There and Back Again

Two weeks of plumbing focused blogs...seems to be a trend at Wallpaper Acres these days! This weekend, our focus was on the upstairs hall bath as that is the last project standing in our way from moving in so we are very motivated, but also want to ensure that we do it right so we do not have any heartache in the future.

Friday night, John and I ventured to Floor & Decor to purchase our penny tile and tiling needs to have on hand. No, this weekend is not a tile weekend but it makes sense for us to have it on deck for when we are ready so we do not have to go to Antioch in the future.

Saturday started off with some returns to Home Depot that we had been putting off, that trip went very smoothly and we were on our way to the Habitat Restore to donate beadboard, a range hood vent, and a light fixture. From there we started making our way to Bellevue. Once we got to Bellevue, we went to Home Depot to purchase the Pex pipe, new tub, cement board, and other necessary plumbing items to get the weekend started. Instead of true cement board, we decided to buy Wonderboard which is a lot lighter than traditional cement board and not that much more expensive. We are planning to use Red Guard to waterproof our tub/shower area. When we departed the store, we knew we would be back as we were not 100% sure of the correct fittings that were needed to plumb the vanity as it was hiding behind drywall. Before arriving at Wallpaper Acres, we stopped by Adam's house to pickup some tools that we would need for our plumbing adventures.

Once we got to the house, we unboxed the tub.

We moved the tub into the bathroom and quickly realized that we needed a drain fitting to seat the tub. So, off to Ace Hardware we went where we purchased a 1.5 inch drain insert and back to the house we went. When we went to install the drain insert...it did not fit...the 1.5 inch drain insert did not fit into the 1.5 inch PVC piping...so we were perplexed. After further research, still no answer. One thing we did decide to do was to cut an access area in the closet so that way we could have access to the lines if there were to be a leak once the tub was set as we would have no visibility to that otherwise.

We decided to turn our attention to relocating the vanity plumbing. In order to fit our free, new to us vanity, we had to move the plumbing to the left one foot so that way we did not have to cut down and shorten the drawers on one side. In our minds, that is a small price to pay for a free vanity. Also, when we removed the existing vanity, there was evidence of a water leak and mold was on part of the drywall which we wanted to address and remove.

John got to work removing the drywall and the original fixtures. He was able to make pretty quick work of the drywall and we took inventory of what items we needed and off to Home Depot we went.

Once there, we must have looked perplexed because the friendly old man in plumbing asked if we needed any help...we were able to find the pieces that we thought we needed and found a piece of drywall that was previously cut and was 60% of the normal sheet. Someone had cut it and left it on the cart. John and I did not want to mess with a full piece so we wheeled that up to the front and asked for a price on it...they said we could get it for 70% off, score! Then when it was time to ring it up, they just told us to take it as they would just be throwing it away at the end of the day...only a $12 savings but every little bit counts!

When we returned to the house, we turned the water off to the house (most important step of the weekend). Then, we got to work on cutting the original copper pipes behind the vanity.

(This is what we were working with and had to move the plumbing into the cavity on the left)

Mind you, John and I have never done plumbing of this nature before, we have only watched YouTube videos...so here we go! We decided to use Sharkbite products as they snap into place with a compression fitting and you do not need to solder anything.

(Our inventory of plumbing parts...)

We had bought a pipe cutter for tight spaces and once John figured out how to use that, we were rocking and rolling. We did struggle as we had to cut lower than we wanted to due to how the original plumbers had run the lines...they had drilled the holes for the piping at an angle which made the process of cutting and attaching the fittings a tad more difficult. Once we had the pipes cut, we made sure to prep the copper pipes for the fittings by sanding and cleaning them so it would be a secure and clean connection. (Picture for reference below).

Perks of using Pex pipes is that it just slides right in and needs no prep unlike the copper. The other nice thing about the Sharkbite fittings is that we were able to connect copper into one side and have Pex come out the other side! We had to drill 2 holes through the stud in order to move the water lines and then re-anchor the pipes to a 2x4 brace. We went to work on the PVC pipe part of the drain and realized we bought the wrong pipe so we decided to call it a day...yes you read that right...another trip to the home improvement store would be happening on Sunday. Prior to heading out for the evening, we turned the water back on to see if we had any leaks and we were so happy that all that work paid off! No leaks and we had water running to the valves!

Overall, this whole process took us roughly an hour after 4.5 hours of prep and running to and from home improvement stores...Yes, by the end of Saturday, we had been to the hardware stores 4 total times...how fun!

Sunday morning started off with a run to Home Depot and we were prepared this time! We also brought the foreman with us to make sure that we stayed on track!

Once we purchased the correct PVC elbow, off we went to Wallpaper Acres. We arrived and there were still no leaks so we were ready to install the new drywall to cover up Saturday's hard day of work. John got to work on that while I cut the power to the downstairs and cutout the old outlets and installed all new outlets. John had already replaced the upstairs outlets and he had showed me how to do it. However, the kitchen outlets were just not cooperating! Turns out, it was a thicker gauge wire that was ran so instead of slotting the wires into the holes in the back, I had to wrap them around the screw posts on the side...not the end of the world but instead of changing an outlet every 2-3 minutes, each one took about 10 minutes to change. Luckily, only half the downstairs outlets were like this.

John was able to cut and install the drywall pretty quickly with no issues. Once he got the panel in place, he used drywall mud to finish it off. Pictures below.

From there, it was time to install the tub. Have you ever tried fitting a 60-inch tub into a 60-inch opening with no wiggle room? Well, I am here to tell you it is fun (I hope you can sense the sarcasm...)! John and I managed to wedge the tub perfectly that it got stuck...so stuck that we were not able to get it loose for 20 minutes as I was just not strong enough and we did not want to damage the tub...so I called Adam and he came to the rescue! By the time Adam arrived, I was able to muster enough strength and shimmy myself into a position so John and I were able to wiggle it free. Adam and John were able to lift the tub straight up and straight down...but now the fun part was aligning the drain hole with the pipe fittings below and at the overflow area. This is where the access panel hole that we cut yesterday came in handy! I was able to lay on the floor and move the drain piping around so that the fixture matched the hole...after 4-5 attempts, we were able to get the tub set in place to allow the Liquid Nails to adhere to the subfloor. And...at the end, the tub was level! Ultimately, the tub install process would not have been successful with just John and I and we were very thankful that Adam was able to swing over an help or we would probably still be staring at the tub!

(The tub is also Willow approved!!)

After the tub was in, John and I went to work on installing the toilet in the master bathroom. Wouldn't you know that they make a metal piece that is designed to fix a flange when it breaks from overtightening...well they do! We were able to use that to fix our broken flange and seat the toilet successfully so now we have 2 operational toilets...such a luxury!

(Peep the leftover painted over wallpaper behind the toilet in the picture below...)

Once we got that done, Willow was absolutely exhausted from a hard day of work so we returned to East Nashville for the weekend.

A couple of main takeaways from the weekend:

1. We learned a new life skill today, true plumbing and it takes a lot of patience!

2. Plumber's trucks are well stocked - John made the comment that plumbers tend to have all the pieces in their truck when coming to a job site so all of our trips to the hardware store were due to the fact that we just needed a different piece that we had not purchased previously.

3. Willow makes a great foreman!