On Friday Katie purchased two new showersheads for the house. Both the previous units, were, uhmm, unsatisfactory. The shower in the master bathroom had a miserly flow with the water doing little more than trickling out. In contrast, the front bathroom shower gushed water; if only the water would flow through the showerhead rather than around the outside.
Armed with the two new heads, I went to work Saturday morning. The replacement in the master bath was as straightforward and it seemed it should be. The old head came off cleanly and the new one went on smoothly. This is how home improvement should be.
It was in the second bathroom that the Spectre of Simple Things Made Difficult appeared. The shower in this bathroom was a bit unique in that the pipe carrying the water to the showerhead was not inside the wall. Instead, it was screwed into the downspout and clamped to the outside of the wall to hold it in place. This shower pipe was curved at the top to allow the showerhead to face into the tub (rather than up towards the ceiling) making a sort of metal cane shape. In fact, this pipe works very well as a cane.
I know this because I ended up having to remove the whole thing as my attempts to gracefully detach the old showerhead also took nearly all the threading with it. It was in carrying the pipe around many hardware stores that I realized just how nice a cane it made. And from the funny looks I got from the friendly but ultimately unhelpful clerks, I came to understand that pipes such as these are hard to come by these days.
The hunt continues. We can buy conversion kits that contain this funny pipe but they are relatively expensive and come with other parts we don't really need. There are other alternative to replacing the pipe that we might explore if we reach a complete dead end but for now, we will keep looking.
Thankfully, this was the Spectre's only real appearance for the rest of the day. I spent the afternoon and evening installing a new garage door opener for the north garage door. It was my first time to both cut through drywall and spend any time in the attic. (While in the attic I learned we have very little insulation; both Katie and I agree that this needs to change before winter comes.) By that evening, the garage door was up and functioning. There are a few tweaks that still need to be made (like putting a rubber liner on the foot of the door so that it seals against the driveway) but it is more or less done.
It feels good when things work out. I'm thankful that this task didn't end in frustration. In addition, when I go to replace the south garage door opener, I'll have a much better idea what needs to be done and I'll spend less time scrutinizing the instruction manual. (Let the record show, though, that these instructions were pretty darn good.) In the case of both openers, I also need to made a change to the electrical outlets above each opener so that they can plug in easily. I should be an easy fix.
All in all, two for three isn't all that bad for one weekend.
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