2.27.2009

The Day of the Crooked Toilet



Day Eight was kind of stressful. My brother, Mike, was on his way up from Virginia to help for the next few days. The toilet was set to be installed at around 4, so I had to tile and grout the wall behind the toilet before then (so I wouldn't have to take the toilet back out to work on the wall behind it). I was anxious to get going on the tile, and then I noticed I was short one bucket of tile adhesive. I'd also resigned to chipping out the marble threshold so I could reinstall it with a 1/4" eave to then sit flush with glass tiles on the face of the slab. This meant more grout needed of the same color, and I'd used it all already, so I needed to drive back to Bensonhurst to get a small bag of the same stuff. I get pretty antsy when I'm ready to go on something but I have to do another task first. I got back a little frazzled from driving in a self-imposed rush, tried to relax and then threw the tile up on the wall. Mike arrived when I was about 3/4 done, he watched me saw a few pieces to size and then it was finished. Ready for the toilet. We took the dogs for a walk to Taqueria and picked up some burritos so we'd have some motivation to test said-toilet once installed. Joe's guys were unloading their van just as we got back, and they came up and put in the toilet. They made a high-craft job of it, using plaster to seal the edges. What I didn't notice until they were gone, is that it was crooked. Twisted so it's not facing straight ahead. It kind of lolls to the left like a distracted dog who won't look you in the eye. After an hour of—is it crooked—enough to complain—it's crooked, right?— I called Joe and left a message that I was sorry to be so picky, but the damn thing isn't on correctly. The bright side is that it has an amazing flush. I told Bec I was thinking of stepping-up my coffee consumption just to spend more time with our new toilet. Fran came over to give Mike and me a lesson in applying the joint compound to corners, as we'd never done it and Fran has spent countless hours learning from his mistakes on his house, so he could help us avoid doing the same. We spend the last couple hours of the night finishing the first pass in the room with the plaster, and felt like we got much better as we went along. It was relaxing and I went to bet feeling much better than I had earlier in the day. Joe called this morning and assured me he'd straighten out the toilet when he comes to do all the final installs.

Whew.

4 comments:

  1. I look forward to making use of your future properly-aligned toilet.

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  2. What happened to the yoga mat in the tub?

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  3. Picky picky picky. Put an interesting picture, maybe a computerized random rotating "find the 12 differences in the 2nd picture" thingy on the left wall.

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  4. I'm finally caught up, and truly impressed. Not having followed your progress day by day, it all seems so fast and painless. Like a 30 minute DIY show on TV. I laughed picturing your reaction the crooked toilet. Lots of head tilting from the bathroom doorway. Yeah, man...that thing's as crooked Blagojevich.

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