Membral Monday

membral ~ of, like or pertaining to the limbs rather than the trunk

I have a functioning kitchen! Huzzah!!!

Monday the installers from Stoneworx arrived with the hefty slabs of stone that became our new counters. It was a glorious moment . . . until we were told we couldn’t use them for 48 hours to give the epoxy a chance to dry. It was almost worse than having no counters.

The plumber was supposed to come either Tuesday or Wednesday. He didn’t show up Tuesday, but the contractor came to install our microwave. Then he had to uninstall it again. It fit in the space all right, but because it’s set back so much further than the alcove surrounding the fridge, we couldn’t open the door more than halfway.

Fortunately, there was a spacer panel between the corner cupboard and the cupboard above the microwave, that came down about a foot and a half. The contractor cut the part off that hung below the cupboard and fixed it to the other side of the space, then reinstalled the microwave. Everything worked out fine.

It was another couple of days before the plumber came, but at least he came early in the morning. And because this is the renovation from hell, there were a couple of problems. First of all, the dishwasher had been moved several feet from where it had been, and the hoses were too short. He was able to fix that, but during the test run discovered one of the seals was leaking, which he wasn’t able to fix. So . . . the dishwasher is hooked up, but we can’t use it until the seal is fixed.

Then we come to the sink itself. When the old sink was removed, the drainage pipe was just capped off. The problem is, the new sinks are way deeper than the old ones, so the drains are much lower. You can’t just cut the drainage pipe off, so he had to drill a hole through the bottom of the cabinet under the sink and the ceiling in the basement so the drain could run straight down.

Then we discovered that the covers for the drains in the sink didn’t match. One was for a sink with a garbage disposal, which we can’t have in our community because there’s a bylaw against them. So, to make sure they matched, the plumber use plain old chrome covers and we can get the proper ones whenever.

So . . . we have to get new drain covers, the seal on the dishwasher needs to be fixed, and we’re still waiting for the trim for above the cupboards. But for all intents and purposes, the kitchen is done.

Now comes the fun part (not!), reloading the cupboards.