Only Three Trips to the Store

 There is a joke going around these days that is actually pretty funny.

How did Jesus' parents know that he was divine while he was yet a child?

He only went to Home Depot once to complete his first carpentry project.

Here's the situation. The upstairs toilet has been leaking for quite a while, but not badly enough to do anything except keep a towel under the tank. Last week, I decided to tighten the bolts that hold the tank to the commode. Nope. One of them disintegrated under my fingers.

I had made the first stop at the store before I started removing the old bolts. Assumptions will always get you in trouble, right? I assumed that because both toilets were installed when the house was built that they would be the same. Remember I just fixed the other toilet last year. That one has two bolts, so I bought a two-bolt kit. Nope, this one has 3 bolts. Number two trip to the store.

Yesterday, I took off the tank and replaced the gasket (good timing- you can see the old one is pretty deformed) and the bolts. Everything sealed up nice. I filled the tank partway with a bucket to be sure nothing was leaking. So far so good.

Then I went to hook up the water line. As I was tightening it, the fill valve tube broke in half.

Trip number three to the store this morning for a new fill valve. That went in with no issues. It seemed like the old one hadn't been changed that long ago, but from the blog post, I see it was 11 years ago.

Look through the water and you can see the three shiny new bolt heads, and the new fill valve on the left.

The mess is almost all cleaned up. Working on getting the rust stains off the floor.

I got groceries while I was out and stopped at Cathy's so she could dig a sliver out of the bottom of my foot that I couldn't quite access.

Edited, did dishes, and am back to working on prep for the Sept-Oct hike.

See Fix It and Then...