This is our original kitchen sink:
White, porcelain, impossible to keep clean, and totally not our style. It’s constantly picking up abrasions from when we wash pots:
It never stays clean:
(it had been scrubbed out a few days before I took this picture)
and it’s got this mysterious burn that was there when we moved in:
Simply put: it’s gross. So last fall we bought a nice new stainless sink so we could swap it out. But it wasn’t until last month that we finally found a faucet both of us liked. And I decided that 7p was a good time to start this project. When I was working overnights. Yeah… but the stuff for this project has been sitting around for a while- it’s time to get stuff done.
Fortunately, I was able to get the plumbing unhooked without any problems (though the water coming out of one of the drain pipes was seriously rank- I ended up spraying down my bucket with some body spray :) ), and while the garbage disposal put up a fight, I won in the end.
Unfortunately, the old caulk was hard as a rock, and I couldn’t find my prybar.
So I went to Plan B- chisel out as much caulk as possible and hammer some flat-head screwdrivers under the sink to pry it up. Once I had the sink lifted a bit, I slipped the prying end of a hammer under each side and used that instead :)
(I really wish I had taken a picture when the hammers were in there!)
The caulk along the backside of the sink (up by the faucet) was especially stubborn, and held on even when we stood the sink up on the counter. But we got it out in the end and, for lack of a better place to put it, set it out on the deck. You’re welcome neighbors!
Look at all that rust!
Glad to know our sink was sealed so well…
I also found a (dead) bug that was trapped between the sink and the counter:
Gross.
But my chisel and razor blade made surprisingly short work of the rock-like caulk, and I was even able to scrub away most of the rust spots! Unfortunately, our new sink is ever-so-slightly larger than the existing hole, and I haven’t acquired a jigsaw yet (Dear eBay, please post a nice clean Bosch 1590 jigsaw for under $100. Thanks, Me), so I had to borrow one. In the meantime, I’ve got other projects I can work on like installing a set of these:
image via The Hardware Hut
and removing our dishwasher:
I’m pretty sure the dishwasher was original to the house, making it almost 14 years old. It was loud and temperamental- you had to load it just right or dishes came out dirty. We finally just started doing dishes by hand and have gotten used to not using a dishwasher. We’d rather have that extra space for storage. It was really gross under there! I found what I’m pretty sure was dog food (you can click on that link to see the picture- I don’t want to inadvertently gross anyone out!).
Life Through the Lens 
