My Week In Review

They installed my dishwasher on Saturday. :) It looks wonderful compared to the other one, but I haven’t used it yet because the valve for the hot water connection is still leaking a bit and I don’t want to blow a valve and have water everywhere. Turns out, the one that had been in there before (for apparently decades) was a portable! Yep. They took the top off an old portable dishwasher and ... jury-rigged it as a built-in. That certainly explains the fake oak panel on the front!! Because it wasn't intended to be a built-in dishwasher, it took the installation guys an hour to do what would otherwise have been a 15-20 minute job. (Sigh!)

I’m going to check the valve again at noon. If it’s still leaking, I’m going to go down in the basement and turn off the hot water and then take the valve apart and get 2 new valves – one for the one I know I need to replace and one for the other one. Then, I can replace the valve, check it to make sure it doesn’t leak, and then run the dishwasher. The guys who installed it tested it, so it should be fine, but I will feel more comfortable using it if I have a new valve that doesn’t leak.

Of course, once I got the new dishwasher in, the hardware on the cabinets didn’t look right. The new dishwasher has a stainless steel-looking front panel, which totally clashed with the 1970s country oak look, so I went to Home Depot and bought a new brushed pewter looking one and tried it out. It looked very nice with the new dishwasher, so I replaced all 24 handles (at $4/each, that was about $98). Now that the handles are in, the cupboards don’t look too bad. I probably will still strip them and stain them a cherry color, but they look OK for now.

Frankly, everything looks OK. I will need to replace my refrigerator in the next year or so, but I’m hoping I can hold off on that until next year. The refrigerator is about 18 years old, and it's making those noises. I had to disconnect the ice maker because it was leaking all over the floor, but that wasn't a big deal because I never used the ice anyway. Once I replace the refrigerator, I will probably replace the stove, since if I don't, it's going to feel left out anyway. The floor will be replaced eventually, too, once I decide what I want to replace it with. Then, of course, the walls will need to be painted - and then the light fixtures....... All because of a dishwasher.

Right now, however, the only problem is the water coming down into the window well. I think it’s leaking into the basement, which makes me so mad. When they redid the sump pump overflow thing, they directed the overflow right back toward the foundation – which was SO galactically stupid! – and the water had no place to go but right down into the window well (and thus right into my basement).

Once that matter gets resolved, I will have no choice but to fold laundry and put it away. Euwww. That’s going to require alcohol, I think.