Hang up #1: Plumbing makes me nervous.

Hang up #2: The hose by the driveshed lies on the ground and is super awkward to use. It drives me crazy.

Hang up #3: Less emotional. More physical. As in galvanized. As in the solution for hang ups #1 and #2.

Allow me to back up for a moment.

When we had our whole water system fixed during our first summer on the farm, my Dad had our contractor trench across the driveway and add an exterior hose at the corner of the driveshed. Since then the hose has been laying on the ground–a very inconvenient configuration.

Every time we mowed the grass, we had to move it. Turning the hose on and off and coiling it up were a pain.

It was on my to-do list last May to fix this situation, but I didn’t get it done. I was distracted by other projects, and honestly I was a little nervous about tackling even this simple plumbing job on my own.

Now that we have the vegetable garden, we’re using this hose all the time. My frustration finally motivated me to pull up my big girl pants and deal with my hang ups (all three of them).

The first step was shortening the waterline. I turned off the water, pulled out the hack saw and sliced the pipe. I yanked the tap out of the original waterline and jammed it back onto the shortened pipe (hint: some boiling water softened the black pipe enough to slide the tap into place). I tightened the clamps to hold it in place.

A 2×4 mounted on the side of the driveshed holds the tap far enough off the wall so that I can turn it easily, and some metal brackets hold the waterline to the 2×4.

Then comes hang up #3. The galvanized hose hanger holds our three hoses. Yes, three. We need every single inch of hose to reach the vegetable garden.

I’ll admit that lugging three hoses out to the garden is still not super convenient. However, having the tap attached to the wall and the hose hanging on the wall are an improvement.

Some day, I’d like to split the waterline and add another tap out at the garden. Despite confronting my hang ups, that’s more plumbing (and trenching) than I want to tackle on my own at this point.

However, this simple update boosted my confidence about tackling a simple plumbing job on my own.

What hang ups do you have at your house? How do you handle plumbing? How do you handle irrigation?