In our last post, we talked about how to connect the spray nozzle to the faucet.  Now comes the fun part - attaching the faucet to the supply lines underneath your sink.

As always, the standard disclaimer applies - your mileage may vary. Our house was built in 1952, our kitchen was updated in 1970(ish)… so we’ve got solid plastic supply lines. You, on the other hand, may have something a bit more pliable, which would lend to easier connecting.  Since we’re going to “refresh” our kitchen in the summer, we opted to leave the plastic supply lines for now until we install our dishwasher and reconfigure our sink and cabinet situation.  (You can bet that there will be quite a lengthy series of posts about our kitchen remodel.)

Meanwhile, the faucet! Let’s get that dude installed!

First, double check that your surface is clean. You’ll want to make sure that there isn’t any standing water, bacteria, mold, mildew, dirt or grime hanging around. While it won’t actually make its way into your water supply, you obviously don’t want to take any chances with encouraging contamination.

Next, take your faucet and set it in the three remaining holes in your sink.

Okay, this is the fun part - get under your sink and tighten the nuts to hold the faucet in place. Just like when we removed the old faucet, if you have a decent basin wrench, things could go a lot quicker.  Now run the supply lines to the bottom of the faucet handles and secure tightly.

You’re done.  Almost.

Turn the water to the supply lines back on slowly and test the faucet by turning on the cold water only and monitor for leaks underneath the sink.  Let the water flow for a good minute and use a flashlight - if you see any drips, turn off the water and check the connection between the cold water supply line and the bottom of the faucet handle. Wipe the drips away and run the test again.  If there are no more drips or leaks, repeat this process with the hot water.

Congratulations - you just installed a new faucet!

This is the sixth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

With the surface area clean, now the fun begins - let’s get that brand-new faucet installed!

Before we go any further, make sure to double check those instructions.  Remember, while all faucets function the same (i.e., dispense water, have on/off handles, et cetera), not all faucets are installed the same way.  Again, the standard disclaimer applies: your mileage may vary!

Ok, with all of the reading, re-reading and checking of instructions out of the way, go grab that faucet and the spray nozzle.  You’ll want to install the spray nozzle first, so take the housing and attach it to the sink according to your instructions.  You’ll then want to feed the hose through the housing and run it up between the supply lines, through where the spigot will reside:

Now you can start attaching the hose from the spray nozzle to the bottom of your faucet, like this:

If you can’t get the connection tight enough with your bare hands, I recommend using a wrench to make sure you have a water-tight connection.  If you’re really paranoid, you can break out some teflon tape, but odds are, you won’t need it.

Cool! With that connected, it’s now time to go into the cabinet and secure the faucet to the underside of the sink and connect the supply lines.  We’re almost finished!

This is the fifth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

Now that we have the old faucet removed, it’s time to prepare the surface for the installation of the new faucet.  I used a putty knife to scrape the dirt, debris and caulk off the sink surface, then cleaned it with mild soapy water.

With our surface squeaky clean, it’s time to begin the other prep work.

Take your new faucet out of the box and read those instructions - because not all faucets are equal, you may have manufacturer’s recommendations to account for.  With our Peerless faucet, we found the directions to be really amusing (no, really - the directions were hilarious!).

Congratulations - the easy part is now out of the way. Time to move on to something a bit more, uh, “hands-on.”

This is the fourth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

One of the most difficult steps in the install of the new faucet was loosening the supply lines that feed the water to the faucet.  Not because it’s a hard concept - in fact, it’s very easy (unless you don’t know about righty-tighty/lefty-loosey). It’s the most difficult because you put your hands in a very odd angle and have to loosen things that Thor himself tightened.

Your mileage may vary, but I had a really difficult time getting these dudes loosened.

We have a top-mount faucet, so we had to loosen the nuts from underneath the sink.  This whole process could have been made a lot easier if I had a basin wrench, but alas, I did not. Here’s what the bottom of the sink looked like from my perspective on my back:

Like I said, your mileage may vary, but I had a tough time getting everything loose (and subsequently an even harder time getting everything tightened again).

Once you have the supply lines removed, you’re free to remove the faucet from the top of the sink.  It should now look like this (from the bottom):

We’re now ready to proceed to the next step, preparing the surface area of your sink for the installation.

This is the third post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

First things first, if we want to get a new faucet installed, we’ve got to remove the old faucet.  This is a very simple, but at times frustrating task if you have deep cabinet.  Well, let me rephrase that. It can be a frustrating task if the person who installed the last faucet had kung-fu grip and felt that it was important to over tighten connections.  If that’s the case, I feel for you. I had to live that nightmare for this particular project.

It does help, though, knowing that you can go from this:

To this:

So, all that said, the first thing you’ve gotta do is clean out everything from underneath the sink. If you have animals (like we do), it may not be a bad idea to put them in a room so they can’t access the kitchen and sniff around all of those cleaning chemicals and whatnot.  Best case scenario, you don’t have any pets and you keep the area under your sink squeaky clean. Most likely scenario, you’ve got eight bottles of 409 with varying amounts left, two bottles of window cleaner and a whole galaxy of other cleaning products.

Pat yourself on the back. You’ve just finished the easiest step!

Now it’s time for the most crucial step: shutting off the water. You’ll want to make sure you have the faucet running both hot and cold when you shut it off to clear the lines of any and all water so you aren’t greeted with a wet surprise once you start loosening connections.

You should have access to the shutoff towards the bottom of your cabinet.  They’ll look like this:

Once the water is shut off, you need to begin loosening the water supply lines from the old faucet. This is covered in detail in the next post in this series.

This is the second post in a series about Installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

When we arrived at the job site (outdoors, 20 degree St. Louis weather, 15 - 20 mph wind gusts, minimal electricity), we found our trailer.  I was initially informed that the trailer dimensions were 16′ x 8′, but was pleased to see that we were actually working with a 20′ x 8′ platform.  I had to slightly alter my building plans, but that wasn’t a big deal.

In order to meet parade (and OHSA) guidelines, we wanted to make our railing 48″ tall.  I had a friend use my tape measure to mark our 8-ft. 2×4’s at the 48-in. mark so I could start cutting once I figured out how to run electricity to my Craftsman compound miter saw (more on that in a future post).

Once we had the boards cut to spec, we wanted to place braces two feet apart in order to secure the railing.  We opted to use metal braces because we could set up our railing support system very quickly and easily without having to cut additional boards with the compound miter saw.  After all, in 20 degree weather with a brutal, sheering wind, time really was of the essence!

With our braces in place, we inserted our 48″ supports and fastened them to the float decking.  Once we had all 20 supports installed, we were able to start work on fastening the railing.  We took our 3″ drywall screws and drove them through the railing, making sure to countersink them as deep as possible to avoid injury (while still making it easy to pull them up when it came time to strike the float).  The end result looked like this:

That concluded day 1 of the float construction.  Day two to follow…

It’s that time of year again… when people gather for good times, beads and Mardi Gras parades.  This year I’ve been put in charge of constructing a float for the Young Leaders of St. Louis (apparently I’ve managed to fool them into thinking I’m much handier than they are - and a leader to boot).  I’m not really sure what to expect tomorrow when I show up on the job site to physically construct this thing, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough, eh?

The specs for this job are simple - construct railing so people don’t fall off when the float is moving.  From what I understand, the float will be pulled by a semi truck and must have a Johnny-on-the-Spot (or other such portable toilet) and room for a sound system.  Other than that, I’m free to create.

When doing some preliminary sketches of the float, I’ve decided to use a sturdy bracing system for the base of the railing.  I’ll need 45 degree angles, so I’m going to let the compound miter saw do most of the work.  While I’m talking about tools, here is what I’m planning on bringing tomorrow:

• Compound Miter Saw
• Circular Saw
• Drill/Driver kit (x2)
• Wood Glue
• Hammers
• Nails
• Drywall Screws

That should be enough to get me started.  I’ll have my video camera and digital camera with me so I can demonstrate cuts and construction techniques.  Hopefully I won’t be there for a long time, so I can get the videos uploaded to YouTube in a reasonable time frame.  I’d like to start doing more video tutorials/guides, so we’ll use Mardi Gras as a testing ground to see how well it works.

Popular Mechanics has a very comprehensive list out with 100 skills that every man should know.  It’s been making the rounds on a lot of blogs, so I wanted to post a link for my readers (all three of you) to check out.

The list got me thinking - we need a DIY-specific list for all genders.  What skills are important?  We have a category for Essential Equipment, why not one for DIY Skills that utilize those tools?

Leave me some comments on what DIY skills you think every homeowner should know and I’ll write up some guides, tips and tricks.  Look for an ongoing series the remainder of this year and well into 2009!