We’re back from a whirlwind weekend at my mom’s house. Made it home just in time to see the first snowfall here in Northwest Arkansas and now schools and businesses across our area are having a snow day!
But I’m not here to talk about the snow. My husband and I went to my mom’s this weekend with a very specific purpose. You see, for the past 20 years, my family lived in a house without a dishwasher. Thanksgiving clean-up in my mom’s 60 year old kitchen usually looks like this.
And like this. That’s my mom at the stove, my Aunt Kathy washing dishes from 12-15 people (by hand) and my brother putting food in the fridge.
Stephen and I decided it was high time this lovely lady got a dishwasher. So, with the help of my grandparents, we gave her one for Christmas.
Lowe’s delivered it last week and my mom and brother (home from college) got to work ripping out the cabinet where we decided it should go. It’s amazing what you’ll find when you start renovating 60 year old houses!
The dishwasher went in that hole you see on the left. The laminate beneath it was super fancy – printed to look like a braided green and yellow rug! Sah-weet. 😉
We did a lot of clean up and caulking between the photo you see here and when we started installing the dishwasher. Never hurts to make your house as weather-proof as possible.
My hubby hadn’t ever installed a dishwasher before, but something I’ve learned in the six years we’ve been together is that he can almost always figure things out. He definitely has the mind of an engineer (and the hot bod of a cyclist 😉 Woot!).
Here he is cutting into the drain pipe under the kitchen sink.
Here’s what the pipe looked like when he was done. That little offshoot you see towards the back just under the T is where he connected the drain hose from the dishwasher.
Dishwashers are much easier to install than I’d realized. There were only three things to connect. The water supply line (hooked up to the hot water under the sink), the drain hose, and the power supply which just gets plugged into the wall.
Here Stephen is opening the cabinet up a little more after we realized the dishwasher needed just a little more room.
After adjusting the feet so the dishwasher was level, peeling off the blue protective coating on the front, and bolting the whole thing to the counter, here’s the finished result!
Stephen did an awesome job, don’t you think? We’ll have to head back soon to finish the trim around the edges and give the cabinets a fresh coat of paint, but I’m so happy my mom doesn’t have to wash dishes by hand anymore!
While I was in Mountain Home, I also swiped a few shots of my family’s home when my parents bought it back in 1991. They did SIGNIFICANT remodeling over the first 5 or so years in the house, and I’m looking forward to sharing the photos with you. Any DIY-ness I have in me was definitely inherited from the ‘rents! Stay tuned!
