Home Improvement

Last night I decided it was time to clean the walls in the guest bathroom, as well as move the cat box into the shower and free up some floor space. That done, I decided I'd better figure out where the leak was in the toilet. We'd had a bit of water on the floor for a couple of weeks, but never had the time to suss out what was going on. Turns out the tank was loose and the water was seeping out the bolt holes.

Of course, this all sounds very pleasant, but it was a fiasco. I got all freaked out when I couldn't get the wrench on the nuts and every time I touched something the water leaked even more. The husband came to help and I yelled at him because I wanted to do it myself and letting him help made me feel like a useless girl. It took a bit of time and a broken float but we finally figured out what needed to be done and I went off to HD for parts while the husband bailed water out of the tank (did I mention we coudn't get the water to shut off?).

So I got back with a new float and new tank bolts. We decided to go ahead and try to fix it ourselves, something we've never attempted before (I was very proud of us for that!). The husband unscrewed the bolts, then I held the tank, still attached to the water line, while he put the new ones in. It took a bit to figure out the directions, but only because the tank wasn't on correctly in the first place. It's supposed to have 2 sets of hex nuts, one to hold the washers in place and one to hold the tank onto the bowl. Ours only had the bowl set... no wonder it was loose and leaking! Anyway, we got the tank reattached to the bowl and set to fixing the float. Pretty easy since all we had to do was unscrew the float arm and attach it.

Then we held our breath and let the water flow back in. YEAH! Nothing leaked! We even flushed a few times and it looked good to go. He took Sofie for a walk and I cleaned up the water and that was it. I wish I hadn't yelled at him, though. It could have been a really good bonding thing for us. We work pretty well as a team, but we don't do a lot of home improvement on our own. I guess maybe we really should try and replace the Pergo this weekend. We could probably do it very well, together.