Un-Sinkable

The devil's in the details, or so they say, and I think they're right. My job during the next few weeks is to do whatever it takes, regardless of how annoying, difficult, stupid, small, or ridiculous, to get this job done. Yesterday, that meant driving all over the place (OK, I was lost part of the time), buying sample drawer pulls, returning stuff we didn't need, and looking for a new sink for the island. Because now that we've started pulling everything out of the boxes, of course it is not quite as perfect as it needs to be. The island sink was huge, ridiculously so, and bumped on the island plumbing. Because it was too large, we decided to buy a different one rather than McGyver it. Am I annoyed that I not only had to spend the time, $30 extra, and now have a top-of-the-line Ford (I mean Elkay) rather than the Mercedes convertible (I mean Franke) which we ordered? You betcha, I'm annoyed. I consider it to be a design error, and not my design error. We had to act fast because the granite fabricator came today to make the granite template and the sinks had to be in place for him to do that. So no replacement Franke, can't buy them off the shelf (well, you can buy a couple of Ann Taylor Loft or Gap Outlet style --FrankeUSA -- at Lowe's, but not the size we needed). After dashing all over the county (perhaps two counties!), I ended up back in Walnut Creek at General Plumbing. It was a cool place, full of guys in tool belts, and some gals too. Told 'em what I needed, they found it and then they carried it out to the car. I love that! And I didn't have to enrich the Home Despot. Love that too.

Further inspection of the cabinets revealed that the wrong insert was sent (or perhaps wrongly ordered, doesn't matter, it's wrong) for the recycle center/trash cabinet. Since I'd discussed, cajoled, and threatened my dear husband to get my way on this one I was rather dismayed that this was the one they messed up (so far). I am very hopeful that the kitchen designer will remedy this error with the same aggressiveness and tenacity with which payment in full for the cabinets was demanded prior to their delivery. Yep, very hopeful.

Finally, further measurement during the course of the template production revealed that not quite enough space was left for the King of All Ranges, our fabulous Viking. Three cabinets will have to be moved over, but there is space on the wall for it and I assume (with quite a bit of confidence this time) that our trusty contractor will make it all wonderful very soon.

Tomorrow: we get to go to the granite fabricators to pick exactly where on our beautiful slabs the templates will go (fun) and all 5 of us go to the Cal game (???).