The De-Grossification of the Kitchen Sink, Stage 3, or VICTORY!

So when we left off, I was trying to decide if I was going to beat my rusty plumbing into oblivion so I could remove my old kitchen faucet.

Good thing Kyle came home right at that very minute. And he actually made the call to essentially break the faucet out of it's place. Which was great, because then if things went horribly wrong it was his fault and not mine. I like it when things work out that way.

Luckily for him, nothing went horribly wrong, and after about 20 minutes of his brute man-strength (said only with the slightest bit of irony) we had the old faucet detached (even though I had to cut the old sprayer hose because there was no other way to un-thread it from the hole in the sink).

And here, in the bottom of the Ariel bucket, we have a shaky close-up of the two-part rusted system:

I felt slightly better that apparently the giant screw part actually went through a hole in the bracket part, which was part of why I couldn't move it, instead of it just being completely corroded together. It was just mostly corroded together.

Now that the old faucet was completely kaput (because I wouldn't give this to anyone, it's so awful) I had another situation on my hands:

MORE GROSS.

This is what happens when you don't install something that uses water correctly. You have mold growing under the mounting plate. It took me about an hour to scrub off all of the ick both there and on the back of the sink where I couldn't reach before due to the faucet, but soon enough I had an almost clean slate: 

And the realization that the faucet holes are also rusting. It's really just a matter of time before this whole sink collapses in on itself between the rust and the rotting countertop.

However, at this point the kids were waking up from their naps, so we couldn't stop to mourn the rust because we still had to make dinner and such, so per the directions, I applied silicone to the bottom of the new mounting plate and set it in place:

I quickly realized that the new faucet was top-heavy due to it's long neck, so I had to have Kyle come hold the actual faucet in place while I threaded the lines through the center hole and attached the mounting bracket and water lines to stabilize it.

You can tell when something's quality by the way you put it together:

That will be MUCH easier to remove when we have the ability to replace the sink. And hopefully it won't rust because the faucet won't leak.

Once I was done hooking up the lines, testing them for leaks, and ascertaining that we were good to go, I pulled out the old contact paper and left everything to dry out a little before I put new paper down and Kyle re-caulked around the sink. I have photos of that, but I'm about done looking at gross things, aren't you?

Glad we're agreed on that.

So, do you want to see the end result?

LOOK AT THAT MAGNIFICENCE!

It's a Simplice Faucet in Matte Black and is all kinds of pivoting excellence. It has one of those sprayer-in-the-nozzle-head things, which is kind of life-changing. It also has two settings, either a constant singular stream of water or more of a shower-head effect (and a pause button!), which we're still trying to figure out the best ways to use those settings in different situations. I know it's going to be a lot easier to wash my hair in the sink if need be now, because this thing is TALL and WONDERFUL.

Though we've had to adjust how we hold dishes when we rinse them off, because if we hold them too low into the sink, sometimes water just sprays everywhere since there's more distance between the water source and the sink basin. Like I said, we're figuring it out.

Since the sprayer head is in the faucet and not to the side, we picked up a simple hole plug thing to avoid having a gaping hole in our sink:

Eventually we want to get a soap dispenser thing for there, to make the space more functional and generally awesome. Of course, the one that I liked was a wee pricey, so maybe if I'm nice I'll get one for Christmukkah.

Now, if you'd asked me to pick out a new faucet for my kitchen, I'll be honest, I don't know that I'd have picked this one. I probably wouldn't have gone for black at all, and probably not a matte finish, because if my choices in the rest of the house are any indication, I like my metal bright and shiny. 

But I have to admit, the matte black finish is perfect for my kitchen, and the style of the faucet is dead-on for the sort of pop-punk modern feel that's evolved in there.

Of course, now I have sink angst on top of my already-festering countertop angst (That laminate looks SUPER out of place now, doesn't it? UGHUGHUGH) but this new faucet has been pretty much a godsend for us and making our kitchen work for our very busy, dishwasher-less family.

Thanks again to Jessica and Kohler for sending us such an awesome faucet for our little kitchen and giving us  a new project to work on!

I received the kitchen faucet from Kohler free of charge, and am incredibly grateful, however I am not affiliated with Kohler and all opinions within this blog post are my own. Just in case you were concerned. You're more than welcome to come over and play with my faucet and form your own opinions. Just stay out of my bathtub. I rent that out by the minute. ;)