Another Saturday Spent With My Head Wedged Under The Toilet

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Maybe some blog readers are wild party animals. Or maybe they have vague memories of their misspent youths.   So, when I tell you that I spent part of my weekend with my head on the floor next to the toilet, you may be picturing a few too many cocktails the night before.

Alas, it wasn't the partying and champagne that landed me in this undignified situation. 

It was the sorry state of our bathroom walls, and my inability to remove paint from behind our toilet tank. 

It turns out that it's not terribly difficult to temporarily remove a toilet tank. I'm going to run through the steps, for the benefit of any other old-home owners who might be reading this blog. The rest of y'all can read about my travails and feel smug, if you want. 

Before work can commence, the water tank must be drained. The water supply is turned off at the wall, the toilet is flushed, and then a towel is placed inside the tank to absorb any excess water. 

In the case of our vintage toilet, there are two attachment point:  the water intake, and a large bolt which holds the tank to the base. 

First I unscrewed a large brown plastic fitting. Then I eased a few o-rings out of the way. 

Then I removed the white plastic coupling. I was certain that I was going to get soaked at this point, but we'd done a good enough job with the preemptive towel, that no water was spilled. 

(I'm not the only person who has an irrational aversion to the water in a toilet tank, am I?  Logically, I know that the water's potable. But any time I have to reach in to the tank, I'm convinced that I need to scrub my hands afterwards like a modern-day Lady Macbeth.)

The next step was to remove the nut that secures the bolt that holds the tank in place. 

I'd never crawled under my toilet before. I certainly had never crawled under it, to scrub the underside of the water tank. 

Don't judge. I'll bet the underside of your toilet's water tank isn't spotless, either. 

After all the connectors were loosened, I carefully lifted off the tank. It weighed a ton, and the entire maneuver was pretty damn graceless. 

With all this done, I'm back to scraping off decades of failing paint. 

And at least for the moment, our bathroom looks like the men's room in a dive bar. 

I'll bet you wish you had my life. Because I am a freaking PRINCESS.  If only I could dislodge my tiara from behind the loo.