Other posts in this series: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Days 6-7, Days 8-9, Days 10-11, Days 12-13, Week 3, Before&After
Not much happened on day 4 so I’m skipping straight to day 5. We got a little held up because we were missing an important part for the shower plumbing. We were especially slowed down because of two reasons. Our contractor has very limited English skills and had a hard time explaining to us what it was that we needed to get. He said “behind knob, make hot-cold.” Huh? But then we did some research and realized that we needed a rough-in valve which sits behind the temperature gauge in the shower. The second reason we were delayed is that Home Depot does not carry rough-in valves at the store! I took a very long lunch on Tuesday to hunt down the part (we needed a specific one that is compatible with the hardware I bought). I ended up finding it at this warehousey plumbing supplier on 18th between 7th and 8th Ave. The fun part was that it was a block away from a West Elm, and I ended up buying our new dining room light fixture there (more on that in a future post).
Rough-in valve installed!
We also got a new trip lever, you know, the thing that blocks the tub from draining? We used to have one of these old school system – I don’t even know what to call it (see below). I’m so happy we’ve replaced it.
I'm not sure what to call this old method of blocking the tub drain, but this is what our apartment came with. It's the metal cylindar on the left.
New pluming installed, complete with new tub and new trip lever!
Other bathroom work included rebuilding the window sill a bit. It was in pretty bad shape after the demolition.
Our walls were primed and painted over the past two days too. I REALLYYYY wish I had a better camera to show you how it looks. But these pics will have to do. I’m pretty happy with the colors we chose, but there is no lighting in the livingroom and poor lighting the rest of the apartment, so the colors might not be completely accurate. Its annoying because everything looks way crappier in these pics than it does in real life. I realized I’ll probably have to get some help photographing the final product, from someone with a real camera and photography skills.
For the livingroom I chose a grey that leans slightly towards tan. I wanted to make sure it wasnt too cold of a grey.
I figured I'd show the mater bedroom paint color and closet progress in the same image. If you've ever seen my bedroom in my old apartment, I chose a similar color, but a lighter shade. Its kind of a beige/tan with a hint of green.
This is my favorite room right now. I decided to be more experimental with the second bedroom and went with a greyish navy blue color. Our contractor asked us if this was a mistake because the color is so dark and it did go on a little darker than I expected... but the more I look at it the more I love it. I plan to decorate with light, natural colored furniture. I'm going for a "gentleman's smoking room meets antique science laboratory" vibe.
The next step is tiling the bathroom, which our contractor will work on today. I’ll post about that progress tomorrow!
