Newfangled Flush Toilets

I don't think of myself as especially high maintenance, but I admit, I really like indoor flush toilets.

A lot.

Don't get too worried -- despite being built in the 1800s, the farm does (now) have a bathroom that's up to modern standards (and maybe just a little too much up to modern styling... but we'll worry about that much, much, much later).

This, however, was the pipe that carried everything away after you flush that lovely modern toilet. It's pretty easy to spot the hole down at the far right, but it may not be as obvious that the entire outside of that bent part is also a big gaping hole. What this means is that anything flushed down the toilet would soon be deposited on the basement floor, which is not even remotely what I signed up for when I bought a house with a bathroom in it.

Fortunately, Chris and his friend Josh spent the better part of a day removing that pipe. That's right. Hours of work, just to get the old one out.

I spent that day up in the kitchen, scraping up the contact paper that someone had put up as if it were wallpaper (which it isn't) in place of a backsplash (which you don't use wallpaper for, either).

This is neither wallpaper nor tile. It is also not an appropriate use for contact paper.

Goodbye.

When we came back the next day, the hard part had been done, so it was just a matter of getting the new pipes all fitted and secured. And just like that, modern conveniences have been restored!

Well, sort of. We're still flushing with buckets instead of using the toilet lever like civilized folks, but that's just because we want to limit the amount of water we put into the system so we don't have to keep winterizing everything. Have I mentioned that it's winter? I feel like that may have come up here before... two or three or ten times. Still. Flushing with a bucket is better than, well, other ways one might use a bucket in a bathroom situation. Viva la plumbing!