the kitchen nightmare

Last year for Christmas, one of my gifts was a kitchen sink.  My husband told me he was going to install a new countertop, sink, and faucet for me in our kitchen.  I was excited, but because I was pregnant and hormonal and couldn't handle one single decision or frustration during those nine months, I wouldn't let him put it in yet.  He kept wanting to, but I kept saying no, that it was too much stress and I didn't want to have to pick out anything at that point.  I couldn't handle the pressure and couldn't handle the frustration of not having a kitchen for a time.  I know it probably sounds silly, but I've suffered from perinatal depression during both of my pregnancies, and both times chose not to take anything for it until after the baby was born because of its effect on the baby, so every little thing completely overwhelmed me (but that's all a topic for another day).   

Fast forward to August, when my husband was in Peru.  One night I put the dishes in the dishwasher, turned it on, and it didn't work.  It's an old dishwasher that came with the house, and it hasn't worked quite right since we moved here, but it's always done the job okay. My mom and I tried to figure out what was wrong, but couldn't.  At 10:00 at night we were using the shop-vac to suck water out of the dishwasher so it wouldn't leak anymore all over the floor.  We washed dishes by hand the rest of the week, waiting for my husband to come home to decide what to do about it.  Since it was so old, it wasn't worth bringing a repairman to the house and paying $100 just to get it looked at.  After several weeks of washing dishes by hand, I finally got my husband to try to fix it a week or so ago, but after looking at it he said there wasn't anything he could do, so we needed to buy a new dishwasher.

He went to the store to look at them, and when he came home he said that if we were going to tear up the kitchen we should do it all at once, and he'd get started on the countertop/sink/faucet project as well.  So we bought a dishwasher, finally picked out the countertop, and chose a faucet (I already had the sink).  I wasn't looking forward to the process, since it meant no water and a huge mess for who knows how long, but at this point I was ready to put up with it for awhile in order to have my sink. (I didn't care so much about a new countertop.  I just wanted a new sink and faucet to replace my leaky one.  He thought we needed the new countertop before putting in a new sink.) 

My husband's a great woodworker.  He has made countless pieces of furniture for Rachel that are just beautiful.  So he has the tools and the ability to do a lot of things with wood.  He thought he could build the countertop himself inexpensively and save some money.  He bought the supplies and set to work on Friday night, removing our old sink and countertop and getting the wood cut for the new countertop.  Things were ahead of schedule after that night.  He thought he could get it done by Sunday.  No problem, I thought.  I could wash dishes in the basement laundry tub for a couple of days and eat microwaved meals for the weekend until my kitchen was back in working order.  My parents came down so my dad could help him on Saturday.  But on Saturday they kept running into one problem after another.  First the formica wouldn't stick properly to the wood.  Then his router kept making marks on the sides of the countertop as he cut it, ruining it beyond repair.  The tops looked great, but the sides were a mess, no matter what he tried.  And the wall behind our sink is not flat, and he was running into problems with getting it to lay right in that spot as well.

On Sunday he decided he was throwing in the towel.  We went to Home Depot to price having someone else come put in a new countertop.  It actually was less than we thought it would be, but still lots more than we wanted to pay (since we had already spent all of the money on the other supplies!).  Plus I would have to wait three weeks before it was done and I would have running water in my kitchen.  We were going to go to Lowe's to get another quote, but decided to stop at home first to measure the sink, which we had forgotten to do before.  While we were at home someone (I don't know if it was Brian, me, or one of my parents) came up with the idea of putting wood trim on the sides of the countertop to cover up the mistakes.  Wood trim isn't quite as "in style" as it used to be, but it could solve our problem and save us some money.  We went to Lowes and priced wood trim.  It was going to be much, MUCH cheaper than having a new countertop made and installed and we could have it done much sooner.  So we bought the wood for the trim and came home so he could start installing the sink (the countertops were done, except for the trim, which he could install later).

He and my dad measured and cut the hole for the sink.  They dropped it in and the started working on the plumbing. Then it was time for my parents to leave.  My husband tried to connect the garbage disposal and ran into problems.  At that point I had to leave to take the girls to a birthday party, so he was on his own. 

When I came home a few hours later, I was hoping to arrive home to running water in the new sink.  No such luck.  Instead I came home to an even messier kitchen and a disgruntled husband who had been working the whole time and had only come up against more problems.  The old dishwasher was somehow leaking all over the floor, the brand new faucet was leaking, and there was no hot water or garbage disposal.

He gave up for the night.   So we started the week with no water and a kitchen that looked like a hurricane went through.  More microwaved meals.  More washing dishes in the laundry tub (so lots of using paper plates!).  Monday night he worked from the moment he got home from work until he went to bed, and still continued to run into problems.  No success.

Tuesday the new dishwasher was installed.  The installer ran into problems because our plumbing wasn't working. (In order to test the dishwasher to make sure it worked he had to put a bucket under the drain to catch the water coming out.  A couple of times he forgot and water came pouring out under the sink!) But he installed it.  I asked him how much he would charge for fixing the plumbing for us, but he said he wasn't allowed, because we wouldn't be going through Lowe's, where we bought the dishwasher, and he could lose his job.  He said it didn't look too difficult, though.

Tuesday night my husband set to work again, with the plans that if it didn't work, he was going to call a plumber.  This time, after several attempts, he was able to get it to work.  Hooray!  Now I have a working sink, faucet, and dishwasher!

The countertops still need their trim, so we can't put the things back in the cabinets (the living room is full of boxes with the contents of my drawers and bottom cupboards), but at least now I can use the stove and oven and wash dishes (and bottles!) again.  Because of the constant need for bottles, I was washing them a lot, and bending over the basement laundry tub was killing my back.  I'm so thankful to have a sink again.

And the sink....oh, the sink!  I LOVE it!  My old sink was a standard contractor's grade stainless steel sink that comes in apartments and so forth.  It was small and curved on the bottom so that you couldn't stand a glass up in it without it falling over.  This sink is deep and has a flat bottom.  It's wonderful!  And the dishwasher is super duper quiet. (our last dishwasher was about thirty years old, according to the installer, and sounded like a freight train when it was on, so that you had to turn the TV way up when washing dishes!  You can barely hear this one!)

So I'm still a little ways from having my kitchen done, but I'm a LONG way from where I was a few days ago.  The nightmare is pretty much over.  When it's all done I'll put some pictures on.