Friday, April 16, 2010

Sink and Shower

A long post, sorry...

In November I reported to, umm, "WarrantyCo." that the wall in my master bathroom was somehow being damaged by my super-awesome-giant shower. They asked if the doors on the shower worked. I said yes, and they responded that the damage must be my own fault for showering with the door open. Gee... I'm supposed to close the doors when I shower? Idiots. Of course I close the door when I shower.

A few weeks later, the door fell off the track and onto me while I was showering. I called WarrantyCo. again and they sent a glass guy out to fix it. He noticed the deteriorating drywall next to my shower. I told him what I'd been told. He said "No way. That's a leak." So he called WarrantyCo.and of course they listened to him.

Then they started sending various vendors out: plumbers, glass guys, the builder, etc. None of them actually did anything other than look at it with their eyeballs.until the end of March... They finally decided to take the shower wall out and see what was going on.It was discovered that the walls were never caulked to the base- something that should have been done at installation. The water has just been channeling straight onto my wall, eating it up for almost a year now.

They tried to get the old shower walls out of the stairs, but got the back panel stuck. It wouldn't fit down the stairs. Then they suggested replacing my fiberglass surround with ceramic tile- an option I hate due to the impossibility of cleaning grout with absurdly hard water and the complete lack of shower shelves. My fiberglass shower had 6 shelves. The tile one would only have a soap rack. Boo!

Anyway, the tile man came to take measurements and I chatted him up. The two of us had a brilliant idea- we turned the too-big panel on it's side, which made it short enough for us (me and a little old man) to get it down the stairs and out of the house.So then they had to make a special order to get my new fiberglass shower in stock. It arrived yesterday morning. The boys opened up the box, and GUESS WHAT? It was broken. I laughed. When it rains, it pours, I guess.

I've been complaining about my shower leak for over four months. My master bathroom hasn't had a shower in it for a couple of weeks now (it's wood beams, insulation, and the back side of siding in there.) And now we have to wait another week for another new shower to be shipped in from Wisconsin.

To make up for this nonsense, the company that installs the shower- the one that did it wrong the first time, couldn't figure out how to get the old one down the stairs, and showed up with a broken shower- well, they called me up apologizing again. But this time, they told me to go to the Moen website and pick out a brand new kitchen faucet.

Well, okay then! My sink basin is stainless steel, so we've chosen that finish for the faucet. I picked one that has a high arc- meaning the dog bowl won't be difficult to get out of the sink once it's full of water. In fact, the arc is so high, I think it will be visible from the living room over the bar height counter-top. But I don't really care.

Our sink is a 4 hole variety. Typically, there's the faucet, a hot knob, a cold knob, and a sprayer. The new faucet's spout detaches and is actually the sprayer. The knobs are on the faucet as well, but it has a base that will cover the knob holes. That leaves us with one more sink hole to fill. We're going with a soap pump.


The website only has a few options. We've whittled it down to 2. The website doesn't provide the dimensions for the pumps, but one of them looks taller. I like it because it is tall, like the faucet. The other option looks shorter, but has a curved dispensing spout, like the curves of the faucet. What to do?


So, what do you think? Which should we go with, the taller, straight pump, or the shorter, curvier one?