Saving old hardware

Installing a convertible dishwasher

Today I got fed up with dealing with hand-washing dishes and finally got around to installing my rolling, free-standing dishwasher. It's a really good little dishwasher and served us well at the slum last place.

The conversion kit is $180 from GE. Screw that. I took my happy ass up to home depot and purchased the following for under $25: 

3/8 in. x 3/8 in. x 60 in. Stainless Steel Universal Dishwasher Supply Line

 

1-1/2 in. x 8-1/2 in. PVC Hi-Line Dishwasher Wye Tailpiece

 

3/8 in. x 3/8 in. x 3/8 in. Compression x Compression Brass T-Fitting

There were a couple layers I had to remove to get to an installable dishwasher. I pulled off the fake wood top, the steel shell, the bottom kick-plate, the back and front braces, one of which held two massive concrete blocks (you can see them lower right in this photo, still attached to the machine).

 

I also had to cut this guy off. This is what used to slip onto the sink faucet to supply water and act as a drain. The fat bottom hose is the drain and smaller top one is the supply. You have to completely remove the top hose from the machine and replace it with the nifty silver braid-clad hose provided in the kit above.

 

 

Here's the finished under-sink setup. I DID NOT BRAZE THAT COPPER. One day when I get a wild hair up my ass, I'll replace this 2" copper drain with PVC. Maybe. Whatever....

ANYWAYS, you can see the black drain hose in the foreground going to the T from the sink drain. In the back you can see the compression T and dishwasher supply hose. 

I was lucky enough to have a plug directly below this area in the basement so I totally cheesed out on that and just dropped the plug down through the floor.

 

 

Oh, I also had to remove these sexy wheels. If you keep them, make sure you keep the spring clips that hold them tight to stuff. 

 

 

WOO! Dishes being effortlessly cleaned!

 

 

 

Floor synopsis

I already love my kitchen

I finished a big illustration project today and finally got a little brain space to focus on some baking. I chose a Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake since spring needs to get here ASAP.  

 Also, most of my kitchen stuff is old so I've been adding new tools, ones which will fit in with the Day of the Dead theme:

 

Cute stuff for the kitchen

Sealing the back door and the first sighting of the back deck

What's this? A deck?! It took about an hour of hacking at ice to uncover this much. I purchased a Fiskars X17 splitting axe per a recommendation from my friend Juha. This little axe made removing all the ice incredibly easy. The fatter wood-splitting head levers the ice away from the main mass as it cuts. Brilliant. 

 

 

My daughter and I spent a while afterwards sitting in the sun. It felt amazing. 

Unfortunately it appears the deck will need some serious cleaning. 

 

Here's the pile of ice blocks we removed: 

 On to the door. Cold air leaks in a lot via my lovely back door (that sounds a little naughty). It has this old rubber seal which is now hard from age (also naughty).

 

 

The simplest fix for now is this clean and adequate sticky black foam. I'm not entirely sure how I want to approach refinishing the doors yet so I opted for this fix.

 

New faucets

Ugh...we've all had *this* faucet. I love you Delta, but your ball valves have failed me over the years  too often.  

Ah, a new Moen. I have yet to have a Moen faucet fail me. I considered one of the touch on/off faucets but decided against it. I have cats and they like to do shit...they would turn the water on and then walk away.  I went instead with sexy thing. It's tall enough to fill my growlers and brew kettle without having to ninja them in and out of the sink.

 

Also Moen includes this with their faucets (greatest tool ever):

 

 

Then there was the bathroom faucet. Gross:

 

Never fear! American Standard is here! Sorry Moen, I just liked this style better. It's easy to clean.

 

Testing cabinet and wall color

Color, bitches! I'm tired of existing with rental white and tan. I'm going to have a gaudy bawdy house, dammit. My kitchen? DAY OF THE DEAD. I want a place that when I walk into it to prepare a meal, I cannot help but to start dancing a little and feel a little more alive.

 

 The color for the cabinets I chose is Behr's high-gloss enamel in Citron. It's an ephemeral green that appears drastically different depending on the ambient light. I love it.

To contrast the chill lime of the cabinets I picked Behr's Atomic Tangerine in a satin enamel for the walls. Both paints will be incredibly easy to keep clean. Also: ATOMIC TANGERINE. Could there be a more awesomely-named color? I think not. 

Before the kitchen is reborn

Here's some shots from before I started tearing stuff up. The flooring is a fake wood vinyl tile which is the most...I don't even have a word fitting enough to describe what I feel when someone puts VINYL fake flooring over actual hardwood floors. That's like putting astroturf on...like...Ireland.

 

The walls are all plaster and lath. At first this scared me, but I spent some time learning how to patch them and now I'm quite pleased I have these walls. According to what I have I read, they're far more resilient to time than drywall. 

 There were some soft spots I tore out and replaced/patched here already. Basically if any area looks like it's loose, I'm tearing off the plaster, priming the lath, and putting up new plaster. I know this is excessive but I want this done correctly the first time.

Initial plumbing

The first order of business was to have the water turned on and see how bad the plumbing was going to be. Initial visual inspection suggested a few braze joints that would need to be replaced. There was also an old water softener and humidifier system plumbed into the main water loop that I planned on removing. Stupidly, I waited to do repairs on the water system until after the water had been turned on. Instead I installed the stove:

 

These are gas pipe fittings. The white stuff is a paste used to seal gas connections.

 

I used soapy water to verify that my work had no leaks. If after coating the connections in the soap solution bubbles had appeared, I would have known there was a leak.

OH LOOK! SUPER ENTHUSIASTIC SELFIE AND CHILD LABOR ENTHUSIASM PHOTOS:

 

 

 OH...about that turning the water on thing: Did you know that if the valve on the street-side of the home doesn't work, it's not the water company's responsibility to fix? It's yours. I did not know this and it just so happened my street-side valve didn't work. I had to have the water company come back out and shut off the water at the street while I put in a new shutoff on my side of the meter. 

Once that was fixed I was able to replace a few valves and remove a couple useless loops. The humidifier and softener went, as well as a burst pipe that ran under my back deck to a spigot. Yes, 12' of exposed copper water pipe in Northern Ohio is a brilliant idea. I don't care how good you are at draining your system, that shit isn't going to last. Oh, I also tore out and capped the lines for the obligatory creepy Cleveland basement shower.

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Ah, pluming that happens when you let stupid people have tools:

Someone had joined the copper drain pipe from the kitchen to the PVC floor pipe in a manner that pushed up on that black pipe. That black pipe is a gas line. The weight of the heavy black gas pipe caused the PVC pipe to crack. 

 

So I cut that crap out:

 

 

...and I rebuilt my own using new PVC:

 

 

 To stop the whole 'pushing up on heavy gas pipe and fucking shit up' thing, I hacked out a few inches of copper pipe. By hand. Overhead. With a hacksaw. 

YES...I have a reciprocating saw. I also have fucking common sense and know not to saw on a poorly supported metal pipe at and awkward, overhead, angle with a power saw. There was really no simple way to use a power saw to cut this thing. I could have purchased a special clamp for my saw, but since I will probably only ever saw a fat copper pipe once in my life, I chose to just man-the-proverbial-fuck-up and hacksaw it out. I like my fingers and face as-is, thanks. 

 

OH LOOK...they don't touch. Gee, that was hard. (/sarcasm)

Still leak-free, too. Go me!