We had to replace the faucet on our kitchen sink. It had been somewhat drippy since we bought the place, but when you moved the turn off handle toward the cold side and push down hard...OFF. Tada.
Hence, a new faucet was purchased and not put on.
Last Wednesday morning I turned the water on to fill the pitcher, while holding the baby mind you. The handle came off in my hand.
Yes, I am that mighty.
I had to put the cranky (cutting tooth #2) baby down to finally finangle the thing back on. Only it wasn't really on. The thing was leaking. Not even a drop every once in a while leaking. It was a small trickle.
Crap.
Some pushing hard and it got to be just a drip. Not a really slow drip, but a drip.
Meanwhile the baby was screaming.
I had to go maintenance the baby. After a diaper change and feeding, she fell asleep. Then I heard it.
Drip.
Drip.
Talk about a torturous noise. It is like the beating heart from Poe, only instead of guilt I felt pure annoyance.
I tried turning the thing off again. No luck. Oh well, mop bucket to the rescue.
Daniel was informed that tonight was the night to replace the faucet so he couldn't work late.
He came home and I being the amazing homemaker that I am had dinner just coming off the stove. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was planning on shutting the water off the moment dinner was ready and the pitcher was filled. It was not a motive for forced manual labor.
So we started draining the pipes in the house. You see the really nifty thing about all the sinks in the house is that they don't have stop valves. So the water went off, and all the faucets got opened.
We ate dinner letting them finish dripping empty.
Daniel disappeared with the laptop.
In annoyance I yelled at him to come down and start already. Mind you he had been home around 2 hours and it was getting close to 8pm. He had forgotten that Home Depot (unlike walmart) closes at night. Talk about a random lapse of memory.
So we ran off with the little one. To the store. At 9pm. Yes her bedtime is 8pm, but I wanted running water dang it.
Well, lets just say the first 20 minutes went really fast. It seemed like we were doing great.
Then an hour later we were still at the same point.
Then the hacksaw and the reciprocating saw joined the team.
After carefully removing the old faucet we were ready to cut the water lines under the sink.
Around midnight we went to bed.
Got up at 6. Went to home depot before dropping Daniel off at work. The idea was that I would finish cutting off the other copper piping and then hook on the compression fit valves.
Lets just say I spent lots of time under the sink with a whining baby trying to climb under there with me. She mostly wailed and chewed on my legs. I put on on and it seemed strange. I tried the second and was having issues, so I started cutting the pipe lower. yeah, little pipe cutters give you blisters.
Fast Forward a bit and I took the baby upstairs for a nap. I joined her. We slept for a few hours. (Read Daniel called and woke me at 5:32pm...only 30 minutes after he got off work, oopsies).
So yeah he got the second compression fitting on and turned the water on with the intent of showering.
It shot off and we had old faithful under the sink. I got a pile of towels. We consulted the neighbor who wanted to smelt and has experience and all. We went in search og things to attach to the pipes and different stop valves. After some consulting of a plumbing guy, we got some nifty ones you smelt right onto the pipe.
Within 20 minutes of getting home they were both on and we could turn the water on. Ah a shower. The ability to flush the toilet. Washing of the baby diapers. So many fabulous things happen with running water in the house.
Thank goodness for neighbors.
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