The Big Dig Continues... Day 18 of no Kitchen Sink... thoughts on Patience

It's been 19 days since my last post....  and 18 days with no running water or kitchen sink in our kitchen. The kitchen itself remains a "work in progress". I am learning that when dealing with insurance companies and contractors that "hurry up and wait" is the normal way of things. Somewhere in my past I had learned this lesson and then blissfully forgotten it, living as most of us do in that happy haze called insured over-confidence. To make matters worse, the amount of the damage now necessitates involving our mortgage company as a co-signer on some of the checks; thus adding their hoops to jump through and further slowing the process. But new cabinets are ordered and SOMETIME in the coming New Year we will have a kitchen again. It will be a new and improved kitchen so perhaps there is a blessing in the saga of the sluggish pipe that has been ongoing for the entire time we've lived in this house. If I can only be patient....

Here is the original incision made in our kitchen and dining room floor.

More of the Big Dig a.k.a the TRENCH!

Here's what a semi-filled trench looks like.. waiting for the tile man.

This is a FAKE sink... actually, it's our OLD sink sitting in the approx location of where the NEW sink will go. We are hoping this arrives before Christmas, but it would be HIGHLY unlikely for that to actually happen! Meanwhile we are getting VERY adept at dishwashing using that big grey pan set up down the hall in our bathtub! And our knees are getting stronger by the day!

And THIS is the DREAM sink... a shotof the approximate color (but not style) of our new cabinetry and the approximate color of our new counter tops.

The Day of the Impending Jack-Hammer!

Today was NOT a good day on Norwich Street! We were getting ready to leave when Ed noticed a wet spot at the base of one of the kitchen cabinets. We were certain our dishwasher had done the inevitable and blown a fill valve. So on the way to work we called our favorite appliance guys to come and check on it. I zipped home to make the 1pm appointment only to have the REAL news hit us square in the wallet!
To make a long story short; a troublesome drainpipe that runs UNDER the concrete that is UNDER our ceramic tiled kitchen floor is a goner and is going to have to be replaced! This means a 24 ft run of pipe and tomorrow at 8am a plumber and his crew will be here to attack my only 3 yr. old floor with a jack-hammer!!! I am beyond upset about this. The stupid drain has been an albatross around our necks for 25 years beginning in the first month we lived here back in 1985! But this exceeds all money-pit behavior up until this point. No rescue rooter, no draino... JUST rip the dang thing out! I am SO bummed. So for one more night, our floor looks like it did in 2007 when we got off our knees from laying it... here's a link to a happier time. So good-bye pretty floor, and maybe even my kitchen cabinets! (that's another story to be revealed tomorrow when we find out how much seeping water the things absorbed underneath that we CAN't see!)
 AHHHH the joys of home-ownership! They just keep coming!