August 16, 2011

Tub Wars: 21 House Strikes Back

Oi. Sorry that this post is getting up so late, but today was rather busier than I thought it would be. First of all, I got my hair lobbed off (finally!), which means that I now have close to a foot of ponytail that needs to be mailed off to Locks of Love. Secondly, I went grocery shopping (by myself, for a change). And, lastly, I…well, it seems like there should be more, but I think that actually covers my day.
I guess I don’t really have a good excuse for not getting this post up sooner, but if you still want to see it, I still want to post it. So, without further adieu, here is the rest of the bath transformation!
After caulking the holes and ridding the entire place of the rebel scum (soap scum, that is), Denny broke out the hardware that came with the curtain rod and began measuring out where he planned to hang it. He wanted to hang it just above the edge of the tub surround, but I convinced him to go up and extra two inches ala YoungHouseLove, which recommends hanging both window treatments and shower curtains up higher than usual to create a taller-looking ceiling. And since our bathroom has strangely low ceilings, I really wanted to add some height by any means.

1. We did some measuring to figure out the placement of the attachment hardware, then Denny held up the attachments themselves and marked out where the screws needed to go in.
2. Using the drill, we put a test screw in to see if there was a stud on that wall or if we needed to use the drywall anchors that came with the rods (yes, I’m aware that we need to buy a stud-finder). Luckily, there were studs on either side so we
3. screwed the attachment partially into the wall and used the level to make sure that it was square before putting the last screw in.

Uh, and that’s where we ran into trouble. The first side went in just fine, but the second side apparently had studs of steel underneath it (sounds like the title of a trashy romance novel, huh?), which resulted in having to put some extra force behind the drill, which caused the screw to go in slightly sideways, which was not what we wanted, which led to us trying to unscrew it, which totally stripped the crap out of the head. Whew! Basically it was just a series of unfortunate events.
4. So we used some pliers to remove the wonky screw, tossed it in the trash, and
5. put in a new one in its place. Voila! We now had two fully functional attachments screwed securely in place.

6. Next we put the rod into place and inserted the bolt which hold the two pieces together.
7. I proceeded (at Denny’s insistence) to very clumsily use a couple of Allen wrenches to tighten up the bolts. We repeated the procedure on the other side and in no-time-at-all had a lovely, curved shower rod ready for the hanging!
We decided to go ahead and get everything shower-related done at one time, which included installing this pretty puppy.


We removed the old shower head and the Teflon-tape remnants, then Denny simply screwed the new shower head into place. We didn’t need to bother with sealants or anything, since the new shower head uses a rubber O-ring instead.
All the while (by which I mean most of the night), there was a lot of Denny perched on the edge of the tub and me right behind him, snapping madly away from every angle, kind of like this:

Anyway, the result (here come the finale pics, by the way, are you ready?) was a curved rod, a (sorta) fancy new shower head, and an overall more functional and aesthetically pleasing master bath. (These pictures don't come close to doing it justice by the way...)

Oh, and if you don’t believe me about the huge difference the rod makes, check out this little pic:

Imagine a rigid glass door in place a couple of inches to the right of where the rod attachment starts. It seriously doesn’t even feel like the same shower. It makes me happy every time I step into it.
Oh, and speaking of transformations, I thought I’d include a tiny before and after pic of my own transformation.

Quite the difference on both fronts, huh?

3 comments:

  1. I love (and envy) your new shower curtain rod, and I even more love your chopped off hair :)

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  2. PS Your affinity for black shirts is showing...

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  3. I see sad Ashley face with long hair and no curved shower curtain rod and happy Ashley face with short hair and a beautifully curved shower rod. Ah, bliss is a new haircut and a really nice rod!

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