I needed a real plumber today

It's a good thing I got my bathroom tidied up for toilet show and tell, since I had a plumber in there this evening to work on my shower faucet.

Because there is no access to the plumbing from behind my tub (it's and air duct for my heating/cooling system), I had to get a certain kind of faucet installed when the old one with two handles started leaking too much. It had to be installed entirely from the front, and must be repaired from the front. It has one handle that you turn and cold water comes on. Keep turning it and it gets warmer until it is running entirely hot water.

It has been leaking for a long time, and my success at the rental this weekend inspired me to try to fix it or hire a plumber. I tried to take it apart, but I couldn't get a screw off without stripping its head, so I called a retired plumber we used once before to install our new dishwasher. I thought it would be a simple job. It took a lot longer than we had anticipated. There was a lot of caulk gluing the plate piece to the tile. Normally that piece wouldn't have needed removing, but my faucet is in slightly crooked so it had to come of first. When it was "done" we turned it on, and instead of starting with the cold water and continuing to turn until it reached all hot water, it started with the hot water (burn danger). He had to take it apart and screw around with different pieces. Once it would come on cold, but the cold wouldn't shut off so the water wouldn't get very hot. Finally, he got it so it worked right.

Then we noticed it was still dripping :(. The plumber said it might stop as the washer gets seated, but that if it doesn't stop dripping within a couple days, call him and he'll come out at no charge and see about changing the springs in the washers (both the springs and washers were new today).

I also got a new shower curtain. N has been pulling on the old one as he screws around in the tub and has ripped it off its rings. I've repaired it several times with some adhesive-backed plastic circles, but he's ripped those off, too. This curtain is heavy duty and has metal gromets to put into the rings. It cost $10, so I told N if he rips it, he can give me $10. That in itself may keep the shower curtain safe.