I *gulp* sawed through the waste line in the hallway ceiling last night and installed a neoprene coupler over the leaking joint and pipe (not the optimal solution, but when faced with the alternative—pulling half the wall down, replacing a three-way PVC joint and three or four runs of mixed-size copper pipe—the best solution) and had Jen run the water upstairs: there was not a drop of water to be found. This morning it was bone-dry after my shower, and hopefully after Jen’s as well. This means I’ll get started on re-hanging the ceiling this week. I was kind of hoping to have a snow day this morning, but Mother Nature decided to start the job after I got to work.

In response to the continual rusty water Baltimore County is delivering to us, I picked up a GE brand home filtration kit at Home Depot last night as well—installation involves shutting off the main house supply and putting in a splice; given that every “simple” project has a difficult twist where this house is concerned, it means I have a vertical run of about 4′ to work with. So I’ll have to *gulp* cut through the main house supply at some point in the next couple of days.