Throughout this big kitchen remodel, I've spent an exorbitant amount of time crouched on the ground in front of the sink. In an effort to keep our kitchen in working order throughout the work-week, I've been disconnecting and reconnecting the plumbing each weekend for months.
The end is finally in sight. I tore out the temporary plumbing, a mix of old and new parts I'd cobbled together when I slid the sink in place.
Base camp for a few hours
When I last left you, I'd installed a tiny (cheap as I could find) faucet while we waited for our new one to arrive. It had taken some modification to fit the single hole mounting setup in our new sink, but it had held up for a week.
We chose something a little different, kind of a classic-industrial looking sprayer thing. It was inexpensive enough that we can swap it out later if our taste changes.
I stuck my head under the hood and attached it from below. This would have been a lot easier If I'd installed it with the sink on the ground, but the thing is a heavy, fragile beast, and I was not going to lift it alone.
Check the oil filter,... spark plugs,... flux capacitor,... turbo,...
There's a lot going on Under here
Under the sink is a bunch of connections that I'd roughed into place when the wall was open. It's a fascinating look at the innards before I add the rest of the plumbing.
Pick a number, any number.
- Check out the dang flange molded into the bottom of the sink. This is what blocked me from installing most garbage disposals.
- Braided hot water line. We don't mess around with plastic crap in this house anymore. One toilet feed line leak flooding the house and you pretty much stop screwing around with the cheap stuff.
- Cold water line. Same stuff.
- Behind this base cabinet there's a Air Admittance Valve. I'd installed it to avoid the plumbing drain vent stack running up through the roof. It would have run right through the "window area" to the family room that I just enlarged 3 times larger.
- Half switched electrical outlet for the garbage disposal. Half is switched, half is live. And yes, I missed the cutout by a quarter inch. Amature.
- The drain line, for draining purposes obviously.
- The drain cleanout is a threaded cap that allows access to the line. It was originally facing the other direction. I'd rebuilt the whole thing when I installed the AAV in #4 above.
- Snaking downward from the new hot water valve location is the braided hot water line headed off to feed the dishwasher.
- Coming back from the dishwasher is a flexible drain hose that will get hooked into the disposal.
Hunting around online, I found a disposal that would fit an IKEA Domsjö double-bowl farmhouse sink. (Forgive me, but I can't find the blog that I read it on again, to give proper credit.)
This big, 1 HP beast had a lower clamping assembly that would perfectly slip below that molded sink flange.
There's a lot going on under there, but it's nothing like we had before, when the right side was nearly unusable for storage.
Before
There was even a bunch of braided line that started here went all the way around the kitchen, under the cabinets, to feed the ice maker in the refrigerator. Luckily I had found a waterline buried in the wall, near the new fridge location. I'd also moved the water feed lines from the front and center of the right cabinet, to the back.
I installed all new drain lines, deleting a back-back-to-back double p-traps. It all tucked in nicely behind the disposal.
After
This is MUCH better!
I'll have to disconnect the sink one last time when the new countertops come in and I have to install the new dishwasher, but I think I can say I'm done with plumbing at this point.
I'm going to get started on drawers and doors next. Countertops are coming soon!