Who glued these quarters down?

In all the houses Megs and I have stayed in or bought beige has been the color pallet of choice. That was the same with our new house. However this color scheme expanded in the master bath with an old dingy looking beige vanity top mounted on an fake oak 2-drawer vanity. As with most projects in our lives, if it functions well enough we leave it alone until it drives us nuts.

As per Megs usual MO, she shows up with a crusty old bathroom sink wedged in the back of the car. Piled on top are various bits of family life, a stroller, box of diapers I can barely lift, and food scraps strewn about like a pack of raccoons got into the car. After busting a nut and getting this thing out I set up the saw horses, busted out the Barkeepers Friend and start scrubbing. After 10 minutes this thing is looking pretty good!

With E’s help we pulled out all the stuff from the old vanity so we, yes we (meaning E and me), would have room to work. 

Let’s begin; Place a towel down for leaks, shut off the water, unbolt the water lines, unscrew the trap and pull out all the drain plumbing. A good pro’s trick to avoid the sewer smell when plumbing is to shove an old rag or paper town down into the waste stack. It will stop the gasses from escaping but it will also stop the water from traveling down so leave a bit sticking out to remind you to remove it before re-installing the new plumbing!

Out with the old is the old saying, unfortunately the disco sink was glued down with construction adhesive and didn’t want to budge. (Anger!) I grabbed my trusty Ridgid Jobmax with an old gummed up blade and made short work of cutting through the junk. 

Once the old sink was free and clear out in the yard, we look like hillbillies sometimes, I used a chisel to clean up some of the remaining dried globs of adhesive from the vanity. The vanity was as level as it was going to get so I dry fit the sink on top. With that good to go I could start to put the whole thing back together.

Hoping the next guy would curse me like I did him I caulked on a liberal amount of heavy duty construction adhesive and set the sink in place. Next, I inserted, centered and tightened the "new" faucet (another ReStore find) onto the sink and set about plumbing the fresh water lines. 

Once all connections were water tight I installed the old drain in the new sink. Using the adult version of silly putty, plumber’s putty, I rolled a thin snake with my hands and applied the putty to the underside edge of the drain. This is the location that comes in contact with the sink and ensures a water tight seal between the two components.

The last step in the process was to reconnect the P trap and waste stack. Now is the moment of truth… turn on the water valves, crack the faucet and let the good times roll. A little dripping from the connections at first is pretty normal, at least in my opinion. I always go back through and check to make sure all connections are tight and there are no spiting water leaks. Viola: new vanity.

As you can see by the picture above there used to be a mirror on the wall that had to come out when the sink was replaced. Stay tuned for more of my (Megan's) design genius on bringing that into the modern era.

Ap