One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Friday afternoon, we had our new dishwasher installed. Now, Sunday night, we don't. It's been an entire day of leveling, installing, attaching, and then redoing it all. And then again. These high end appliances are not standard in any way, and certainly not easy!

After putting the counters on this morning, we realized the dishwasher drawers were too low following the initial install. So we measured, discussed, remeasured, consulted, measured thrice, and proceeded to remove and reinstall the dishwasher. Four hours later, it was level and reattached to the cabinets. Only to find that now it was too tall by 3/8 of an inch.

You'd think we could tell this during the process and not after, but leveling the unit requires removing the bottom dishdrawer to get to the little threaded feet. A socket set won't fit, and no one has a 5 mm open end wrench, so Jeff has been crouched on his knees for most of the day spinning a little crescent wrench around and around, first up and then down, trying to get the whole dishdrawer level, square, and plumb in a house that is decidedly not.

Stock photo of the KitchenAid double dishdrawer with custom panels. I'm excited to have it blend with the cabinetry so it's integrated into our "vintage" kitchen.

It will all be worth it in the end, I'm sure. We already did a test run with the dishdrawers Friday to make sure everything worked well, and I love the functionality of the two separate drawers that can wash independently. It will be perfect for our small family of two, since I don't have to wait to fill the whole thing. It's also very economical and quiet. But I'm certainly very glad we didn't pay full price ($1400!!!) for something so tricky to install. If we had shelled out that kind of money, I would expect it to walk itself right in, waddle into position, and bolt down without us having to lift a finger!