A long time coming

I’ve at last got the bathroom washbasin installed and connected up. It’s taken much longer to do than I expected, partly because I went back to the UK for my sister, Sandra’s, funeral that took three days out of my schedule. But also because, as usual, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time driving backwards and forwards to Le Bugue (Brico Marché), Trelissac (Brico Depot) and Chancellade (Leroy Merlin) trying to get hold of the materials that I needed for the job.

The first things were large washers to hold the basin back against the wall. I went first to Brico Depot who sell such things ‘en vrac’ meaning that you can fill various sizes of small plastic envelopes up with any kind of ‘quincaillerie’ (screws, nuts, washers, bolts etc) at fixed prices. The sizes I wanted were out of stock but while I was there I bought a washbasin waste.

So the next day I went to Brico Marché who also sell items ‘en vrac’ and bought envelopes of screws and washers of various sizes. Unfortunately, when I went to use the washers they didn’t work and when I did the job today I ended up making the securing pieces that I needed myself by cutting and drilling some of the sheet metal that was left over from when I repaired my trailer.

I also found yesterday that the waste that I’d bought from Brico Depot was of very poor quality and after trying to modify it to fit, it was leaking like a sieve. So today I ended up making what seems to be becoming my regular Sunday drive to Leroy Merlin to buy another of better quality.

And all of this so far without doing any work on installing the washbasin. That happened today. It took longer than it normally would have because I’ve injured the main lower joint that connects my left thumb to my hand. Not only is it very painful but I also now have a much weakened grip in that hand to the extent that I keep dropping things.

But I got it done eventually (late afternoon) and was very pleased with the results. Since taking the following photographs I’ve siliconed around the top and sides of the basin and the foot of the column making the whole thing look even better.

I now need to silicone around the bases of both WCs (bathroom and separate toilet) and order a shower screen for my ‘douche italienne’. While that’s on order I can at last be getting on with masking up for painting. I think I’ll do the bathroom and toilet first as they will involve minimum disruption and will be quick to do allowing me to get the lighting in place in both. Then I’ll do the kitchen followed by the living room and corridor and hopefully all of the above will be completed by next week-end. Hopefully 😕