Bathroom Fan Fiasco

Why did I feel that starting the bathroom update without a game plan or time frame was a good idea? Obviously because I’ve lost my damn mind. Who would have thought I could dedicate an entire blog post to a bathroom exhaust fan? Yeah, me neither.

On Sunday we went to Menards. I love that store. I could walk around in there for hours. I picked up some painting supplies and caulk. We also decided that we needed a new ceiling vent fan. If we were going through all this trouble to patch and repaint now was the time. We decided on a grand daddy one. A honker, if you will.

The current fan is small. I’m certain it was the cheapest builders grade available 20 years ago. I knew it would require some cutting of the drywall. What I didn’t know is what a huge pain in the ass it would be.

Not only does the spot in the ceiling have to be bigger but now there needs to be an adapter to connect it to the vent hose. Well we didn’t have one of those. I know my husbands heart was in the right place but when I saw him rigging up something with duct tape, I hopped on Google. I’m sure every husband enjoys hearing their wife tell them that Google said…… I explained that they actually make an adapter and they had them at Home Depot.

Pretty sure if looks could kill I’d be dead. I know it was the last thing he wanted to do. He was tired and just wanted it to be done. He finally agreed that it was the right thing to do and went to grab one. Once that was installed he stabilized it with the screws. Just as he was finishing up I had to run get Brogan from practice.

Remember when Clark Griswold plugged in the lights and was expecting magic? This experience was quite similar. We are all standing in the bathroom and he turns on the fan. Mind you we are now on hour #3 of installing this damn fan. Brogan instantly says, “Um, isn’t it supposed to suck air up not blow it down?” There was defeat in Chucks eyes. I of course eluded that he may have put it in wrong or the switch wasn’t right. In my defense ceiling fans can switch direction, it’s didn’t seem like my input was that far out there. Apparently my timing was off.

Monday night he decided that he was going to take the fan back down. He had a new adapter that he had researched. Unfortunately he did such a great job securing it the day before that the screws were now stripped. Now it had become a new episode of the shit show. There was sawing and banging coming from the bathroom and I just couldn’t bring myself to go in there. After an hour and a half the new adapter was in and it was secured.

Did it magically work? Nope. Now it was trouble shooting time. Unfortunately the vent is in our soffit. Neither one of us are huge fans of height. Thank goodness my heating and cooling guy came to the rescue. It turns out that my husband did absolutely nothing wrong. As a matter of fact we probably didn’t need that mac daddy fan. We just needed the vent cleaned out.

So far we’ve patched some holes and put in a fan. My confidence in tackling the bigger projects like the vanity, floor and toilet is dwindling. Fingers crossed.