Leaking Bathroom Valve

In addition to the leaking bathroom valve, the ones in the laundry room were really old and one had a handle.

Broken Laundry Valve

Note:
Our house has copper for plumbing so I was able to reuse the existing compression fitting and nut from the old valves. I’ll include some links at the end for water line valve installation on different materials.

First thing is to turn off the water to the house. The water shut off valve for our house is in the sidewalk in front of the house. Use a wrench to turn the valve.

Turning Off Water

Drain the water from the lines by opening up a faucet until only a slight trickle comes out. Draining the lines usually takes between 5 to 10 minutes.

No matter how much you let the water drain there will always be some coming out of the pipes when you start removing the valves. Make sure you put some towels in the area to catch any water that might leak out.

Preparing Work Area

You’ll notice in the picture below that the hose is permanently attached to the water shut off valve for the bathroom faucet. Because of this I had to replace the water shut off valve and the hose going from the valve to the faucet.

Removing Sink Connection

One of the laundry room water shut off valves was really stuck, but a couple shots of WD40 and about 5 minutes later it came off with no problem.

Oiling Stubborn Valve

When removing the valve, use the biggest wrenches / pliers possible that still allow for full range of motion in the work space. As you can see below they don’t have to be pretty.

I love the 12 inch crescent wrench I have, similar to this Crescent 12-Inch Adjustable Wrench. It provides great torque and is one my go to tools.

Old Bathroom Valve Removal

I left the nut and brass compression ring, also referred to as a ferrule, on the copper pipe. The idea behind this is to reuse the old nut and compression ring on a new valve.

Bathroom Valve Removed

Compression Ring

There are different threads available for the replacement valve. The best thing is to remove the old valve, take it to the local hardware store and match up the threads. My water valves have coarse threading.

Coarse Thread

Just a side note. My replacement laundry room water valves cost about 50% more than the bathroom ones.

Replacement Laundry Valve

Replacement Bathroom Valve

Wrap some Teflon tape around the threads of the new water valve.

Wrapping Teflon Tape

Hand tighten the nut on the replacement water valve then finish tightening with a wrench.

Installing New Valve

There is one thing I know about something as labor intensive as landscaping, that in order to get it done in a timely fashion we are going to have to pay to have someone do at least part of the project. To save some money we’ll do most of the demolition work ourselves.

The Plan
After sketching out the dimensions of the front yard, we came up with an overall plan for the front yard. We can’t afford to do everything we want all at once so we’re going to break it up into 3 stages. Here are some of the things we would like to incorporate into the new front yard.

• 2 different sizes and types of rock
• Additional parking
• A small wall in front to keep debris and the random dog out of the yard
• Minimal plant maintenance

Stage 1 – Remove all the existing decorative walls, the planter box attached to the front of the house, sandstone gravel and turf. Once that’s finished we’ll work with a landscaper to put in the new gravel and irrigation in.
Stage 2 – Figure out a paver solution for the additional parking section. I want to use pavers so water can go into the ground and not the street.
Stage 3 – Put in the stacked stone wall in front of the house.

Original Front Yard

Spinning Towel Holder

To start with the holder had to come off the wall. There is usually a screw at the bottom of the holder that secures the unit to the wall. An eyeglasses screwdriver worked great.

Removal Screw

Once the towel holder was removed, examining the mounting bracket revealed that a drywall screw was used.

Mounting Bracket

The bracket was fixed to the wall using a drywall anchor.

Wall Anchor

I replaced the screw from a drywall screw to a regular wood screw of the same length. The surface area where the drywall screw met the bracket was considerably smaller than the replacement wood screw.

New Wood Screw

The wood screw bit into the plastic wall anchor better than the drywall screw. The added surface area contact of the wood screw held the mounting bracket much better.

Finishing the re-installation was a matter of putting the holder back onto the mounting bracket and tightening the securing screw on the bottom of the holder.

Metal Painted Semi-Gloss White

First thing we did was remove the drawers and doors from the cabinet carcass.

Drawers Are Removed For Preparation

As you can see, the drawers were unfinished inside with contact paper liners.

Drawers With Unfinished Insides

After everything was disassembled, including taking the faces off the drawers, the surfaces were ruffed up with 180 grit sandpaper. This is so the paint has something to adhere to.

Step 1 – Sanding the Surfaces

Truthfully, I tried to paint a piece of the cabinet without priming it first, and it took three coats of paint. What I found works best is to prime as many of the surfaces with a spray can of primer. This was exponentially faster than priming with a brush and roller. Of course this wasn’t possible on the cabinet carcass.

Step 2 – Priming the Surfaces

Next was to paint the surfaces with brush and roller. I used a 1 inch brush to get into the detailed areas first then used a small smooth foam roller to cover the flat areas. Using the roller last removed any brush strokes on the flat areas put there by the brush.

Step 3 – Painting the Surfaces and Letting Dry

For the drawers, in addition to painting the facing I primed and sprayed the rest of the drawer with an enamel semi-gloss white paint. The unfinished wood was too unsightly.

Finished Drawers

Once everything dried for 24 hours it was reinstalled.

Everything Reinstalled and Finished

Note: To create a clean edge between the newly painted cabinets and the wall, use caulk to create the new transition.

Removing the old medicine cabinet was not that hard. It was held in place by four flat-head screws into the surrounding 2 x 4s.

Wall Where The Cabinet Was

Cabinet After Removal

Next step was to remove the existing wood frame around the mirror by unscrewing it from the back.

Screw Removed From Back

Frame and Mirror Removed

There was some old caulking that needed to be removed. A utility knife did the job just fine. The caulk was so old I had to take it off in layers. It was not feasible to try and scrape entire sections off at once.

Scraping Old Caulk

The magnetic catch was removed using some needle-nose pliers to squeeze the back of the catch enough to push it forward. This was kind of a pain to get all the barbs securing the catch to push in all at once, but patience paid off.

Magnetic Catch From The Front

Magnetic Catch From The Rear

With the magnetic catch removed the only thing left before painting was to lightly scratch up the old paint so the new primer and paint will adhere to the cabinet.

Cabinet Ready For Paint

I looked around the web and found a cheap medicine cabinet that kinda fits the description for around $25. It’s a Broan-Nutone 902 – 20X16 Med Oak Cabinet. If I purchased this I would spend just under $5 for a can of brown spray paint to finish the oak trim. That makes my maximum budget $30.

The medicine cabinet I’m working with has a rounded oak frame and gray paint on the metal.

Original Cabinet On the Bathroom Wall