Bathroom Sink Replacement

About two years ago my oldest dropped a glass soap dispenser into the sink in our downstairs half-bath.

The soap dispenser cracked the sink from the drain to the rim:

I bought a sink shortly after the accident, but had been putting off doing the replacement because of the time involved, and because I dislike plumbing.  Anyway, taking a short vacation during the recent holidays, I decided it was time to tackle this project.

The sink is wall-hung.  It's about the only option for our tiny half-bath, so I had to get another wall-hung about the same size.  Fortunately, Home Depot had one.  It was the only one they had:

The first thing to do was to disconnect and remove the faucet and drain.  Pretty much standard procedures.

And then, the sink was removed:

See that black thing?  That's the metal bracket which held up the sink.  I was hoping that I could use the same one, but no joy.  The new sink would not fit, so I had to install the bracket that came with the new sink.  This is when I started running into challenges.  First, if you don't already know, these brackets need to have some kind of lumber bracing in the wall.  Fortunately, I have easy access to the back of the wall.  Here's the old 2x3 bracing:

The new sink has different dimensions than the old, and clips at a different place than the old, requiring a bracing to be several inches below the old bracing.  Also, due to a less than optimal design, the new sink tends to rotate about the bracket, creating a lot of torque on the bracket.  So it requires additional fasteners to securely attach the sink to the wall.  Just a poor design.  The old sink used a single bracket and was rock solid on that wall.  I had to remove this old bracing in order to attach the new sink. However, it was nailed in with 6 nails and would not budge as I wailed on it with a hammer.  I then decided I needed something to make the job a little easier:

Just a couple of passes with the saw, and I was able to knock the block off, first at one end then the other.

Next, I cut some scrap 2x4 I had lying around with my power miter to make another bracing:

After it was cut, I affixed it using some construction screws.  It wasn't as stable as the old one, so I added some right-angle braces.

Next I needed to hang the sink on the brackets, and then add two additional toggle bolts to stabilize it on the wall.  This required another piece of wood (so it wouldn't pull through the drywall).  

The sink was on, so it would be clear sailing to the end.  Just had to attach the faucet and drain, hook everything up and be done. Or so I thought.  When I attached the faucet, I noticed how NOT flat the sink's deck was.  Check out this rather large gap:

You get what you pay for, I guess.  I was hoping that I had enough plumber's putty.  I tightened down the faucet and it seemed to be OK.  Attached the water supply lines.  No problems there.  Then it was time for the the trap.

What's wrong with this picture?  Turns out the sink's drain opening was about 3/4" further from the wall than the old sink, so the tail didn't line up with the trap.  Back to Home Depot...

Home Depot had a flexible tail pipe extension which allowed the trap to be connected.  However, there was a leak I just could not fix. I found a better solution on Amazon:

It worked like a charm.  Now we have a new sink.

Perhaps the worst part of all this was wasting two days of my vacation for something that I thought was going to take a few hours, and aggravating my cervical radiculopathy.

Snakes in the Attic?

A few days ago, the Orkin termite inspector did an inspection of our house.  While he didn't find any termites, he did note that the screen covering a vent on the west gable end of our attic was pulled open, and that there was a huge squirrel's nest below it.

He stated that squirrels pulled the screen down and built the nest.  He said that Orkin could staple the screen back up, clear out the nest, and put down a few inches of TAP (Thermal Acoustical Pest Control), a blown-in cellulose type of insulation laced with boric acid.  He said that the boric acid would kill any insect infestation, and would repel the squirrels.  Cost would be about $1000-$2,200, depending on the thickness of the TAP.

I was extremely surprised that the screen was pulled down.  A couple of years ago, I had gone up there and found the screen for that vent totally torn-up, and that huge nest below the vent.  I thought it was a bird's nest because I found about 15 dead birds up in the attic.  So I replaced the torn screen with an aluminum fine-meshed screen (the kind for windows), and a 1/4" "hardware cloth" (a mesh made of galvanized steel, I think). I left the nest because...well...it was huge and I was lazy.  Anyway, I stapled the screen and hardware cloth up with probably 50+ staples, so I was quite shocked that the screen was partly pulled off.

Well, I went up there today and found that although the hardware cloth was partly pulled down, the fine-meshed screen was still intact.  Basically, nothing could get through it.  So, it occurred to me that either the hardware cloth came off by itself (unlikely), or someone pulled it off.  Now, I am the only one in my family that goes up there.  I was up there last December or January, and everything was intact.  So I suspect that the Orkin guy pulled the hardware cloth, leaving the fine-meshed screen.  I decided to repair this thing so nothing, not even an Orkin guy could pull it off.  I used some 1" #10 stainless steel screws, with 1 1/4" washers:

After screwing down the hardware cloth with some of these and adding about 50 more staples, it was fixed:

I then decided to check the east gable vent.  To my surprise, there some rather large wasp nests on the it inside the attic:

Close inspection revealed holes in its metal screen, probably pecked out by birds or a squirrel.  So I put a new screen on to cover the entire vent.

I also found something while up there that totally shocked me.  Check it out:

A shedded (molted?) snake skin!!  What would a snake be doing up there?  How would it get up there?  Maybe somebody put it up there?  The Orkin guy?  Anyway, weird.  I don't think there are any snakes up there now.  I had spend a lot of time up there in the past couple of years, and had never seen any snakes or signs of snakes.

One Ledger Board Installed, One to Go

Installing a ledge board took me longer than expected, but I was able to install one on the south wall today.

Since the ledge boards determine the level-ness of the entire desktop, it is extremely important to get these things level.  A laser level comes in handy for this.

It projects a horizontal line and a vertical line, and is self-leveling.

It is easiest to first mount the board using one screw in the middle, then rotate as needed to get the board level.  It was difficult to line it up with the height of the height I wanted; I was about 1/8" off.  Hopefully I will be able to line up the west wall ledge board with one on the south wall.  I used 1/4" lag screws to mount the board:

I Forstner bit was used to set in the screw head, and a flat washer provides some support in the hole.  Here's the board mounted:

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to the other ledger board.  Hopefully soon, like this weekend.  I have to focus a bit on work (the one I earn a living from), which isn't going too well at the moment.  Also, I injured myself, while cleaning up, of all things, so I think I need to take a bit of a break anyway.

Desk-building Begins

I'm attempting to document the building of my desk.  It will be an L-shaped desk attached to two adjacent walls in my home office.  One side will be 8' long, and the other side will be about 8' 4" long.  I got the idea from this instructables: http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Rock-Solid-Cantilever-Desk/  My design is slightly different, and it will have a bottom shelf.

Here are what the walls look like right now:

The blue tape marks studs and screws.  I got some 2x4's today from Home Depot to build the supports for the desk:

I was amazed at the poor quality of the lumber.  It was difficult to find really straight studs.  And the wood was quite moist.  I'm hoping that the wood won't warp as it dries.

I'm going to attach the ledgers tomorrow.