We were pretty happy when we bought the house that it came with a dishwasher already installed. And even though it was pretty tired-looking, it more or less got the job done. This seems to be the closest thing I have to a picture of the thing:

We did learn during the inspection that the dishwasher installation wasn’t up to code since the drainage tied in to the sink disposal directly, without an air gap. And we eventually learned exactly what that meant, because any time the sink was draining a bit slowly due to food stuff in the disposal, the dishwasher got an inch or two of standing water at the bottom. Nothing ever leaked out, and we quickly learned to run the sink disposal early and often. But still… ick.

last week, the dishwasher I had been eying for a while went on sale, so we went right in and bought it. It came with free delivery and free haul-away of the old dishwasher, but we decided to do the installation ourselves.

I”ll spare you the details of the installation, but rest assured that every stereotypical conversation and plot twist played out exactly as you’d expect, from, “We’ll get it delivered Monday, so we can get it completely installed Monday night,” to 5 separate trips to the hardware store for just one more item, to the cursing and swearing at pinched fingers and scraped knuckles. We finally got it completely installed and functional on Saturday, 5 days after the delivery, and ran our first successful load of dishes on Saturday night. I say “we”, but really all of the credit for our (eventual) success goes to Dave, who managed to work past the crazy old setup, drill a new hole in the sink for the air gap, wire up the cord, and probably half a dozen other things that I just slept through. 🙂 For all his cursing, he’s pretty happy he did it himself, and he will have a thing or two to say if we ever re-do the cabinets and want to change how the hoses are run to the dishwasher…

Anyway, here’s the dishwasher in all it’s functioning glory:

And at last, here’s a wide view of the kitchen in its current configuration.

We may eventually replace the range too, and then things will match a bit better. 🙂