Part 3 of Unintended Projects: Basement Bathroom.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

I seriously don't get it.  I went downstairs to go grab some finished laundry and before I knew it, I find myself standing in that basement bathroom again, working on the sink.  How does this happen to me?!

I opted for more 2x, no legs, by the way.

Bolstered by the overall somewhat general ease of getting the sink on the wall the other day, I thought, all righty, it'll be no problem to wrap this puppy up.  So here's how it went.

bracket and wall stuff

Impressed that the sink was still on the wall and not on the floor in a million pieces, I took it off the wall then took out that little free floating piece of drywall filler.  Next I cut down the remaining piece of 2x6 I had to about 3.25"-ish wide so I wouldn't have to make the hole in the wall much bigger.

After a few fits, re-tries, more cutting, trimming, wiggling, I got the piece of wood in the wall, much as I had done the last time.

more bracket and wall

Using that crummy fiberglass tape, I taped up the seams then dry fit the sink back on again.  Here's where things rolled into bigger-struggles-ville.

Thankfully my grandfather had been an accountant and had five hundred bazillion pencils in varying sizes and thankfully I inherited them.  Once that sink went back up, so I could find the hole placement for the next round of bolts, I needed an incredibly stubby pencil.  Thanks Grandpa!

sink bracket and wall

The instructions said to drill 5/8" holes so the bolts with toggles could go through.  What they really meant to say was drill two holes more like 11/16".  Mm hm, that was fun, because of course I drilled the holes, put the sink back up, tightened it down, then discovered that the toggles wouldn't fit through the 5/8" holes.  Heh.

Loosen lag bolts, take off sink again, dig around tool box for bigger paddle bit, battery on drill dies, replace battery, drill bigger holes, test the toggles to fit, yes!, gussy up the wall with the crummy lightweight spackle, put sink back up, tighten lag bolts.  Ok!  Back in business.

Why won't these darn toggles stay in the wall?  What the hell, man?  After about ten tries I finally figured out why the toggles weren't staying inside the wall.  Duuuuhhh.  Screwed them on backwards.    Nice.  I'll tell ya, sometimes I'm a real genius.

Once I got that silliness resolved, the tough part was finding a small enough Phillips head screwdriver to fit under and within the cramped space of the sink to tighten everything down.  A challenge, but I overcame.

view of sink on wall

After a few tiny wiggle tests, I slowly backed away.  Is it up?  Is it?  Will it stay??  Did I really just do this?!

I attached the water lines and the water runs though I need to tighten those bolts with a tool, not solely by hand as the cold is dripping a bit at the wall.

finishing sink installation

I got more spackle goo on the walls and those walls are looking a little less eaten by a maniacal chipper-shredder.  They'll never be the same.  Scarred for life.

But wow, I did it.  I installed a wall mount bathroom sink.  A little in shock, I am, a little amazed.  Rather proud of myself.  If I can do this, you can do this.

I picked up the random towels left in the room, tidied up a bit, took the sink box out, and wow, it's slowly returning to normal.  Yes.  Now to try and get this horrible kink out of my neck that I woke up with.....that, I dunno, I don't think I can fix that as easily.

Jump to part uh, five thousand here!

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