Friday April 10

Well, this has offically taken much longer than I ever expected. Been back to work almost 3 weeks, still working nights to "finish up the last details"...yeah whatever

Here are some shots of the tile backsplash. Small natural stones seemed like a great idea at first. What a PITA for Jen (newly minted mason that she is) and for me who stood by helplessly...

Here's the cooktop. It's the Electrolux hybrid induction jobby that Kelly Ripa hawks on TV. Guess what? It really does boil water in 90 seconds. It's really nice.

In these ones, you can sort of see the new Kohler Simplice gooseneck pull out faucet. Tomorrow is plumbing day. Hopefully be able to get the drains back together and *gasp* actually have running water and a dishwasher in the kitchen. You can also see the solid surface countertop. It came delivered in two pieces, the installers did a great job getting in the house and onto the cabinets. They epoxied the two pieces together and I dare anyone to come and find the seam. The beer is on me if you find it, hell the beer is on me if you come over!

In this picture you can see the matching Electrolux double wall oven and Whirlpool gold fridge.

Almost done! Later.

Countdown Day 8

March 18, 2009

Today is the start of the end of this project. The details have to come together now. First up, a new ceiling fan to replace the old J.C.Penney model (who remembers they even sold ceiling fans?!?! -- not me and I worked there for at least 5 years). This model came from Lowe's and has nice detailing on the fan blades that matches the rest of the room.

Here is a close up of two lamps we are using as pendants.

These came from the Restoration Hardware warehouse sale two weekends ago. They are actually outside fixtures, but I think they do the trick. If you get a chance to go, it is certainly an experience. Nothing quite like digging through boxes upon boxes to find that just right thing in a dark, cold, dusty, cold, musty, and did I say cold, real live warehouse. But in the end we bought four fixtures for the regular price of just one! Thanks Julie for the lead.

The real electricians come tomorrow morning to wire up the wall oven and cooktop. After some quick and frantic calls, we realized that the oven cabinet has to be "field cut" so that the oven actually fits into the hole. "Field cut", for those who don't know, means taking a jigsaw to a $900.00 piece of furniture and hoping for the best while your better half hides upstairs because she can't stand to witness the damage firsthand.



So the microwave is in and the dishwasher is in. That just leaves the oven and cooktop.

Tomorrow, in addition to the real electricians, the countertop guys are coming to do the template for the solid surface countertop (Staron by Samsung). That will be delivered and installed on the 30th.

That's about it for tonight!

Starting to look forward to going back to work.

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Countdown Day 7

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Today is the finish up of the base cabinets and the wall cabinets.

The base cabinets continued to go in nicely. Did some plumbing under the sink to (eventually) hook up the dishwasher and the sink once it is delivered. That went well. The CPVC plumbing is pretty easy to master, at least compared to copper (IMHO, of course).

The wall cabinets were next

Those too went in pretty easily. If they look big and heavy, that is because they are. Solid plywood construction and solid hardwood (maple) doors make for sturdy furniture; and I think these are worthy of being called furniture.

Countdown - Day 6

After a quick work meeting (ugh!), we got to work installing the cabinets. We had just hung the first one when the window installers arrived, so after getting them started we were back at it.

We finished hanging all of the top cabinets - LOVE THEM!!! While the cabinets are solid plywood construction, they really aren't as heavy as I expected (although my arms are sore!). We did have to drill holes in the bottom lip of several cabinets to run the wiring for undercabinet lighting, but all in all it was pretty easy. Keep your fingers crossed the rest go as well.

Here's what the upper cabinets look like:

Oh - notice all the lights are in - the blue boxes remaining are for the pendants over the island. We'll get these in when the cabinets are finished.

We are now working on the lower cabinets. While these don't involve holding them over my head, there are pipes and electric that need to be adjusted. So tonight is being wrapped up with the microwave install (after baseball practice and studying for a Government exam). Since the microwave is a 30", but the cooktop is a 36" we had to get filler panels to make up the difference - I think they look pretty good!

Oh - and the windows - well, I stopped looking when I walked outside at one point and saw that ALL of the 2nd floor windows were taken out - and none had been replaced yet. Apparently these guys take everything out, then go back and fill in the holes. Good thing it didn't rain. Tomorrow they'll be back to do the first floor

Countdown: Day 5

Since yesterday was kind of a play day for us (the drywall guys did most of the work), we had a busy day planned. But let me back up a minute - we did actually work last night (late last night). Justin went to the movies with friends and we had to drive, so after wandering the mall aimlessly for 2 hours, we came home to work on the floor.

I know, I know, you're thinking - "the floor is down and grouted, what else could they do?". Well, the grout we chose was called marble beige and it was supposed to look like this:

However, as you can see, once completely dry it looked white (definately not the color on the sticker - damn "approximate guides"!!). Which was just not what I wanted - I wanted the grout to almost disappear into the tiles. So, a quick trip to Home Depot to pick up haze remover made for grout. HUGE precautions on the bottle - apparently this stuff is nothing more than acid. So, I tried it. No luck. Still white lines. UGH!!!

Luckily for me (and my gas tank), I also picked up grout stain while at HD. This stuff worked like a charm! So after another hour brushing the stain on with a toothbrush and wiping it off with a sponge, we have the look we went for originally. This is what it looks like in comparison.

So, back to Day 5. Today we tackled painting the ceiling the guys hung. And the foyer ceiling, since it's all one level. 2 gallons of primer and 2 gallons of paint and we're done. Tomorrow we can put all the light bulbs and covers in!

In the middle of all the painting, we took a break to go the grocery store (the kids still wanna eat) and being the fool I am, I left the paint tray on the floor. My Mom stopped by to pick up some outlets for her project and our older dog took off running to say hello ---- right thru the paint tray. Luckily my Mom got the tiles cleaned up and threw the dog outside. Justin cleaned the dog off, now I need to clean the deck (ideas, anyone?).



Lesson learned.

It's late (9:30) and John is still working - he's installing the wiring for undercabinet lighting. Tomorrow we start to hang the cabinets, hopefully it will go smoothly. Oh - and did I mention that we are having all new windows installed tomorrow and Tuesday? Should be fun working around each other.... Until then .....

Countdown, Day 4

Not much going on today - the drywall guys showed up bright and early (I really wanna sleep in one day!) and have been hard at work since. We have a ceiling and they skim coated the long wall in the kitchen. My guess is that previous owners had wall papered the wall, ripped it down and just sprayed paint on without fixing any damage.

While they were busy hanging and mudding, we took the time to clean the top floor of the house - completely. Feels great having all the dust and "stuff" up and having clean rooms to go to when done working for the day.

Once the guys are done, we're heading to the light store to find direct wire undercabinet lighting. Tomorrow we'll (hopefully) wire these and prime and paint the ceiling.

Countdown: Day 3

It's the big day!! The cabinets arrived around 10 - and wow! that's a lot of boxes (the electrician opened the one above - it didn't come like that). Some of the taller ones BARELY fit into the garage - should be fun getting them into the house next week....

The tile and grout is set, so much of the day was spent removing the haze. The electrician stopped by and roughed in for the wall oven - he'll be back next week when we have the cabinet in place (with another guy to help lift the oven - YAY!).

We also finished the bathroom - a huge deal in a house with kids. The moulding is down, the new toilet in and sink reconnected.

Here's the bathroom

Countdown - Day 2

So far so good - the plumber came and moved the pipes, we finished the last bit of grouting and wiping tiles, and all the overhead lights are wired. The original drywall contractor can't come until Monday, so we found a new one who will work over the weekend (slave drivers, I know).

For those of you keeping track, here's the electrical mess we found when we pulled down the bulkhead.




Here's what we did:








It's getting hard to continue to live without water in the kitchen - can't imagine how folks do this for any length of time - guess we are just spoiled. Thank goodness we had premade some meals that we can pop into the oven (the only thing remaining) and still have dinner.

Oh - and no injuries today!

Countdown Begins!

Okay, so we have the next 12 days (including weekends) off work to get this project done (minus the counter tops which we have to wait to be made, blah, blah, blah).

Day 1 was off to a good start. The plumber was by bright and early - said moving the pipes would be tricky, but doable. He'd be back early Thursday to do the work. John removed the old (read: hideous) ceiling fixture to make way for the new recessed light. Jen began removing the grout from the bathroom - we grouted two nights ago with the recommended "antique white" which turned out to be more "snow white" rather than antique. SO NOT going to work with two kids and two dogs. So, after a quick trip to Lowe's to return the first, Jen got to work mixing the new grout and cleaning the floor.

So, while in the bathroom finishing the clean up, Jen hears a very faint "!@&*#" and sees John fly by on his way upstairs to running water.....

Those of you that know Jen know that she is not very fond of blood, so it didn't take much convincing that John needed to go to the hospital - he cut his thumb on a piece of metal - and it was DEEP.

Fast forward 3 1/2 hours and 6 stitches. Back to work on the electric so that we could turn it back on and have lights for the evening. Jen learned a bit about routing electric wires (since the grout already mixed had set and was unusable). Lights are back on - with more to run tomorrow. All is well that ends well...

Oh - and John's thumb only hurts a little.....

What a weekend!

Saturday morning was spent at our new hang out spot - Home Depot - picking up the next round of supplies. Our plans were pretty ambitious for the weekend - finish laying tile, work on electrical.

Thankfully, a good friend came over Saturday afternoon to help us pull up the kitchen floor (Thanks Tim!). John and Tim began in the kitchen while Jen pulled up the moulding and tiles from the foyer bath. Then all 3 worked on the floor. The number of nails in each piece of wood is sickening!!

And this was one of the scarcer patterns! It took the majority of the day, but the floor came up (unwillingly) - luckily the kids were out for the day so we had little distractions. We finished up early (7-ish) so that we could attend a 40th birthday party (Happy Bday Gary!) Saturday night, coming home early to crash.

Sunday was spent tiling the kitchen and foyer bath. The tiles are 18" square and very heavy. We rented a tile saw Saturday morning, so John measured and made all the cuts while Jen laid the floor. It took all day - with a quick break to run to (where else?) Home Depot, and another to eat dinner - we finished up around 9 p.m.

As you can see, we are now reduced to a table for a counter top, and no running water. Luckily the mud room has a utility tub that we are using :) Here is the foyer bath tile - we decided to mix it up a bit!

Plans for the week include - grouting all the way through; finishing the electric; re plumbing the tub drain (that was in the soffit) and hanging the ceiling (hello, contractor!).

Cabinets are due Friday morning. Hopefully by then the soreness will have subsided - we're both moving a bit slow this am.

So, Mrs. had girls night out tonight. Went to a Vera Bradley bingo with a bunch of girlfriends. You know what they say, when the cat's away, the mouse will, in this case, start tearing out kitchen cabinets.

Because we still actually have to LIVE in this kitchen, I decided against taking ye' olde reciprocating saw (thanks again HITACHI) to the countertop. Once again, with surgical precision, I removed many of the base cabinets, built a quick and dirty stand to hold up the counter, and pulled out 3 of the 5 base cabinets. Probably could have gotten the 4th, but it's late.

You like that high tech cabinet support system? Yet another reason I never throw away scrap lumber.

Here is a closer look at the plumbing from the last time. The plumber, highly recommended by a close friend, is coming Wednesday morning. Hopefully this won't be too big of a deal to handle.

HVAC! This is easy though. It will get taken out and routed through the bottom of the cooktop cabinet for toasty warm toes. The other vent will probably just be abandoned. It's the old vent from the old microwave. I was thinking about venting the new microwave to the outside using this vent, but I'm just not sure.

'nother shot of the Cabi-support 2K9.

I dont' even know what to say....the last time I left chunks in somebodys kitchen, they sure didn't love me....

I'm done. I also highly recommend that you try Beck's premier light. 64 calories 3.9 grams of carbs, and quite tasty. Better than most other light beers (except Yeungling Light -- true proof of the existence of a higher being).

More work tomorrow.

Snow Day!!!

Taking advantage of a quick little snow earlier in the week, we put the kids to work and spent Monday evening tearing out the ceiling and installing recessed lights. Still need to finalize the wiring/switch plans, but that won't take long!

Another weekend down....

One more to go before the cabinets arrive. Still have lots to do. Sometimes, I wonder if I've bitten off more than I/we can chew, but in the end I know that nothing in insurmountable and we've done all of this before.

This weekend found us doing more demolition. We got the rest of those horrible soffits down. No real surprises. A little more electrical wiring than I'd thought. Not a huge deal, just going to take some time to get all that buttoned up neatly. The master bathroom vanity drains are in the soffit too, but they only are taking up about 18" and should be easy enough to re-route. Anyone know a good plumber?

Here are some shots:

The rest of the time was spent finishing the tile in the foyer, walkway and about 80% of the breakfast nook. The 18" tiles and the running bond pattern are really sharp. Everytime I see it, I'm more glad that we chose these tiles and this pattern.

Here is a close up of one of the tiles.

No grout yet, but if our color selection works out, the grout will blend into the tile color and the grout lines will be virtually unnoticable. We also chose 1/16" spacing to minimize the visibility of the grout lines.

Here's the count (in case anyone is wondering):

Injuries:

• Blood blister
• Unexplained shoulder bruise
• Small puncture wound on arm

No hospital visit needed, score

us (well really me): 3 Carroll County General: 0

Broken tools:

• Wooden measuring tape, seemed to spontaneously burst into pieces, and no, the wall wasn't involved, I swear it just broke.
• Chalk line, don't ask I don't know
• Innumerable reciprcating saw blades (thanks Bosch)
• Even more innumerable #2 phillips drive bits (thanks DeWalt!)

New tools:

• Hitachi 14.4V cordless impact driver (niiiiiice)
• New chalk line
• More phillips drive bits

Preview of next weekend:

• Remove rest of cabinets
• Demolish floor
• Install new floor
• Remove sheetrock from ceiling in kitchen and start lighting

Thanks for reading

1 March 2009

Finksburg, MD