DIY Time

This weekend it has been DIY time again – there is never any rest!. This time was the kitchen tap. We had one of those mixer taps in some sort of moulded plastic that matched the sink, both were in a foul creamy brown sort of colour. And both seemed to attract stains. Tell me this Mike Da Hat, don’t the people who make these things ever ever test them for staining? I mean throw an old tea bag into the sink and there’s a brown stain that never seems to disappear!

Anyway the also seem to have failed to test the tap for longevity. Unusually rather than the tap mechanism failing what happened here was that a split actually appeared on the ‘neck’ of the tap and water started spurting out of it, so that every time we turned on the tap we had a little replica of the Mannequin Piss! And as Murphy’s Law dictates whenever we had the hot water on the spurt cascaded across the hot water tap, so if one forgot to add cold water then scalding water would leave red marks on the back of your hands.


So it was on to ebay to find a replacement kitchen tap, this was easy enough as there are loads of them at reasonable prices, we got quite a modern one to match our modern, stylish lives. The next job was to fit it.

Of course by now you know me, I laugh in the face of the tradesmen and women in this country, you will remember that you are reading the words of a man who single handedly repaired his washing machine, plumbed in the dishwasher and rebuilt the bedroom window, replacing a tap would of course be a matter of a moments work to a man such as I.

That was until I looked into the cupboard under the sink!

I now firmly believe that the plumber who did the plumbing in our kitchen was called Heath Robinson, the maze of pipes under there was remarkable, fortunately not a soldered joint could be seen, at least this genius used Yorkshire fittings.

Anyway still undaunted I set too. Now I don’t know about you, but when I do this type of work, I like to be sort of close to what I am doing, by that I mean I find it very uncomfortable to have to do all the work at arms length. Despite the fact that having to do the work at arms length is like some torture devised at Guantanamo Bay where they are hoping to turn the former Jihads into socially useful plumbers, if the ever let them out.

The other problem with working at arms length is that everything is outside my vision, the focal length of my glasses places everything at about that distance fuzzy, I mean they are good enough to drive, I can see the TV, read books, and so on, but doing something under the sink at arms length seems to render me semi blind, so I even try taking my glasses off, but still no dice, maybe one of the consultant opticians reading this blog can come up with some sort of rational explanation!

So I eventually go the old taps off, with few problems, I still had all my fingers and marbles. All I had to do now was reverse the process and get the new tap on. Which I did, got it all connected up, but of course there was a minor problem which meant dismantling it all again and going up to B&Q to get some more olives, no I wasn’t peckish for a salty Mediterranean snack, I mean the brass olives that one uses with the Yorkshire fittings.

But of course I did it, no doubt saving myself a huge fortune in plumbing bills and increasing my credibility with my wife. The tap looks great and works like a dream pouring out hot or cold water at the flick of the stainless steel handle.

Of course it looks the sink still looks like shit and I should have bought a nice stainless steel one while I was at it, but then the cabinets would have looked worse than they are and of course our boiler is old and need replacing, but not where it is, so it has to be moved on to the wall where some cabinets are, and then we would need to strip off the horrible artex (who was the imbecile who invented that and how does one get it off the wall, without actually demolishing the wall – and why o why do people actually think that Artex looks nice?)


O I also fitted on of those pot racks that hang from the ceiling to hang our saucepans from so that our kitchen can look like a professional kitchen where the likes of Jamie and Hugh would cook. _ I’ve only banged my head on the pots three times – I suppose I’ll get used to them – once the concussion has gone.

Next time, fitting laminate flooring in the bathroom, but the question is, should I buy a new bathroom first and get ride of the horrible avocado suite that’s in their now before I do the flooring?