Our New Sink & Faucet!

For months every time we used the kitchen faucet we had to take extra care when shutting if off. We had to find just the right position to keep it from dripping. Usually I could not find the magic position, so I settled for a minor drip. I've endured many lectures from Mark and Kara on my inability to shut off the faucet. I had better things to do with my time than fidget endlessly with the stupid faucet.

If we had metered water, we would have had to fix the problem months ago. However, we don't have metered water. We have a well. So we let it drip. And drip. And drip. It was wearing away at my sanity.

Mark tried to solve the problem more than once. He made the drip go away for a few days, but it always came back. Why didn't Mark install a new faucet months ago? Because I wanted a new sink to go with the new faucet. I loathed the kitchen sink in this house from the day we moved in. The previous owner had used harsh abrasives to clean it and the porcelain finish was ruined. Consequently the sink basin stained easily. Another reason I wanted the sink replaced is that our counter tops are black and brown granite and the appliances were stainless steel when we moved in yet the sink was white. There was nothing I liked about that sink.

So last year when the faucet started to drip I lobbied for not just a new faucet, but a new sink and faucet. Kara readily agreed to my plan. Thus began the mighty search for a sink. It was not easy. Kara researched and researched. Then she searched and searched. Eventually she found two sinks in black composite granite. She asked which one Mark and I thought was best. We were not good housemates. We did not give her an answer. In our defense we were in Florida with the children and--seriously!--did not have a moment to spare or the energy to make an intelligent decision.

Kara chose the sink without our input. She ordered it. It arrived. It was cracked. She returned it. She ordered a second one. Then she chose and ordered two faucets. Two you ask? As if choosing one sink wasn't difficult enough--it took a year--we had, not one, but two ugly white porcelain sinks in our kitchen. The second sink is a small prep sink that we seldom use, but it exists; it's a second blight on the granite counter top. Finding a composite black granite prep sink was even more difficult. Kara had to switch brands and hope for a good enough match in color and texture to fool the uninformed eye.

After getting all the needed pieces ordered (including rubbed bronze silicone caulk!), it was time to coax the worker into installing the sink. On Easter Saturday I convinced him that this was the perfect birthday gift for Kara. He started on the project early in the day, but as always happens with home improvement projects, there were a few glitches.

The new sink wouldn't fit flush with the counter top. Mark went to Home Depot and purchased a grinder to take off some rough edges in the granite counter cut out for the sink. Granite dust went everywhere and it was a mess to clean up. The sink still would not fit. Upon close inspection we saw that on the underside of the sink there were right angles where the sink counter had very rounded curves. Mark had to grind away the sharp corners to match the curves and he also had to adjust a few other areas.

Next he had to finish cutting out the holes for the soap dispenser and the aerator. He quickly wore out the drill bit he'd purchased. He took a trip to Lowe's for a new drill bit which worked much better. Finally the sink was ready. We put the silicone caulk down. It was a super big mess. We didn't put enough or maybe the caulk wasn't positioned correctly, so we added a lot more. Then there was too much. We had to clean the excess up. It was not fun.

Finally it was time to put the garbage disposal back in. We needed different pipes because the new sink was a different depth. Back to Home Depot. It looked like the end was in sight when Mark couldn't get the main sink drain to line up with the drain pipes in the wall using the pipes from the old sink. Home Depot had closed. It seemed that we'd be waiting until Monday for Mark to finish the job, but then someone (Kara? Mark?) remembered Wal-Mart. A final trip to Wal-Mart for yet more pipes (flexible!) and the sink was in and working.

In our household's opinion it is the most beautiful sink in the world. It matches the counter top. It's elegant. It's sparkly. It has a gorgeous rubbed bronze finish faucet that turns on and off with just a touch. THERE IS NO DRIP! Life is good.

Two weeks later Mark started to replace the prep sink. Everything was going smoothly until he more closely inspected (later in the process than he should have!) the new sink and found flaws in its finish. ARG! The sink had been special ordered, so we couldn't get a new one quickly. On the plus side, it was a very ugly sink (not at  all like our other new sink), so we had the opportunity to return it for no charge and buy a different brand. We opted to go with something completely different (not composite granite) but in black. Kara found the new sink on amazon.com and it should be here early next week. YES! We have a board over the gaping hole in the kitchen counter, so we'd really like to get this project finished.

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Kara has a blog rule that I usually abide by: all posts must be about the children. I started this post with a fine photo of Linoln and I'll end the post with an interview with Bentley on the topic of sinks. On Saturday while opa was installing the sink I asked Bentley if he was excited to have a new sink. He said he was. Really?! It turns out he thought I was asking if he wanted his own private sink. (Where?) After we installed the sink Mark and I demonstrated how awesome the turn on by a quick touch function was. Bentley was impressed. He showed Jake how all the sink functions work. Lincoln figured it out on his own and turned the water on and off a few times during his photo session.