Laboring on Labor Day Weekend

Many Americans celebrate Labor Day Weekend with vacations, cookouts, and parties. Many more Americans celebrate by working around the house. On Friday, my kitchen faucet decided to stop working. Stop STOPPING would be more accurate and constantly running hot water isn't the best thing to have. At least we knew what our work-around-the-house project would be.

When we bought our house 5-1/2 years ago, we left the closing with approximately $0.50 to our names and a house that needed major work. Everything that had to be done immediately was done inexpensively. We hammered the old kitchen sink into a shape resembling flat and bought the cheapest faucet we could find. The agreement was that when the faucet needed to be replaced, we'd redo the sink and faucet.

I'm a gal with some pretty strong opinions on some subjects and absolutely no preference on others. I have my dream bathroom designed and ready to go (awaiting funding), but I don't actually care what the kitchen looks like. I had to pick out a sink and a faucet. TORTURE! I don't like shopping for house crap stuff any more than I like shopping for clothes. My husband found a faucet for a price that didn't necessitate our son dropping out of college and a black granite sink on serious sale and I said "Perfect! We're done!" What I should have said was "I'm done!" because the poor guy still had to install all this stuff.

Before:

After:

I hope you enjoyed the small glimpse of my kitchen. I purposely included the very old triple track storm window that needs to be replaced now (but won't be), the awful wood trim that needs to be painted immediately (but won't be), the oh-so-chic green formica countertop, and the incredibly trendy peanut butter cabinets. You can see a bit of the trash compactor, too. It's never been used. There was a broken harvest gold trash compactor (old garbage included for free!) in that space when we bought this money pit house. We couldn't find a peanut butter cabinet to fill the space (or any cabinet to fit the space) so we filled it with an appliance we'd never use just to get someone else's old garbage out of our kitchen.

We have 5-1/2 years of home improvement stories to tell, so never invite us over for dinner! If you are interested in reading someone else's home improvement woes, check out House in Progress. Start at the beginning and go forward from there. Then hug your house.

Any suggestions on what I should cook for dinner for my home-improvement-hero-hubby? He deserves a good meal. I'll even wash the dishes ------ in my new sink!