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Well there is always the dryer, the fridge, and the AC unit to go...


Keep us updated with pics!

You mean you're going to take down that creepy wallpaper?!  Might I suggest this "color" scheme to improve....

My other big project this weekend was installing a new toilet in the second bathroom upstairs to replace the existing one which was cracked beyond repair.  I've never installed a toilet before, so this was a bit of a daunting project.  I didn't feel like paying a plumber a bajillion dollars to install it for me, though, so I plunged in head first (not literally, of course!) and decided to do it myself.

First rule of toilet replacing:  Get a friend!  I replaced it by myself and nearly killed myself in the process.  You have no idea how heavy an old porcelain toilet is until you try to manhandle it down a flight of stairs and around the house by yourself.

Second rule of toilet replacing:  Wear clothes you can burn.  The "S" shaped pipe on the back of a toilet (or beneath a faucet) is designed to hold about 15 ounces of water in it.  This water plugs up the pipe to prevent sewer gases from coming back up through the toilet.  This water gets really nasty after stagnating in an empty house for two years, and you will get it all over yourself when you pull the toilet off the floor.  I can't describe how incredibly atrocious it smells.  Who wants a hug?

Once I got the old toilet up from the floor, I found out why it was cracked.  Around the sewer pipe, a metal device called a "closet ring" screws onto the floor and holds the toilet to the ground.  That's what the toilet bolts onto to keep it from moving when you sit down.  The closet ring in the bathroom was an old old old cast iron thingamajig that was rusted beyond belief.  One of the bolts that held the toilet in place had ripped through the closet ring in a rather unbelievable fashion, leading to the cracked porcelain when the toilet shifted.

You can buy new closet rings at Home Depot for $8.00, so that's not a problem, right?  WRONG.  Modern closet rings just screw into the floor around the sewer pipe, but this old bastard was welded directly onto the pipe.  Short of a cutting torch and a jackhammer, this thing wasn't moving for anything.  That was a dilemma.  After making two more trips to Home Depot for rust penetrating spray and a "Super Ring," I finally managed to find a workable solution. 

The Super Ring was apparently made just for this kind of situation.  It sits on top of the old ring and has "ears" with screw holes that extend past the old ring.  You can then screw the thing into the floor around the old ring and bolt the toilet onto it.

Finally, I was ready to install the toilet.  We bought an "all in one" toilet kit that had the bowl, tank, plumbing, wax ring, and everything else all in one box.  That's very handy, but it's also incredibly heavy.  I fought for five minutes getting that damned box upstairs, but I finally won!  I ripped open the box, excited about getting to the installation, only to find... a broken toilet.

Much swearing ensued.

I made my 57th run to Home Depot for the day, let the cashier know of my displeasure, and picked up a new toilet.  In case there was any doubt, I checked over every single piece of the kit before I even took it off the shelf.  Once I got it home and lugged it upstairs, it installed fairly easily.  Just make sure you follow the directions carefully and plan each step, because there are a couple tasks you only get one chance to pull off!

-b0b
(.../boring.)

Here are some of those pictures I promised!


This is the old toilet that needed to be replaced.  I think it was taunting me in this picture.



The porcelain at the bottom of the toilet is cracked into two pieces.  Since this is the part of the toilet that seals to the floor, it's would leak all over the place if the water was turned on.



Jump ahead twenty minutes, and I've pulled the toilet off and removed it from the bathroom.  Now, all of the wax from the massive wax ring has to be scraped off the floor around the open sewer pipe.  Lovely.


I apparently didn't take any more pictures of the toilet installation process, but it was kinda boring.  Suffice it to say that after much yelling and frustration, I got the new toilet installed and it seems to work fine.



Once the bathroom and master bedroom were painted, we started prepping the living room.  This included tearing down the nastiest wallpaper border you've ever seen.



After all of the nails were and screws were removed, I spackled all of the holes and cracks in the walls all around the house.  I bet I spackled at least 75 nail holes throughout the four rooms we painted.  Every wall must've had twelve different things hanging on it at one point!  Once the spackle dried, I went back through and sanded it back down to match the rest of the wall.



Here's Meredith in the home stretch.  She was removing one of the last pieces of glue paper in the entire house.  Once the wall paper came down, this glue paper had to be removed inch-by-inch with a steamer.  It sucked harder than Wes's Mom.



Once the wallpaper paste was down, we put up painters tape all over the house.  We went through six rolls of tape, at about 125' each.  Then, we started with the paint.  The bedroom, living room, and office only needed one coat of paint with some limited touch-up work after it dried.



Every inch of floor space was covered with drop cloth.  Meredith painted around the windows, doors, and trim by hand and I came through afterward with the roller.



A couple of electrical receptacles in the living room were absolutely ancient and had been painted over so many times that I couldn't get them unscrewed from the wall.  A hammer fixed that.



One of the last "clean up" tasks in the bathroom was to replace all of the light switches with dimmers and all of the power outlets with GFCI and TVSS-protected receptacles.  This is a "before" picture of the light switch panel on one side of the bathroom.


The first switch has been replaced.  These switches have a small slider on the right side of the switch that allows power levels to be dimmed progressively, just like a round dimmer switch.  Very handy at 2:00am when you need to go to the bathroom but don't want to blind yourself.



All of the receptacles in the bathroom were also replaced with surge-protected outlets.  This is the old receptacle hanging out of the wall before being disconnected.



Here's the new surge-protected receptacle after being mounted and plated.  It even has a bright green LED to let you know the surge protection is working.  Eventually, the entire house will have these new receptacles, so everything will be surge-protected without needing a power strip.


Meredith has the day off, and she's finishing up the paint job in the office.  The crazy-looking dolls I posted earlier have already been removed.

Once I get out of work, we have to finish up the paint touch-ups, vacuum and steam clean all of the carpets in the entire house, mop all of the linoleum floors with bleach, clean all of the counter tops, seal up the fire place, and get everything ready for move in.

Then, we have to go home and get all of the furniture ready to be moved by 8:00am tomorrow.  That's going to be a frickin' riot, let me tell you...

-b0b
(...pray for us!)