New Old Sink Delivered

The new old cement laundry sink was delivered today!

Dan *at gate with Max by his side: "Are you guys afraid of dogs?"
ASWD Delivery Guys: "No man, he's cool."
Dan: "That's good because there are four more in the house."
Dogs inside house: "bark, bark, bark, bark"
ASWD Delivery Guys: "What kind of dogs?"
Dan: "A German Shepard, a Pit Bull, a Doberman, and a Great Dane."
ASWD Delivery Guys: "DAMN!!!!"

Elictrical Don'ts

While Dan was using the sawzall to cut up the old tub over the weekend the power to a light socket and a outlet went out. No big deal right, I have been collecting fuses from estate sales and have oodles of them for this very reason. Well we looked on Yate's map, and checked the fuses...all were fine, nothing blown...uh-o that's not good. So on NYD (official work holiday) the wires were investigated. Dan tore out a bunch of junk wires that were not connected to anything, used his volt meeter to trace the lines and I got to play "what does this fuse do?". This is what we found just above the washing machine:

Eeek! The draw from the radio, the light bulb and sawzall was just too much for the little old copper twist. The wires were charred causing resistance thus not flowing current to the outlet causing them to fail. Old Knob and Tube wiring is fine as long as you don't splice into it and do dumb things like the photo above. Honestly the sketchy wiring in the house is the "modern" Romex!

    

Out With The Old Laundry Sink

The old soapstone laundry sink in the basement, the one that came with the house has been having issues. It has a huge crack all around the right (main) bin so it leaks water all over the floor any time you use the washing machine. It has been calked and patched but never holds. There is also an issue with draining, IE it will not drain unless you plunge it, and the second bin also fills up with water. The third bin, well some crazy person drilled holes around the drain. Why?? I guess to help it drain, all over the floor?!?! AWESOME! So it's a three chamber soapstone laundry sink that has one semi-decent working bin in the middle and the two on each side are utterly useless.

RIP 1915 -2013 (soapstone tubs don't observe leap years)

In my laundry sink research I found that the more bins your laundry sink had the more affluent you were...well call me hoity-toity! In 1915 it was common to have a laundry tub, meaning a portable galvanized tub to do your laundry in. If you had money you had a permanent laundry sink in the basement of your house. If you had even more money you had a two chamber laundry sink to wash your clothing in, one for wash water, and one for rinse water. If you were rolling in the dough you had a three chamber laundry sink, one for washing and two for rinsing! Think of how clean the original home owners whites were!    

The smash of a sledge hammer and zip of a sawzall and there are only pieces left. I plan on saving the faucets, they are fun and quirky.

Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit - WIN

Dan and I took a trip to Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit to see what sort of goodies they had. I have been meaning to go there for a while but never seem to remember until the day after. It was cold, snow covered warehouse, and of course we neglected to note the hours of operation because we were there 1/2 an hour before they opened. We pulled up to the gated parking lot and and my eyes widened as I saw it.
It was covered in snow, with a plastic tub parked on top of it. It was big, it was glorious, it was heavy, it was...a two chamber cement laundry sink!
Now to come back when they were actually open.

We spent about an hour looking around the warehouse at all the goodies and finally asked about the cement laundry sink outside - $30. Deal, now how about a delivery service? I recall the exact response was "Hell No!!! Do you know how much that thing weighs?!?!" Nevertheless I managed to talk them into delivering it to the basement for another $30. :)

Bathroom Re-Vamp

The melimine wood board on the shower backslash had to go - iew!
it revealed a lovely hole?
why?
what is that for?
nobody knows

A new stainless steel back splash installed.
Thanks for helping Mushka!








That looks so much better - and the start of painting the bathroom Grey.

The little cubby in the wall will also get a stainless steel liner. 





Removal of Troll Door - also known as a laundry shoot. The shoot is full of pipes, and can not be used as a laundry shoot :( so the decision was made to take off the door and patch up the hole.

Stripping - Bathroom Things

Why so much paint on EVERYTHING???? Wall Sconces, Mirror Frame, and Radiator Shelf/Deflector...

Smells Like Burning

It's never a good thing to smell something funny just before a fuse is blown.
Bathroom light fixture: