Meticulous Planning….Sort Of

I am in full-blown Marble Mode over hear at The Petch House. I’ve had to push back the arrival date to Friday because my friend with the panel truck who will help me get it is out of town until then. It works out well, though, because it gives me 3 or 4 days to figure out how this is going to work

I alluded to a potential problem with the faucet a few weeks back. I had feared there was not enough room for the sink and the faucet in the cabinet. I just can’t imagine what I was thinking when I designed it but I sure wasn’t thinking about the faucet. I made a cardboard template of the sink today and there is no way the faucet and sink will fit in the cabinet together. I don’t want to push the sink too far towards the edge because it will look odd and I will also have a thin piece of marble to deal with and maybe crack. We don’t want that, now do we?

Instead I’ve had to modify the back of the cabinet. I cut a hole in the back so the faucet will mount in to the 2X4 that separates the cabinet from the open shelves. Fortunately the good people who design the faucet seem to have anticipated cramped quarters in kitchen islands and the faucet has flex lines already attached. There is no ridged copper and I won’t need to have 12-inch long fingers the diameter of pencils to attach any lines.

Modification


The hole you see is in the cabinet and will be completely behind the sink and garbage disposal so it will never bee seen. Cutting the hole solved one problem but the problems didn’t stop there. If you add up the thickness of the 2X4, quarter-inch plywood, and the marble I would be at about 3-inches. The bolt to secure the faucet is 3.25-inches. That means the faucet would have to hang on by just a few threads. Not enough. So I had to get out Ye Old Reciprocating Saw and hack in to the 2X4. I hacked it good and this gave me another inch or more for the bolt. This should be fine.

I also got all the electrical hooked up. I got an email today saying my push button switch and face plate were on their way. I used a crappy regular switch as a stand-in just so I could get it done. The switch operates an outlet in the cabinet that the garbage disposal will be hooked up to, and then there is also an outlet on the front for everyday use. Everything is in working order now.

The HomeImprovmentNija asked a question about working on marble with woodworking tools in yesterday's post. He specifically brought up the issue of me working with a router on the marble. I’ve never done this myself but I’ve seen it done. I also talked with the guy I’m buying the marble from and he didn’t bat an eye when I told him my plans. This is the way to do it. However, I do have a small piece of marble left over from the bathroom. I had to replace a small piece of the backsplash for the bathroom sink and I will use it to test on. It’s all very nerve wracking but it’s one of those things where you know it can be done so I just have to do it. Of course, I need to plan, plan, plan, plan, plan. Almost every waking minute, when my brain isn’t thinking about something else, it switches in to Marble Mode.

Next up: More Templates and Router Practice