DIY: Replacing your kitchen tap

So our new kitchen tap has been staring at me for a few weeks, while I've been happily procrastinating playing PS3 games - finally decided to get up and have a crack at replacing our crappy kitchen tap today.

 

  

I've said it before, I'll say it again - avoid upgrading anything through the builder that you can do yourself. We paid a couple hundred bucks to "upgrade" from the standard kitchen tap to this piece of cr@p Dorf Oasis spray mixer, and look at the just how much quality you get after a year of use, with all the braiding frayed, exposing the soft plastic hose inside.

To change it actually took a lot longer than I thought. Ideally you'll need a big wrench or two, a basin wrench, screwdrivers/hex drivers, spare towels, things to catch waste water in. Make sure you turn off the water from the internal taps located inside the kitchen cabinet first, disconnect all water lines to the tap and drain into containers.

Actually getting the old mixer out was a huge battle, since there was very limited space in the cabinet with our massive sinks getting in the way. I needed a sink wrench to reach way up under the sink to grab a tiny nut on a thread that was holding the tap in tplace, and with many hoses running into the tap in the same area it was hard going. If you have easy access to your tap from underneath the sink, things will be much easier for you!

  

After the old tap is removed, clean up the benchtop where it used to be,.

 

The final result... well, almost! This tap is retained in the benchtop a totally different way with a massive nut on a 35mm screw, and the plastic washer it came with was too big to fit under the sink, so at the moment it's held in only loosely. And of course, once I hooked up the new hot and cold water hoses, I found the hot hose had a crack/leak in it, so I need to get a replacement of that. Tomorrow,  a bit of fine tuning with a bench grinder on the washer, and a trip to a hardware store for a hose, and hopefully it'll all work out well!

Also ordered a new TV from JB Hifi online yesterday, and already having second thoughts about the whole process - should've walked into one of the stores and bought it that way, because their online store is truly craptactular. Logging into my account doesn't reveal my order, there's no contact phone number to call, and they don't return emails. No wonder we're all shopping online overseas, if this is the best an aussie company can do.

t&t

Need wall design inspiration from our blog readers!

So, for many years I've been involved in the design, creation and manufacture of vinyl signage and graphics, specialising in vehicle graphics - racing stripes, sponsor logos, etc, selling to retailers around Australia and direct sales via some websites. Anyway, no doubt you've all seen wall graphics/wall decals, a great way to modernise and decorate (plus they're easily removable, changed and upgraded), and an area in which we already have some expertise! One of my (financial) new year's resolution is to get our wall design website finally off the ground, I thought I'd ask all our very informed and trend setting blog readers to maybe make any suggestions on what you'd like to see!

These are some example of wall decalsjust randomly found on the web;

I've always liked the look of the black chandelier wall decal - it can reflect an existing light, or give a very luxe influence on a room. Tina found us a nice black French chandelier for the entrance (which still hasn't been installed, a year later!). I've done a few designs for chandeliers that'll definitely be on our website. Probably will leave those falling black leaves alone though.

This one is pretty neat, a silhouette that reminds me of Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction. Would go well in a home theatre room, teenager's retreat, or rumpus/games room!


So,  we've already got a website name, I'm working on the store customisation which might take another week or two, but what really matters are the designs, of course!

There's already plenty of stores which supply wall decals, but we want our store to stand out. Many wall decals sold in Australia are actually mass produced in China (which is why they all look the same) - where I think our store will stand out is that everything is designed and manufactured locally right here in Melbourne, and to take advantage of that, our store will have many items that are unique and personalised. For example, you might be able to submit your child's name to be integrated into a particular design, for example "Stephanie's Room" as a stickable design, surrounded by hearts and stars for example. Naturally, a custom one-off item will cost slightly more than a generic mass-produced item, but it'll be unique and tailored exactly to your needs and your style! Of course, we'll also have some custom designs that you won't find anywhere else too.

Anyway, if you have any ideas at all, what you might like to see, what you're sick of, or anything else, please leave a comment as your feedback will be greatly appreciated! Hoping to have the website launched with a few products within a month.

t&t

Happy New Year's Eve!* (*financial new year)

So I woke up all excited this morning - the end of the financial year has snuck up again, which means spending hours sifting through receipts, itemising invoices and payments, figuring out how much I'm going to get screwed on tax once more.

But it's not all bad news - EOFYS usually brings on a few good sales, if you're prepared beforehand, know what you want and how much it should cost. My favourite purchase most recently was another PS3 with a game from BigW - $256 delivered. Should've been $248 delivered, but I got charged $8 for "registered" post. Apparently now the game bundles have sold out, but you can still get a bare PS3 for the same price. Target have a similar game bundle deal, but Kmart have an even cheaper PS3 only price, though I suspect they sold out in minutes.

And if you're wonding what game console to buy your kids - DON'T buy an xbox, because they're crap.

For the record, I've had nearly every console release since the 8 bit NES and the Xbox has been the worst of the lot. I have 2 xboxes, because I "had" to buy another one when the first one experienced general hardware failure.... 3 times. Now have two PS3s, because they're excellent - they play BluRay, have free online gaming, can record things off TV, free online apps, you can freely upgrade the hard drives to any size, and they don't explode at random moments like xboxes.

Anyway, another thing we picked up the other week was a nice new commercial style kitchen mixer tap from Recollections, of all places.

Normally we don't go into Recollections, as their furniture is more rustic than modern, but they have some surprisingly nice wall mirrors and modern bar stools (which Tina won't let me get since we have too much furniture, apparently).... and this kitchen mixer currently at half price, which makes it equivalent to online/eBay prices. We paid more for the crappy Dorf mixer tap "downgrade" from the builder, so yet again, another reminder to early players to NOT upgrade anything through the builder that you can do yourself, later.

I have yet to email Dorf to complain about their rubbish product, but I don't expect any resolution, since they only offer 1 year parts/labour on their products - and since their taps are designed to last a year and a day, there's no point in buying them in the first place.

T&T

We're Back!

So we haven't been posting on the blog for a couple of months - reason is, after all that time time planning and building the house, then getting married, then working madly to put a dent in the mortgage, we haven't had much time to get away on a proper holiday for years! So we decided to take some time off, and we're back!

Here's some holiday snaps;

 View from the top of Marina Bay Sands, Singapore at sunset.

Well, most people would know what this is, and where it is!

Mountain town of Chefchaouen, Morocco

The Mezquita, Cordoba

 Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Plus some time in Hong Kong on the way home. People keep asking me what camera I used for these photos... seems like I buy a new digital camera every year and this year was no exception. Was going to travel with my old Canon 450D and some lenses, but I get so weary of carrying around a kilo of massive camera gear. Picked up an Olympus E-PM1, which is one of the new "Micro Four Thirds" range - much smaller than an SLR, but with a sensor almost as large. Result is a tiny camera, almost the size of a point&shoot compact, with incredible performance - I don't use my SLR as much anymore!  I did use a couple of in-built filters in the Olympus for these photos, otherwise no retouching or adjustments used. You can also get the usual range of lenses for Micro Four Thirds, from fisheye, wide angle to tele and macro.

Today we're going out shopping to replace our kitchen tap. We "upgraded" our standard tap to some Dorf pullout kitchen mixer/spray for a couple of hundred bucks, and that turned out to be a piece of crap, with all the braided lines coming apart with less than a year's worth of use. Of course, our standard advice to anyone building a house now is - "Whatever you can upgrade yourself later, don't upgrade through the builder". Something like a tap is easy to DIY upgrade yourself later, and you can pick from a huge range of products, at a better price. Anyway, once we find a nice commercial style kitchen tap, I'll write up a DIY to change it over.

T&T

Offtopic (again)... pizza!

Most people know what it's like to get home after a long days work, and have nothing to eat (or maybe it's just me?) Anyway the other weekend we had some friends over, and tried some of the new Pizza Hut Signature pizzas. We normally get our pizzas from our local Pizza Heart (independent/local) or the Crust store about 5 minutes drive, but though we'd give Pizza Hut a go..

We tried a Mexicana, Tandoori Chicken, Surf & Turf, Garlic Prawn and The Works. Verdict? Size is about 11inches, toppings were good, price reasonable ($15 each, which is $3-4 cheaper than Crust). The only thing is, our nearest store is further than our local Crust franchise - maybe next time if we're particularly lazy, we'll get them to deliver!

T&T