What I Did Today

Fair warning: If you are at all faint of heart or queasy of stomach, do NOT continue to scroll down for the majority of this post. Beloved Sister, this means YOU.

Today I decided to take the sink out of the utility room. It's a bathroom sink of the molded-fiberglass type, and it--along with the cabinet on which it sat--turned out to be the only overbuilt things in this house. Everything else that I've needed to tear out has come along nicely, but this nearly stumped me.

This is the sink in question. You can see from the steel wool on the floor that I had had some trouble last winter with mice in the house; they were coming from under that sink. Also visible in the foreground is my Weapon Of Destruction. I had to take the whole damn thing out in one piece, sink, cabinet, and all, as the previous owners of the house apparently installed the sink using construction adhesive and the Power Of Isis.

And here's what I found when I removed that sink and cabinet:

Yes, friends and neighbors, that is torn-up insulation. And old church tracts. And some weird plastic things, and part of an electric toothbrush, and TONS OF OLD RAT SHIT.

This is by far the most nightmarish thing I've found in redoing the house so far.

Now I have a nice box built to cover the old plumbing, like so:

Much nicer. The whole thing's held in place with three screws, so I can take it down without any hassle when I'm ready to replumb.

Tomorrow is painting and shelf-building and weight-bench-repairing day.

Sheesh.