S. O. M. D. and B. A. G. D.

My Birthday is coming up next week....  so yesterday Steve said we could do a curbside pickup on some PRESENTS for ME!  Well, for both of us, but mostly me. 

He was up bright and early this morning to start opening up the boxes in the garage.  When he gets a project in his mind, he barely had time to glup down some coffee.  He wanted to Git Er Dun. 

This is my 

S. O. M. D. 

(Sink Of My Dreams!)

and our 

B. A. G. D. 

(Bad Ass Garbage Disposal)

About a year ago, I spied this lovely big single basin stainless steel sink with all the accompanying accessories, even the faucet, at Menards.  I fell in love with it, and wanted it.  

Tuscany® Acadian Stainless Steel Work Station

But... the sink we already had here was okay.  It was good enough.  It was a double bowl stainless steel, but only about 6" deep and not 9" like this one.  We are on a budget and only have so much for the things we need to do...  and this new sink wasn't a "need".  It was rather pricey... in the $300-400 range, even after the rebate.  So we put it on the back burner. 

Each time we would stop at the store, I would "VISIT" my sink and look at the one on display. I would try out the sprayer, touch the racks and cutting board, and look on the shelf to make sure they still had them in stock. I was worried about them being discontinued before I had the chance to buy one! That seems to happen to me.  If I don't buy something when I see it, later it goes out of stock or gets discontinued.  But I just couldn't justify in the budget to buy this sink all year long since we bought the house.  We had other things we needed to buy first.  

We were also missing the use of a garbage disposal, which we had them at our last three homes.  So we wanted one.  If we were going to add a disposal, it made sense to wait until we changed out the sink, right?   But.... we had other more important things to take care of first.  

Today was the day!!  I joined Steve in the garage and started unboxing each item.  The faucet is included, and I love it because it is tall and moves around and unhooks to spray around the sink. It doesn't have that crazy big industrial coil thing around the hose.  The other thing I liked was that it wasn't a "pull out" type that has to retract back into the cabinet base.  It's all there above the cabinet, and flexes around and hooks back to the support bracket with both a magnet and a hook device when not in use. 

The kit also included the bottom grid for the sink, a roll out sink drainer rack, a heavy oak wooden cutting board and a soap dispener.

PLUS... included was this wonderful rectangular strainer box that slides back and forth underneath the cutting board, making this a read food prep work station! 

 

Steve unpacked things one at a time,

all was carefully packaged around the sink....

Now for the sink!  

They had it pre-wrapped in a tyvek fabric type bag 

with a draw string, 

to prevent any scratches during shipping!!!

Oh my goodness, look at the pretty gleaming sink!!!  I am just so tickled about having all that wide open space of a single bowl.  I wash and rinse off a lot of large kettles, pressure cooker pots, cookie sheets and casserole dishes.  Most of them never fit in the double basin sink we had. Here was 33" of open space!  This was going to be nniiiiccceeee! 

While Steve was gathering tools and supplies. I was clearing out underneath the sink.  It's much easier to work when everything is out of the way.  A while back, Steve's dad had a dishwasher installed at his house, and gave us these two roll out cabinet shelves.  They work so well under our sink, to reach the cleaning supplies, even in the way back nether regions.  We had pre-measured to be sure the garbage disposal would not impede on the function of these sliding shelves.

I piled up all of the cleaning stuff in the laundry room.  Since winterizing the motorhome last week, we now have double cleaning supplies in the house for a while. Just about the time I get them all used up, it will be time to buy more for the motorhome again. LOL.  

Steve laid out all of his tools and went to work unhooking the old sink.  See? It's a perfectly fine sink, and I had no reason to really need a new one.  Just that I WANTED it and WAITED for it, and now my dreams were coming true!   LOL  What a guy.... 

We saw this next tip on You Tube:  Carefully release the old silicone sealant all around with a flat putty knife. If you pull upwards too hard without cutting the silicone, it can crack and pull up the top layer of laminate countertop material!   So he was able to get around three sides of the sink... but .... 

.... the far back side was too close to the pre-formed backspash to get the putty knife under the edge.  He tried and couldn't get it to release and we were afraid of cracking the laminate.   

So I pulled out my INGINILITY  (my dad's favorite word, mix of ingenuity and ability?)   I figured out a little L shaped shelf bracket and a needle nose vice grip, would make a perfect tool to slide along the last edge of the sink along the backsplash! 

IT WORKED!!!

We were able to lift out the old sink, faucets and all the plumbing still connected to it.  We are giving it to my brother to put in the cottage up north. It's perfectly good, and glad to see it get a new home. 

Now we brought the new sink into the house. I set it up on our four bar stools with a soft blanket underneath it.  We attached the disposal assembly to the drain area (using plumbers putty).    We assembled the faucet pieces into place with silcone, and the water lines with TFE paste instead of teflon tape, and attached the soap dispenser too. 

While we were busy doing all this work, I also was simmering up a big pot of beef minestrone soup.  I started with some tiny bits of tenderloin steak, leftover from cutting up bigger steaks for the freezer.  I hid one of Finnegan's antibiotic pills in a piece of raw tenderloin.  He has been fighting me on taking them each day. But today, wonder of wonders, he gulped down that piece of raw tenderloin, pill and all...  and never knew a thing! LOL  --- We took a soup break for lunch before the next step. 

The sink was ready to be installed now... the plumbing was in place, the wiring for the garbage disposal was done, and all he had to do was run a bead of silicone around the edge of the countertop.  (we had dry-fitted it first to be sure it would fit). 

Drumroll please.....

Next Steve had to hang the disposal on the bracket and complete the rest of the hook-ups.  I admit, I went and took a nap while he did this work.  I was glad he had all the parts on hand, and we didn't need to order things or do another curbside pickup.  We are avoiding stores at all costs if we can. 

Most disposals are 1/3 hp, or 1/2 hp, some are even 1 hp.  But this one....  this one... Steve picked out. It's the BAD ASS GARBAGE DISPOSAL at 1.25 horsepower!!! It was the biggest and baddest looking of all of them. It has a stainless steel inside chamber, not plastic, and stainless steel blades. It is sound insulated for less noise, and the bottom of the sink has an insulation panel for vibration as well.  This was gonna be COOL!   And he will enjoy using it I am sure. Kinda like Tim The Tool Man grunts as he was oogling it at the store.  How could I say no? 

After my nap, he gave me do the honor of running the water for the first time! Awww how sweet was that?  To the tune of Happy Birthday, I ran the water on both hot and cold, tried out the sprayer, and the garbage disposal too.  What a sweet song. 

Here is the roll out drying rack,

with rubber edges that sets in the ridge of the sink.

Perfect for drying out the parts of our 

coffee grinder on the coffee maker,

which we rinse out and dry daily.

Here is that stainless steel

strainer basket. 

It has rubber corners so it doesn't scratch the sink edge.

I am sure it will get a lot of use.

This is the oak cutting board. 

It sets in a higher up ridge, 

so the other things can slide underneath it.

I have to seal the cutting board with some food grade mineral oil, which I don't have yet.  I also saw on the website that I can order an extra cutting board for only $14.   So I might do that and store it away for years from now.  As one wears down, I can swap it out with a new one or have Steve sand one down after a while.  We will see. But for the price, I might as well order one now and keep it on hand. 

Here it is,

all together! 

The hose can pull away, and flex around, as well as the whole fixture can swivel side to side too.  The head has a switch to toggle between spray and stream.  The head can pull and move around, and clip back onto that support arm with both a magnet and a little tab to "hang" it into place.  I really like that it isn't a "pull down" type with a retracting hose underneath the cabinetry.  I like this much better. 

This is a tall soup pot, and easily it fits in the sink on the rack, and I am filling it with soapy water (after a spritz from the built in soap dispenser) to soak it a bit before tossing it in the dishwasher. 

The very last part was to arrange the cleaning supplies back underneath in the cabinets.  It felt good, the last step.  We started in the morning, and didn't finish up until after 4 p.m.  So it was a long long day.  Not that we worked on it all of the while, but it took time.  Steve had to run wiring to the breaker box, install an electrical outlet and switch, and drill a hole through the floor and cabinet base. We try to be prepared with all the tools, supplies and cleanup stuff on hand when we work on projects together. This went rather well, and only one little side step in figuring out how to cut through that silicone on the back section of the old sink.  The rest went easy! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR KAREN

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEE

Thank you, dear Steveio, 

for the Sink Of My Dreams 

and your 

Bad Ass Garbage Disposal.