Day 16: One of the Worst Days Yet...

I woke up at 8:21 A.M.  I actually woke up a couple of times before that, but I had set my alarm for 8:30 A.M. to get a full 8 hours of sleep.  I did a load of laundry knowing that I would have to catch a flight tonight.  I checked what time…5:42 P.M.  That meant I needed to leave my house at 4:45 P.M.  That meant I needed to be back at my house NO LATER than 4:00 P.M.  That meant I needed to leave the Rochester house at 3:40 P.M.  That meant I had a decent amount of hours to work today.

I stopped at the blue house to completely clean out the garage.  I loaded EVERYTHING up, then took it over to my garage.  Now legitimately the ONLY thing left is the spring for the garage door!  I’m 99.9% done!

I headed for the Rochester house next.  I had called a hardware store to inquire about a different tub drain shoe, but the plumbing gentleman didn’t understand what I needed.  Next I called a specialty plumbing shop, and the guy said there were 56 different combinations (I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not).  He told me I had to bring the old one in (I had seriously searched high and low for it yesterday to no avail).  He then suggested that it might be easier just to take the whole thing out and put a new one in.  Hmm.  Say what?  He said it should just be mounted with a threaded piece.  No sweat.  Literally.  Or so he thought anyway.  I would have to check it out.  That was my ONE goal today:  get that tub drain complete.

Sure enough, at the house, I saw what he was talking about.  This drain literally screws into a vertical brass pipe.  I unscrewed it.  It didn’t look difficult at all.

I also worked on getting my gas stove hooked up.  I had unfortunately and mistakenly cut off the flared fitting yesterday, so I tried flaring the copper today.  After it was all hooked up, I turned on the gas.  I went back upstairs to a hissing noise and a terribly strong gas smell.  I RAN back downstairs to shut off the gas.  Well, that’s no good.

My brother showed up, and we tried to figure out the gas issue.  I tried another flare to no avail.  My tool seemed to be flaring the copper sideways.  So I meticulously cut the copper straight, then flared again.  It looked good.  We hooked it up.  Hissing gas again.  I was so frustrated!!!

My new flaring tool.  Hooking up my stove gas line.

Working on it again, I found that the piece between the stove connector and supply line wasn’t threaded on properly.  I tried again.  Nothing.  It appeared it wasn’t going to go.  I needed a new part.

Knowing time was wasting (it was 12:40 P.M.), I rushed to Menard’s, picked up a new drain shoe, and talked to the plumbing guy about my stove problem.  After describing the problem to him, he thought I was crazy.  As in legitimately.  He said there was no way it wouldn’t thread on.  He said I had all the right pieces.  It HAD to thread on if what I was telling him was true.  Sigh.  I picked up a new connector anyway just in case mine was bad.  I headed back to the house!

I tried out my old connector first, and sure enough, it started threading this time!  I tightened it up, turned on the gas, and actually used all five burners of the stove for the first time since purchase!  I still smelled a faint smell of gas, and I wasn’t sure if it was from me trying to start it initially or not, so I turned the gas back off just to be safe.  I’m really not sure if that project is complete or not!

Unsure if it's perfect or not, but the stove looks great anyway!!!

Next I tackled the tub drain.  The old one came off easily, and I told Dad I expected this new one to take about 15 minutes to install.  Simply put the new one in, screw it tight, then fit the new standard plugs into the shoe.  Easy.

I kid you not when I say I spent the next 2 hours trying to get this thing to thread in.  I don’t even know how to put it into words.  The problem was that this was a 2-person job, and it was just me.  I called my brother, but he was enroute to work.  As I pushed down on the drain piece from the top of the tub, it pushed down on the shoe and wouldn’t thread.  It was always a moving target, even though it was in the other brass pipe.  It still had enough flex.

The new drain pipe on top and the old one below.  Notice the difference in the size of holes.  No wonder I couldn't get the new standard drains to thread on originally!

After maybe a half-hour of trying over and over again, I decided to go down in the crawlspace and pry a piece of wood underneath it to hold it.  In ways that my mind can’t even comprehend, this still did not work.  I literally pushed the piece down to the threads, turned, and nothing happened.  After maybe a half-hour of trying this, I decided to remove the new shoe and see if the new drain plugs even threaded into them.  It turned so smoothly that I was shocked.  What in the world?

It took me another 20-25 minutes before the threads took.  I was ecstatic!  My day would be good after all!  The stove and this drain were my big projects!  As any good repairman would do, I headed downstairs to check my work.  I turned on the tub and headed for the crawlspace.  I was so dejected when I saw a tiny leak.  The rubber washer had moved in one spot, and it was leaking.

I headed upstairs to sadly unscrew what had taken me 90 minutes to do.  I tried to set the piece again, and after another half-hour I couldn’t do it.

I had so many words today.  At one point, I screamed one of the deepest guttural screams I had ever done.  I WAS SO FRUSTRATED.  THE one project I wanted to complete today that should have taken 15 minutes now had me at 2 hours and 0% complete.  I desperately wanted to get on that plane knowing that the only thing left to do was have my paint guy come in and paint and my carpet guy come in and clean.

This project was more than just frustration of one project.  It was frustration that I was not going to meet my goal.  That I was not going to have this house done.  That my property manager whom I told today could start showing the house was going to see an unfinished bathtub with tools everywhere.  This incomplete project represented an incomplete house.  I knew I was going to be on the road for several days, and I knew I wasn’t going to have a finished house.

I WAS AS FRUSTRATED AS I HAVE EVER BEEN.

It was maddening.  A SIMPLE project of screwing a bolt-like piece into a nut-like piece that I couldn’t do.  My eyes were telling me it was a perfect fit.  But it was not to be.

I had planned on taking all the tools out of the house and leaving nothing.  I had planned on taking all of the trash out of the house and leaving nothing.  Now I had tools everywhere, trash everywhere, and an incomplete tub.

My house that needs to be rented soon is in no shape of being shown to tenants, and I am not there to finish it.  And I will not be there to finish it.

All of those frustrations came out in one long deep scream today.

What I thought was going to be a great day ended up being one of my worst on this house project.  With the stove in unknown condition (maybe it works?) and the tub in shambles, it’s as if I did nothing at all today.

I left the house promptly at 3:40 P.M., trying to thread that shoe up until that very minute.

I left deflated, dejected, and defeated.  My house that I NEEDED to get done today is not done.