Ice, Ice, Baby

This doesn't look like much, but it's a major victory!



While we were in New Hampshire/DC/North Carolina, our ice machine's water line started leaking into the neighbor's condo. The management company broke in (they don't have keys) to deal with it, and turned off the water. (In a side story, they drilled through the deadbolt, and the regular lock wasn't working properly at the time, so when they "locked" it, it didn't actually lock--the handle wouldn't turn, but it didn't latch, so the door was open for a bit--although the building was still locked, so things were only semi-insecure. So I spent my first day back here having that fixed!).

Anyway, moving on: I don't use much ice, so I didn't mind that there wasn't any (naturally, when we got this fridge, we got rid of all our ice cube trays). Once Kevin got home, he wanted ice, so after ignoring the problem for a week, we bought a new water line and swapped it in. But when we tried to turn the valve back on, nothing happened--no water made it into the line, so no ice. So we googled ice machines, and learned what kind of valve it was, and ignored the lack of ice for another week.

But yesterday morning we had a flurry of cleaning and home improvement in preparation for an influx of spinners. I trooped out to Home Depot again, bought another valve, took off the original valve (turning off the water to do so), and discovered that part of it had broken off and gotten wedged in the main pipe, blocking the water--no wonder the ice machine never got any. So I swapped in the new one, but it didn't work either. So, in a moment of desperation, I cut the head off a pin, temporarily stuck it on place of the broken-off piece (which I'd determined wasn't required for the valve to work, but which I needed to get everything lined up properly). I couldn't stick the original piece back in place because when it detached (I was using poster putty, not a very permanent adhesive!), it would have blocked the water again--but the pin was thin enough that it wouldn't block the water.

And it worked!

And now we have ice!

(You have no idea how sad Kevin has been without ice!)