First Things First: The Shower Head

When we had our home inspection, we got to the master bathroom and the inspector said, 'I can say this because I am one, 'but that is Mexican'.' He was referring to the set up of the showerhead(s) in the master bathroom. You can kind of see the one showerhead in the picture, it looks like one of those rainfall showerheads. What you can't see and I'm upset I didn't get a picture of it before the incident was that there was another showerhead that you can lift off and can be used as a handheld sprayer. I actually had one just like it in my parent's house and think it's probably the standard. The reason it looked so bad was because the previous owner came up with an interesting way to combine the two showerheads. Let's just say, that this was one of the first things I noticed was zip tied in place. Yes, plumbing held together by zip tie.

We let it go for about a month or so after we moved it. It was something that wasn't totally a priority and 'how should I know how to change a shower head?' I figured we would wait until my father-in-law came to town to show me how to do it. Plans changed one night when my husband went up to take a shower. We had actually just had a small argument and he had gone upstairs. I knew he wasn't in a great mood but all of the sudden I heard a huge bang. Then he started yelling. I thought, why is he being crazy? He wasn't that mad when he went to take a shower. After about 30 seconds he started laughing. Apparently, what had happened was, one of those zip ties that was apparently holding up the showerheads failed, the two showerheads came crashing down. That was the loud bang. The yelling was because he was getting hit with all the force of the water from the remaining part of the shower. As seen below:

I had no choice but to change out the old showerhead for the new

...ok I guess I can show you what was left of the old showerheads. 

REMOVAL OF OLD SHOWERHEAD(S)
On the plus side of the incident, I didn't need to worry about safely removing the old shower head. There was a random bolt that was on it and I had to get that off. Just as you would for a normal showerhead still attached, the trick was to put a towel over the bold then put the wrench on it and clamp down. When using the wrench, you can't squeeze too hard or you can bend the pipe. I carefully loosened the bolt (It was really on there so I had to get some assistance from my husband.) Once the bolt was off there was some plumbers tape that got left behind and I was able to strip that off. I think I needed a razor blade for that but it came off pretty easily.

ATTACHING A NEW SHOWERHEAD
I then put my new Plumber's Tape on. I ordered mine off of Amazon but pretty much any home improvement store has it. When putting on the Plumber's Tape make sure to go clockwise.  When you put your new showerhead on, you'll have to spin it on clockwise. Just think righty tighty, lefty loosey. If you put your tape on counter clockwise the tape will peel off as you put on the showerhead. Once you get the tape around 2 or 3 times you can take it off. I squeezed the tape on a little bit to give it the groves of the threading, but not so much so that the tape broke from the threading.

I got my new showerhead out and started rotating it clockwise onto the taped pipe. At first, I had a little difficulty with it catching the thread but it just took a couple of tries before getting it on. I rotated it until it was tight by hand. The I got out my wrench and rag. I put the rag over the part I wanted to tighten and then tightened it up a little bit more with the wrench. The rag is important because it helps prevent any scuffing or scratching to the new and old hardware.You don't want to over-tighten because that can cause problems. I have a Moen showerhead and once the 'Moen' logo was looking level I decided that was probably tight enough.

Once you think your showerhead is on nicely, start up the water. Check for any kinds of leaks. If you see any water coming from where it shouldn't be, you should turn off the water and start re-tightening.

This is the final product after the water test. It's no rainfall showerhead but it fits the small shower much better than the old mess. Does it bother me that some of the tape is showing, yes it does. Did you notice before I pointed it out, probably not.