» Faucet Upgrade with Moen Boardwalk!

This post brought to you by Moen, Incorporated. All opinions are 100% mine.

I'm sure you've heard me lament my builder grade bathrooms before.

I've slowly but surely trying to add character (and differentiate) my two identical bathrooms feautring all-in-one shower/tubs, boring vanities, frameless mirrors…and the standard molded countertop/sink combo.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have brand new things that don't break even if they are boring. But on the other hand, when everything works perfectly there isn't a lot of motivation to upgrade. So when Moen asked me if I'd like to install a new faucet and share the process with you, of course I said HECK YES because:

1) We already have Moen faucets, and we've never had problems.

2) Since we've never had problems, the faucet wasn't on my top list of things to replace- so this was just a happy surprise!!

I found out they were sending this Boardwalk Spot Resist bath faucet (can be purchased at Lowes), which obviously intrigued me…I mean anything that I might have to clean less is super awesome in my book. It has a finish that resists water spots as well as fingerprints!

Plus the Boardwalk is Watersense compliant, which means it uses 32% less water while still getting the job done. So, let's get to the fun part: the install. First you have to remove the old faucet :)

Now if you're like us and the faucet was there when you moved in, you may have to do some investigative work when you go to upgrade. I sort of thought all these faucets were interchangeable, but it turns out that is not the case. We had to do a few extra things, but nothing that made us want to abandon ship.

I let the hubs do most of the plumbing work since he's got the tools and the sense to make quick work of most handyman jobs, but I do recommend having a second person because there are times when you need someone up top to help. I won't go through the details of removing the faucet because it will depend on your setup but this gist is: turn off the water, disconnect the water lines (don't forget a bucket), and then unscrew the handle/faucet from below. You'll need a set of wrenches and/or channel lock pliers. The new faucet came with a nice little wrench tool, but it may not match your existing set up.

Once we removed the old faucet, which was an all-in-one assembly, we realized we had a problem. The three holes were closer together than we would have liked. At first we thought this was just a cosmetic problem, but upon further inspection we noticed that the new hardware wouldn't physically fit on the underside because the holes were too close.

Womp womp.

Wait a minute, it's going to take a lot more than sad music and a roadblock to deter me. After a quick google search, we found that we could enlarge the holes with a drill and a jigsaw.

Why yes I did just say we were taking a saw to our vanity countertop. But not before thinking about my #1 rule here at LCH. Take the risk, but only if you're prepared for a total fail.

I weighed the options and decided that if I taped off the area, that would minimize the liklihood of cracking. We have that faux marble resin counterop, which isn't stone at all (be sure you check your material before attempting this!) And, if we didn't make the hole too much larger (making sure to stay within the area covered by the old faucet), we could potentially hide a not-quite-catastrophic-more-like-a-50%-fail with the old assembly, thus turning this into a giveaway post (spoiler: it's not, sorry!). And worst case, we'd replace the countertop I suppose. I'd probably try to make one out of brown paper or something.

In any case, I gave Mike the go ahead with the power tools. While he was getting those, I taped off the hole, and traced the outline of the new handle. This way we could be sure not to enlarge the hole beyond what the base would cover.

Mike drilled 3 holes to mark the new outter edge of the hole, then connected the dots so to speak with a jig saw. I am actually horrible with the jig saw for some reason, so I let him do that part. I really only like stationary saws (where the saw stays still and you move the material into the blade), it's strange I know. So I just played the role of photographer.

Once the holes were in place, Mike got out the jig saw.

We repeated on the other side, then used a wood file to smooth the edges. Voila!

Then we followed the instructions that came with the new faucet. The only problem we noted was that we didn't think there was enough silicone in the little packet, so I'd recommend picking up a tube of silicone before starting.

Overall it only took a few hours considering we had to do some minor demo to the countertop. If you already have a setup that works, it would be a pretty simple install. Are you ready to see the after?!