Stripping and Toilets

Hmmm...'Stripping and Toilets'...doesn't that sound the name of a Quentin Tarantino movie?

I spent the biggest part of the day prepping woodwork (pulling nails) and stripping. I wasn't able to work on the mud since it wasn't completely dry.

So, tomorrow the mud should be sandable.

Here are the two door casings and a couple pieces of the mop board.

Do you notice anything 'funny'?

One of each piece has been stained and shellacked, the other two haven't.

What's up with that?

Makes one go "Hmmm..." doesn't it?


This is the door lintel.

Now this part is a strange one. Keep in mind the flaking - I'll get to that later.



Here's the top view of the lintel.

See anything unusual? Anything you've seen before?

The lintel was made out of a piece of the flooring!!! Can you believe it?! At least they recycled - right?

Okay, remember the flaking?

We we first noticed it all those years ago we thought it was old water damage.

Still not sure what caused the flaking, but the paint is actually on heavy paper! Not sure if it's wall paper or butcher type paper. There was a time drafts were kept away by gluing paper to boards so drafts can't come through the cracks.

I find it interesting that they were too lazy to remove the paper before painting!!

Okay, now let's get to the powder room. Hang on to your hats, I'm about to jump on my soap box.

This Saturday, SWMBO and I will be going to the big city to buy a new toilet for the powder room.

SWMBO has the one she likes and I have the one I like. That is nothing unusual, and definitely not enough to get me on my soap box. What grinds my gears is the way in which some retailers slant the product information so that a person buys the more expensive item!!

The store's literature claimes that one of these two toilets has only a 1.5 star rating. The other one has a 4 to 5 star rating. Guess which one costs the most?

Now, I was in the plumbing business for many, many years. My job was to buy all the stock for the warehouses and for high profile jobs. So, you could say that I do know a thing or two about toilets.

One of these two samples happens to be the best selling toilet in America. If you do a little research you will also find that this toilet consistently has a 5 star rating from consumers and plumbing professionals. The other one is lucky to have a 2.5 - 3.5 rating by the same groups. Unfortunately the big box stores say the exact opposite (even though the customer ratings on their sites say different) in the lierature they give out.

So, unfortunately, instead of educating the consumer they are just trying to earn a buck. I don't begrudge them wanting to make money but they should be un-biased in regard to the products they sell.

I'll step down off my soap box now.

Let's end this post on a brighter note.

A couple posts back I said:

The original faucet is not repairable, so the hunt is on for a replacement. The bad thing is is that it's not the standard center-to-center space.

Turns out the faucet is still made!!! It has been updated, but the faucet, as well as the corner lavatory, are still made by Kohler.

The faucet is a Kohler K-8046 and is available with either a pop-up drain or grid drain as well as four handle styles. We will be going with the grid drain and cross handles in chrome. With all these featues the number is K-8046-3A-CP.

The original drain that was with ours is no longer made so the plan is to use it instead of the grid drain (ours had a stopper). Also, ours has on overflow drain and that feature is no longer made. So, I will have to adapt the new drain to work with the overflow. Something like this lavatory overflow system should do the trick and I know how to make it.

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~