Check out this ladykiller in the half bathroom:
It’s not especially offensive looking, but it leaks. And with a single knob I’m always worried that Clara will accidentally turn it to scalding hot when she’s washing her hands.
So we hit up our Habitat ReStore hoping for a cheap find. Sherry lunged for joy (you need to see that in person by the way) when she spotted this $12 find in the pile… only to learn that it was inexplicably missing one handle (we dug around for 20 minutes looking for it to no avail). Just wasn’t meant to be.
So we settled for this $34 find at Home Depot, which was pretty much the most affordable option they had. We figured that it was worth the peace of mind that we no longer had a leak and that Clara could use it more easily.
Making the switch promised to be quick and easy. Turn off the water. Unscrew some hoses. Bada bing. Bada boom. Hello new faucet. Except step one revealed a slight snag in the this-should-be-easy plan. The hot water valve wouldn’t turn off. It turned just fine, but the turning had no effect on the water flow. It just spun like a pinwheel.
That’s how switching out the faucet turned into replacing the hot water shut off valve (something I’d never done before)… which meant turning off the water to the whole house at the street. So we whipped out our water meter key to help twist the always stubborn valve out there (these are around $7 and we use ours more than you’d think).
I don’t have photos of the next part unfortunately, because I spent most of it with half of my body stuffed into the vanity trying to wrench various valves and hoses apart, wrap plumber’s tape, and wrench things back together. And somewhere between yelling at Sherry to have a plumber on standby and quietly cursing, I forgot to ask her to hand me the camera (which probably would have gotten wet and resulted in too-dark-to-see photos anyway). #bloggerfail. But for an idea of what the installation process looked like, you can check out this well-lit and profanity-free video from Home Depot.
I tell ya, I was convinced throughout this entire project that I was going to break some pipe and a cartoonish explosion of water would erupt from the ground, lifting our home from its foundation like we had just struck oil. But surprise – none of that happened, and I was able to get the new hot water valve in without any problem.
With the new valve attached, I got the old faucet out of the way, scraped away some of the gunk on the sink with a putty knife, attached the new hoses under the sink, and put the new fixture in its place.
When it came time to turn the water back on, I was certain at least one or two of the five new connections I had just made were going to leak (just call me the most pessimistic plumber in the world). So I laid some colored construction paper under everything so if something dripped, I’d be able to spot it quickly.
To my shock, there were no drips. And I watched for a good ten minutes – convinced they were just waiting for me to look away. Then Sherry finally dragged me away from my sink staring-contest and encouraged me to accept the victory like a big boy. Our new faucet (and its hot water valve) were officially installed!
It’s not a big exciting design decision, but we’re certainly glad to have it taken care of for functional reasons. And I guess we did make a deliberate decision about the finish. We looked at a few oil-rubbed bronze options (to match things like the doorknob and the light fixture), but all of those were at least $80+ (which felt too expensive for a Phase 1 fix). So we’re glad that brushed nickel worked just fine (and was a lot cheaper) thanks to the mirror, which acts as a “transition” between the two metals, since it mixes both tones in one spot.
Hilariously enough, the new faucet didn’t fail to impress our toughest critic. Clara walked in there after her nap and just stood there for a second staring. When Sherry said “Is everything OK?” she said “Wowwww! It looks beautiful in here! Did we get a new washing thing?”
She often notices things that change in the house, but I think this is the first time she led with such a strong compliment. We’ll take it.
Oh and here are the before and after photos you guys requested on our last bathroom post:
As for a budget breakdown, in our still-settling-in chaos we don’t have every receipt on hand, but our best guess is that we’ve sunk about $110 into this room in total (for the mirror, paint, light fixture, vanity knobs, and faucet). So for rooms that you use every day but are pretty pricey to fully renovate (like a kitchen or bathroom), it’s nice that an in-the-meantime upgrade can make a difference while you’re saving up for Phase Two down the line.
On to the next room!
Carolyn L says
I’m not sure if anyone else has said this, but I actually really like the colors of the vanity. I know you don’t love the seashell. But this bathroom has a fresh balance of new and old. I really like that this looks different that your typical overhauls. There’s some imperfection and character.. art, too. :)
Thais says
This post actually made me curious about how much you guys involve Clara in decisions about the house, now that she is older and very much able to express her opinions. For instance, when you were assessing colours for the front door, do you seek her input and this like that?
We are also renovating and also have a 3 years old. I find it so cute that she chose the wallpaper for the feature wall in her room herself. I ordered a few samples and she picked her favourite (which happened to be mine too!)
Anyway, maybe a post about how you involve her in all stages and whether she ever really dislike a change you made would be really cool!
YoungHouseLove says
Love that idea for a post!
xo,
s
Brittney Everett says
Ooh Clara – that’s hilarious! She is her mother’s daughter!
Maggie says
I’m surprised you don’t have a whole house water shutoff valve and would have to shut off the water at the water meter. Next time you have a plumber come in, make sure they install a shutoff for the whole house where the water comes in from the street. And congratulations on not having ANY leaks!
Sophie says
Ah the adventures of home improvement! Same thing happened to us, except that the city pipe shut off was buried somewhere under the front lawn. One city backhoe, three workers, 8 hours and a ten foot deep hole later and we finally found it! It was our first home ownership adventure.
Jana says
In my last house I had to turn off my water at the meter and it was a dark, scary slug infested pit. Now I have a beautiful, clean water meter pit AND a shut-off in the basement. Guess that is the way of things!
Last week I replaced the drain in one bathroom sink and the supply line and fill valve in a toilet and like John, sat and patiently waited for leaks! It took 5 days for me to remove the plastic leak-detecting container from under the toilet supply line. It had been sneakily leaking for a long time and I was determined not to be fooled again!
casey says
question….what made you decide to not go with an ORB faucet?
YoungHouseLove says
Check out the post for that info :)
xo,
s
Ashey S says
My brother-in-law had the cartoonish experience replacing a faucet. Their master bath sink had been broken for a while, and my sister was complianing she just wanted it fixed. One day she’d been telling him she’d rather he just call his dad or a plumber because he isn’t really the Mr. Fix-It kind of guy. Determined to prove her wrong, he decided to take care of it himself. In the middle of the night. And he didn’t turn the water off. So she hears him screaming and cursing, and runs in there to find him trying to use his hand to plug the wall while water is spurting all over the place. His parents live a few houses down, so she ran down and woke up his dad (at 1am no less) and he had to come help them. To make it worse, they’d never had to shut the water off. So their bathroom totally flooded while his dad and my sister searched high and low in the dark for where to shut the water off to the house.
Needless to say… she proved her point and he now calls for assistance when making household repairs.
Cheryl says
Great look. No need to rush into Phase 2 with such a job well done. And Clara’s getting so big!
debi says
Your skills amaze!!! Here’s a tip. Mix up a grout color you like from craft paint. Mix outdoor polyurethane (water based) in with a 2 parts paint to 1 part urethane, Brush it on ugly stained grout…sponge off excess. A toothbrush works well to apply. And new pretty grout! I did this 13 years ago to ugly grout in our Florida home, and it all still looks grand…and it’s pretty fast to do. The exterior urethane was also from the craft store, made by the same company who makes those little bottles….The name escapes me, but you know the ones ;)
That pretty bath deserves pretty grout!
YoungHouseLove says
Love that tip!
xo,
s
Jessie W. says
Did your new faucet come with the hot and cold water hoses OR did you have to purchase new ones OR did you use the old ones? Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
We had to buy new ones separately because the ones were attached to the old fixtures.
-John
Jennifer says
Its amazing what a little elbow grease can get done. Great job on a great budget; I wouldn’t even think about phase two if I were you!
Laura & the Shell says
Not related to this post, but have you seen this chair/stool at Ikea:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40206792/
It’s totally your daughter’s chair, right?! They need a little YHL credit if you ask me!! :)
YoungHouseLove says
So cute!
xo,
s
Jenn says
Oh man, I saw the word “ladykiller” and read “kittylitter”. I’m scheduled an eye doc appt stat.
YoungHouseLove says
Hahaha!
xo
s
dak says
Looking at it head-on, it looks like a penguin with its wings up…or a tiny-winged bird, mid-flight. Now I can’t unsee it!! Haha
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! I totally see that!
xo,
s
Jenn says
Also…we’ve had that faucet in our downstairs bath for over a year and it’s worked really well!
Cori says
Wow! It’s amazing what a little paint and new hardware will do to a room. Amazing! Well done!
Jill says
Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree now, does it? :-)
Heather says
Totally not to be rude, you did just move into this house…but that tile and especially the grout is disgusting! I honestly don’t think that I would let my two and three year old daughters walk barefoot on it. Have you tried to steam, bleach, sand, or maybe regrout the tile? I would be interested in some posts about different things you try to clean that up if you are keeping it.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes it’s cleaned! I scrubbed before we moved in so it’s just discoloration/fading from 30 years of use. Last week I tried a different “grout un-staining” product thinking it might work but no dice so far. So we plan to either regrout or use grout paint to get it back in shape if we can.
xo,
s
Georgia says
And now you can cross one more thing off your list. The thing I have found about plumbing is that it often takes so much time, swearing and laying in uncomfortable positions and you are really the only one who notices it. But there is definitely satisfaction in turning a tap on (or off) and it no longer leaking.
I think the biggest bang for your bucks in this bathroom was painting the vanity. It looks gorgeous and really makes it look new. If it were me, I’d be straight in and painting the other ones in the house….even just as a phase 1. This room looks so good now. Well done.
Fahlon says
I love seeing your before and after photos. I scroll up and down thinking “happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, happy”. Then I realize how much scrolling is going on and Strongbad gets stuck in my head. Scroll button songs (in case you haven’t seen it yet): http://youtu.be/NwLp5YPmFWM
YoungHouseLove says
The. Best.
xo,
s
sarah @makingitmyhome.blogspot.com says
what a tremendous difference! It looks sooo much bigger and lighter!
Jennifer says
If you do this again, can you please post detailed pictures of the removal process/ attaching the hoses?
I have a faucet that leaks inside the handles, and the nuts to remove the handles are stripped smooth. So instead of replacing washers & such, I have to replace the whole thing. I’m incredibly intimidated…
YoungHouseLove says
We’d love to! Sometimes taking photos in a dark vanity is hard to make anything clear, but YouTube.com also has awesome tutorials.
xo,
s
Kathy says
I re-did our main bathroom this past Thanksgiving when my husband was out of town and decided to replace the faucet, too, which used to be like your old one and now we have the same one you got (or similar to it- ours was from Lowes). But the install was not simple- it involved two extra trips to Home Depot. One to get a tool I didn’t have to try to remove the old faucet and another to get a separate plastic pipe thing. And I ended up having to remove the entire pedestal sink, too because things just wouldn’t fit otherwise… if I knew that was going to happen, I probably would have made a different decision. Fortunately, my dad helped me but guess who didn’t even notice that part of the change when he got home?
Julie @ Living on the Ledge says
It’s always amazing how a small home improvement job can end up taking way more energy than you expect! Thank goodness you guys are so handy. And for $110?! This is truly looking fantastic!
Penny Lynn says
My only wish is that the green would have worked out, I think that would have been fun. I saw that page 41 of the September issue of HGTV magazine had an ADORABLE green dresser and its making me want to paint mine green!!! Darn you Kermit the Frog!!
Sarah says
How did you paint behind the toilet? Did you have to remove the toilet?
YoungHouseLove says
A short handled brush is my trick to being able to maneuver it behind to get the parts you can see.
xo
s
Jan says
I bought that same Glacier Bay faucet and it leaked down the stem of the stopper. Returned it to Home Depot and got a new one. Same leak. Did a search online and found many people have had leaks with this faucet. Returned it and purchased a very similar Delta. Hope your luck is better than mine.
Claire says
I actually switched out our bathroom faucet not long ago and chose the same one! The second faucet switch-out in this post…
http://thishouseisourhome.blogspot.com/2013/01/drippity-drip.html
I want to give you a heads up though… you get what you pay for. The low price tag was appealing to me as well, but what ended up happening was that it didn’t last long. The two circular threaded pieces that are shaped light donuts that you screw on to the two poles under the sink to get the faucet to sit snugly against the counter ended up snapping in half after I installed it, but I didn’t know it. A few weeks later I went to turn the water on to clean the sink, and I flooded the cabinet because water got between the faucet and counter.
It was a cheap and easy fix–just pick up two new threaded donut rings at Home Depot, but buy the beefier version so they’ll actually last. I would say do that sooner rather than later!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip!
xo,
s
Melissa says
What a coincidence! I was so tired of looking at the outdated faucet in our master bath and picked up the same faucet at Home Depot but got scared when I saw the list of tools etc. on the back of the box. My husband isn’t handy and I’m just starting to brave DIY projects but your post has given me hope!
Autumn Beach says
So funny…we replaced the same old faucet with the same new faucet. No problems with the Glacier Bay yet, and it has been a couple years at least! I grew up with the single knob faucet and shell sink combo, so it’s almost comforting to me, in some weird way, to look at the first picture. :) The bathroom looks great!
KarenH says
Nice :). Just a word of advice. You might want to go check all your other cut off valves in the house. In my experience if one is bad, there’s usually at least one other bad one. Then you can gather up some new valves and replace them when it’s convenient for YOU.
And if you don’t have a cut off at the entry point to the house, that one is WELL worth paying a plumber to install.
Heather MacFeather says
I had that faucet too. I was able to skip phase one and have a nice chrome one now. I inherited a Glacier Bay faucet with my first condo and it worked great. An ideal interim faucet.
The plumbing adventures remind me of my childhood. My Dad renovated the upstairs bathroom and sure enough there was a huge leak. My Dad was conveniently out of town leaving my Mom with the four kids. While they all cried at the gushing water I apparently chimed in with “swim Mummy swim”.
I really love how the bathroom has come along. The mirror is stunning and goes so well with the non-green vanity :)
Cindy S. says
The new faucet looks great! The $12 find-that-was-not-meant-to-be immediately caught my eye—it’s the same one we installed in our hall bath over a year ago, and paid four times as much for. Still going strong for us!
Hope you enjoy your Glacier Bay model, too.
Tammy says
I hope that faucet works out for you. We bought three of that exact one and, after about two years, two are working fine and the third had to be replaced. Maybe that third one was just a fluke — hope so, for both our sakes!
L says
Me-Ow (to borrow a phrase). Wouldn’t have believed it’s the same room if you hadn’t taken pictures from the exact same spot!
And, I agree with Carolyn (above): the seashell sink does blend old and new nicely, and keeps the place from looking too starkly sharp-angles-black-and-white modern.
Well done!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks L!
xo
s
rosemary says
Thanks ————what a great way to start my morning. I thought we were the only ones who went to replace something ( like the faucet and turns out to be a big project.)———–when we only thought would take a little time turned out to be more.
The bathroom looks great.
thanks again. for sharing what happens when you redo——–find more then you bargain for.
Rosemary——— redoing a home also
Lauriane says
Hi guys! Looking good (and Clara looks sooo tall!), I wonder what’s going on with the vanity color though? Did you give up on the Fern color and repaint it grey?
Love your new house! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes if you scroll back a few pages you can read the whole story!
xo
s
Lauriane says
Oh yes, now I see it, must have missed it somehow! Well good call on repainting it, I also loved the idea of a pop of color but now that I’ve read the post with the old green color pics, it did look like Kermit or as if you had Frog-taped the entire vanity!
Looks good now! :)
Niki says
I’m curious to know if y’all have plans to do anything with the grout in the bathroom? I love the slate flooring but just like our new house that we move into next Wednesday, our grout needs some love.
Niki
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yeah, ours needs crazy love. Might have to strip it out and regrout. Will keep you posted!
xo,
s
Bethany @ Dwellings By DeVore says
I agree with Clara, it looks beautiful in there! :)
lynda says
We still have one of those faucets and need to replace it, but I have been begging for a new sink.
We use Loews shopper card and website link and it documents what we buy and details so we can keep up with progress. Especially helpful if we need to buy additional items.
Linda says
It looks great! Could I ask what color paint was used on the vanity?
YoungHouseLove says
It’s caller Silhouette by Benjamin Moore.
-John
Jessica says
The bathroom looks great, and thanks for passing along the construction paper trick. I would have never thought of it, but it’s great for new fixes and suspicions of old ones. I hate when I have to run my hand around under an old sink trying to figure out where the leak is.
ashley @ sunnysideshlee.com says
Wow! Looks great you guys!
MizLottie says
Love what you’ve done with that bathroom, it was ghastly and depressing before!
Morgan says
Thank you soooo much for posting this. I am in the process of updating my bathroom and the sink has been leaking. I have a feeling changing out the faucet is going to help tremendously.
Jill says
I also have that retro crystal plastic handle in my tub. Recently I discovered a blog where they spray painted their fixture with Rustoleum ORB and it looked great!
Rishia says
YOUNGLOVEINS!
SIT BACK…RELAX….REFLECT….ALL YOU HAVE DONE IN SO LITTLE TIME… AND SO WELL, SO VERY WELL! Not to mention your dead on sense of what to do sequentially for the biggest bang for the $…you ALL Rock!
By the way .. when are you going to get Bean Clara a PR agent?
You KNOW she does steal the show…such a marvelous kid…so smart, energetic and cute ..just like her Mom and Dad.
She will probably be a Quantum Physicist ….(:
Sometimes I ‘read’ people, often actually. Not intentionally, I consider it a gift (was very useful in critical care hospital work).. it simply happens. Often through other people..which is really strange…anyway I off the bat read all three of you.
And for the record, love all people, like few.
Love and like all of you individually and as a family, more every time I check in …
FYI My friends years ago bought me a sweatshirt that says ‘HELP ME..I CAN’T SHUT UP’ ..OR STOP WRITING(:
Love to all (:
Rachelle says
The most cartoonish explosion of water I’ve experienced was the day the handle of my diaper sprayer popped off the hose. I was screeching and grasping blindly for the hose while water filled my face. I finally grabbed the slippery thing, pointed the hose into the toilet bowl and held it there while I reached down and turned off the valve. Thank goodness for the flow control valve but I was soaked. Three bath towels and a change of clothes later the mess was contained. Poor diaper sprayer.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my goodness! I can imagine! Glad you came out alive… and presumably very clean. :)
-John
Tracey says
I hate to admit it but your Phase One turned out better than my Phase Two ideas! Your energy and ability to break things down into small steps makes me excited to update my tired old house. Thanks!