Friday, January 25th, 2008
So today was all about getting the kitchen sink working again. That has really been the pain in my side this whole time.
There is actually a funny little story that goes along with today. As you know, we installed the old sink and faucet in the counter top last night. I was trying to save a few bucks…kill me. The sink is white and I wasn’t sure if it would match the rest of the kitchen. The faucet is aged brown. After we installed them, they actually did match pretty nicely. Tim, next door, called me cheap because I was using the old stuff. I just couldn’t bring myself to throw a perfectly good sink in that big garbage island in the Pacific.
Anyway, I took a trip down to Lowe’s this morning to pick up some plumbing stuff for under the sink as well as a range vent. I needed the vent for the light above the oven. I like to turn off the main kitchen lights at night, but keep the small ones on. I got the stuff from Lowe’s and came home to hook it all up. I hooked up the vent first…
The reason I got this new vent is because the old one was 36″. This new kitchen only offers a 30″ space. I think it looks pretty good. I even got extra small CFLs as lighting.
One other thing about lighting…I finally found CFL candelabras. Can you believe it? They were right in Lowe’s. I got four of them for the ceiling fan lights.
Ok, back to the sink. I hooked up all the plumbing beneath the sink and was very excited to see the water running in the kitchen once more. I stood up and moved the faucet lever backwards. You know the little sprayer thing that you can pull out? It’s the thing attached to the hose. Well, it decided to spray all over me. Actually, the handle was cracked in half and that’s where the water was coming from. I was a little ticked off. I guess there was water in the system when I stored the whole sink and faucet system out on the porch for a month and a half (during Winter). The faucet wouldn’t work. I checked under the sink to see if there was anything I could do. Apparently, the only option I had was to buy a new faucet. I priced out what was already installed and it came up to $218. That ticked me off even more. I found a great looking “Peerless” replacement at only $62. I ran back down to Lowe’s (which ticked me off) and got it and put it in.
Here is a nice photo of the plumbing job I did under the sink…
Everything works beautifully now. Tomorrow, I am running over to a neighboring town to buy a dishwasher. They deliver for free, so they are my kind of people.
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Monday, December 3rd, 2007
Today was a pretty busy day for us.
I think one of the most fun things about me is that I have no plan. This morning, while I was sitting at my computer, I decided to call Lowe’s to make an appointment for Laura and I to head down and meet with someone. I had my measurements all set. I called and made the appointment for Wednesday at 7PM. I kept pacing back and forth, because the woman I spoke with on the phone had no business designing kitchens, much less answering a telephone. I wasn’t at ease.
I was talking to Laura about it when I decided to give the local place a call, just to talk. We talked and they sounded good. He invited us up for a visit. At 11AM, we pulled in the parking lot of the showroom. We walked in and were impressed with what they had. Everything looks so damn good in those places. We talked for a bit and we told the guy what we wanted. The room is fairly simple, so there really were no curve balls.
Ok, let’s get to the point. At the end of the visit, I found myself writing a check for 5% of the project. After Laura and I left, we headed to the tile place and picked out some really nice 13″ tile for the kitchen floor. We also scheduled the tile installation for the first week of the new year. Then, we got some food at the food store, but that’s not important.
Ok, here is the shnazzy design he created for us, based on what we said we wanted.
This is the window wall that faces the backyard. We went with the darker brown color. The wood is solid maple. We are getting a dishwasher, so that is going to be a nice addition to what we have. The upper cabinet all the way to the right is going to have glass in the doors. The corner cabinet is going to go all the way to the ceiling and have glass, but different than the others. This one is going to have panes in it. The bottom corner is going to have shelves, not the lazy susan thing. We vetoed that. All the cabinets are going to have crown moulding. We already have a nice sink with faucet, so we are keeping that.
This is the continuation of the “L.” I guess this is pretty self explanatory. Nothing new here, except that we are keeping the same refrigerator and oven. They are both new and stainless. From what I have been hearing, stainless is the cat’s meow for this half-year. Next half-year, I’m sure it’ll be something different.
This is the wall heading out into the hallway. This is a great new feature…a pantry. This piece comes with five adjustable shelves. We are most likely going to take most of them out, so we have somewhere to keep the vacuum. Also, the counter top to the right is a nice place for the cats to eat.
We are using them to install everything, except for the floor. Their price as a whole, is higher than Lowe’s, but believe it or not, the installation is less. We did get the least expensive counter tops. Whatever it is, it will be fine, I’m sure. We have another appointment next Thursday to go back to the showroom and finalize any colors or designs. Also, we have to pick out the color of the counter tops and choose what hardware (handles) we want.
I feel pretty good about this. I like the way I know who is taking care of the ordering, shipping and installation. That is what was making me nervous about the other places. Also, now that I have the designs, I can only fix the portions of the walls that need to be fixed. That is going to save a heck of a lot of time.
I really didn’t plan on doing this today, but I am glad we did. At least things can get ordered and we can have the project done early in the new year.
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Sunday, November 25th, 2007
Well, that wasn’t so bad. A few weeks of a bit of work here and there and I have gotten myself to the point of (almost) completion. All I have to do now is caulk and paint the moulding that goes around the inside of the bathroom door.
I did a few odds and ends yesterday. We really needed a shower caddy. Laura suggested that we not get the usual one that hangs from the pipe to the shower head. She said they get disgusting with the water dripping on everything, making stains and all that. I had to agree. If I didn’t agree, she would have belted me over the head with a wiffle ball bat. So, we wanted one that the water wouldn’t hit. Here is the one we got…
Now, THAT’S a shower caddy. I have never seen anything like that in my life, but I will tell you that it holds everything. There is no more mess standing on the edge of the bathtub.
Also, just recently, the “hot” side of the bathroom faucet decided to start leaking. When I would shut off the water, it would drip and drip and drip. I decided to get a new faucet. I wasn’t going to mess around with the guts of the old one. Here is what I installed yesterday. It was a little tougher than I thought.
Lastly, I put down the threshold moulding for the doorway. I had to screw this down because I thought that hitting big finishing nails into the floor so close to the new tile would have a harmful effect. It’s ok…I kind of made a mess of things while drilling the holes in the center. Those new drill bits I got are really sharp.
That’s it. One last thing to do today and I am going to start on the kitchen. But this time, someone else is doing it.
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Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
I happen live live in a very beautiful area of New York. The Shawangunk Ridge is absolutely spectacular and visiting the Mohonk Preserve has become a favorite activity. Unfortunately, it seems that the western side of the Hudson River has water that smells like rotten eggs. I know there are towns on the eastern side that have this problem, but I know of more over here.
We moved in to this house on the hottest day of 2005. I am not exaggerating. It was honestly the hottest day. I remember it well. We unpacked half the truck and I was sweating bullets. I stopped because I was out of breath. I asked anyone if they would like a glass of water, they accepted and I walked in the house to get some out of the faucet. I filled three glasses and walked back outside and handed my friends the glasses. We put them to our lips at the same time…and all at once we said…”Eeewwww, rotten eggs!” Boy, what a delight! We had sulphur in our water!
As with any problem I am confronted with, I immediately say that I can fix it and then my mind starts to go. I thought of the biggest and the best carbon filter I would get. After I put that baby in, there would be no more smell. Well, my friend Craig tried that up in Oneonta, NY, to no avail. My father also tried that in Wilmington, NC and he is always changing the filters. If that doesn’t work, what was I supposed to do?
We lived with the smell in the water for about a week. We weren’t too far past the closing on the house, so I wasn’t too thrilled with dropping a bunch of money. I asked around at work and got a nice wide variety of answers. No one seemed to know what they were talking about. Things were getting worse because when we got out of the shower, the smell would follow you until you completely dried. This had to change FAST!
The next day I got on the phone with a few water purification companies that I found in the yellow pages. Most of them said that there was iron in the water. I said, “No, you must be mistaken, I have Sulphur in the water.” They said, “Yes, but Sulphur is created by Iron.” What? Well, apparently, they were correct. The way it works is this: Water with small traces of iron enter the house through the well. Then, the water sits in the hot water heater. Somehow, the heat changes the iron in the water to sulphur and then, whalla, stinky sulphur water! I am not too sure of how this works. My friend Paul wrote a much more informative entry in his blog about water treatment.
The answer to my problem was to get a Whole House Iron Filter - a Manganese Greensand Filter. I was talking with my neighbor about this problem and he recommended a local water guy to do the job. He said he was the most reasonably priced in the area and new what I needed. I gave this fellow a call and he came out and tested my water. He said, “Yep, your water isn’t hard, but you do have iron in it.” I said, will the filter you install get out 100% and make every thing perfect?” he said, “No, but about 95% will be taken out and you won’t have the smell anymore.” That sounded good to me. My only concern at this point was how much I was going to have to give this guy to fix my problem. I had to have him install it because I didn’t know the first thing about it, didn’t know where to get the filter and had no way to get it to my house. He told me it would cost $1100, said and done. I told him that was fine, just get over here and do it ASAP. The picture below is the actual filter he installed.
The water guy told me that this filter was one of the best on the market. No shortcuts were taken and it would last for about 20 years.
He did a great job installing the filter. The soldering of the copper pipes looked good and he ran the backwash line to the septic pipe in the basement so it wouldn’t make a mess outside when it backwashed the greensand with the Potassium - water mixture. It does this about every 4 days at 2AM.
He also flushed out my electric hot water heater and put some bleach in there to kill any bacteria. He told me to put about 2 cups of bleach in our well every year. I have done this and it’s amazing how good the water smells after I do it. I am happy to say that ever since this very maintenance free water filter was installed, my rotten egg smell has just about disappeared!
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