All I Needed Was a Washer....

This tale sums up the tale of every home improvement project that I have ever begun.



It started about a year ago-- I had a drip in my kitchen faucet. After listening to the drip for a while, and being concerned about the amount of water I was wasting, I investigated and learned that the drip was coming from the hot water. I turned off the hot water in the kitchen and the problem was temporarily solved. I lived without hot water for a year, always intending to take care of it-- buy a new washer, call a plumber or something.




So, yesterday was my day off. I woke up early and thought of the one thing I wanted to take care of-- the drip. I thought it'd be simple-- a run to the hardware store for a washer. It wouldn't cost more than 50 cents and my year-long problem would be solved. I bought the washer and installed it, but the leak lived on.



Next I thought-- how about a new faucet? That would solve the problem. So I went to Lowe's-- and took a look. I spent over an hour in the faucet department trying to find a faucet that would work. Of course my sink isn't standard-- every kitchen sink in the world has hot/cold handles 8" apart.... I have the only sink in existence that has the knobs at 6" apart. There wasn't one faucet set at Lowe's that would fit my sink. So.. later in the day I had a brainstorm-- I bet the East Point Hardware Store might have a faucet that would fit a 1940's farmhouse sink like mine. I journeyed over the the hardware store and talked to a salesman that I had never seen before. He suggested that I buy a single handle faucet-- one with a baseplate that would cover the 2 extra holes where the hot/cold faucets were. I bought the single handled faucet and went home to install it. After trying unsuccessfully to disconnect the water pipes from the sink, I figured it would be easier to remove the sink, install the new faucet and reinstall the sink. Once I got the sink out of place and the old faucet removed, I realized that my sink only had 2 holes and the new faucet wouldn't work.




Now that the sink was removed, I opted to just go buy a new sink-- maybe then the bottom-of-the-line faucet that I bought would work. We headed to Lowe's and found the perfect sink-- a black porcelain double sink! We bought it, brought it home and started to install it. The new sink was wider than the old sink, so I had to get out my jigsaw and circular saw to make the hole big enough. I spent a couple of hours getting the hole just the right size--- that's when we realized that the new sink had a crack in it--- project over.







I took the sink back today and exchanged it for one without cracks and chips. When I got home, I installed the new faucet and put the sink in place. And it fit! However, now I had to connect an extra drain to the mickey mouse set-up that already existed in my cabinet under the sink. I didn't have all of the pieces I needed in the drain installation kit that I bought-- so I had to rig it. After a few hours of work, I came up with a plumbing concoction that looked like something you'd see in a Dr. Seuss illustration. I had to use masking tape to make all of the connections work, but it does work!

I'm not too worried about the shotty plumbing job I did, because I know that I will have to remove the sink in the very near future to replace the counter and the PVC pipes. That's on my list for next week. Well, that and a new backsplash... and possibly another new cabinet.

Until then, I am happy to report that I have a new sink that works, and once again I have hot water in the kitchen, and about a foot of new counterspace!