Kübler-Ross (stages of denial)...

Tuesday didn't happen. I don't mean I didn't do anything, I spent the entire day plumbing and moving studs. What I mean is that I spent the entire day fixing other people's mistakes so that I could actually move forward. Let me explain...

The day started well with sanding the floor. Got it all done in half and hour and I felt great. Then I started to look at the plumbing for the shower. It wasn't long before I noticed the existing plumbing was, shall we say, not the best job. Okay, let's be  honest. It must have been "Take your kid to work day" when they did the plumbing here and junior spent the morning sniffing propane fumes and then decided to try a little plumbing himself. In my version of these events junior either incinerates himself with the torch or drowns in the wash basin later that day. Either one makes me feel better.


I mean seriously, if you look at this full size, you can see they did a double "T" for no good reason and bent both pipes to fit rather than drill holes in the right place.

 So, I had to cut the strapping away from my basement to get to the pipes, change the lines (for the better), add new shutoff valves on both the hot and cold lines:

It doesn't look like much, but cutting away strapping, pulling unions off the main line, all this stuff takes time.

And then I had to move a stud in the wall because it was exactly where the new tub's valve control needed to be. To make sure I didn't damage the drywall on the other side, I had to run the reciprocating saw between the drywall on the other side and the stud to cut the nails. There's 16" between studs and the saw is nearly 2'. You do the math and figure out how much fun that can be. So it started like this:

And ended up like this (for those in the know, yes there needs to be bracing, it's already added but not in this picture):

Essentially, I spent 12 hours working on this and at then end of the day I was exactly where I started (ready to plumb the shower) except things were done correctly now.

Which lead me to the title of this post..dealing with grief.

Stage 1 Denial - This isn't going to set me back, I'll still get it all done in time. I'll just stop sleeping.

Stage 2 Anger - Who the hell let drunken monkeys plumb this place? Was the inspector on crack? Son of a bitch.

Stage 3 Bargaining - Okay, just let me get the tub in and the shower working. If it takes another week to finish the bathroom that will be fine. No one will mind the plywood floor.

Stage 4 Depression - Stupid Blog. No one would know about my stupid house with it's stupid plumbing if not for this stupid Blog. How do I delete this thing?

Stage 5 Acceptance - Oh look! There's coconut rum in the cupboard. This isn't so bad after all. Now where is the pineapple juice...