water, water everywhere

I'd like to take this time to give a special thanks to the plumber who helped build our house years ago. With these home improvements, it seems we've uncovered poor workmanship in all of our house's plumbing.

First there was the leaky bathroom spout. I knew about it when I bought the house of course, but since it was just a steady, but occasional drip, I let it go. When the steady, occasional drip turned into a constant, keep-me-awake-at-night drip, I convinced CJ to replace the spout and the drain, because if he did it himself, we could do it for the bargain price of $50. As he pulled out the drain, it was so corroded from years of dripping that it crumbled. As he chipped it away, an integral pipe fell through the bathtub. Turns out the plumber didn't actually glue it in there ... just put it in place and went on his merry little way. $800 later...

Then I had CJ replace the faucets in our bathrooms. When CJ left for work one morning, he told me the guest bath faucet was dripping and that he shut off its water supply and would take care of it when he got back in the next day. It was fine until I was by myself later that night, when water filled up the bottom of the vanity, spilled over on the bathroom floor, and creeped into the hallway, saturating the carpet too. So that night, I went without water.

The next day, the master bathroom faucet started leaking. That turned out to be an easy fix though, thank goodness.

Now we're up to today. CJ has spent the past two days installing hardwood laminate floors in our kitchen and hallway/entryway. When I got home tonight, I found a gallon bucket underneath my sink. CJ had to pull out the dishwasher to install the flooring. So, even though the water is shut off to both the dishwasher and for the entire house, the pipe that connected our dishwasher still leaks -- a lot. We needed/wanted to replace our dishwasher for a variety of reasons, so CJ's in the kitchen installing the new one as we speak. We've also gone through at least six gallons of hot water so far too.

I bet we're going to get a special Christmas present from the water company this year.

It also makes me wonder -- when did we stop doing projects right to begin with?

(And while I'm at it, if anyone needs a dishwasher, we have one. It still runs well. It's black, and I'm guessing it's probably 8-9 years old.)