Learn From My Fail

Seth and I spent Memorial Day weekend sanding our parquet floor. It was in pretty rough shape after years of neglect. There were scratches and uneven edges covering the entire floor so it required a lot of TLC to get every bit of it smooth and ready for the finish.

We rented a big orbital sander from Lowe's to do the main parts and bought a small hand sander for the edges and such. After sanding the floor with three different grits of sandpaper (36, 50, and 80 for those who are curious), the floor was finally done. It already looked so beautiful. We left for the night to let the dust settle and planned to come back the next day to vacuum and apply the finishing coat.

The floor after it was all sanded

On Tuesday evening just as I was about to leave work, Seth sent me a text. Included in the text was the following picture:

While sanding the floor we'd unplugged the fridge so it wouldn't suck the dust in. Unfortunately we didn't realize that the ice maker was full. After sitting there unplugged for over 24 hours, the ice in the ice maker melted and leaked out onto the floor. With no protection at all, the floor absorbed the water and buckled in several places (you can see the worst of it there in the center of the cabinet). Swears were uttered by both parties.

As of last night the floor was still drying out. We're not sure if we'll be able to get the tiles to lay flat again and/or if they'll be too damaged to use. Here's to hoping. So, in closing, if you're planning on refinishing your floors, make sure the ice maker is empty before unplugging your fridge. Eff.

A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do

Do any of you know what this is?

No, it's not THAT. {Blush}

Well I know what it is. It's called a flapper and all of you have at least one. You've probably never seen it, or haven't had a close enough view of one to realize that's what this picture is. But, why would you? The flapper lives in your toilet!

That's right my friends, there's a flapper living in your toilet. It's the thing that lifts up every time you flush so the water can get out of the tank and into the toilet bowl. If you don't believe me, go take the lid off the tank and flush your toilet. There it is! It's waving at you! HA!

Why am I doing a post about toilet parts? Well it just so happens that the plastic chain attached to the flapper in MY bathroom broke off last night when I flushed. Stupid piece of junk. Who uses a plastic chain? Cheap apartments, that's who. So, I had to stick my hand in the tank to lift up the flapper in order to get it to flush. No big deal, but I definitely didn't want to have to do that forever.

So at this point you're probably wondering why I didn't just call the apartment maintenance guys to come fix it and stop my whining. I could have. But I didn't really want to. There are several reasons why:

#1 I hate calling people.

#2 I don't like strangers coming into our apartment.

#3 I figured it'd be a pretty cheap fix.

#4 I kind of wanted to see if I could fix it.

So I'm a sucker for home repairs. I know that sounds really weird. Not that I'd attempt anything huge, but simple projects I'm totally game for. I've installed shower heads and light fixtures and such, so I figured this wouldn't be too bad. It's not like the toilet exploded and there were parts everywhere. It was just a simple flapper replacement!

When I got home from work today, I turned the water off behind the toilet, flushed it one more time to get the water out, and took the flapper off. Simple enough, right? Then I cleaned the thing off because it looked disgusting, and put it in my purse. I always hear stories about people having to go back to the hardware store ten times because they don't get the right parts, especially for plumbing projects. I figured if I took it with me, I'd up my chances of not having to go back and forth a million times.

I headed down the street to Lowe's and found their plumbing department. There on the wall were all the toilet parts. And there they were... flappers. All new and sparkling in their plastic packages, just waiting for me to bring them home and put them in my toilet. But, only one would be chosen. I picked a beautiful red one that was just under $5. It was the cheapest one and looked just like the one in my purse, only this one had a metal chain attached. Classy.

I went and paid the lady and took my brand new shiny flapper home. Gracie met me at the door and followed me back to the bathroom to help install our new found friend, Flappy. Gracie sat on the toilet seat looking into the bowl while I trimmed off excess parts and installed Flappy. The first time I hooked him up, the chain was too long and it didn't let enough water out to flush. But, after taking it up a couple links and trying again, my toilet was back to normal. Gracie was very impressed.

All of this took less than 30 minutes, and that included driving to Lowe's and back. It only cost me $4.88 and there wasn't even any cursing involved! Plus it was kind of fun. Does that make me a plumber? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I have a good enough crack to qualify. Anyway, welcome to the family, Flappy, it's nice to have you here.