Corner of My Kitchen Upgrade

I showed you this corner of my kitchen back in December of 2007. We did an upgrade yesterday and I'm so excited about it. Can you see what has changed?

No, it's not the new crock or the new lamp although they are pretty cool. Try again.

There it is. Right there. See it? It's the new SWITCH that operates the disposal! Isn't this exciting? Let me tell you how we did it.

INSTALLING A DISPOSAL

First we went to Home Depot. I used to hate going there, but since the change in the economy, things are different there. Now I feel like I've walked into the Twilight Zone; the store is clean and organized, soft music is playing, and the employees are helpful. Anyway, we bought a disposal and cord, a new electrical box, a combination plug/switch thing, and some plumbers putty. Then I came home and crawled in the cabinet. When the Lord of the Manor built this corner cabinet he left an access hole for the plumbing, so reaching the work area was easy. We just took everything out of the cabinet and removed the drawer above for more headroom.

First I cut a hole for the new electrical box. As you can see I missed the stud a bit. Then LOM removed the plug right above the sink and poked a bit of wire down towards the hole. Luckily there was no blocking and the wire slid right towards me, so I made the connections and put the new plug into the box.

Then I put the box in the hole, tightened it up, and patched my boo-boo with some tape and drywall compound. Whilst I was doing that LOM was making the connections above. Now the switch controls this plug below the sink, so after we plug the new disposal into it, turning the switch will turn the disposal on.

Next we removed the old basket strainer assembly, cleaned off all the old plumber's putty, and fit the new attachement ring onto the sink. This attachement ring comes with the disposal and makes fitting the disposal a snap.

The last step is to connect the drain pipe. The old drain didn't fit, so LOM made another trip to Home Depot and got that new white adaptor. Teen2 said it's like a bendy straw and she's right. It will fit almost any situation.

So only about three hours after we started (and that included two trips to Home Depot and lunch at In-N-Out) we had this baby installed. And we love it! So now we are wondering why we didn't do it sooner. Have you ever done something like this and wondered what took you so long?