Pandemic to-do list began with replacing toilet
Household toilets got a workout during the past year.
We weren’t using facilities at the workplace, and all of that hoarded toilet paper had to go somewhere, right? Handles flushing, seats going up and down and up and down. And finally, after all of that going, in some cases, it was time for the old toilet to go.
At our house, that toilet was 76 years old. We know that because the date was stamped inside the tank. It was part of a 1940s addition to our house, the core of which was built in 1870 — when the original toilet was in a shed in the backyard.
My bride was never fond of the old throne, but when we remodeled the kitchen/family room area of our house 15 years ago, we kept the old toilet because it worked, it fit the character of the house and we could save a couple hundred precious dollars by re-using it.
Truth be told, the old porcelain commode still worked fine. It used a lot of water, though, which is wasteful, and was a big reason my conservationminded bride wanted it gone. (I was thinking more about how our water bill had gone up with all of that flushing during the pandemic — and that we should have done this a year ago.)
When I took the first week of vacation I’d had in more than a year, I spent it catching up on a long list of things I didn’t get done while working from home during the pandemic.
That’s ironic, right? I worked from home. I saw all of these things multiple times a day — the toilet that needed to be replaced, the cupboard doors that didn’t close properly, the bicycle tire that went flat last fall, the back porch that needed cleaning, this thing and the other that needed fixed.
But working from home just made it easier to work longer hours. With a commute of three seconds from the kitchen to the front room, I spent drive time at the computer. Same in the evening. And each time I’d take that threesecond commute to the kitchen for coffee, I’d see all of those things that hadn’t been done:
Ack! The gas fireplace pilot light needs a cleaning! The smoke detectors need new batteries! The lamp near my desk — the lamp I turn on every morning at 6 a.m. — needs a new switch!
The stress of seeing all of those things that needed attention — and seeing them all day, every day — was overwhelming. So I took a week of vacation in March, knowing that I couldn’t go anywhere because I was just getting my first vaccination shot that week, so that I could knock out as many things on that to-do list as possible.
First thing on the list was that toilet. My bride and I went to the hardware store, bought the toilet of her dreams, along with a new water-supply line and wax ring to seal the toilet to the waste pipe, and while she was at work that morning, I got everything ready. I did a host of other chores until she got home, because I wanted an audience for the plumbing job.
Actually, I just wanted someone to time me.
It wasn’t my first toilet rodeo, and I was feeling a little cocky, so I asked her to set her watch as I started to unbolt the old commode.
Twenty minutes later, we had a new, low-flow toilet in place and ready for the go.
Alan D. Miller is a Dispatch editor who writes about old-house repair and historic preservation. amiller@dispatch.com @youroldhouse