With the floors completed and my cold somewhat fading away, I took to install the Delta faucet my parents had given to us on Christmas.  It’s the Delta Pilar Touch 2O Single Handle Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet; you know the faucet with the catchy commercial, “your hands can do so many many things!”  Don’t act like you don’t know it.  The entire time I was installing this thing, I was singing the jingle.

Good thing I didn’t film that part for you.

I was going to show you how to install this thing and take some pictures along the way, but honestly, John from Young House Love pretty much covered it.  No sense in reinventing the wheel. I didn’t have much experience with faucets and or plumbing so going into this thing, his post did help quite a bit.  And the parts I was lost?  Good ol’ dad was there to help.

Some things I learned along the way and stumbled on (maybe you could learn from?)?  First, get yourself a basin wrench for those hard to reach areas.  I spent a good hour trying to get at a nut until I called my father for help and he replied, “uh yeah, there is a tool for that.”  Next, be prepared for the curve ball — maybe something doesn’t fit right, maybe your house is wired with pex and the faucet is ready for copper.  In which case, be patient and go to Home Depot (for me, go to Home Depot with my dad) and ask one of the associates in plumbing.  They helped us out greatly when we needed to go from a 1.2in pex tube to a 3/8th’s inch pipe.  Third, you’ll want to have teflon tape handy for when something might be a bit leaky.

And last, never, ever, ever say to your wife, “wow, I can’t believe how incredibly easy this is going.”  Because right when you finish saying those words, you’re going to run into problems.  Fortunately, I had my dad to call upon to help me through the problems (thanks Frank Barone!).

So lets go to the final product. Please excuse the backsplash — we’ve yet to actually properly grout or caulk that thing.

The faucet is pretty simple and straight forward.  No fancy curves or decorations here.

And an action shot!

The one suprising thing about the faucet install is the abundance of wires now in the cabinet.  I’m surprised Delta didn’t recommend any wire organization tips and tricks, but I plan on cleaning this thing up tomorrow night.

First impressions?  This thing is going to be incredibly useful.  It’s going to take some time to recondition the way we use the faucet while cooking, but with all the messy cooking we do, it’s going to be well worth it.

The faucet appears to be a bit sensitive; it picks up on your every touch.  It’s supposed to be able to distinguish human from say cat (Macky), but I’m not exactly eager to put that to the test.  And even if Macky was able to turn this thing on with his paw (believe me, he’ll try), it automatically shuts itself off after 4 minutes.  Translation: Macky and The Wet Bandits will have nothing on us.

Also, the faucet handle needs to be on the up/on position for the touch technology to work.  Planning on cooking a big messy meal?  Put the handle up and it’s ready to go.  Leaving for the day, pull the handle down so it’s off.  Kind of convenient with some planning.  I suppose you can just always leave it on, but again, I’m not sure if I really trust Macky…

That’s all I have for now.  If anything good (or bad) comes up with the faucet, I’ll be sure to keep this post updated.  Until next time, I leave you with some live action footage.

Oh and when I mentioned my father as Frank Barone above, it’s a reference from the show Everybody Loves Raymond.  You see, my mom got offended the other day when I said my life is like a never ending episode of the show.  She couldn’t see the humor in it.  Oh, that Marie…  I love the episode when they encourage Raymond and Robert to box.

First off a little year-end blurb 🙂

I’d like to thank all of you who have visited my little side project and sent me words of encouragement- whether through email, snail mail (thank you Laura :)) or in person. I really lacked the confidence to get this thing going in the beginning (if you look at the archives, I half started this in February!), but because of the kind words from people I haven’t talked to in years, people I’ve never met, or people who want me to help them with their homes, I feel so loved and encouraged to continue this. I LOVE doing this and it’s so rewarding to hear that so many of you enjoy it too. So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me to keep this bloggy up. On to a new year of blogging!

Though we still have many, many unfinished projects hanging around from 2010, we’ve already begun planning some new projects for 2011. We often say that we have house A.D.H.D., we bounce from room to room, never really finishing things. Oh you’ve noticed? Well this is sort of intentional because it keeps us interested, gives us time to think and re-think of things we’d like to do and be really proud of our finished product.

So what’s new around here? Well first off, we received the Delta Pilar Touch 2O Single Handle Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet we were eyeing on our Dear Santa list!

It was a generous gift from Mike’s parents and we are very excited to put the final piece of our kitchen puzzle together! I am planning on recreating the commercial once it’s installed….

While we’re on the topic of Christmas gifts, my parents bought us a Cutting Edge Stencil. I had been eyeing up the Casablanca Allover Stencil for months and decided it would be a good gift to ask for. Since I love meticulous, detailed jobs, I am going to do something like this in our master bedroom…

Okay, I am beyond excited to do this. Though Mike has already warned me that though he is fully confident in my abilities, this project is outside of his skill set. He always manages to roll paint in his hair, never mind successfully applying a stencil….

Yesterday, we hit up Ikea and found another missing puzzle piece- extra long teal-ish curtain panels. These are something I’ve been thinking of for our family room for quite some time. Once we added our white roman shades, we knew we needed a little something extra there. Cue the Merete dark blue panels!

They are nearly identical to the color of my coffee filter wreath ribbon and they will add just the right amount of boldness and fun that we’ve wanted in the family room since we moved in.

Soon I will have the Hawaii inspired color scheme I’ve been dreaming of in the family room.

As excited as I am to do all of these things ASAP, we’re laying low this week, putting away some Christmas decorations, oh and HEADING TO DISNEY ON WEDNESDAY! Woooo 🙂

Anyone else scheming up 2011 projects already?