Handy projects

[unixronin]

In the continuing fixing up of stuff around the new house (well, new-ish; we've been here seven months now), the blue bathroom gets the handyman love this week.  There's three bathrooms in this house, one on each floor.  The blue bathroom is the one on the middle floor.  The towel rail pulled off the wall — or, more exactly, off its mounting brackets — on Monday.

You've all seen these things before — flimsy bits of bent sheetmetal (but it's chrome-plated sheetmetal!) on ill-fitting brackets.  This being the 21st century, no less than three methods are used to mount this advanced, high-tech, shiny, chrome-plated piece of junk to each of its mounting brackets:  a set-screw, a wish, and a prayer.  The setscrews failed because they won't align correctly to get a decent purchase on the edge of the bracket, and the other two plus ninety-nine cents will get you a cup of MacDonalds coffee.  Just to make things more interesting, as is common with such junk, the brackets were only screwed into drywall¹ — and with overly-soft slotted-head wood screws that deform from the screwdriver blade, at that.  Nor should it come as a surprise that not one screw was put in straight.

Here's the replacement, at right.  It's screwed directly into the studs in the wall with four-inch deck screws, is wide enough to hold two bath towels without folding them, has three coats of polyurethane to keep moisture out of the wood — INCLUDING the cut ends against the wall — and best of all, is made entirely of materials left over from other jobs.  The last coat of polyurethane went on yesterday evening, and I just fitted it this morning.²

At left, a different view with detail of the end brackets.  Full-size images are, as usual, behind the thumbnails.

The last project before this was removing and completely remounting the toilet in the yellow bathroom, on the bottom level, which was leaking badly at the wax ring; and, on the same weekend, sanely rewiring all the outlets in our bedroom on the third floor.  Not only were three of the four pairs of electrical outlets in the room switched, they were all connected to the same set of two-way switches.  To make matters worse, the two-way switches had been wired incorrectly so that they were in effect acting as two single-pole switches in series.  Just to add surrealism, all the original outlets were worn out to the point they wouldn't hold a plug in; instead of simply replacing the outlets, an additional outlet had been wired onto the end of the chain in a junction box just screwed to the wall on top of the panelling.

After rewiring, that outlet box (which the headboard lights plug very conveniently into) is properly flush-fitted, and it's the only switched one now; all the other outlets are now unswitched, so that we can plug things like, oh, say, alarm clocks into them.  And naturally, yes, I replaced the worn-out outlets.  I'm progressively replacing almost every outlet in the house.

[1]  Well, OK ... two of the four screws probably went almost half an inch into the stud behind.  Color me impressed.  Not.

[2]  Yes, I've subsequently moved the TP holder.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

not one screw in straight
switches in series

Ah, I see the same idiots who built my house had a hand in yours.

The towel rack looks nice! One detail you might want to do -- putty over or cap the screw holes.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I thought about that, but decided against it. I don't mind seeing the fastener heads, and they're oxide-finished (and the ones on the rail itself are under three coats of polyurethane) — they're not going to rust.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I suggested he put caps on them because I thought they'd look better. But it isn't my bathroom and I don't use that bathroom often enough to really complain about it.

[bbwoof.livejournal.com]

When you decide that mercenary UNIXry doesn't pay enough, and want to try out mercenary carpentry, give us a call!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I've already decided there's little future in mercenary UNIXry for someone my age and not fresh out of college. Trouble is, mercenary carpentry doesn't pay much unless you're really good. DJ Delorie could probably make a living at it, and maybe I could with another few years of solid practice.

But I'll gladly advise on projects. :)


(Actually, as soon as I can find a source of cabinet-quality lumber, my next major project here is to build the Silly Goose a loft bed with desk. Then I get to rebuild my desk top, then my reloading bench....)

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

~twitches~ in series? ~shakes head~ morons!

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that particular piece of wiring is all kinds of special.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Could I rent you for a couple of months? Nice job! We bought a place here in Toronto that was an abandoned commercial space and 7 years later are STILL not done with the renos. Oh, and sorry for the delay....stuff mailed today. :)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I was starting to wonder if it'd gone astray in the mail (or at the hands of US Customs).

I'm going to be doing a lot of recovering from knee replacement for the next few months, actually ... surgery is on June 30. But if I could make a living doing quality custom carpentry — hey, it has the advantage that it can't readily be offshored. (Though I'm given to understand many companies are trying to move at least some of their offshored jobs back, after discovering that paying a tenth as much for labor is only a bargain if the people you hire actually do what you wanted done.)

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

We's got the package.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I just heard that I didn't send you what I thought. sigh. I explained in an email to your husband. My apologies. And if you see my brain, please send it home.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I was actually standing there when he read it. My brain went on walk about this morning at about 1148 when I realized that I didn't have nearly as much stuff done for the party that was starting in 12 minutes as I thought I had. So it was good when people decided to show up about 30 minutes later. I've got a ~huge~ bowl of pizza dough sitting in the kitchen and one pan pizza rolled out. I'm thinking that in the morning I'm just going to dump the dough in the trash and say, "Oh well." But I do believe that from now on I'll bake the cake the night before because for once it frosted just about perfectly. My brain did make a return appearance at about 2000 when we started playing FLUXX (http://www.looneylabs.com/OurGames/ProductInfo/index.html).

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

My goodness, so much of that sounds familiar... recently familiar, in fact...
The replacing of the outlets, though, doesn't come until after the inspector approves of the new breaker box and 200 am lines - which DIDN'T pass inspection on the first try, and if the contractors think they're going to get the last few hundred we owe them before they fix that, they got another think coming.