GAAAAAH! It’s not turned off! IT’S NOT TURNED OFF!!!

Tonight I set out on the seemingly surmountable task of replacing the crappy faucet in the kitchen. Everything was going fine, however it became quickly apparent that the people that owned the house before me enjoyed the strange art of plumbing sculpture.

As a result, it took my Dad and I over an hour to get the fittings loose enough to remove. As I pulled out the water lines to remove the faucet, it became apparent that one of the water lines was not adequately turned off. As it began to spray water in my face, I momentarily thought “oh great, its a sitcom now”, then I ran downstairs to find the water shut-off.

Luckily, my Dad has superior hand strength than I and was able to turn off the valve. I resumed my work of unfastening the water lines from the top of the faucet in order to remove it and I saw that a small stream of water was coming from the joint behind the shut off valve. And it wasn’t really stopping.

A few attempts in vain later, I gave up and called a plumber. He will be here sometime tomorrow morning to fix that seal. While he’s at it, I may have him replace the whole convoluted mess underneath the sink and replace it with some hardware that has been made while I have been alive.

On the plus side, we did get the old faucet removed. While we were doing so, I noticed that one of the hookups where the water lines go into the faucet was loose. So loose, in fact, that I was able to bend the metal with my hands. I have no idea how the previous owners were able to get that installed, as it wasn’t readily apparent how one could have fit the apparatus that accepted the water lines through the pre-cut holes in the sink itself.

This has seriously dealt a blow to the amount of handyman tasks that I am willing to undertake. It always seems like I am able to handle 90% of the things that could possibly go wrong, and then there’s always that 10% that bites me in the butt.

For those of you that would come and say “well, that’s the fun in it”, I say cram it. There is nothing fun about being dirty, soaking wet, and unable to complete your project.