There are a few things you can do yourself to improve the look and feel of your bathroom. A new shower curtain, painting walls and cabinets, installing new electrical outlets and light switches, and today we're going to help with some of the harder stuff, bathroom faucets.

When most people think about installing a new faucet, they're thinking, I don't know where to start. What tools do I need? If I screw it up, how soon will I have running water again?

There are actually two parts to installing a faucet. After installing the actual faucet, we also had to install the new drain.

Before buying a bathroom faucet, the first thing you need to do is figure out how many holes your sink has. To make changing bathroom faucets relatively easy, make sure you buy the same number of faucets as your sink overall.

Step 1 - Remove the old drain

First, it might be a good idea to turn off the water at this point. We haven't installed a new faucet yet, but after you remove the drain assembly, you don't want to accidentally turn on the water without the drain catching it. Use a pipe wrench (or large vise) to loosen the large nut on top of the flange (pipe directly below the drain) to loosen the rubber sink plug. If you find that the top drain is also turning and you're not getting anywhere, put a large screwdriver in a hole in the drain for leverage.

After loosening the large nut, you can rock the rubber stopper down and the drain will loosen from the sink hole. With the drain hose loose, you can now use the drain plug to unscrew the top of the drain hose from the flange.

Each section of home PVC water pipes has a plastic gasket ring that holds the pipes together, so be sure to note the location of these gaskets. You will need them when putting in new drains. Well, this should be the worst part of the job. Work gets more interesting from here.

Step 2 - Install the new drain

The first thing to do here is to put plumber's putty or silicone sealant around the entire drain of the sink to make sure it doesn't leak. Plumber's putty is great for the job, but I found that silicone sealant works best and is easier to apply because it sticks to porcelain sinks, as plumber's putty will slide a lot and may come off.

Your new drain will most likely screw all the components together. Unscrew everything from the drain assembly, making sure to note the order there. The top of the drain plug will go into the top where we applied the sealant. Place the drain pipe under the sink, making sure to install the new large nut, washer, and rubber stopper around the drain, in the order the rubber stopper was on top.

The large nuts on most new faucet drains are larger and can be hand tightened. The big nut needs to be very tight, but as tight as possible, don't use a pipe wrench, assuming it's large with a handle that fits in a human hand. Tighten everything, turn on the water and watch the drain for a minute or two to make sure it's not leaking somewhere. If you use sealant you should have no problem. If you do see a leak, make sure you're using a washer and that the threads on the large nut line up with the pipe threads.

Step 3 - Remove the old faucet

First make sure the water is off by closing the hot and cold valves under the sink. Try turning on the sink before continuing. You don't want to loosen the inlet hose when the water is on, or you could have a small flood on your hands. During this process, your back may be a little sore from flexing under the sink for long periods of time.

The easiest way to do this part is to place a pillow under the cabinet opening and lie on your back with the pillow under you. Using a vise or pipe wrench, loosen them by turning counterclockwise the nuts on top of the supply hoses that connect them to the copper pipes at the bottom of the actual faucet. Sometimes the nuts will stick, so you can use some penetrating oil to loosen them, or you can try brute force. I usually use a vise to loosen the nuts.

After loosening these nuts, they will drop to the bottom of the supply hose that connects to the shut-off valve. Just leave them there as they will be used later to reconnect the supply lines to the new faucet. Now unscrew the large nut that secures the faucet to the actual sink.

Step 4 - Install the new faucet

This should be the easiest part of replacing a bathroom sink. You should probably follow the instructions that came with your new faucet for this part, as they come in many different ways to install, but here are some general tips for installing a new faucet. Just like the drain assembly, the faucet assembly should have all the nuts and washers assembled on the new faucet. Just unscrew the nut and washer from the assembly, not there. The new faucet should also have a plastic washer that fits over the entire base. You can apply a little sealant around the gap in this plastic gasket. The new faucet won't leak, but you want to make sure that if you get water on the counter, it won't leak through the hole in the bottom of the faucet or get water from under the sink. Thread the faucet through the hole and screw on the fixing nut below. Connect the water supply line from the faucet to the copper pipe using the nut we put down the water supply line earlier.

Step 4 - Install the new drain plug

The drain plug can be used in two ways. One way is to run the metal lever handle through the entire bottom of the drain plug to ensure a solid seal when closing the drain. Otherwise, you can turn the hole at the bottom of the drain plug vertically so that it just sits on the metal rod. This makes it easy to remove when needed, but will remain open when you need it.

LB-9501H Bathroom Fancet