Today's lesson: How to install a dishwasher and garbage disposal!

MacGyver bought me a dishwasher! We've both been thinking about it for a while, but you can imagine my surprise when MacGyver said "let's go buy a dishwasher!" God bless Tillamook too, the saleman delivered it in his personal pickup truck for free. When you view the picture of the dishwasher, think of violins and a choir in the background, maybe a dramatic spotlight casting a warm glow over the stainless steel finish... That's what I hear every time I walk into my kitchen.

So, in our cabinatry there has always been a space for a dishwasher; however there has been no such appliance occupying that space in a very long time, if ever.

More recently, that space has been re-zoned as a sort of bunker for Linus to hide from Nasty Puppy. We also lack one garbage disposal (which apparently is not called a "disposAL" at all, instead they are all called "disposERs". Whatever.) Therfore today's lesson will focus on how to install a dishwasher and a garbage disposER!

Step 1: Take all appliances out of their respective boxes and do a happy dance around them in the middle of the kitchen floor. (But you have to leave the stickers on because it keeps it new and shiny!) And, no, you do not get to see a picture of my happy dance. Too bad for you.

Step 2: Make two trips to the hardware store to get the right breaker for the fuse box. Check to make sure your girlfriend knows CPR. Kill the power to the house (and discover that your house indeed DOES have a main breaker after all! Fancy that!). Fiddle around in the breaker box for awhile, swear a little, send your girlfriend to the store to get her out of your way, and install a new circuit breaker.

Step 3: Redo the outlet in the wall so you have a switch to turn the disposER on and off. Ours started out with one outlet and one switch. The new fixture has two switches and an outlet. I wanted it to go the other way around, but I was told to get over it...

Step 4: Spend the better part of the morning trying to fish the wires from the electrical box on the bump out/back porch thing down under the house (ewe!) into the basement and back up through the wall, only to discover that the cabinets are sitting on top of the hole that the wires come through in the basement which is why we couldn't get the damn things up there to begin with.

Step 5: Cut another hole in the wall. Bend the sawzall blade trying to cut through the wall. (NOTE: our walls are made of a plaster and horsehair cement-like compund. It's strong stuff. Strong enough to break the sawzall blade apparently.) Bend the blade back into place. Repeat the bending process three or four times, and give up. Bust out the hand saw and hack that sucker out of there.

Step 7: Chop another hole in the wall for the dishwasher wiring. Please refer to the steps taken in the post detailing how to fix a bathroom door steps 4 through 8 to best describe how to properly pound, saw, bang on, and otherwise force something into place. Install the box and slide that dishwasher into its new home! Screw it into place so it doens't come flying out the first time it's run.

Step 8: Stand back and admire how pretty it looks in the kitchen (listen for the music again...).

The DispoSER went in without incident. I actually took pictures of the box where it claims "EASY INSTALLATION!" all over, fully anticipating the opportunity to prove them wrong. At the end of the day MacGyver and I were proud new owners of a shiny new dishwasher and an InSinkErator!