Recently in House Category

A long time ago my friend Reed came over on a Sunday morning, and I offered to make coffee. He replied, laughing, "Yeah sure, as long as it's not Yuban." I froze in the middle of taking my bag of Yuban out of the fridge, mildly horrified.

Fast forward a few years to when Brandie's Aunt Kathie advised us not to buy good coffee, because it was expensive and we wouldn't want to go back to the old, bad stuff (ie. Yuban).

We didn't listen, and got spoiled at work with Peet's and Starbucks brewed daily. We started buying big bags of Starbucks beans at Costco, and wound up buying this beauty of a coffee-maker on sale at the same store. It grinds the beans and sends them right into the hot water, making a pretty nice tasting cup of joe.

On the other hand it's a pain in the butt to clean, with seven unique parts that need to be disassembled, washed, dried and reassembled every time you want to make coffee. And lately it's started to leak coffee all the counter instead of pouring neatly into the carafe, which makes for a frustrating start to the day.

Aunt Kathie & Reed were both right. Good coffee is a slippery slope, but bad coffee tastes terrible.

UPDATE: We took a play from Carol's book and tried cleaning the coffeemaker more thoroughly, and with a little help from a toothpick Brandie was able to clear out the channel inside the carafe lid that had been clogged by grinds. Daily cleaning with soap and water and regular vinegar brews weren't enough to tackle this, but thanks to Brandie's efforts it's working great again now! Not the most convenient way to clean something but it beats buying a new one.

Friday afternoon our faucet sprang a leak in the most unusual place: right on top, where the metal is smooth and rounded, above where the water is supposed to come out. It was as if it had taken too many dings in its fifteen year life, and was ready to retire itself.

So we took the girls to Paneera for dinner and hit Lowes on the way home, using our gift card from Jennifer and Kelly to get a brand-new Price-Phister faucet. Saturday morning my dad helped me remove the old faucet and I installed the new one (twice, because I forgot a part the first time).

It's really made a huge difference in our daily kitchen experience, since it's probably the item we use most. Having the sprayer built right into the faucet is especially nice. Thanks Jennifer & Kelly, we plan to get the faucet engraved at some point with your names.