So the thing keeping me from taking apart the sink

[conuly]

was taking everything out from under the sink, because I thought our sink had a more complex stopper that has a thingy under the sink.

Except that after I took everything out from under the sink I realized that what I thought was an overly complex part of the stopper was... well, I'm not sure, but I think it's the hot water. Our stopper was just grab and twist, except the first time I only got the top part and not the whole thing.

It's out now. I'm not sure I'll put it back in. It's really an inconvenient design that involves you putting your hand in the dirty water to unstop the sink. If we're going to do that we might as well go old school with a plug on a chain.

Comments

[movingfinger]

I realized that I rarely or never fill my bathroom sink with water, while the stopper shaft collected gunge so it had to be pulled out and cleaned frequently, so I replaced the stopper altogether with a drain-cover-plus-screen thing called a mushroom that I found at the hardware store. It catches more hair and cat fluff than the stopper and is simple to just pull out, wipe off, and replace.