Showering my brother with praise....
Well, it only took 9 years to get around to it, but I (meaning "we") finally fixed the faucet of the tub in the kids' bathroom. When we first moved into our current home, the handles on the tub faucets all needed to be changed. They were the plastic "cut crystal" look that had lost its sparkle long ago. When I tried to take the old handles off, the plastic broke in my hands. Not a problem, until I tried to remove the screw that holds the handle....they were frozen (meaning rusted) in place. I tried the liquid wrench type oil hoping it would loosen the screw, but no way, no how. So, for the time being, I got a pair of the friction fit handles that have set screws to clamp onto the outside of the valve so we could turn water on and off. This worked fine for the first seven years, then the cogs on the end of the valves became stripped and the handles would not grip as they should. So....what do you do? Of course, you buy a new set of the same handles to grip onto the outside, hoping that they will restore the glory days of turning water on and off. NOT!
Now to digress a moment. I did make an effort to do things right early on. During the first year, we had one of those Home Shield warranties which we rarely made use of. This time around, we thought it good use to have a plumber trade out the valve stems with new ones that had the cogs and screws so that we could put on our shiny new handles be like normal people. However, I was not at home to explain exactly what needed to be done and all the plumber did was verify that the existing valves work, not that they needed a way to attach handles. This effort actually was made twice...and both times the same result. So the makeshift handles have been on for the last nine years. Granted, the handles never bothered me....I don't use this shower, I have my own. So my kids (and any guests) have been troopers all along, sharing the same shower with a common suffering.
With Hurricane Gustav bearing down on New Orleans, my brother and his family headed to Roswell instead of Houston (where my brother-in-law lives) as the storm was possibly going to hit the Texas coast. So, we have had some extra family in the house since last Saturday. With parts of the city without electricity, it is still day to day as to when it is safe to head back.
As it turns out, even though my brother is an accomplished and intelligent maritime attorney, he is also very hands on when it comes to home repair and maintenance. After Katrina hit New Orleans, it took months to get various trades (carpenters, roofers, plumbers, electricians, etc.) to fix up peoples homes. While my brother's house survived the massive flooding like the Ninth Ward, it still took on it share of temporary flooding when the pumps in Jefferson Parish were abandoned and allowed some of the water topping the levees on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain to flood portions of Metairie temporarily. These few inches of water coupled with the weeks of delays to get citizens back into their homes allowed a wonderful growth of mold to overtake most of the flooring and the walls up to about 18" as well as all the way up behind cabinets in his house. Once he and the family did the requisite clean out of all that is rancid and green, they had to figure out how to approach the rebuilding effort. Rather than wait for someone to repair the walls, my brother took it upon himself to cut the bottom 24" of sheetrock on all the first floor walls and all of the sections behind the cabinets that had already been dispensed. This meant that the entire kitchen was trashed as well. Well, Mr. Industrious then set about the herculean task of re-rocking the first floor and getting the kitchen ready for new appliances and cabinets, all while being father, husband, and attorney at the same time. Mind you, also during this time, the glue helping to keep it all together is my Sister-in-law Biffy who was maintaining her roles as wife, mom and State Farm agent. Beyond this, with less hectic circumstances, my brother has performed other home improvements involving electrical, plumbing, and framing.
So now, I have my brother and family with us....and I have a faucet that needs pliers to effectively stop the drip, drip...drip... Upon removing the existing faucet, we found a whole bunch of caulk and a series of bath tiles which demonstrated that whoever retiled the shower surround decided to tile as close to the valves as possible. This in itself took the project from a reasonable half hour to two hours long. This is where I give praise to my "dremel" tool by Black and Decker. I used the fast spinning grinder to create a gap around the valves big enough to get the old valve stems out. After that, it was smooth sailing.
Which brings me to the great big thanks I give my brother for instilling in me the confidence to replace the valves myself and now allow my kids and my guests a shiny way to turn on and off the water in the shower. I do have one regret...that it took me until my daughter Claire was off to college to fix the tub with which she has spent half her life coping.
Now to digress a moment. I did make an effort to do things right early on. During the first year, we had one of those Home Shield warranties which we rarely made use of. This time around, we thought it good use to have a plumber trade out the valve stems with new ones that had the cogs and screws so that we could put on our shiny new handles be like normal people. However, I was not at home to explain exactly what needed to be done and all the plumber did was verify that the existing valves work, not that they needed a way to attach handles. This effort actually was made twice...and both times the same result. So the makeshift handles have been on for the last nine years. Granted, the handles never bothered me....I don't use this shower, I have my own. So my kids (and any guests) have been troopers all along, sharing the same shower with a common suffering.
With Hurricane Gustav bearing down on New Orleans, my brother and his family headed to Roswell instead of Houston (where my brother-in-law lives) as the storm was possibly going to hit the Texas coast. So, we have had some extra family in the house since last Saturday. With parts of the city without electricity, it is still day to day as to when it is safe to head back.
As it turns out, even though my brother is an accomplished and intelligent maritime attorney, he is also very hands on when it comes to home repair and maintenance. After Katrina hit New Orleans, it took months to get various trades (carpenters, roofers, plumbers, electricians, etc.) to fix up peoples homes. While my brother's house survived the massive flooding like the Ninth Ward, it still took on it share of temporary flooding when the pumps in Jefferson Parish were abandoned and allowed some of the water topping the levees on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain to flood portions of Metairie temporarily. These few inches of water coupled with the weeks of delays to get citizens back into their homes allowed a wonderful growth of mold to overtake most of the flooring and the walls up to about 18" as well as all the way up behind cabinets in his house. Once he and the family did the requisite clean out of all that is rancid and green, they had to figure out how to approach the rebuilding effort. Rather than wait for someone to repair the walls, my brother took it upon himself to cut the bottom 24" of sheetrock on all the first floor walls and all of the sections behind the cabinets that had already been dispensed. This meant that the entire kitchen was trashed as well. Well, Mr. Industrious then set about the herculean task of re-rocking the first floor and getting the kitchen ready for new appliances and cabinets, all while being father, husband, and attorney at the same time. Mind you, also during this time, the glue helping to keep it all together is my Sister-in-law Biffy who was maintaining her roles as wife, mom and State Farm agent. Beyond this, with less hectic circumstances, my brother has performed other home improvements involving electrical, plumbing, and framing.
So now, I have my brother and family with us....and I have a faucet that needs pliers to effectively stop the drip, drip...drip... Upon removing the existing faucet, we found a whole bunch of caulk and a series of bath tiles which demonstrated that whoever retiled the shower surround decided to tile as close to the valves as possible. This in itself took the project from a reasonable half hour to two hours long. This is where I give praise to my "dremel" tool by Black and Decker. I used the fast spinning grinder to create a gap around the valves big enough to get the old valve stems out. After that, it was smooth sailing.
Which brings me to the great big thanks I give my brother for instilling in me the confidence to replace the valves myself and now allow my kids and my guests a shiny way to turn on and off the water in the shower. I do have one regret...that it took me until my daughter Claire was off to college to fix the tub with which she has spent half her life coping.
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