Meet Lewiston, Our New Kitchen Compadre

This post is sponsored by Delta Faucet who has generously provided us with a new Lewiston^® Touch2O^® Faucet for our updated kitchen. It’s an amazing product, we’re so excited to have Touch2O in our own home, but just for your edification, the rambling written content and views expressed in this post are my own.

Repairing the plumbing in the kitchen and installing the new faucet just about made my weekend. There’s only so long you can go with washing your dinner plates and cookware in the bathroom sink, and truthfully, I gave up at that after struggling to rinse out a salad bowl and colander on Friday evening, so the crusty omelet pans were piled high by Saturday afternoon when we set out to make Lewiston at home.

This whole kitchen pow-wow is really starting to prove itself to be an remarkable transformation, even if the angle and quality of the before + after photos varies a bit:

I’ll go on to explain how this faucet is actually installed, but first, a few quick observations as they relate to our new Lewiston^® Touch2O^® Faucet:

• Yes, it was easy to install. There was no dealing with extra putty, silicone, or tools (well, just a screwdriver). This faucet was up and running in a matter of minutes using only the product pieces that were provided in the box. And I did it myself. High-five.
• I didn’t have to use an escutcheon plate. I never thought much of the metal escutcheon plate that sat beneath the faucet on our old sink, but in hindsight it did always have water sitting around its edges and had a tendency to always look dirty with hard water spots. Because we had the option of only cutting the holes we needed into our new countertop, we opted for two instead of four, making room for just the faucet and the soap dispenser. Both components of the sink sit flush with the countertop, and I think it just looks better, more clean-lined, less cluttered. Also, it seems to be making a difference in how easily we can clean up the space behind the sink. Note that two holes will work fine for future homeowner’s fixtures too, because you could alternatively put the faucet and a sprayer in those two spaces if we were to swap in a different model someday. You’ve gotta know that we’re taking this product with us whenever we move out.
• The Touch2O feature is an amazing thing to have in the kitchen. You’ve probably seen Delta Faucet’s print ads and TV commercials with the musical stylings of Count von Count (RIP Jerry Nelson) touting the convenience of not having to touch the faucet handle to turn on the water. I’ve tested these products before (at #DeltaDIY2011) so I knew it was legit technology and worked well, but even still, I’m surprised how often I’ve been happy to turn on the water with a tap from my wrist. It works wonders when you’re handling meat products and don’t want to touch everything.
• I’m brainwashed. It set in 3 hours from the time I installed the faucet. I expected the stainless shower faucet to turn on with my touch. I expected our friend’s stainless faucet to activate with a quick tap. I nervously wiggled my arm around our bathroom sink faucet hoping not to accidentally touch it with my arm and turn it on unexpectedly. Nothing else in my home has this technology, and it’s frightening how quickly I expected everything to respond to my simple commands. Help. I love it so much.
• It has really nice water flow. Powerful too. I didn’t even know that multiple water filter options were was part of this deal until I installed it and began testing it out, but it does seem obvious in hindsight, seeing that the handsprayer does eject straight from the faucet itself. It kicks our old faucet’s butt.

As I said, installation itself was easy. When you’re not dealing with an escutcheon plate, the faucet drops straight into the hole in the countertop.

It tightens from beneath, and I should add that I installed the sink prior to replacing the disposal and under-sink plumbing; having them out of the way was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because it gave me a little more elbow room.

The only tool I really needed to use was a simple screwdriver to tighten the two screws you see in this next photo. Those two screws and the gold-colored nut that they attach to are solely responsible for keeping the faucet tightened to the countertop.

Next up, the sprayer. I was unsure about how easy this would be to use because I’ve only ever used separate sprayers and felt it a little hard to get a good idea based on the in-store displays, but it moves smoothly and connects to the main body of the faucet nicely.

The Touch2O technology mechanism comes mostly assembled; with a few quick clips it’s connected to the plumbing of the faucet, and runs on battery power (6-AAs).

The coordinating soap dispenser attached onto the second countertop hole without me so much as needing to read the directions. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to dump the contents of my pretty new Orla Kiely for Method soap bottle down into the crevasse – right now, we’re using it for hand soap.

The finished piece is a looker.

A few other notes about the related plumbing project:

While I did buy new gaskets for the garbage disposal, I was able to reuse the sink flange because its stainless finish matched our new sink nicely. Reusing it saved me about $30, and I know this because I still had to buy another stainless flange for the other side of the sink. Pete cleaned it up the old one by giving it the once-over on his bench grinder with the wire wheel, which took it from looking kind of grimy and old to new and brushed.

We used plumbers putty over silicone after much debate. I’m not shown pushing very hard here, but as I was able to mush the flange into place, Pete was able to clamp the disposal unit beneath. How plumbers do this by themselves, I’m not sure.

We’re pretty lucky to get some more use out of this disposal. I briefly considered replacing it since we were upgrading everything else, but it still works, and if I can get a few more years out of it, I’ll be happy. All of the hardware associated with it is solid, even if it doesn’t look its finest.

As you might remember from this post, all of the plumbing beneath the sink shattered into pieces while I was disconnecting the old sink. We were working with a very limited PVC stub, because the drain pipe broke so close to the base of the cabinet. We crossed our fingers and sawzalled the broken drain just beneath the clean out and planned to build the new plumbing up from that. Had we messed up, we probably would have had to replace the plumbing all the way back to the sewer connect.

Sure, we needed PVC and plastic to make this happen, but big box stores make it pretty easy on DIYers. With pre-packaged systems suitable for under-sink installations, we don’t have much of a way to mess this up.

I’m not even going to go into the 1-2-3 of how to install plumbing under your kitchen sink; there are plenty of good tutorials out there to help you if the instructions on the plastic bag aren’t enough 9BUT THEY ARE). You’ll want to be super-aware of the connection points (like with yesterday’s toilet plumbing) when you turn the water back on. Do multiple checks to make sure you’re not feeling moisture or seeing drips from any point in your plumbing connections. We even tested the disposal and ran the dishwasher right then and there to make sure that nothing loosened and leaked with the natural machine reverberations.

When all was said and done, it’s not hard to want to spend a lot of time in our new kitchen. It’s come a long way.

Anyone else have experience with Delta’s Touch2O products? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!