The boulder.

so i finally have a few minutes... first of all.

PROPERTY TAXES. WTF?

ahem. now that i've got that off my chest i can talk about the legendary "boulder." Follow these steps and you too can remove a dispenser just like this.

How to remove a ceramic toilet paper dispenser

by Christopher Francisco

*Note - due to the undeniable FACT that such a seemingly simple task would result in such unforseeable results, photographs before Step 6 were never taken. Only because of the amusement of an evil (yet loving) wife with a camera and an alertness to the sound of breaking ceramic, are you able to share and enjoy this wonderful experience. Thank her.

Step 1 - Marvel at the seemingly messy coat of paint applied to the exposed areas of the feature and realize that this is not random! It's intentional! And you are in the presence of workmanship by a MASTER HANDYMAN. *shudder*

Step 2 - With a hammer and chisel, tap joint area of drywall around ceramic to loosen.

Step 3 - Attempt to pry out the ceramic fixture.

Step 4 - Curse to yourself wondering why the !@#$% thing won't even move.

Step 5 - Try to shatter the entire ceramic piece of !@#$%^&*( with a hammer.

Step 6 - Break everything on the stupid @#$%^ except the part attached to the wall and coming to the conclusion that it's too late to turn back.




Step 7 - Use BIGGER, BETTER, and EVERY tool you can possibly try under the sun to continue to try to pry the thing off or break it apart. (except for a sledge. there's a shower on the other side of that wall.) Break off more and more drywall making sure to work your way outward.




Step 8 - See that you are putting small dings in your tools because you're hitting into a substance that looks a lot like concrete. Break out into hysterical laughter when you look at the time and realize how long it's taking you to remove a "toilet paper dispenser."




Step 9 - Wonder to yourself, "There MUST be a LOGICAL reason for this. How heavy duty was this guy's toilet paper? Was it made of lead bricks because he crapped Kryptonite? Did the dispenser have to support the weight of a fully grown person? Was that it? Did he strap a midget to that dispenser so that instead of wiping himself, he could just turn and have the midget wipe his butt for him?" NOTHING is crazy after you've just spent an hour uninstalling a "toilet paper dispenser" and not having accomplished it yet.

Step 10 - Look at how much drywall you have left and decide to break into the wall about foot below what has now become known as "the stupid rock."




Step 11 - find out that it is, in fact, A ROCK. There is a concrete boulder in the wall. BOULDER. Approximately 20-30 pounds supported by a corrugated cardboard frame.




Step 12 - GO FOR IT. Rip out all the drywall around the sucker, all the while doing calming breathing exercises and mindlessly singing to yourself "What are you doing?" to the tune of "Flight of the valkries," as if you were actually there! 40-50 years in the past, WATCHING THIS MASTER HANDYMAN installing the toilet paper dispenser and asking him? "What are you doooing? What are you doooing? What are you doooing?" Notice the attention to detail! Revel in the craftsmanship of the cardboard supports! Stare in awe at the...




Step 13 - Come to your senses and Rip out the boulder from the wall.




Step 14 - Sit on the can for a while and contemplate the boulder. "Why oh why oh why?"




Step 15 - Come to your senses. Remove the Cardboard frame holding up the boulder. And stare at the 1.5ft x 2ft hole you made to "remove a toilet paper dispenser."




Step 16 - Take a glance at the same ceramic toilet paper dispenser in the hallway bathroom and promise the wife you'll do it "After Christmas sometime."

The Boulder... To be continued

Chris has a nice story to tell you about the boulder but he's been a bit busy to post the pictures and update the blog. I wouldn't do the story justice so I won't even try. He'll update soon, don't worry.

In the meantime, half of December is almost over and what do we have to show for it??? Not much. Obviously our latest project is the master bathroom. Here's the list of to do's before we started...

• door (plastic brown accordion door will not do. let's see how a bi-fold looks)
• toilet (purchased and waiting in the mud room since the end of summer)
• lighting (done)
• vanity (also purchased and waiting since the summer)
• paint (need to pick a color)
• regrout (sloppy & inconsistent 1/8", or less, grout between 12" tiles... sigh)
• change toilet paper holder (porcelain holder that's be pseudo painted over... Horrid)
• baseboards (decent but we've got lots left over so we might as well change it)

That's about it.

First things first... the door. The infamous 30" bi-fold bathroom door has been trimmed to fit the 28" opening. The only problem now is the height. We didn't compensate for the track so we have to trim some in that direction too. Will we ever get that door up???

The lighting was updated when the rest of the house was done. Its pretty plain and simple but cheap. Maybe we'll get fancier ones later. Now the mirror/medicine cabinet is another story. Imagine a nice big 2'x2' mirror with moulding to match the sink and cabinet. You think to yourself, "This is nice. We can keep this." Then you open the mirror to find a 12"x18" opening sunk into the wall that vaguely resembles a medicine cabinet. That's like half the size of the mirror! And that's not all. Instead of say a magnet keeping the door closed like most medicine cabinets have, this guy attempted to use velcro. VELCRO!!! One question comes to mind... WHY??? But wait, that's still not all. Velcro might not've been his first choice. Perhaps he did originally want to put a magnet or latch or some other form of closing device. Its logical to assume that he'd buy a kit and put it on. Most kits have screws to mount the mechanism. Seems easy enough. So genius proceeds to put the screws in the back of the mirror to line up with the cabinet frame. Uhhm, the mirror only has like a 1/4" thick or less piece of fiberboard behind it. And the screw must be longer than 1/4". Screws don't normally go into mirrors very well. Now the reflective surface of the mirror is scratched and there's essentially a hole in the mirror. Luckily he didn't break through the glass, but the mirror is now flawed regardless. So Chris tore out the whole thing and patched the drywall for our new surface mount mirror/cabinet. Much better.

Since Chris was in the drywall mood, he took off the towel racks and tried to smooth out the wall. Like everything else, our lovely previous owner must've had five different types of towel racks cuz there were lots of holes in the wall. The surface of the wall was uneven too, like he had a spackle party. And what does Chris discover under that mess?... He spackled over the wall anchors. We end up cutting out a piece of the wall cuz that would look better than us trying to "fix" it. Just replace the whole thing. Another discovery Chris made, the towel rack was less than an inch away from the studs on both sides. You can tell this guy knew what he was doing.

In between the days of waiting for the joint compound to dry, Chris chiseled out most of the grout from the tiles. We can't regrout until we get the toilet out. Fun.

Moving on... Chris attached the moulding around the shower doorway and baseboards yesterday. We have so much extra that we're just going to redo the baseboards everywhere. And a side note... Are you supposed to use caulking to adhere baseboards to bathroom walls? Cuz our beloved previous owner thought that would be a marvelous idea.

Someday our house will be done. We'll still accept donations. ;-)