The Sink Post

My sink broke. Well, sort of. A year ago last January, a glass light fixture from above fell onto my sink and broke off the enamel in 3 places, as you can see. I've been planning on replacing it since that fateful day, but lacked the cash to shell out $150 for a brand new one. About 6 months ago, I began searching Craigslist for a cheap, drop-in, double bowl, white, kitchen sink, measuring 22x33". (Boy, when you write it out like that it looks like a tall order! Our God is great!) As you can probably guess, we found one. I had resigned myself to the fact that no one was selling any such thing for less than $50, but I still hesitated to pay even that amount. Until 2 weeks ago when I found a kitchen sink matching all of my requirements for (drumroll, please) a whopping 10 spot. I called Tim asap and we arranged pick up that very afternoon. Now, I didn't post pictures of the new sink before, but it was pretty dirty. It had a few rust stains and "pot spots" on the enamel, and there was plumber's putty and silicone ready to be removed by yours truly. Thus, the balance between paying green dollars (as my kids say) and paying in elbow grease. However, the clean up was not that intensive.

The first thing I did was remove my old hardware, like the soap dispenser and eventually, the faucet hardware. (Since we upgraded the faucet right before the sink chipped, it was easy to remember how the installation went.)


I always take plenty of pictures of the technical part before I begin so I have a reference in case I need to see how it worked before I started. I turned off the water, and unplugged the dispose-all, then removed the water hoses, drains, and the dispose-all unit. I sliced through the caulking around the sink and lifted out the old sink. (Goodbye old friend!)


I've got to say it was pretty creepy with a giant hole there in my countertop. I retrieved the new, white, cast iron monster, newly cleaned, and with the help of a chair and a 4 year old hard worker, lifted the new sink into place. I sealed under the lip of the sink with caulk/ adhesive, and also caulked around all edges. The picture below was taken before I cleaned up the excess.


The drains in the new sink we set slightly further back than the old sink, so I had to manipulate the pvc drain pipes a little to get a secure fit. I only had to saw off about 1" of pvc before it would fit correctly.

I re-attached the drain and the dispose-all unit (it took a while to connect the housing securely enough so there were no leaks) and reconnected the water hoses and faucet hardware.


It did take me a longer time than I expected, since some of the hardware took me a while to loosen and remove, and it took more time to reconnect than to disconnect just to ensure there were no leaks, and also because I was also wrangling 4 children at the same time, but I'm so glad we accomplished this! A new sink for $10! Can't beat that!