This Series Will be Interrupted....

By the house's not-so-subtle hint that our efforts should be focused on the disaster that is our kitchen.

Here is the kitchen sink on the day we bought the house. Notice the backsplash (how could you not)? That's drawer liner, not wallpaper.

This past weekend, we had dinner guests, so of course, the faucet cracked and started leaking.

This put us in a dilemma, that I'm sure many of you have faced. This room is obviously on our to-do list. Or, to be more specific the gut-to-the-studs list. I don't really want to replace things right now, I want to do it in a couple of years in one glorious purging of our bank accounts. So I went to the Orange Store.

Orange Store Employee: "Can I help you?"

Me: "My faucet cracked apart. I was hoping you had a replacement part."

OSE: "Is is a Moen or a Delta?"

Me: "It's an ugly faucet from the seventies."

OSE: "Maybe you could call the company?"

Me: "I don't think it has a company."

OSE: "Would you like to look at our new faucets?"

Me: (sigh) "I suppose."

Now at this point, we had to make a decision. Either replace faucet with a cheap one, or go all out and buy one that we actually like and hope it will work with our remodel plans in the future. We opted for option 2 (Kevin didn't like the 3rd option I posed, which was to just gut the kitchen and be done with it). We reasoned that buying a new ugly faucet only to replace it in a few years seemed wasteful, and we had a pretty good idea of our future faucet needs anyway.

So, early Sunday morning (before doing the dishes, which in hindsight could have turned out very badly), we set to work removing the old faucet. Only to realize that in it's forty years of service, the particles of food and rust had joined together and welded the faucet in place. So Kevin did what anyone would do in a similar situation: he brought out the Sawz-all.

With the old faucet finally out of the way, the new faucet could be put in:

It's like looking at a beautiful swan surrounded by a psychedelic swamp.