Splish splash.

Almost everything in our house seems to have been put in with future modification and remodelling in mind. And everything seems to be built to standard. The guy who built the house knew what he was doing. Which is why it was a surprise to me that he didn't put cutoff valves on the downstairs bathroom sink. So I dutifully got a mini pipe cutter, and after discovering the pipes were non-standard half-inch outer diameter copper, managed to get some compression fittings and set to work. Well the first compression fitting worked fine, but the valve I tried to screw on to it leaked like a sieve. So one lash-up later, we had water on in the house overnight until I could get to my favourite plumbing supply shop this morning. There I got two different compression fittings and two new valves. The first one again went on fine, the valve went on, no leaks. Sweet. The second one leaked and leaked and leaked. Down the wall, into the electrical socket, which then started buzzing. So I kicked off the power and got down under a dripping plumbing fixture to put in a new electrical outlet. After all this, I finally figured out it was time to call a plumber tomorrow morning. Bugger the compression fittings - let someone else sweat-join the copper pipe for me instead. I wrapped the leaky valve in toilet paper, put a bucket under it and turned the power back on.
For some reason I then went into the laundry room to look for something and noticed four cutoff valves in the cupboard under the sink there. Excuse the French, but fuck me if two of them weren't for the stupid bloody sink in the second bathroom. Sure enough, there was the standard (but old) FIP pipe, with valves, leading to half-inch supply pipes which poke through the wall and into the second bathroom. So I turned them both off and voila - problem solved. So now I can take the old sink off, take the old pipes out and do a proper job with flexible copper tubing and sweated-on fittings.
Sheesh.
Still - at least my faith is restored in the original house-builder. There were cutoff valves, just in the other room, and the plumbing was standard.
Go figure.

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