And now for something completely different...

              ...My new faucets!!

Hey, I said it was different.

Last week, we finally got the VERY LAST of the super-strange plumbing-that-came-with-the-house replaced. Since we were doing that, we also got SHINY THINGS.


New faucets. Without strange moving parts that break and are so old they don't even make replacements. With two handles, so the temperature can actually be controlled properly. With a second faucet JUST FOR HOT WATER FOR TEA. (And or dyeing, should it come to that.) The broken garbage disposal-from-HELL is gone, along with its cruddy drains and ikky ikky-ness. IT IS SO SHINY.

But that's not all.

See, whilst replacing everything else - or trying to start - it was discovered that the sink has no shutoff valve. NONE. All our other sinks got shutoff valves when the various floods happened - heck, we even replaced the whole house valve (did I mention our plumbing was CRAP when we bought this place?). We were saving the kitchen sink for last, and figured we'd get it done when we got the new dishwasher...

Old	VAST IMPROVEMENT

... but since we had to get a new refrigerator (MORE ON THAT BELOW) too, the plumbing had to wait a bit.

So, the day started with the electrician pulling the power from the garbage disposal and putting in the box for the Spiffy Hot Tea Water Heater. We then got estimates for several other things that need to happen. (Functional lights in the workroom. A switch for the middle room that actually works. GROUNDED PLUGS.) In the process of getting estimates, we discovered the plug that makes the refrigerator work had its polarity reversed. (HOW? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?) While it's not a fatal sort of thing, it could cut down the life of my beautiful refrigerator, so that got fixed, too. THEN the plumber showed up. The poor guy expected it to be about a three-hour job.

Eight hours later (after more adventure and more "Good Lord, I've never even HEARD of this before!" while examining our under-sink wonderland, and one leaky water tank due to just being too damned tired at the point of assembly), everything was soldered, caulked, cleaned up, dried, tested and left to sit overnight. As of this morning, everything works!

Now we just have to save up for six months to get all the electrical things done. Maybe we'll win the lottery before then....