Only plumbing

This is nearly always the problem when you go out to by stuff in France – you end up wasting so much time. It was 3.15 pm by the time I got back with a pair of new tap connectors and a sheet of white faced hardboard so too late to start any major work today. But I did finish connecting up the new sink in the utility room so that’s the plumbing all finished (subject to finding no leaks tomorrow!) leaving just the carpentry to do (the ‘menuiserie’ as it’s called here in France) to finish the room off.

The reason it took so long was because I wanted flexible connectors about 25 cm in length and the shortest available in Leroy Merlin were 30 cm. So I then went into Brico Depot and found it to be the same, so I bought a pair anyway. Then just to be on the safe side, I went all the way to les Briconautes in Montignac and found it also to be the same (but more than twice as expensive as the other two stores) so then went home to trust my luck with the ones I’d bought.

They were a little bit too long but I managed to get them in and the images show the results with the mixer tap working and the overflow installed.

The sink came with two alternative holes in which to mount the mixer depending on which way round the sink was installed. It came with a plug for the unused hole which I don’t like, so I paid a bit more for a cable operated pop-up waste with a knob that fits into the spare hole and is turned left and right to raise and lower the waste ‘basket’ (it’s not a plug as such as shown in the pictures).

The shot showing the underside of the sink shows the shiny pieces of waterproof tape that I added to the joints in the waste pipe to stop them weeping. Everything is fine right now and I just hope that it stays that way.

So it’ll be ‘menuiserie’ day tomorrow and that should mean the room will be finished – apart, that is, for the tiling as is also the case for the kitchen. But at least the room and its storage will be usable, which will be a major leap forward towards emptying the storage where I’m keeping furniture and other stuff.