Steve's Ikea Day from HELL!!!!

This week, I kept up my usual pattern when it comes to gambling. I was in Vegas for two days. I got one night at the Hard Rock Casino to take some money off the tables at the Black Jack tables. Since last August, I have been on a tear, hardly losing and usually bringing home a couple of hundred. Last Tuesday night was no different. I took $250 in about an hour. I have total self control when I gamble. I stick to the same plan every time, playing conservative on the slow times and lighting it up when the cards roll hot. I also plan to lose X amount of dollars and I never take an ATM card to the casino.

So this week, like the post a couple of weeks back, I took the money to buy home improvements. I went to Ikea to get a much needed sink for the bathroom on the middle floor. I swear when I pulled the cabinets off the walls, the 1960's "Wonder Years"- style wall paper made a re-appearance. The demo was easy, maybe 15 minutes.

Even building of the new cabinets was easy. I had the big one for the sink up in roughly 20 minutes. We bought a mirror and a medicine cabinet. We also bought a light fixture which was the first problem. Who ever did the last remodel in my bathroom did not know how to center things well. I was thinking maybe the old fixture was centered. Nope, the electrical was on the outside edge and the dude monkeyed it altogether. I had to run to Lowe's for another one and that was too small even though the measurements were similar to the old one. So the fixtures I got go back and hopefully Ikea has a bigger one.

Next was the sink. The old one would plug all the time. The drain was all gross and had some weird plunger thingy internally into the pipe. I bought some sulfuric acid to clean the pipes. I had forgotten that a week earlier I had bought a Drano type chemical which was highly alkaline. The stuff was still in the lines and when the sulfuric acid hit it... OH MAN!!! I had my wife run and open every window and told her to leave the house. The pipes were cooking man. I swear they got up to 150 degrees. The old pipe from the wall was spewing like Kilauea. Smoking! Sulfur. I got not get a bucket fast enought. Needless to say the floor is very, very clean.

Once the smoke cleared, the next endeavor was to attach the faucet to the 3/8" lines. 3/8" inch lines. 3/8"? This is Ikea. They didn't... Yep, freaking metric system. So the first thing I thought I'd do was get a 3/8" compression fitting to a 1/8" FPT so I could just screw it into the faucet. The Ikea version of the 1/8" fit into every 1/8" pipe fitting I already had laying around the house so why not. Nope, that didn't work. So then I ran to Home Depot to jerry rig something.

My helpful was at Home Depot today. Actually he was overtly helpful. The dude was a circus clown. He bounced off the walls yelling "Bam!" when he handed each fitting to people he was helping. " You are gonna need this 3/8".. BAM!!.. Then the 1/4", BAM!! for the Ice Maker and this line for the BAM!!!..." He went on and on. I did not need this man today but I had to go through him to meet my objective. I showed him my Ikea faucet and he goes, "Ah those Swiss. It's Swiss... you can't find anything Swiss here." It's Swedish, you... anyhow. Mr Energy was now totally deflated because I brought this foreign object into his store and he began a fast pace far from me. "It's a great faucet though, go back to Ikea or you'll have to..." And right there he said it. The words you'd never thought you'd hear out of hardware store in public:

"You'll have to (Insert N-Word) rig it, with some 3/8" braided hose and some..."

Nice....

I got home. The water was off but leaking everywhere. The acid fumes were in full flight. I put my "universal fittings" on (hose clamps), and turned the water back on. You have to run to the back of the house and turn a fitting to shut the water down. By the time I got upstairs water was everywhere. I lost an "o" ring. I swore like crazy. I shut it back down. It was now dark. I was ready to make a 4th trip to the hardware store and... well screw it. There is always Sunday. I'll post a picture when its done. I gotta connect a pipe and install the doors. The medicince cabinet has got to go up too.