Kitchen War... Drips / Getting laid

Drips

I absolutely hate hooking up sink drains.  I have yet to ever do one which doesn't leak on the first attempt.  This kitchen sink was no different.



But before I started on the drain, I wanted to make sure that the water lines had full flow.  The cold water line has a stretch of galvanized pipe connected to copper in the basement and we had a problem with full flow in the old faucet.



I ran a full five gallons of water from both the hot and cold water without a problem.

As for the drain itself, I figured I'd do this one correctly and not cobble together a drain.  I started off with a center drain kit from Home Depot.

But first I had to install the strainer basket in the tub on the left side of the sink...

The plumbers' putty went down around the drain hole...

I tightened up the strainer basker under the sink and got a good "ooze" of putty all the way around the strainer basket.  A quick wipe with my index finger around the basket and...

Voila!  Strainer basket installed. 

Now under the sink to connect the water lines.  This faucet was interesting in that the water lines in the faucet were woven stainless steel.  However, neither the cold nor hot lines were marked.  I figured I had a 50/50 shot at getting the lines hooked up right the first time.  I started with the hot water source first.

I was cooking with gas.  Got it right on the first attempt.  After the water lines were hooked up, I started on the drain lines.

... and my luck started to turn.

First, the elbow part of the drain line was about 2 1/2 inches short.  No biggie, I had bought a 6 inch extension just for this type of circumstance.  I cut it to the correct length.

And the sink drains were connected.  I used the old P-trap with the accordian section and elbow to connect to the drain coming out of the wall.  It looked a little rough but I was ready to test...

Aaarrggghh!!!  Water was coming out of 4 of the 8 new connections plus the old strainer basket which had come with the sink.

I took off the old basket and discover the putty had deteriorated; it had probably gotten bumped and turned when it was removed from the prior installation.



I cleaned it up, put new putty in...

I reconnected the drain and left the bucket and bowl under the sink until the next evening when I could get to Home Depot to get a longer elbow so I could simplify the drain connections.

Frustration... I still had one leak.  I took the drain apart and trimmed 1/4 inch off each elbow so I could get the connection to the sink bowls perfectly straight.

Aaarrrgghhh!!!  But that didn't work.  I'd get one drain to stop leaking and then the other would start.  I tightened.  Undid.  Redid.  Nothing worked.

...until in desperation, I filled the connection with plumbers' putty.  Three of the four joints went right together.  But the 4th one... Let's just say I gave it a good talking to before it decided to cooperate. 

90 minutes after I started, I finally had a kitchen sink that didn't leak.

Getting Laid

In addition to installing the sink, for the last two weeks, we've been working on getting the tile installed on the counters on the west side of the kitchen.  Inspired by George Iverson's comment that the cabinets used to be covered by small tiles, we choose tile with a white victorian octagon with black square dots pattern along with a white sink rail.

Most of the time was spent fitting and cutting the tile.  The sink rails required some complicated cuts (at least for me they were complicated.)  Here's the one for the 90 degree corner.

...and for the 45 degree corner in the seating area.



The tile was installed over two weekends.  Weekend one we worked on the side with the countertop extension and diswasher.  After the sink rail was installed.

We used spacers to keep the tile the correct distance apart.

Once the tile for this side of the cabinet had been all cut, we started installing the tile using a product call Bondera TileMatSet.  Bondera comes in two basic types.  20 mil for horizon applications like below and 40 mile for vertical application.

Bondera is a double-sided adhesive which can be used on level surfaces in place of backer board and thinset.

You can do a slide the tile a small amount and once you have it in the proper location, you either press it down for 5 seconds or roll with a rolling pin.  I pressed down.

One of the advantages of Bondera is you can immediately grout once the tile is down rather than having to wait 24 to 48 hours for the thinset to dry.  You do have to grout within 8 hours of installing the tile.

... but before I did that, I had a bite of lunch on the new countertop.

...and then it was outside to mix the grout.

With black, it's not to hard to tell where you've grouted and where you haven't.

...and it gets everywhere.  Here's I am before it got really messy.

Once the grout was in, we cleaned it up with sponges.  We went through several five gallon buckets of water.

After the grout completely dried, we cleaned up the remaining haze with an acid cleaner (for which I worn rubber gloves.)

Weekend two, we spent focused on finishing the remaining 10 square feet or so on the other end of the existing counters.  (Next weekend, I plan on doing the small 12 inch wide cabinet between the refrigerator and stove.)

First down, the sink rail.

I changed up the process a bit this time and put the Bondera TileMatSet down first before I cut the tile.



This was a lesson learned from the previous weekend where I found it was difficult to remember which piece of tile went where when I picked it up to lay down the tilematset.

With only 10 square feet instead of 28 square feet like last weekend...

... the tile cutting went a lot faster, as did the grouting



But it was still just as messy and was a chore to clean up.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early to weed the garden.  My corn and beans didn't do very well; but the rest of the garden looks pretty good.

Two hours of hoeing and Robyn and I were done.

Now for the sink front.

We had looked at country sinks, also known as apron front sinks, for the kitchen.  We really liked the look.  However, because the counters were not standard and as folks in Minnesota say, they were a "bit spendy," we chose to go with a traditional sink.  As shown in my previous blog, I had to build a new cabinet extension to accomodate the larger bowls of the sink.

As opposed to the painted exterior plyboard which had been there, we chose to tile the extension creating a faux apron for the sink.

For this tile application, I used the 4 inch wide Bondera TileMatSet for vertical installations.

I couldn't find bull-nosed 3" x 6" inch white tile so I used 4 1/2" square bull-nosed tile and cut it down to the 3" width with the full lenght on the first row and 1/2 length on the second row.  This enabled the pieces of tile which I needed to cut to complete the row to be centered with the cut center piece of sink rail.



For the faux apron front, we used white grout rather than black.

Since it was such a small area, I used a pre-mixed grout.  30 minutes later, it was wiped down and the countertops were finished on this side of the kitchen with just the backsplash remaining to do.



Kitchen War... The Fear Factor

Well, once the new cabinets were set up and secured, and the dishwasher hooked up, it was time to tackle the kitchen sink Saturday.

Like many of the walls in the house, the sink had been beat on and had dimples around the edge.  The faucet was a cheap one I had picked up last year just so we could have running water in the kitchen; the handles were broke off the old one.

The biggest fear about working with something which has continual exposure to water is how much hidden damage is there.  Because the countertops were not standard width, the sink was right up against the wall and the caulking job wasn't all that great.

It was just nasty and I was afraid what I would find when I pulled the sink out, particularly since there was a perceptible sag in the middle of the back of the sink.

In the front of the sink cabinet, holes had actually been drilled in a cross piece so water wouldn't collect.



It actually wasn't as bad as I feared.

...with most of the damage limited to the particle board to which the laminate was attached.  It was relatively easy to beef up the back support

...with a piece of 2x4 and 2x2 secured to solid wood in the wall and cabinet back. 

Once I had the back bracing in place, I starting working on the tile surface for the old countertops.  Originally, I had planned on using Bondera to attach the tiles directly to the laminate. 

However, if you remember from my last post, I had to square the corner cabinet up against the spacer I had attached to the side of the old cabinets using a wedge.  When I did that...

The  new countertop, whose height I had measured several times, was now 1/4 inch higher than the old countertop.  I was not happy.

But, all things considered, it was probably for the best.  I was fortunate that it was exactly 1/4 of an inch so I planned on using 1/4 inch plyboard to get the entire counter surface on the same plane.  This has the side benefit of providing a better surface for the Bondera Tilematset.

Off to Lowe's to get the 1/4 plyboard which I had ripped to the 22 inch width (about 3 inches less than standard) of the old countertop.  With the sink out, I was able to mark the areas that had to be cut out.



First cut out marked was for the small drawers on the left side under the cabinets. 

Once that was cut out, I slide the plyboard into place.



And I was able to crawl under the sink opening and scribe the opening on to the underside of the plyboard.  (I planned on replacing the old sink with one of the same dimensions.)

Our mantra for the house has been, "Never pay full price.  Recycle / Reuse whenever possible."  So, for the past week, Robyn has been searching Craigslist for a kitchen sink in good shape that was 33" wide by 22" deep.  She found a white cast iron one, in near perfect condition, for $100.  Nine inches deep with the faucet and soap dispenser included.  Her find saved us $300 or $400.  The old one went into the back alley and Robyn posted on our neighborhood forum that it was available; it was gone in a couple of hours.

The next challenge that I had was fitting the new sink into the old hole.  While the nominal dimensions were the same, the sink parts that would be under the counter weren't.  The bowls on the new sink were bigger area-wise as well as deeper (9 inches versus 7 inches).

Here was my first attempt to fit the sink...

Out came the red felt pen and I marked the areas which were hanging up and went to work with the jig saw.

...and then with the sawsall.

...and again.

...and again.

...and again.

Two or three hours later, the old front of the cabinet was gone.  A new front brace was in place.  And I had a rough, very rough, opening.



... I had lots and lots of saw dust and small chunks of wood.

But the sink fit...

So, it was time for a break.  After a shower, Robyn and I went over to Swede Holow Park to check out "Art in the Hollow."



And then had an awesome dinner at Yarusso Brother's Italian Restaurant

After a 2 or 3 hour break, I was back at it, cutting and fitting tile.  First thing, I had to do was rebuild the front of the cabinet.

The front of the cabinet had to come out far enough so I would eventually be able to put a cover on the heater / ac vent.  I plan on putting while 3" x 6" tile on the cabinet extension so that it will look like the apron on a country sink.

As soon as it was up, I started putting the sink rail and border around the sink opening.  Rather than using small pieces of tile, I used 3"x 6" tile cut down to size.  I wanted bigger pieces of tile to rest the sink on.

Day 1 of no kitchen sink ended around 8:00 pm.  I had to wait for the adhesive to dry before I could cut and fit the rest of the tile which would go around the sink.  Once I have the entire countertop set and grouted, I'll update my blog with that work.