Mexican Sink

As I was preparing to leave work to go to the plumbing store, I realized I hadn't posted a picture of the cool Mexican sink that Mom & Dad gave me for my birthday last year. It's going in the upstairs bathroom. So here it is:

The other major fixture that I already have is my great-great-grandpa's clawfoot bathtub. I don't have a picture of it (it's still sitting in the bushes behind the barn) but it's a standard 5-footer, white enamel on the inside and greyish-black on the out/underside. It'll be going in the downstairs bathroom. Aparently it's going to be quite a challenge to find faucet hardware that will fit, because the holes are 3.5" apart on center, and the standard is 3 3/8".

The story of how my great-great-grandpa's tub ended up behind my parent's barn is a pretty good one. When I was a little kid, my dad's cousin Joyce bought a fixer-upper in East Wenatchee. When Grandma Mary went to see the new place, she immediately recognized the house as having been HER grandpa's house, where she (my grandma) was actually BORN! She had also spent her summers when she was a girl, so she knew it well. All the original fixtures were there, although the house was in need of serious remodelling & repair. They took everything out, and I guess they decided not to put the tub back in when they were done.

So my dad took it home, and used it to water the cows and occasionally to hold beer & ice at outdoor parties (for instance, at my brother's wedding). The feet were taken off for safekeeping. It's in great shape, considering. Just a couple little nicks in the enamel, which we'll repair. I didn't know its history until we were about halfway through the house design process, when Dad offered the tub to me. Of course we immediately made room for it in the new house. It's great that even though I'm building a couple hundred miles from the old family homestead(s), I can bring some family history with me.