That Sinking Feeling

Do you think putting in a new countertop and kitchen sink is easy? Think again. Picking out the countertop and the installer was the easy part. The hard part is getting the sink - On line maybe? From Home Depot maybe? It seems that the first thing we need to get is a plumber. At every showroom the question was "Who's your plumber?" The days are gone where you buy a sink at Lowe's and have the local plumber put it in. There are showrooms requiring an appointment, wholesale showrooms, retail showrooms, suppliers who only work with contractors, suppliers who only work with plumbers, lists of plumbers, and no guide for beginners.

Did you know that to buy a sink you have to figure out what dimensions you want, what shape you want, how deep you want it, what gauge you want, what finish you want (stainless or Corian for example), how wide you want it, drop in or undermount, and blah blah blah. Then, you think you're on top of things because you have selected one sink out of dozens. But wait - did you think that a sink came with a faucet? Or a drainer/strainer? Wrong. Evidently a faucet is an accessory which can cost just about the same as the sink! And the drainer/strainer recommended for our sink is around &50. Give me a break!

OK, so say that you've selected a faucet and a strainer....(which hasn't happened yet). Then you have to decide which disposal you want, whether you want a recirculating pump in your water system for hot water, or a booster tank under the sink. All set, right? Wrong. How about filtration for our well water. System filtration, or localized...blah, blah, blah.

OK, so say that everything is selected - it all has to be ordered, and you have to wait for it to arrive. Not until then can the countertop people come and make a template for cutting the new Silestone countertop. Then you have to wait for that job to be completed.

Wait! We still haven't interviewed any plumbers, although we have a list of 25 or so to choose from. We have recommendations for four of them. Then there will most likely be a wait for the plumber to become available to get under the new sink and hook everything up.

Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled to be updating our kitchen. But I just never expected such hassles and hoops. I like Nike's motto - Just Do It. Right now our motto is Just Deal With It.

UPDATE: 9 P.M.
I'm calling this Hit the Deck, or Why We Went Out To Dinner Tonight. Dick wrote:

I haven't fired up the wok since last fall. I have a special propane hot plate out on the porch that I use with the wok. It is much hotter than the inside burner and, since it's outside, it doesn't smoke up the house. Nancy purchased some beef, asparagus, broccoli and other suitable veggies and at about 6 I went down to chop stuff up. The beef I cut up in to bite sized pieces and marinated in a mix of oil, vermouth, soy, and stir fry sauce and put it in the fridge. After I had the veggies chopped, I assembled everything on a tray and took it all out to the porch. I heated the wok and added the oil.
I did the beef first, there wasn't that much, just enough for the two of us so I did it all in one batch. It cooked up nicely and I wanted to return it to a dish while I cooked the vegetables so it wouldn't become overdone. Keep in mind that this is the first time I've used the wok since November and there are some operations that I've forgotten. This wok was new last year and has two handles, one is the traditional wooden hand grip and the other is like a fry pan handle. I picked it up by the fry pan handle and was maneuvering it to empty the meat into a dish when the handle spun and dumped the meat on the cement!
Since we are not vegetarians, we went out to dinner.

I was just glad it was him and not me!