sky train to meet some friends for brunch. It was great to catch up with them while we were there. Thankfully they drove us to the ferry, which saved a bit of time.

Less than 30 hours on the mainland, but lots of fun.

Duncan Double

Yesterday I headed up to Duncan for a ride at Tzouhalem.  I’ve ridden there a few times in the past, but there is something about that place that still gets me turned around. The guys I was riding with know the trails pretty good so once again I was lead around. It’s getting a little better, but the couple times I have been the one leading the ride, I second guess myself quite a bit.

The climb up was mostly on single track and meandered a bit. I noticed pretty quickly that the day was turning out to be perfect, though there was a lot of water on the trails still. We made our way to the inconic rest stop overlooking Cowican Bay.

  
After the break we did a quick stop at the cross then started heading down.

   
 We hit some of the more technical downhill trails, then made a run down Double D.

After getting back to the truck we headed for home after a quick stop at the Cowichan Bay pub for lunch. 

Turbulent Years

Today I headed out to the dump for a ride. The skies were a little turbulent and I wondered if it was going to dump on us. A few times it sprinkled, but the rain held off. The wind never stopped though and a few times while the trees were swaying pretty hard we could hear them creaking and rubbing against each other.

We started off by heading to the far South side of the park along Shock Treatment before coming back and climbing up to the switchbacks. The goal was to get to Daves Line and Southridge. We kept running two different groups of people which was kind of funny, but also a bit frustrating since I think we were faster than them. After Southridge and Fun Trail we ended up on Madonna and N Trail before making our way back to the North end, destined for Skull. Before Skull I had the brilliant idea to try out Low Craft Warning. I hadn’t been on that trail in years and I had forgotten how big some of the rock faces were. We made it to the end without dieing, though I almost endod right at the end.

Soon after cleaning off the bikes I was talking with my riding partner, and the skies opened up. Good timing!

Birth Ten

Elliot turned 10 yesterday?!

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Where does the time go? I can remember the days leading up to his birth, playing cards while in the hospital. Nurses joking with us that they will have to work harder to get us to stop. Post birth we had early mornings where I would get him breakfast, and sometimes a chai for Sue. When his sister was born he was such a sweet older brother bring her all his prized possessions to share. He seemed so big on his first day of Kindergarten, yet now he would tower above his K size.

Being a parent is a hard job, but the hard parts fade over time and we are left with wonderful memories. The first ten years has been a lot of fun, and I can’t wait for the next ten. Happy Birthday Elliot!

Faucet Consult

Sue and I decided to replace the taps and faucet in the downstairs bathroom. The old one leaked and didn’t work all that well. I figured it should be easy enough for me to do. 

Here is the sink before. 

  

First hurdle was disconnecting everything. 

  
A tight space for a wrench to get into. I eventually loosened one of them but the other was hopelessly corroded. I then decided to take the sink off the wall. 

Notice the tile backsplash above? It was flush with the sink, so I ended up having to pull off some of the tiles to get the sink off.  

  
Once the sink was off I was able to take off the old hardware with a bit of cursing and elbow grease. The new hardware went in easily enough and I mounted the sink back on the wall. 

  

I want to buy new water lines, but the last problem to solve before the sink returns to service is connecting the sink drain pipe to the drain in the wall. The new pipe coming from the sink is much longer than the old one. I will have to consult someone about this. 

Here is the new (non functioning for now) faucet.