Just thought I would mention what happened to me over the weekend for any of you who may use old plumbing fixtures for your T2T projects.
DH and & have an old porcelain on steel pedestal sink that was given to us and in very good condition. We decided that since we still have the original outhouse from our house that it would be cool to put the sink on the side of the outhouse and turn it into a fountain. After I got all the "mechanics" to work correctly, I wanted to clean the sink up. So I went in the house and grabbed the "gel cleanser with bleach" since I figured that would be the best thing to use. I don't know if it was the bleach in it or not, but immediately upon putting the gel cleaner on the sink, the cleaner started "pulling" the rust through the porcelain. There are no visible cracks in the porcelain, it was pretty universal on the whole sink, it turned the whole thing rusty color, and rinsing it off didn't help. I then went in and got - believe it or not - toilet bowl cleaner that said it removes rust stains. Luckily, this got the whole thing white again, but what a scare!
Just thought I would tell you guys, in case you ever do a project with an old fixture like that.

Glad for the info. i bet you freaked. I know i would have.

Thanks for posting this, I'm sure a lot of people never realize how powerful or dangerous those chemicals are.

Hope you'll post a pic of the "fountain" when it's finished - sounds great!

bjanddee - OMG my heart just sank, because the sink is in such great condition and I have been thinking about this project for so long. I even had to go to the town building dept. to make sure it was okay to put the outhouse in the front yard! (they said yes as long as it doesn't sit any closer to the road than the closest building on our property because the outhouse would fall under a "small building" catagory).
joyluck - I definitely will post pics when everything is done - might be a few weeks though since DH has to get the backhoe from work to level the area, put down a stone base, bury the electrical conduit and move the outhouse to it's new location. But....the good news is that when I told my Dad that I turned the sink into a fountain, he gave me ANOTHER small pump. I'm going to set a washtub and washboard on the ground next to the sink and turn THAT into a fountain too! I did it once before and the water ran down the washboard and into the tub; had a really great sound to it.

WOW - I just took a moment to read.. Girl.. I would have cried.. Those sinks are beautiful and heavy!!!! I can't imagine what I would have done if I could get it back white again! I am glad it all worked out in the end...

I would love to see pics as well.... sounds lovely... Thanks for the note of caution.