Monday, July 11, 2005

Ever had a finger in a dyke?

What a tosser I can be, especially with a drill in my hand. I am in the final stages of revamping a guest bathroom, as in having totally stripped the room, bought all the fittings, installed a new ceiling and down light, plumbed in some new pipes, laid what felt like 50,000sqm of tiles (but was only 10sqm), put in a new bog (shiny black, so as not to see the skidmarks), painted window frames and fitted a new folding door (which I cut and installed myself). I was in the process of drilling a hole for the towel rail, which fits below the new cast-aluminium basin, with all my senses telling me not to do it when, you guessed it...I put the drill through one of my newly-plumbed copper pipes. Bastard!! First instincts was to put my finger over the hole, primarily with the desire to stop myself from getting absolutely fucking soaked, but also to gather my thoughts of what to do next. Ever felt like the little Dutch boy (or was it a girl?) with his/her finger in the dyke wall? I did... (had to add in "wall" otherwise it might sound sexist) So, five seconds later, I had to sprint outside to shut off the mains, all the while water pissing over my new tiles. With the water shut off, I had to figure out what to do next, and decided I had no other option but to destroy two of my new slate wall tiles so that I could fix the hole. Imagine how pissed off I was when I found that I had just nicked the pipe and had the hole been 3mm to the left I would have missed it completely and my towel rail would now be sporting towels instead of the dent from when I threw it against a wall in utter disgust. Anyway, I had to cut and re-plumb a new pipe, cement in the hole I made to get to it, re-cut and tile the two I had taken off, grout the spaces and repaint the marks on the wall. I have since drilled the holes again and will be fitting the basin and towel rail in the next day or so. Live and learn...take the knocks...measure the gaps first next time...

1 comment:

jenny said...

Sounds like a day in my house! Had the old drilled through a pipe thing, running to the mains thing myself not too long ago when man about the house got handy on outr new loo. One fundamental difference though...I live with a man who is supposed to know about plumbing...he makes his living from it!!