Sink or Sail: Healing My Heart, My Home ... And a Sailboat: New Life

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

New Life

It's a Sink!

My life has changed completely - I can see the future of my condo and it is bright. After a year and a half without a kitchen sink, I have the sink in, temporary counter tops and now running water and a working garbage disposal!

Working sink!

My friend Karl couldn't believe I had been living in the condo a year and a half without a kitchen sink. And remember it wasn't just me - J, K and dog Largo also lived there. I made dinner every night and we ate on real plates and used real utensils. Crazy.

Karl spent his two days off last week working on my kitchen - not just hooking up the pipes but making sure everything is to code - much old wiring and plumbing and much of the new J put in wasn't right, he said. Not that J didn't try - it wasn't total crap, Karl said, but just wasn't up to code. Plastic Pex running water outside the wall behind the stove could have caught on fire - we replaced it with copper. Pigtailed wiring from dishwasher to wall wiring also could have caused a fire. We added a plug and an outlet for that and put the wiring in a box. Karl also installed an outlet for the disposal - both GFCI.

Karl also added valves at the stub-out points for the water lines and under the sink so I don't have to turn the water off in the entire condo if there is ever a problem.

About $300 in materials but it looks great and works great. No leaks. (Update - found a leak last night. It's possible the water is just splashing through the make-shift counter top but the pvc pipes underneath may need to be tightened).

AND the switch I changed from the dimmer for the garbage disposal works! I did it correctly!

I have amazing friends. Erin - Karl and Erin are a couple - brought pizza and moral support. I'm not sure how I will ever repay any of them - Chris, Jess, Kate, Brad, Karen, Marc, Lynn, Elana, David, Guy and many more - I know I'll never say no to moving help, babysitting, dog sitting, house sitting, filing help - whatever they need.

There is still a lot more to do before even the kitchen is finished - the counter top based isn't even because part of it sits on tile and part of it sits on concrete - I need to tear out the tile. Can't afford that right now. So the permanent counter tops have to wait for that or they won't be even - I'm going with concrete.

The stove hood needs to be moved over to center over the stove - Marc, Brad and I moved the stove for the counter top base. The hood also needs to be vented outside - that means going through the concrete wall onto the lanai.

I need to finish the trim, build some shelves, build out a pantry so everything looks like it was always supposed to be there. Before I can ever consider refinancing to get a lower rate, I need to do all this.

But the sink, running water, knowing I'm not going to burn down the place - huge huge huge.