A New Sink and Faucet

New sink and faucet installed in our old cabinets. Our renovation plans
include a garden window in place of the window in this photo.

We're planning to completely gut and renovate the kitchen as soon as we have time and some cooperative health (for both of us!). In the meantime, we're storing away new building supplies for this project. 

We've had a new kitchen sink and faucet sitting here for a few months while the old sink and faucet continued to drive us crazy everyday. The old sink was too small... the faucet was a poor quality one with very little clearance between the sink and the spout... the sink was dented and old... and the sprayer hasn't worked correctly in years. This stuff needed to be replaced years ago. Since the sink and faucet were just sitting there on the floor, I decided to do something about it the other day.

I've replaced sinks and faucets in the past and, typically, this is a quick and easy project requiring no more than one to two hours of work. Of course, when you are upgrading a 50 year old house that has been neglected for decades (before I moved here), nothing is typical so I expected a few little problems. Unfortunately, I encountered some big problems which stretched this little project out to about six to eight hours spread out over two days!

These problems required me to dismantle our microwave cabinet sitting next to this sink cabinet so I could access the rest of the waste plumbing all the way back to the plumbing stack. The waste plumbing was so clogged up with accumulated grease and soap that I don't know how any water was draining out of the old sink! 

On the positive side, we now have waste plumbing in the kitchen that is all new, neat and installed correctly. Most importantly, the waste water now runs freely to the plumbing stack! 

Do you see that little blue tab sticking out from the tailpiece underneath the left sink basin? That is where we will connect the drain hose for the new dishwasher we plan to install during the kitchen renovations. I should also point out that the couple of wires seen running across the cabinet in this photo are telephone wires for our multiple lines of landlines and they are only temporarily snaked through this cabinet as seen here.

This new sink is HUGE compared to our old sink! The clearance between the sink and the spout is much larger now too. It will be nice for washing and filling big pots. The spout is one of those pull-down spouts with a rocker switch controlling the type of spray needed. The faucet is a nice Delta faucet and the sink is made of quartz.

The sink had no holes for the faucet and accessories when I pulled it out of the box. Making holes for the faucet and the soap dispenser was easier than I thought it would be though. It only required a little bit of chiseling and filing since the holes were already mostly drilled from underneath.

The faucet came with a soap dispenser. I'm not sure if this will be useful because it is a pain in the butt to refill this dispenser. The dispenser's container is screwed in from underneath and it is difficult to reach because the sink is so deep. We'll see how it goes...  

Post Edit:  Sheila said to me, "It is too bad that this dispenser doesn't fill from the top"... I immediately felt like a fool for not realizing this myself! I went over to the sink... gently pulled up on the dispenser... and viola! Access for refilling!

These are our "temporary" wood countertops. The new countertops will be stained butcher block when we renovate in the coming months. You can really see how deep this new sink is in this photo. Our old sink was only half this depth, only a single basin and could completely fit inside this new quartz sink!

So far, the new plumbing is working just fine... no leaks... waste water flowing and draining quickly. It still feels a bit odd having such a large sink and faucet but it will probably only take a few days before we have forgotten about the tiny, beat-up old sink.

I have to say, although my spinal injuries are screaming at me today, it feels really good to have accomplished something. And, in the process, I cleared out some of our stored building supplies!