Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I am pleased to announce the project is ALMOST done. That's right, not 100% done because we don't technically know when that will be (the devil is in the details) so I need to celebrate that the water is again flowing into a sink in the kitchen. Yeah. Doing a little jig.
I will keep you suspense for photos a little longer because I have two stories to tell you as additional background. Hey, it's my blog, I can do that.
First Story
When Roy moved into this little house, it needed a lot of work because it had been down right ignored for way too long. The little kitchen was very quaint but circa 1950 decor. The decor wasn't so bad, but it always looked dirty (just like the rest of the place but in the kitchen it's just different). Since he was on a home improvement kick, he decided to tear the kitchen out - yes, out. All the way to the studs. My response was, do you have any idea how much a new kitchen is going to cost? His response, it won't be that bad, a few thousand dollars maybe.
He met with a very nice associate at his most favorite place in the world, Home Depot, and after selecting the standard Kraftmaid cabinets and basic laminate countertop, he was shocked at the $10,000 +++ price tag. Really, your surprised? You should have gotten the price estimate BEFORE gutting the joint. So in went a quasi-kitchen that over the last 9 years has improved, little by little. And even though some awesome meals are cooked in this place, it's still not a real kitchen.
Second Story
While we were in Lowe's and Roy's most favorite place in the whole world, Home Depot, looking at faucet options, we toyed with putting in one cabinet, the sink base. How wonderful would it be to have the sink base under this great sink and awesome faucet? Wouldn't that be great? Yea, it would, but it would also be great to have walls, lighting, new stove, and the rest of the cabinets to match the sink base. The sink base to the cabinets we want was quoted that day at just over $400. Both stores had an oak option in stock for $150. I passed. It was too overwhelming. A sink base would be nice but all it together would be even better and since I have lived with slow improvements to the quasi-kitchen, I figured it was worth saving the money and just doing what we needed to take care of replacing the sink.
Okay, so where were we? Oh right, I was going to show you before and after photos. Remember, it's still a quasi-kitchen and the details are not finished.
The old sink
See, it was ugly. Notice the black stuff around the edges, water got under there and popped off the enamel. The iron (I think that's what it was) started to separate and it was disgusting.
The other thing was that the white faucet would get really dirty at the seams because of the hard water.
In the middle of the project - when we were still using the green countertop
In this photo, you can really see that this is a quasi-kitchen. Notice the dresser to the left and the dishwasher on the right. It's not pretty but we get a lot of use out of it.
The almost finished project
It's almost finished because a piece of trim is needed where the backsplash meets the wall and Roy is going to put a "front" on the space where the sink base should be.
Other items to be updated - far left - the cold water dispenser (we didn't use the soap dispenser) is on order. We found an antique bronze option at Lowe's that we think will work well. Also, the drains are not the antique copper we ordered while at Home Depot. We canceled those, but it is still up in the air as to whether or not they will make their way into the sink.
Oh, and the white "tile" between the backsplash and the window will be painted so it's not such a harsh transition.
The little round knob at the top back of the faucet is just barely out far enough to stand up straight. Man, it was close. Thanks to Jim's talent as "the countertop guy", he was able to make it work. Something about notches and 1/4" to spare.
Oh, I forgot the mention, we were a little bold with the countertop selection. Lowe's had some options that were lighter and a lot more "safe". But when I put the paint chip and the copper wire basket conveniently found under the same roof, on the three options we liked, we prefered the bolder approach. It made the sink and faucet POP, where the other options made everything blend together. You can give me your opinion, I don't mind. I haven't yet decided if it was a crazy move or it will grow on me. The good news is, if it was crazy, it's not permanent.
So that's the sink project. When it finally is done, I will take some more photos but don't hold your breath, the bathroom door took 5 years to finish.
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