late vs. never

Been forever since I updated, so yeah, that. I've done a bunch of smallish stuff, most of which I'll cover and totally not in order. Today I did some work on the kitchen that should've been done, oh, a year ago-ish. I replaced the water spigot for my reverse osmosis dealie, which was this:

As you can see, this is a standard issue, el cheapo chrome special. I had planned to replace it all along as it didn't match all my other stainless/brushed nickel hardware, but never got around to it. Recently the metal tube broke and caused it to leak (see the water on the side?)... occasionally the whole piece would pop off and shoot water all over the place- you can imagine how fun that was. Thus I finally ordered this guy, which is one of the only slick and modern looking RO spigots available and miraculously it perfectly matches my Vigo faucet. Lucky me.

The only bummer was that replacing it was a pretty difficult affair because of the location of the sink. I had to slide my head way back (not easy with garbage disposal and large reverse osmosis reservoir tank+filters) and do some major stretching. But now it's done and clearly the sink looks far nicer (and doesn't leak).

I figured while I was futzing with the sink I should install the trim panel in front of the sink that I never got around to:


This too was a nightmare because there was even less room to screw things in between the panel and the front of the sink. Much swearing and screws falling on my face whilst upside down. Wee. Done now though, and it looks far nicer without a big dumb hole in front of the sink.


Was also gonna install the handles on the cabinet doors that I never got around to, but I actually used the ones I had for it in Kim's closet, so I need to pick up a couple at ye olde Lowe's. I didn't take photos, but I also removed a whole bunch of extra electrical I had in there. Originally I thought I was going to have a standard switch for the disposal, but I got the air switch (big silver button next to reverse osmosis spigot, read about it HERE) and it didn't get used, so there was a ton of unused live 120V romex (for the disposal) and even more for the switch (also live). Bunch of live 120V under a sink+reverse osmosis plumbing... what could go wrong? It's all removed now.

In completely unrelated news, Kim and I have been unraveling the mysteries of the built-in sprinklers here. Basically the entire front and back yards are set up with drip irrigation (good thing) but the bad news is that they were both non-functional due to broken PVC plastic pipes right at the valves. That's ok because I'd much rather fix plastic pipes in plain site than have to go nuts digging things up- burying things has a way of protecting them. Dogs, bones, etc.

Other than figure it all out, I haven't done much yet, but I fixed all the broken joints on the side of the house which now looks like this:

This stuff is as easy as plumbing gets- plastic pipes that are easy to cut and cement glue. I went fancy and got a quarter-turn hose valve which, as you might guess, only turns a quarter of a turn. And more importantly, is far less likely to leak than a standard valve. The pipe goes down and to the front of the house to a couple of electric sprinkler valves. Right now they're bypassed, but I'm gonna get a new timer and wire it up for automated front-of-house watering fun. Only hard part is the actual running of the wires.

In other news, the orange shelf project is done. It got majorly held up because I ran out of wood side edging stuff, then got new stuff which was a different shade, thus entailing a different shade of Danish Oil to make it match (which no one stocked, so I had to order it!). But it's done now and they all look uniform (note that there are four shelves here as opposed to my older pics where there were only three. Try not to note that my lens is making the whole mess look really spherical.)

This corner of the kitchen is shaping up to be the most authentically "mid-century" area of the house. Still gotta replace the outlets!

While I was at it, I painted the kitchen-to-laundry-room door orange and replaced the hardware with silver hinges and my fave Schlage "Orbit" knob. I screwed up a little redrilling the holes so it doesn't shut right, but I think it's pretty easy fix when I get to it.

Man am I behind... I haven't posted this yet either. Handyman Keith came over and (finally) did the glass tile backsplash about a month ago. It's essentially clear glass with a white backing, but the glass gives it a slightly silver-blue tint. We still need to install the overhead hood fan thing, which'll be a pretty major job.


In addition to all this, I started working on one of the bedrooms, but I'm not that far in yet. News on that forthcoming.

Finally, you may have noticed the quality of my pics has improved (note the arty blurred background in some of them). This is because I got me a new camera- my Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot has been replaced with a Sony NEX-3. It's not the latest model, but I got a screaming deal on it used and it's a huge step up in quality and options. It's one of their wee-body-with- ridiculously-huge-removeable-lens models, and I'll soon be picking up a Sigma 19mm wide-angle prime lens. Not sure it'll improve the on the semi-fisheye effect that wide-angles tend to have, but it has better clarity and color, it's a great deal (about $130) and will be considerably less bulk on the front of the camera, which is good because I rarely use the zoom anyway (I just walk closer- I call that manual zoom!).