DIY Kitchen Faucet Install

 

So you’re tired of your kitchen but you also aren’t kidding yourself, a kitchen remodel can quickly add up to a money pit! Over the years we have done some pretty inexpensive things to take our kitchen up a notch. In our previous house we spent $330 and DIY’d the whole thing ourselves!

Here’s a quick Before and After:

 

 

 

SO! We built a new house in a development where all the lighting and hardware was standard.

Standard can be SO boring. Changing out standard can get SO pricey. So off I went in search of where to find it for less. Mixing metals in the interior design world, is currently all the rage. It actually has been for quite awhile. Here is an amazing mixed metal inspirational photo by Glitter.com. She has copper, brass, and chrome all in the same space. I LOVE it!

 

 

I decided, even tho I completely love the big box stores and they have saved me some pennies more than once, I wanted to find another option besides the big box store. They’re great, BUT they can be so limiting in supplies! I wanted more options, without paying MORE money. Cue in e-facuets.com !   Here’s the misleading thing right off the bat about  they don’t just sell faucets! It’s everything you can think of for your bathroom or kitchen. It’s a one stop shop with thousands of options and over 100 brands to choose from.

I knew I wanted a gold faucet to go with my gorgeous new hardware we recently installed from Hickory Hardware.

I started with browsing thru the website looking at all of their gold hardware options. I narrowed it down to a touch faucet. I have always wanted a touch faucet!! This sounds cheesy, but I saw a Delta commercial when they very first came out with the Delta 2.0 and after that I HAD.TO.HAVE.IT.

What I didn’t know was, E-Faucets had quite a few touch faucets to choose from and I scrolled thru and picked the one that I felt best fit the look of what I wanted in our kitchen. The best thing about e-facuets is there is almost always a sale happening too. I did alot of looking and found a stunning faucet by delta that I ended up choosing.

The list price on the Delta Faucet website for this faucet is $734.30. Yikes! That’s a ton of money for a faucet! I found the same faucet on E-Faucets for 30% off.  Another awesome option on e-facuets was that this faucet also came without a touch option for less. Having options is essential when making sure I’m picking the right thing for our house. When spending a few hundred on something, I don’t want to end up buying something I’ll regret! This is also a purchase I knew we would have for years in our house and I didn’t want pick the wrong faucet and be stuck with something that I can’t afford to replace.

SO let’s install this baby shall we?

I ordered my faucet online and heres what it looked like when it came.I teamed up with my husband on this install because it’s not something you need four hands for the entire time, but a couple times you do so it’s nice to have a helper. First things first, before any job I like to get everything ready I may need while performing the task. In this case I recommend opening your new faucet and reviewing the instructions for what tools may be needed. My instructions called for a 3/32” allen wrench, flashlight, Philips screw driver, adjustable wrench, pencil, drill, bucket and of course safety glasses. I didn’t need the drill for anything and, shhhh don’t tell, but I didn’t wear any safety glasses. I would also suggest having a few dish towels and a straight edge screw driver on hand as well. Since you are working on plumbing, although you shouldn’t need it, be sure you know where the main water shutoff to the house is (just in case).

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Next prepare your work area by getting everything out from underneath your sink, if you’re like me its home to mostly cleaning products. I placed a towel on the bottom of the cabinet to catch and water that may drip while disconnecting the old faucet.Before disconnecting anything, locate the valves under your sink, one for the hot and one for the cold. The valves turn the flow of water on or off. Valves vary, mine as pictured are connected to PEX and you simply pull on them to stop the flow of water. Yours may turn, remember righty tighty, lefty loosey. I also like to turn the faucet on for both the hot and the cold water to get the lines empty before disconnecting the hoses. Once the water is off, disconnect the hoses at the valve using your adjustable wrench. Have your bucket (or bowl) ready to catch any water left in the line. I collected about 7 tablespoons of water when I disconnected mine. Depending on the faucet you are removing you may have to disconnect the other end of the hose from the faucet. In my case the hoses were part of the faucet and no further disconnection was needed.   Determine how the faucet is attached to the sink and or counter. Between your adjustable wrench, screw drivers, and allen wrench you should be able to remove the old faucet with ease. You may need your flashlight here to get a good look on how to do this.Remove the old faucet and consult the instructions of your new faucet on how to install.I already mentioned it once, but this Delta faucet was a breeze to install. First I took the faucet and fed the pre-attached lines through the top of the hole on my counter top. From here on out be sure to follow the instructions on your particular faucet. I elected to enlist the help of my husband to hold the faucet straight and centered while I used the provided mounting bracket and special wrench to tighten the faucet to the counter from underneath the sink.Once you slide it in this is where the four hands comes in to play because someone needs to be under the sink and someone needs to hold the faucet above the sink so its straight and centered, if not this is what the faucet looks like: 
Once the faucet is securely installed to the sink/counter you can connect the hoses up to the valves. Make sure you put hot to hot and cold to cold. In my case the hot was red at the end and the cold blue. Under the sink, the hot should be the left valve and cold the right. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN the hoses to the valves. I recommend hand tightening and then using your adjustable wrench for one additional turn. After the hoses are connected you are ready to turn the valves back to open. Turn the valves the opposite way from when you turned them off, for me all it took was pushing the valve in. Using your flashlight check for leaks. Once you have ensured there are no leaks, turn the faucet on to make sure it’s working. You should try both the hot and cold water.     From start to finish the install took me just under an hour including set up and clean up. I couldn’t be happier with the final look and ease of this project. Lets see the finish product! Here’s one last before: And here’s a few afters! The difference is a huge and I feel like having a gold faucet bring even more attention to the gold hardware. I love how adding two things transformed it into a custom kitchen that doesn’t look like every other kitchen on the block. Click any picture below to head to efaucets and buy your own Champagne Bronze faucet! 

*This is a sponsored post and contains affiliate links. What does this mean? If you click the link and buy a faucet- I get some coffee money, (not a pony.) All opinions of the products in this post are my own. I work with companies I love and the compensation is an awesome bonus!