wow... thank you all so much, thank you for taking the time to explain this so thoroughly.

@Karsten - thank you very much, the thread was really useful, ended up making some faucets for practice :) Thank you!

@Michael Gibson - thanks so much Michael, this really cleared things up for me. I've gone through another few iterations, I haven't quite gotten it right yet, but being able to see the images you've posted, especially the step by step, has given me so many new ways to think about making geometry. Thank you so much!

@keith1961 - thank you so much for these... after seeing your example I couldn't believe I was ever struggling with this... you made it seem so simple :)

Thanks so much everybody, have been trying to model some more simple things to wrap my head around more tools, how and when to use them. I think I'll give this thing another try now.