Monday, September 7th, 2009
I have always wanted an under sink water filter. I’m not sure why, especially since we have a whole house filter. I guess it’s because the whole house filter is all the way down in the basement and I keep thinking the water gets all screwed up traveling through the pipes. I like the idea of having a filter close to the tap.
I decided that I had the capabilities to install an under sink water filter myself. I mean, I do have the brains and the patience. It’s not really a hard job, just one that you have to psych yourself into doing because you have to clean out under the sink. You know…all those bottles of who knows what and cans of what the heck it this. Throw in a few old sponges and there you have it – the area below a kitchen sink.
There was one little issue that was in the way of me installing a water filter. The faucet we had installed on the kitchen sink was a bit out dated. It was one of those “one handle” ones that sits right in the middle. Some people prefer that style, but I always liked the two handle ones. In this case, the two handles are preferred because the water filter only runs on the cold line. I like knowing that when I turn on the cold water, only the cold water is running. So, I basically needed a water filter and a new kitchen faucet. Not a problem, I’m really cheap when it comes to kitchen faucets and the filter setup was only $34. It even came with the insert.
Off to Lowe’s I went. When I got there, I strolled down the filter aisle and picked out a “Whirlpool Drop in Filtration System – WHKF-DUF.” This is the $34 jobber I just told you about. I knew what to expect because I already picked it out online. I put the filter in the cart and went over to the next aisle that had all the faucets. There they were, all lined up on the wall. I knew I wanted the chrome Peerless for around $44, but I was forced to get the $68 model because we have a four hole sink. That means that we have that extra little sprayer. You know, the one that you can wrap a rubber band around and sit back in its holder. When someone comes by to turn on the sink, they get sprayed. Yeah, that one.
I picked up the model I needed and put it in my cart. Or what I thought was my cart.
Here’s a funny little story. When I rolled my cart into the faucet aisle, I saw a nice family standing there trying to pick out a kitchen faucet. I noticed that they were kind of just randomly picking things out and didn’t know why. There are differentiating factors in faucets such as the one handle or two that I spoke of above. Also, there is the height of the faucet end. Our old faucet was low, so when I tried to get a large pot filled with water, I had to angle it such a way. Anyway, I broke the ice by saying, “Boy, I feel like I’m part of the family.” They laughed and I laughed. The father just looked at me. There were three of them…the mother, the father and the daughter. Okay, on with the story. I told them about the height issue and why and they were just amazed. As far as I was concerned, they thought I was the cat’s meow. I left the aisle to go out to the garden center.
When I got out to the garden center, I picked out two trees and put them into the cart. I stood back and looked at the faucet. Then, I wondered where the filter was. For the first time in my life, I grabbed the wrong cart. I think it was the faucet aisle family’s cart that I had taken. I left the cart outside in the garden area (because I already had the trees in it) and walked back into the faucet aisle. There it was, my cart with the filter in it. I felt bad for the poor family that had to walk away with no cart, carrying the faucet in their hands. They probably thought I was just fluffing them up earlier so I could steal their cart.
Okay, story time is over. Here are some pictures of the kitchen faucet and under sink water filter installation.
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Under kitchen sink looking up at botton of old faucet
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Under kitchen sink looking at hot and cold plumbing pipes
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Top of sink with old faucet removed
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Under sink with old faucet removed
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New Peerless kitchen faucet installed
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Whirlpool under sink water filter installed
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Peerless kitchen faucet box
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Peerless kitchen faucet model P99587-D
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Whirlpool under sink water model WHKF-DUF
Everything works great and the installation took me about an hour and a half.
I have always wondered why there is such a big price difference between faucets, and doorknobs for that matter. Either I have never used a really high quality faucet or doorknob or I am just missing something. Every time I go shopping for either, I always get the cheapest available and find that they work just great. Maybe I am missing something. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
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Friday, September 4th, 2009
I am really doubting that you remember last year’s tomato adventure. If you don’t, you can read about it by clicking the link right before this sentence. It was so much fun that we decided to do it again.
I bet this is going to become a yearly thing. Hey, that’s fine with me. I like tomatoes. I like tomato sandwiches and I like tomato sauce. As a matter of fact, I had some tomato sauce just this evening. I made it from our new tomatoes.
Anyway, yeah, so it’s September. The nights are getting chilly and some of the more exciting fruits and vegetables are ready to be picked. Laura has asked me a few times over the course of the Summer about the date we got the tomatoes last year. Since I have this handy blog, I just looked up the date of my previous tomato post. Doing that is getting much easier now that the blog is a few years old. Trying to do that the first year…umm, not so much. The second year…a little bit. The third year…now we’re getting somewhere.
Before we got in the car yesterday, I gave Gotta’s Farm down in Portland, CT a call, just to make sure that had tomatoes available. They told me that they did. They call them, “Canners.” I think that’s because some of these tomatoes are a little beat up. Some people prepare them and put them in cans or jars. I think that’s the reason. Tell me if I’m wrong. They made sure to ask me, “Canners?” I said, “Yeah” wondering what the heck they were talking about. I don’t care what type of tomatoes they are, they just get sliced up and stacked on a sandwich over here on my end.
Large ripe red tomato
I hooked the trailer up to the car before we left. This was a multi-purpose trip. I wanted to pick up a bunch of bales of peat moss and I needed to bring Laura to the bank. We were going to drive in a big circle. Off we went.
When we arrived at Gotta’s Farm, we pulled up along-side the building. I felt like a trucker because I was pulling a trailer. I should have had a cigar in my mouth. We parked right next to a pallet of peat moss. Who knew? I had planned on getting the peat moss from Paul’s and Sandy’s Too, but since this stuff was sitting right in front of me, I decided to buy them out. That’s right, I stacked all 17 bales of peat moss in the trailer and then went inside to check out the tomatoes.
When I got inside, I was reminded that there was more than just tomatoes that ripen this time of year. There were also peaches. Oh yeah…mmm…mmm…mmm. How I do just love peaches. We agreed that it would be a good idea to get a box of peaches as well as a box of tomatoes. Now, let me tell you that a box is like ten pounds. It ain’t no little box of peaches. It’s a big box of peaches. So many peaches, in fact, that I believe we might have to make a peach pie or two. Now, that wouldn’t be me making the peach pie, that would be Laura. She is much better at making pies. I just know how to screw them up. Plus, it’s much more fun to come inside to a nice warm peach pie after trying to spread peat moss over freshly seeded lawn than to have to make it myself, but that’s another story for another time.
Okay, so just to wrap this up. I had the first of many tomato sandwiches yesterday. It was good. I forgot to put salt and pepper on it, so it was basically just toast, mayo and big thick tomato slices. Like I said, it was good. Tomorrow’s sandwich is going to be better.
One last little thing that was pretty weird. While Laura and I stood in the farm stand yesterday, I looked at her and said, “Isn’t this strange? We stood in the exact same spot a year ago almost to the day doing the exact same thing. We’ll probably do the exact same thing next year.” Okay, that kind of took me by surprise. I am not a real fan of having year’s fly by without any huge memorable events happening (like sailing across the ocean). How many years like this can go by? I am going to have to ponder this and then write about it. I’m sure it will be very deep. And then I am going to have to do something to make these years much more memorable.
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Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
I never thought it would take so long to unpack a garage.
It’s not that I have a lot of stuff, it’s that I refuse to just pile things up like I did in our other house. I say “other” because it’s not sold yet. There, I kind of had stuff over there, over here and then over there again. There was no organization. One thing I really want is one bad-ass tool box…like a Snap-On or something like that. I saw one I liked in Sam’s Club a while back. Who knows if it’s there anymore because we haven’t been to that store in over a year.
Well, I already did my “screw a strip of wood to the wall and then hang all my rakes and stuff off of screws trick” a few days ago. I just did another one today. I also hung both of my ladders up nice and neat. Today’s challenge was to head over to the Home Depot to get some real garage shelves.
Mission accomplished. I bought two heavy duty shelving units. They measure 48″ wide, 24″ deep and 72″ high. I would say they are very sturdy. Now, with these large shelves, I can store and organize all my stuff as neatly as I have always imagined. It’s funny what one imagines when left alone in a garage.
We have our new garbage service coming to drop off the 65 gallon trash can on Friday, so I can get rid of some of the junk I put together in the cans I brought with us. That should make some more room to work with. After that, I should have made enough room to actually pull the cars in if we needed to.
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