the house that rebelled

Yesterday, Rob and I got home from a family birthday party and were excited to install the new (highly discounted) vanity that we had purchased from Home Depot the day before. We thought it would be no problem and it was the kind of project we could accomplish while watching the Super Bowl in the background. We got everything unloaded and prepared for install - vanity out of the box, sink cleaned off and out of the box, new faucet out of the box and organized with all its little pieces - we were starting this project off right! 

The only other step we needed to take for preparation was to turn the water off to the sink from the basement below. We knew from our lovely flooding experience (you can read more about that here) it was simple to shut off the water with the valves attached to the pipes - easy peasy. 

Not so much.

We went to the basement together to decide which pipes went to the sink (as opposed to the tub/shower) and they weren't hard to find at all; all the water pipes are in the unfinished side of our basement with our workshop and laundry area (and they are all exposed). Once we found the two, one for hot and one for cold, we turned them and I ran upstairs while Rob waited in the basement to see if it had worked. 

Just to give you an idea of what we were looking for and eventually turning,
here is the more modern version of what we have rocking out breaking in our basement. 

The hot water stopped right away. The cold water just ran and ran and ran...

Ok, let's try that again - the cold water pipe had a couple other possible valves on it along the line so we tried to turn those off. Again, the cold water just ran and ran and ran... 

Are you sensing a pattern here?

We went back to the first valve and tried turning it again. This time we noticed that the screw holding the cold water valve handle on wasn't turning (the hot water screw had turned). We tightened the bolt and tried again, nothing, we tightened a little bit more and the head of the screw popped right off. 

   

Now did I mention that the house was built in the 50's and it's likely that these aren't the original fittings but are probably pretty darned old? Not only did the head of the screw come right off, the handles of more than one valve bent as Rob tried to turn them... oh boy. 

Needless to say, we did not have an easy peasy time installing our new vanity. In fact, it didn't even begin to get installed. 

One thing we did learn is that our valves will most likely all need to be replaced to a more modern valve... woo hoo. 

Dear House, 

We weren't expecting to have to replace
 the water valves in the basement.  

What's up with that? Not cool. 

Sincerely, 

Your Frustrated Homeowners

Note: Though we are frustrated, we know that much worse things could happen! We are thankful that there wasn't any flooding, etc!

Let there be white!

One of our favorite features of the kitchen when we moved in was a very large octagonal white porcelain sink. Though it takes up most of the counter space in that area of the kitchen due to it's size, it makes washing dishes, etc. much easier. 

As much a we love a white kitchen and were pleased to see one when we walked into this house for the first time, we also knew there were some issues that go along with a white porcelain sink. Mainly they stain and they stain bad (they also scratch, but we haven't had too much issue with that so far!) 

Our house was a rental for years before we moved in and like most rentals, it wasn't cared for in the same manner it would have been if the owner lived in the house. There were no big problems but there were some stains and iffy things here and there. The kitchen sink was one of those areas. 

Nice, right? Fun shape, lots of space! But look at those yellow marks in the bottom of the sink. EW. I have wanted to do something about this since we moved in but kept forgetting to look up solutions. Well, I finally got so fed up that I did some research and found an easy peasy way (only two steps!) to make our sink clean again! Three cheers for a white sink! Hip, Hip, Hooray (and so on!) 

Scrubbing with the dish detergent does improve the look of the white porcelain but it still leaves much to be desired. When the sides of the sink maintain their bright-white appeal, even a partially yellowed sink bottom can be very distracting. 

The second and final step (thank God for easy fixes) required some household bleach. 

After pouring the bleach on the rags, I left them alone for about an hour. The instructions that I had read recommended 10 minutes but I got busy doing other things and didn't think it would hurt to leave it on longer. As you can see, the towels lost most of their color during the process so if you try this yourselves, remember to use rags or white towels. 

   

Look at that WHITE SINK! So much better than before and now that we know an easy way to eliminate those yellow stains, we can keep this sink looking fresh and clean for years to come! 

The change from beginning to end was remarkable and we are so happy this easy process worked so well! 

There are always ways to fix things, some harder than others but it's always worth looking into before you spend money on a bigger fix! 

Did any of you do some deep cleaning this weekend? If you have tips and tricks, please share them with us!!