The just about 3 month long bathroom sink nightmare is over

In the excitement of buying a new house, even before we closed on the house we purchased a Crane Diana sink from Brass Knob Warehouse (it's from 1951).

At some point in the last 30 years, the original sink had been replaced with a typical Home Depot like sink and cabinet. It was decaying and was out of character with the bathroom, especially with the great subway wall tiles and the black and white check on the floor, as well as the tub.




But products bought from architectural and building materials salvage stores aren't warranted to work... and if you aren't a plumber (and even if you are) it can be really hard to make them work.

There was a persistent leak in the hot water valve. So we replaced it from a company in California, Bathroom Machineries, that specializes in historic sinks and plumbing equipment. And later we bought a new cold water valve, even though it worked, to make the #2 plumber happy (and it will last). That was $500... (the sink cost $400). Fortunately the handles were fine, if not perfect, that would have been another $100 to replace them.

Crane Diana sink with Crane Drexel faucet fixtures. This isn't our sink. This photo is one that's pristine. Ours has some dings, and the ring around the water drain is a bit corroded. Otherwise it's fine though. It works! And we have nice towel bars on either side too.

The first plumber couldn't get it to work, and he did some other messed up work besides (although he installed successfully a new hot water heater and a new dishwasher--which we bought from DC's own M&M Appliance on Blair Road NW). We found that for work requiring a sense of craftsmanship and ingenuity, he was out of his depth. Of course, we figured this out after his fixes meant that we couldn't draw a bath although we could use the shower, the kitchen sink had a persistent drip, and the bathroom sink didn't work-- he tried to placate us by putting on some faucet handles (removing the art deco original hardware) and bypassing the center mixing faucet.

For that, plus the replacing of some corroded piping to the water main, flawed repairs to the original seafoam green tub hardware, and his alleged check of the boiler/heating system, we spent $3,000, and knew that he wouldn't fix the remaining problems to our satisfaction. He got fired, but unfortunately he was paid in full.

So we found a new plumber, someone suggested by Ron Allen of Brass Knob Warehouse. (Joe Fabian, Fabian Plumbing, he's awesome, not cheap, but he gets the job done.) $175 to get the kitchen sink fixed (it's from 1921) and now it's just so great that it never drips. $700 to repair the problem that the first plumber created with the tub. And $800 more to get the bathroom sink finally working--but at least Joe was willing to talk to the experts at Bathroom Machineries, which the first plumber was never willing to do. (And $295 for the boiler check. He says it's great. One of the best...)

Aargh!

But now I can start shaving regularly again...

But speaking of historic preservation (see this entry, "HPRB might prohibit my rocking horse!" in Greater Greater Washington) sometimes I think it would have been better to buy a reproduction sink... I won't tally up the costs here as a final total, but you can figure it out...

And if you want to hear our story of the Ikea kitchen... (but it's basically done now too, just two little things to finish).