I am a DIY "goddess"

For the past few months, our bathroom faucet has been leaking. Drip, drip, drop. One little tiny bit at a time. Barely worth looking into. I tried to get Smiley to fix it, but he deemed it too insignificant to spend a potential half afternoon fixing and said one of these weekends he would just buy a new faucet since the current one is kind of cheap anyhow. I was agreeable to that, but the drip was not. It got worse, probably as a form of protest ("how dare you suggest I'm not a leak to be contended with?!").

But there came the moment I could no longer ignore this drip. After all, every drop was probably costing us about a fraction of a fraction of a penny. And eventually it would end up costing us a penny. And from there, the sky was the limit!

Now as you all know, we keep stuff. So it didn't take me long to dig up the box that the faucet came in. I was hoping to see, I don't know, maybe a troubleshooting guide or something? The box was empty, but I noticed the installation guide on the bottom and it worried me. The installation process was shown to be three steps: open box, put top part of faucet above sink, secure bottom part under sink.

Why did this worry me? I had looked up on The Internet how to fix a faucet, and it had been intimidating. Pictures showed the various screws, washers and valves that could comprise a faucet. So this overly simplistic box picture made me wonder if the faucet was so cheap that it really couldn't be taken down into its component parts. And that made me wonder if I was going to have to go to the store and really buy a faucet. And installing a faucet seemed ten times more scary than trying to fix a mysterious leak.

So I went into the bathroom and stared down the faucet. Gave it the once-over. And there I noticed two little plastic spots on the inside of the handles. I gently pried them out and saw there was a space for an allen wrench! I could take the handles apart after all!

Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to check and see if only one side was leaking before taking everything apart. First I turned off both hot and cold water to the faucet and (of course) the leak stopped. Then I turned on the cold water. No leak. Then I turned off the cold water and turned on the hot water. Then we had a leak!

Yes, that is one of those moments that I felt proud about. (Did I mention that Silas thought I was hilarious? He was quite content to play in the hallway during this little ordeal of mine. Amazing what a change of scenery can do for a baby.) Even though I knew that anyone could have done that in no time at all, it still felt like a step in the right direction for me. I turned the water supply off again, just in case, and got all up under the sink.

It was not easy to get all up under the sink. Though that bathroom has a spacious cabinet, a spacious cabinet is still a somewhat cramped space for a human being. I looked up under the sink, shining a light, and found nothing that seemed to be useful. There was a black washer and I half heartedly gave it a twist to see if it was loose or something. (This was my method of "trial and error at work, people!) It was not loose. It felt like it probably should feel, I decided. My back cramping had nothing to do with that decision at all, I swear.

I knew I would have to remove the handle. I loaded a picture of potential handle insides onto my phone and searched around the house for the proper size allen wrench. I was surprised to find one in our bedroom window sill that was a match. Then I promptly managed to use it incorrectly. (I used the short side of the wrench which meant I had to keep pulling it out and reinserting it because the long side would hit the bathroom counter. Whoops.)

As I was unscrewing this tiny screw, I had one thought - "I need to make sure I don't drop this into the sink."

Of course the moment I gently took the screw from the handle, I dropped it into the sink. Crap. '

Then I tried to grab it before it could roll down into the drain. Of course it rolled down into the drain. I knew vaguely that the "p-trap" could catch this item and that somehow I could retrieve it, but I put that thought aside for now. I looked at the handle mechanism.

Of course it was different than the diagram I found online.

I noticed there was a screw, a larger screw, holding an orange piece together. So, logically, it made sense that I should take out this screw also. Imagine how great I felt when I found a screwdriver (also in our bedroom) that was the perfect fit. I took out that screw. I did not drop it in the sink, because it was large enough that it wouldn't have fallen down the drain.

Then I looked at the orange piece and decided to pry it up as well. At first, I wasn't really sure what I was looking at. The piece was about a half inch in diameter and fit on a metal piece that I couldn't figure out how to pry up. In fact, it was at this point that I realized that I had taken apart as much as I was able to. I didn't have the wrench needed to remove the metal bolt that held this metal piece/orange thing combination. I had reached the end of my attempt to fix this. I decided to take heart in the fact that at least Silas was still thrilled about exploring a different section of carpeting.

So I pressed the orange thing back onto the metal thing (I'm using all the highly technical terms here) and realized that this was the mechanism that decided how much water came through the faucet. So before I put the decorative handle part back on, I decided to play with it and see how it worked. I turned the hot water back on and amused myself by rotating the orange plastic piece to turn on and off the water.

And that's when I realized that when I turned the faucet off, it wasn't leaking anymore.

I looked down at the orange piece. It looked the exact same as it had before I took it off. I hadn't made any adjustments, consciously. Clearly my subconscious mind had done something amazing. I tentatively put the long screw back into the orange/metal combination. Still no leak.

I put the handle part back over everything and turned on the water. I turned it off. No leak.

I resisted squealing in joy, because the tiny screw was still stuck in the p-trap. But somehow, I had fixed the leak. And, even better, my husband got home just as this was happening, so I could share my triumphant fix (and less triumphant screw-loss). Luckily, as he is able to do this sort of thing much better than me, he removed the p-trap, retrieved the screw, and we replaced that together.

Silas started to fuss at this point, presumably because he realized that just like the carpet in the living room and the bedroom, he is unable to eat this "different" hallway carpeting too. It was quite perfect in timing.

As of this writing, the leak is still fixed.

An extremely short HGTV rant - double vanities

Once, a woman on one of the house hunting shows proclaimed that without double vanities in the bathroom, a marriage is doomed to fail.

Maybe she was being sarcastic. It didn't seem that way.

It just seems to me that if you can't coordinate getting ready in the morning with your partner, maybe there's an underlying problem that can't be solved with another sink.

I mean, Smiley and I share a tiny bathroom and we've made it work. And not once have I had the thought of divorce as I stepped to the side a little to let him use the sink when we were both getting ready to go someplace. Just saying.

Another short HGTV rant - square footage

Here is another trend I find baffling and perhaps you can enlighten me on what I am missing. Often a times, I will watch the HGTV channel because in some ways, I am very much stereotypically a homemaker and love watching hours of people looking at homes, buying them, renovating them and sometimes selling them.

That being said, the massive square footage requirements that many featured buyers have are really hard for me to wrap my head around. Families of four will request upwards of 4k square feet, for example. Grown couples that indicate no desire to have children will look for houses with similar or more square feet. And people looking for their first homes will complain when they are brought to a 1500 square foot house that is within their budget.

(Caveat: This square footage madness does not typically apply to those looking for apartments, and especially those looking for apartments abroad. In those cases, I am awestruck that people can make less than 800 square feet work for them).


According to the internet, the average home size in the US is around 2700 square feet currently. The average family size is 2.6 (both of these stats were taken from 2009, so yes - outdated by a few years. But while I can imagine that the ongoing recession has downsized square footage a bit, I doubt it's led to an increase in family size). This is insane. Do people really need around or over 1000 square foot per person to exist?

Now, I do have some extreme examples. I know that my mom's family of ten lived in a very small house (I'd estimate at about 1200 square feet with an unfinished basement); it had four small bedrooms and one bathroom. I know also that my mom is eternally grateful that our family of seven had three bathrooms but we, too, made do with less bedrooms than people - my parent's house has four bedrooms. The first time in my life that I didn't share a bedroom was, strangely enough, when I moved into a dorm for college.

So I know it's possible to exist in smaller spaces. And I honestly don't know what I'd do with more square feet besides find junk to put on shelves and to store more seasonal decorations; but I don't think my quality of life would go up. So help me out here, guys. Let me know what I need more square footage for. Right now, my husband and I live in a 1500~ square foot house. His sister is living with us and we have two small dogs and no space issues as of now. HGTV dictates that with three people, our house should be twice as large.

Oh, and don't get me started on our lack of double vanities. Again. Another rant for another day.

A short HGTV rant - granite

Well, this is it folks. Now, don't get me wrong. I know that trends in housing decor and such change as the years go by; one only need look to the (in my mind) terrible, terrible practice of black and white kitchen tile from decades now long past for an example.

Stepping back for a moment, in fact, I know it's safe to say that pretty much everything goes through trends everywhere, constantly. It's why the "emo" kids of my high school years are becoming replaced by "hipsters" and in a few years, some other "unlikeable" group will come along next.

But this isn't about that; this is strictly about housing trends that I have noticed from watching copious amount of HGTV.

Once upon a time (about, let's see - 3 years at the most), granite counter tops were IT. They were what sold the kitchen to annoying buyers who would say things like "Oh, all of those appliances will need to be replaced" simply because the appliances were black instead of stainless steel. The buyer would then say, "But since I'll save so much money not having to upgrade the  counter tops to granite,  I think I can manage."

Decorating shows would give hints and tips for how to obtain your granite counter tops for less; use granite tiles with no grout line! Negotiate on scrap granite!

And then as granite has saturated the upper end market and been brought to the mid grade market through tile and scrap, a new call has emerged from those who can afford it all. Now it is simply not enough to have the granite. Now it must be an elite granite.

On HGTV I have seen design shows ding the homeowners for using "builder grade" granite. (I guess that's now considered the McDonald's burger meat of the design world?) Now buyers will come in and lament about how the counter tops they see are all granite. They want something different.  They want the previous owners to guess exactly what color granite they like best and use that.

I guess maybe I'm just slow on the uptake. I never had a chance to obtain coveted granite counters and with my complete lack of internet fame for the next year and a half, I will certainly never have enough money to get granite. Probably by the time I do, it will be some new, ridiculously expensive material. And people will look at my sad, pitiful kitchen and comment about how the appliances don't match and that the counter tops are so 2010. And it will hurt.

I have more HGTV rants and you'll probably hear them... or have heard them... (for example, do stainless steel appliances really cook better? I feel like the majority of people who HAVE to have stainless steel probably don't even cook all that often) but that's all for now.