Satya's blog - Faucet repair and shelving

(This was supposed to be posted in February.)

No longer does my son have to deal with a sad stream of lipid water. For less than $4 and 10 minutes labor, I changed the broken aerator on his bathroom sink for a new one. It only took that long because I haven't done this before. We didn't know it was broken, but I eventually got around to looking at it (with a mirror) and noticed the lack of mesh screen.

So I figured it didn't have an aerator, I can go get a new one. I did, and the guy (the people at Lowe's are usually knowledgable and helpful) told me, based on the picture I showed him, that that's probably an old broken one, I may need to remove it first. He also gave me the dual-thread one that I used, and it turned out to be an EXACT match for the one I took out. I tell ya, always take a digital camera along.

The hard parts: matching the aerator, and remembering which way to turn the wrench. Oh yeah, having a pipe wrench made things MUCH easier. (And I'm not one of those people who has to go "left-loosy" either, it's just hard to get right when the thread is UNDER the thing.)

As for the shelving, I have this 5-level shelf unit in the garage. I wanted it attached to the wall so it doesn't tip when the boy climbs or pulls on it (and he will). At first I got a set of pipe-straps (C-clamps?) that didn't fit, and they had too much give anyway, since the "pipe" supports of the shelf weren't flush to the wall. Or so I thought; as it turns out the shelf wasn't close enough to the wall.

Today I talked to the guy in the hardware department and explained exactly what I wanted. He suggested I use these big ol' self-tapping screw anchors and tie it with a chain. I happened to have suitable chain lying around, so I did that and now the shelf unit is anchored firmly to the wall. Doesn't even budge. It's awesome!

Last updated: Jun 08 2010 21:43