Laura's Renovation Adventure

I bought a new dishwasher. Even though we're down to one salary this summer and money is tight, our dishwasher was coughing dirt into our dishes that required being scrubbed out by hand. With five people in the house (one of whom is a teenaged boy who eats enough to feed a Bible camp), we have to cook at home. I know people used to cook at home and do dishes by hand, but I am thinking those were generally stay-at-home mom's. I am a phd student. Even when I am not working, I am working. My husband is in graduate school (again) this summer, and heaven knows none of the kids are going to jump right in with dishes duty.

So I bought a new dishwasher. An energy-star, tall tub GE dishwasher that sanitizes.

But to install it, we had to install the garbage disposal, because the one in that came with the house only sort of worked. I brought out the AHS home warranty people once to fix it. That cost me $60 and all they did was clean it out so that it worked that day. Oh, and they told me that the leaking under the sink was from the sprayer.

Right.

My dad came riding in on his white horse to install my dishwasher, disposal, and new sink sprayer. He did, but the sink was still leaking. Why? Because the drain had been installed wrong. As in, where it was supposed to be glued, only half of it was.

Another trip to the hardware store for a new drain.

Then we pulled out the old dishwasher. The copper supply tube was twisted multiple times in a spiral. It is a miracle that *any* water got in and that my dishes got as clean as they did. So we think that, maybe, the old dishwasher is salvageable, so my dad is going to put it in my brother's house. They don't have a dishwasher at all.

Anyway, after two days of work, we got the new dishwasher installed. And it runs beautifully. My polycarbonate pitcher that I splurged on from Pottery Barn fits in the top rack, so I can actually run it through the dishwasher. It holds more dishes than any dishwasher I have ever owned.

And the disposal actually disposes of garbage, instead of taking it for a carnival ride in a circle. And nothing is leaking under the sink. Of course, there is also no floor under then sink. All the drips over the years completely disintegrated the particle board floor. So my dear husband is supposed to be building a new floor for the cabinet. Three days and counting. :)