Replacing the Kitchen Faucet

With any large scale renovation, such as our kitchen, we try to be deliberate and thoughtful of every item we install.  For the most part we’re really happy with all of our choices, but the kitchen faucet hasn’t lived up to our expectations. 

Danks Honey Kitchen Sink

I mentioned the features that I thought I liked 5 months after we finished here.  My review then: 

The faucet does not have a spray feature which we knew before purchasing, but we liked this design better so we were okay with it. The design does make the water stream pretty close to the back of the sink, so the back counter gets wet quite often when we wash our hands, but it’s something I’m aware of so when I clean up I make sure to wipe up any water.

Unfortunately, these features that we thought we could live with are the reasons we went shopping for a new option 2 years later.

We originally installed the Kraus KPF-1622-KSD-30SN Pullout Stream Kitchen Faucet in Satin Nickel, bought from FaucetDirect.com for $130, after a coupon. 

Sink Faucet-On

Sink Faucet-Extended

Not knowing at the time how significant spout reach was, we’ve come to realize it’s very important!  Our old faucet had a spout reach of 7.1” and the water stream fell directly downwards, but I was able to work with it by pulling out the head almost every time I used it.  When washing our hands though, we still splashed on the counter/backsplash.

The problem with all this use was the head has begun not to sit in place when I put it back.

Current Faucet Situation

To be honest, I probably would have lived with it.  But Mike’s been doing more dishes now that his project queue is a lot shorter, so he’s been complaining about it a lot lately.  I figured since I still do the majority, and he’s willing to replace it – why not get a new faucet and make our lives easier?  Anything to make washing dishes suck a little less is worth it to me!

I put together a list of my new must-haves: spout reach of at least  9” and spray/stream toggle button, along with the original features I liked: brushed nickel, single handle, single hole.

After hours or searching and pricing checking I landed on the Delta Faucet 9113-AR-DST Essa Single Handle Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet in “Arctic Stainless” finish and bought it from Amazon with 2 day shipping.  It arrived over the weekend and took about 30 minutes to replace the old one.

The lines are a little curvier than our old one, and I still prefer the old one’s form, but this is definitely something where function should win out.

Danks Honey New Faucet

The spout reach makes a huge difference. I took some before and after photos and through the power of Photoshop you can see just how much more:

Danks Honey Old and New Faucet

And, my our new favorite feature, the sprayer:

Danks Honey-Spray-to-Stream

It might seem wasteful to replace a relatively new faucet, but my sister and brother-in-law just bought a house (literally – they get the keys next week!) and are buying the older faucet from us for a few bucks.  They get a newer faucet to update their dated one until they chose to update their whole kitchen, and we get a new one for our kitchen, win-win!

Moral of the story: if you’re not happy with something, change it!  I convinced myself it wasn’t so bad, but I complained about it all the time.  It’s a little thing, but it makes doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen just a little less tedious!

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