I consider myself to be a handy person. I'm not afraid to jump into a project with both feet. I have been hands on for every project of our remodel. I've framed walls. I've run plumbing and gas pipe. I've strung wire. I've cut and installed tile countertops, floors and even the wall behind the tub. I've installed hardwood floors. I've installed cabinets. I've even hung drywall. Mudded and sanded it as well. I've painted and put up trim. Installed doors and, well, I guess you get the point.
So why is it that when I drill a simple hole to hang a shelf I manage to screw things up so well??
So, here's my story!
About a month ago, I noticed some water pooled up on the edge of my bathtub. Not too out of the ordinary you might say. Well, I hadn't used this tub recently. There was no obvious source of this water so naturally, I just wiped it up and went on my way, thinking my husband must have done something. (Yes, when in doubt, always blame the man!)
The next day, or maybe even later that same day I'm not sure, I noticed more water. Hmmmm, Seems like a bit of a problem. In my infinite wisdom, I deduce that the water is condensation from the excessive cold we were experiencing at the time - we were in single digit temps. The water pools were located just below my exhaust fan. Must be the extreme cold temperatures outside have made the pipes extra cold, then when I turn the heater on in the bathroom, take a hot shower and steam the place up, well, the water just condenses off the pipes and drips down from the fan and creates a little pool of water.
OK, now, back to the busy work of the holidays.
Ok, fast forward about 3 days. I'm cleaning my bathroom. All of a sudden, water comes pouring out of a hole in my wall that I hadn't patched yet. Oh, did I forget to mention that I put up a shelf about 6 or 7 months ago? Well, I did. But my big, fat cat tried to climb up on it to eat the plant and knocked it askew. I didn't have time to fix it at that moment, so I just took the shelf off the wall, leaving a hole where the screw had once been.
Back to my story... there was water pouring out of the hole. Now, it only lasted about 5 minutes, but what in the world was going on? I start to panic a bit. Did we have a pipe break in the cold weather? Was I going to have to rip up my gorgeous bathroom to fix this? How bad was this going to be? How expensive?
So, I did what I always do when confronted with a problem such as this. I called my Daddy. (He used to be a contractor after all!)
Daddy rushed over and shined his trusty flashlight in the hole and started laughing. Yes, that's right - LAUGHING. Once he had settled himself down, he had me look in the hole. What did I see? You guessed it... a perfectly symmetrical hole, about a quarter inch in diameter to be exact. It seems that when I installed my shelf a few months back, I drilled right into the drain pipe from the upper level. And I couldn't detect a problem because the screw and anchor were plugging up the hole I had drilled, but once my fat cat knocked the shelf off the wall, I was able to detect my problem!
Well, I was relived to find out that my handy woman/decorating abilities weren't totally up to par because the fix to my problem was quick, easy and inexpensive!
I guess sometimes it can be a relief to find out you drilled a hole in the drain pipe!
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