Replacing A Sink: Part Two

Well here we are at part two of replacing the chipped pedestal sink on the top floor. Find part one here.

I am replacing the pedestal sink with a more diminutive, wall hung vintage one which required a bracket and a reinforced wall.

My method was to add blocking between the studs. This project was a learning curve for me -I tried some tasks that were completely new to me. I made a couple rookie mistakes but in the end there was no harm done (just time wasted) and walked away with some new home repair experience under my belt.

I used brackets to hang my 2x4 block. No problem there, except that I miscalculated my height and had to cut a larger hole in the drywall. 

Ok, here's the first lesson. Luckily I figured this out before I made a mistake. On the first smaller drywall cutout, my plan was to just screw the piece I'd cut out right back to the blocking, tape and then compound -so I cut a small piece, not stud to stud. Once I figured out that I had to move the block higher, I realized that I should cut the drywall stud to stud, so that I could easily screw the piece I'd taken out back on. Duh.

For the section that did not span the studs, I used these clips which do work pretty well but aren't nearly as strong as screwing into a stud.

I know this looks like a train wreck but believe it or not this mudded out no problem. The secret being to wait a full day between passes. The first pass, I focused only on the tape and screws.

For the remaining coats, I did a large section -like 2ftx2ft using my magic trowel. I think I did about 3 coats and did not sand until the very end. That magic trowel is a really good tool, this repair is completely invisible and the wall is very flat.

I used 9 #12 wood screws (2 1/2" long) to really make sure that sink wasn't going to fall off the wall. I did not screw into the two outermost holes because the screw would have run into the plates holding the blocking in place. Prior to hanging the plate, I primed and painted the wall. I actually ended up painting the entire room, and the trim, windows and door, which I will of course show as soon as I wrap everything up in there. 

Once I installed the plate, I literally just dropped that sink onto the bracket and that was that. Next up was contending with the plumbing (the next lesson) which I will cover in part three of this post.