ESPECIALLY the kitchen sink

You've heard the saying:  'Everything but the kitchen sink!' . . . for us, the saying has become 'Especially the kitchen sink!'

Right before Easter the kitchen faucet broke.  One of our offspring used excessive force to turn off the water flow.  Irish temper?  Perhaps, but I think it was more like a kid not realizing his own strength combined with an aging faucet.  Fortunately the water could still be turned off and on, but it took a little wiggling, a little caution, and a little know-how.

When my friend came over for lunch, she watched my technique with the sink.  I insisted that I felt like a doctor from the hit TV show of the 90's.  Once all the parts aligned, I felt like I was portraying a med student on ER trying to intubate a patient.  Once I had felt the necessary 'click' I wanted to call out:  'I'm in!'

For awhile I used a bit of duct tape to hold the faucet handle in place.  That plan interfered with the ability to adjust the temperature because the handle couldn't rotate, so the tape was removed. Temperature choices are not over-rated. 

When we hosted Easter, Coach and I shared a chuckle when my worry-wart mother-in-law caused the handle to come dislodged from the faucet.  She thought she had broken it.  I promise . . .  we only let a solid minute (too long?) go by before we assured her that the damn thing had been broken for a few weeks.  

Coach considered replacing the faucet, but knowing the kitchen was about to be completely overhauled we hesitated to invest much in what would become a temporary fix.  Mr. Handy husband made a visit to Home Depot and brought home the cheapest option he could find.  Turns out this faucet didn't line up with the holes that already existed in the granite.  Fail. 

On his second trip to the store he considered a cheap faucet that was intended for a bathroom sink.  We wouldn't be able to rotate it between the two sides of  the sink, never-mind fit anything under it because it would be affixed right above the sink divider.  The water flow would be limited to hitting the middle 'wall' of the sink.  OK, so that is probably not the technical term, but you get my gist.  Kind of a killjoy not to be able to rinse anything deeper than a plate.

Faucet that saw better days, plus a view of the ugly granite.  If you have the same granite - well, I'm sorry.  No really, I'm not sorry that I may have offended you . . . I'm sorry that you have this granite.  It makes it very hard to see sticky spots and crumbs while offering no aesthetic value. 

Eventually we chose to skip it and suffer thru with the broken faucet.  Big deal, right?  Construction was scheduled (see where this is headed?) to begin on the kitchen in mid June.  At that point we planned to operate out of our basement, where we have a sink, a fridge, a stove, and a storage room.  The storage room now resembles a bunker since I've moved all of our canned goods, pots and pans, etc. down there.

Of course, you can guess how this story ends, right?  As with all construction jobs since the beginning of time, (or at least since the ever-so-reliable Jesus and his dad Joseph got out of the business) progress is slow.  In fact, I struggle to call it progress. 

We alerted the building contractor of our many travel plans over the summer.  The intention was to have as much of the work take place as possible while we were out of town.  Makes sense, right?  We would be out of their way, and likewise.  

Poor grill.

Instead a few weeks after the planned start date, they removed the brick from the back of the house, pulled back a bit of the deck, and dismantled the gas grill.  Then nothing was done for 4 weeks.  Nothing.  Instead of workmen and newly framed out walls, we could see out our sliding kitchen window our once-functioning gas grill laying on its side.  Nothing like not grilling for most of the summer . . . for NO REASON.   

Eventually they dug a hole.  Poured a foundation.  This took place over the last three weeks.  The size of the addition is about 10 x 10 in one area and 4 by 8 in an adjacent section.  

Foundation poured where they pulled up the deck.  It'll be awesome when it is done!

In the meantime, our children have managed to knock off another interior plastic part from the broken faucet each week.  They fail to admit this, but I occasionally discover the black remnants ignored in the bottom of the sink.  Now the handle no longer balances on top of the faucet.  It takes a force of God to get the water on, and considerable mental alertness to get it to turn off again.

Tank recently attempted to use the sink.  He summoned me up from the basement bunker to assist him in turning it off.  I was down there searching for a pan I had stowed down there in preparation for the construction work . . . before I realized I could've left my kitchen in full function mode for the ENTIRE SUMMER.  Jogging up and down the stairs in search of where I stored things is my new favorite past time.   

To think, I hoped for a new kitchen for better storage, better layout, and better aesthetics.  Now I long for a fully functioning kitchen sink.