Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I may be slow on the posting, but the work is moving along!

Actually, I'm really slow on the photo uploading.  And I think posts without pics are somewhat boring.  Project for post kitchen - get my tech situation situated!  For tech support, this is just embarrassing ;)

Anyway.  Thanks to some amazing help and some great contractors, here's where we are.  Floors are done, except for the final coat.  My great floor guy said he would come back when I was pretty much done with the kitchen to do the final, as he's pretty sure I'll scratch it during the process.  All drywall is up, and drywall patching and taping is probably about 3/4 done.  The plumbers are coming back tomorrow morning to center the sink, so I can order the island countertop soon.  All cabinets are assembled and attached, and the butcher block countertop (for the cabinets on the stove side) is on!

So what's left?  I get that question a lot.  Still quite a bit.  But at least the thing is now usable!  And we should be done enough with the dust that I can put things in the cabinets and clean up the dining room...  Anyway, things that are left:  (Actually, I'm not going to make a list.  I started to, but it got kind of overwhelming.  Answer - quite a few things.  I'll just keep chugging along!)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

2 weekends of work and only one blog post

I know you were all waiting with bated breath!  ;)

Ok, sorry.  But somehow there also seems to be a ton to do after work as well.  And at work.  Besides my actual work, which I still do on occasion.  At least often enough to hit all my deadlines.

Anyway - the electricians came and roughed in.  The plumbers came, turned off the stove and the sink, and roughed in.  I destroyed.  R2 destroyed.  I put up drywall.  R2 very patiently held heavy drywall so I could put it up.  A journey in photos below...

After the electricians and plumbers came, I had holes in the wall, wires on the floor, pipes sticking up out of the floor, and a detached stove and sink.
From Kitchen Reno 2

I tore out the old sink and base cabinets, to discover -
From Kitchen Reno 2
tile.  Set on about 2" of mortar, which was set on a half inch of plaster on wire mesh.  Translation:  about 2.5" of concrete.  Never fear, I had a plan.  I would just put up a sheet of half inch drywall on the top portion of the wall, down to the tile, pop off the tile to reduce the thickness, and construction-glue a sheet of 3/8 drywall to the bottom part.  Sure, there'd be a little mismatch, but no problem.

First, I had to pull the tin molding away so the drywall would slip under.  Then, we had to chisel out some holes for the outlets, one of which was just chilling out on the floor, and the other was fastened to the old backsplash.  Finally, we had to put up the drywall.  R2's muscle was key here.  (Her height was pretty handy too!).
From Kitchen Reno 2

Does anyone see the hole in this plan?  Anyone?  Yeah, me neither.  Until - the drywall wasn't even close to sticking on to that mortar with the glue.  See - glue needs a flat surface.  Mortar is bumpy; there are lines in between all the tiles.  Plan = fail.

Well, ok, fine then, I would do it properly and tear out enough of the concrete to put up another piece of drywall where it would be seen.  I did this much in 45 minutes.
From Kitchen Reno 2

Then R2 came back from the gym, and did the rest in a half hour.  (I loosened it.  I swear.).
From Kitchen Reno 2
So then it looked like this:

From Kitchen Reno 2
And the part of my hand I kept hitting with the hammer when I missed the chisel looked like this:
From Kitchen Reno 2
So I went to the bar.

Next day - remember that 1/2" drywall I put up yesterday?  Yeah, well, now it's too thick.  R2 flexed again, drywall came down, 3/8" went up, and I went about my merry way covering the new hole.
From Kitchen Reno 2

Which left me with a conundrum.  See the base there where the two wires are coming down?  See the exposed insulation?  Honestly, I'd have just cheated and ignored it, since you'll never see it.  If it was behind cabinets.  But - that part would be behind the stove.  Maybe exposed insulation behind a stove is a bad plan.  Back to the drawing board...  I was tired of re-doing though, so I consulted.  The Dad and the Google.  And Rachel's brother.  End result - I cheated again.  I perhaps should have torn it all the way down.  But it's perfectly sound concrete.  And all that chiseling just takes too long (and hurts!).  So I popped off the tile again, cut a piece of drywall, and used concrete screws to fasten it to the wall.  Problem solved.  Sort of.  Well enough.  I hope.  Pics to follow when I upload the photos from last weekend.

What else did I do?  What, you think that didn't take me 5 days (one 3 day weekend + one regular)?  'Cause it kind of did...  Ok.  I also put up some more drywall, and put together a few cabinets.  I thought the plumbers would need the island cabinets ready when they came, but they did not.  They will need them on Thursday though, when they hook up my new sink and faucet (and old stove)!  Sans countertop still, but who cares, we'll be using the kitchen again!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Sink ordered!

Thanks for the voting all - went with the stainless.  I think my favorite design guru is right and I'll probably like the look of the white a little better, but I don't think it's worth all the extra scrubbing to keep it white.  I mean, let's be honest, I can't even keep plaster dust out of the dishes...  Thanks, I appreciate all the thoughts!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Gotta order the sink

Ok, so a ton of work was done this weekend, and I'll post when I get the pictures downloaded - but the plumbers are coming, and I need to order the sink.

So, this one:



Or this one?



It goes with this faucet [update due to voter confusion - both sinks will use the faucet below]:



The countertop will be blue, and the cabinets are beech.  Thoughts?

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Leaps and bounds

And the kitchen jumps forward!  The electricians have been and gone.  They did a great job, managing to move the riser line without a splice box, and even removed an old unsafe outlet that I hadn't noticed while they were adding the new line for the fridge.  And I came home to a basement that was neater than I'd left it!  Mind, they did accidentally steal my tape measure, but I consider that karma from the time the insulation guy left his...

Last night I trekked out to Ikea and ordered the cabinets.  Akrum built ins, Nexxus Beech.  They'll be delivered on Sat.  Please please let me not hate them when they are in...  The plumbers are coming on Fri to turn off the gas and the kitchen water, so there will be lots of work to do this weekend!  Hopefully a big fat update post to come next week.