mbvoelker

03:56 pm: Well,
I've been very bad about making regular posts, but the project continues slowly but steadily.

I think it would actually have taken less time to build new from scratch. Demo took us about a month. Another weekend for new walls and the temporary supports so that we could tear down the separating wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We had to wait for the beam to come in and it took a full weekend to install the beam, remove the temporary supports, and fill in the new wall at one ends.

Rough wiring took about a month to strip out all the old wiring and redo from scratch because it was hot enough in this climate that it was dangerous to work in the attic after about 11am most of the weeks we were doing it. Rough plumbing took one weekend. Fortunately, the local inspector came within a couple days so we got to move right ahead with connecting things this weekend.

Drywall on the two walls we could get to without removing the old sink and dishwasher only took a day and half -- would have gone faster but the backerboard for the tile backsplash eats saw blades and battery charges.

Next weekend the sink goes, the dishwasher gets moved to the utility room, and the drywall gets finished (taping and mudding is my job midweek).

Hopefully it will be possible to get the backerboard on the floor mid-week and then I might be able to lay floor tile. But I want to paint before I do that so that I don't have to worry about the floor.

I'm not complaining about the time its taking because I'm getting just what I wanted. I've done enough of this to know that if you rush and press you make errors and that its occasionally necessary to take a weekend off to do something else. :)

The very first thing we did when we moved in was to set me up a good, temporary kitchen that I knew I could use for months without too many issues. But as soon as we have floor laid we'll have the gas run and get the oven hooked up. Then I'll make pizza and lasagna and oven-fried chicken and a bunch of other favorite foods we've been missing. :D

04:22 pm: Uploaded a ton of pictures
I've uploaded a ton of pictures into the demo and build galleries. I'll talk about the details of getting the floor up, the drywall off, and the first section of wall placed over the next day or two.

We've hit some setbacks and discovered that some of what we thought was wrong. But we also see some new potential.

02:23 pm: Catching Up -- Windows
Yes, we replaced windows on the New Year's weekend. Up until this past week North Carolina hadn't bothered to have winter and it was perfectly comfortable.

Since everything was square and plumb AND since the window openings turned out to be a standard size it was a much easier job than we were afraid it might be.

Here's some photos:



Shirtsleeve weather, for real.






Out with the old!




In with the new!


Did I say easy? Actually, the Great Stuff is a MESS!!!!




Not really a difficult job though. DH figures that now that we know what we're doing we could do 3-4 windows in a day if the openings were square and plumb and standard-sized so that we didn't have to do a lot of tedious shimming and leveling.

More pictures here: http://pics.livejournal.com/mbvoelker/gallery/0001ekes

01:15 pm: Test
I haven't been able to get my photos in so this is a test to see if it will work now.



Edit -- That worked. So I'll try to get this fully updated with the window installation, the rest of the demo, and the start of the wall over the next couple days.

07:04 pm: Not so good discovery
We took a look behind the paneling in the tool cupboard to see if we could access the crawl space from the other end of the house nearer to the kitchen.



As you can see there's a concrete sill that means we couldn't get more than 14 inches of clearance. That's nowhere near enough.

01:21 pm: More on More Decisions Made
There's a bar sink as well as a main sink. That was trickier -- Lowes only carries 2 models. One is too small, the other I just didn't like.

So I searched the American Standard website, thinking that I might as well get things from the same manufacturer because that way the installation ought to be similar -- important in a DIY project.

The only one that is suitable for installing in a tile counter is too big for the sink base cabinet we've got planned. Its easier to order a bigger sink base than to tile around an intricately curved sink edge. So this is the one:



Hopefully Lowes can order it for us. Otherwise we'll have to get it online, which is probably the pricey way to do things.



After sinks come faucets. I'd wanted a high-arc, single handle. Naturally these are not easily found. So this Moen seems a good compromise.





DH and I don't agree about the bar sink faucet. He thinks it should be as inconspicuous as possible. I think it should be as beautiful as possible -- especially seen from the rear by people sitting in the dining room. I rather like the Victorian types, but I'd really like those big, wing-like, "surgical" handles instead of the little nubs.

11:36 am: More Decisions Made
Didn't actually work on the kitchen this weekend. The actual work was putting chair rail in the 6yo's bedroom. But we made a bunch of decisions.

I'd been thinking in a rut on double-bowl sinks and lamenting the high price of deep ones that would go with the high arc faucet I want so that I can fill and wash stockpots. And I'd been pretty much stuck on stainless steel since its so easy to take care of.

DH wasn't in such a rut about it though and pointed out a single-bowl, composite sink that claims to be large enough to soak a cookie sheet. Soaking cookie sheets is important to me -- I don't bake cookies, but I do a lot of BBQ ribs, oven-fried chicken, and such things that really mess up those baking sheets.

Unlike the other composite sinks I'd seen that felt plasticy this even feels like enameled iron. I almost brought it home but we didn't have any place to keep it while we finished working.



Its hard to type while nursing the baby, so I'll add more later.

02:50 pm: In Case You're Wondering ...
I have set up a temporary kitchen in the dining room. Photos here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/mbvoelker/gallery/000139hs

02:21 pm: We've Got Plans!
I spent all weekend on draft after draft of the kitchen plan sketches. Last night I got to take them to the kitchen planner at Lowes. I'd changed so much, including the wildly innaccurate room dimensions we'd taken from the real-estate sketch, that the new planner had to wipe everything the previous planner had done and start a new plan from scratch.

The first plan wasn't useless -- it was a jumping off point that let me figure out how I could make it into what I really wanted. Its not everybody's kitchen and it has some weird features. But its my kitchen, influenced by the good and bad points of the kitchens in the 12 houses I've lived in and some of the ones I've used with friends and relatives.

Here are my sketches -- a little pale in the photos, but I don't have a scanner and had to do my best with the limited photoediting in my old EasyShare software.





There are 2 major things I wanted badly:
First, no one having to be jostling my elbows as I work. I can't count how many times I've turned around and bumped into one of the kids or even another adult who was trying to help. I've never burned or cut anyone, but its been close.
Second, I wanted a run of counterspace with a high clearance to the cabinets above so that I could run my bread machine, my crockpot, and my vegetable steamer without steaming up the underside of said cabinets.

I've created separate work triangles for my main cooking area -- fridge, big sink,range -- and for the kids' get a snack area -- fridge, bar sink, microwave -- which doubles as a place for a second cook to work.

Additionaly, the plates, glasses, and silverware are stored at the dining room door so that whoever is setting the table doesn't have to come in and get underfoot.

Its not that I don't like company while I cook -- its that I don't like to bump into and step on people while I cook. LOL

For a while I'll still have a door and a traffic pattern, but once this is done we're converting the carport into a library/family room and moving the door into the dining room instead. At that point we'll build-in a pantry in the former doorway.

This is what the planner did with my sketches -- she understood what I was after and made some improvements.




No, I don't have 2 fridges. :-D The rear "fridge" is a giant, 6-foot, upright freezer. I'm hoping to have it overhauled and painted black to match the rest of the appliances.

I went with the Shanendoah line of cabinets. I was advised that that was the best value in terms of quality on a budget and I was happy with the same brand of cabinets in the DE house.

The designer last night said that Kraft Maid was easier for her to work with because they offered a better range of sizes and options, but that this was indeed a good value.

I'm getting 22 cabinets with a lot of drawers and lazy susans for a quite reasonable price by sticking with standard sizes and going for the timeless-looking, less ornate Winchester style (cathedral, cherry, bordeaux).


I'm on a tight budget so I made my choices very deliberately to avoid increasing expenses -- no glass doors, no fancy hardware, none of the elaborate spindles and moldings, and NO CUSTOM SIZES. LOL

I only have one cabinet with any interesting options -- the one that faces into the dining room over the end of the bar has the cherry interior and the finished side.

Of course what I saved here I may spend on lights -- I'm determined to have an undercabinet light under every cabinet and to use fixtures in the exposed positions that I can enjoy looking at for the next 20 years rather than cheap junk that I'll have to replace.

I'd appreciate any comments anyone might have about lights -- especially about ceiling fixtures. I loathe track lighting -- its so UGLY. The basic, round, flourescents are nearly as bad. I don't know much about the recessed cans and don't know if they're the right thing for my general, middle of the room lighting or not.

Over the peninsula and over the windows I'll have some pendant lights.

More plans photos here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/mbvoelker/gallery/00014kes

01:43 pm: Why?
The breaker box for the cooktop/oven circuit is on the ouside of the house.


?????????

01:25 pm: Demolition stuff
Books and home improvement shows claim that you can't take built-in-place cabinets out intact but rather have to cut them up and trash them. But DH did it.

He did have to destroy the wall oven surround and one section that had been over the fridge, but he got the rest out intact. They've moved to their retirement home -- the workshop -- where they can commence a productive, 2nd life. :D






Having demolished the wall oven surround we made a remarkable discovery. Under the sheet vinyl, under the chipboard, under the linoleum, under the plywood, unter the tar paper, and even under the stud wall, ...

HARDWOOD!!!!!


It took DH and DS#1 several weeknights to get rid of the stuff but now the room looks like this:


There is more to come. We have to tear out this wall,


in order to make room for a new wall that will divide the huge kitchen/den into separate rooms. The kitchen will be 14 feet wide once the new wall is up -- almost entirely open to the dining room with 7 feet of peninsula/eating bar.
The wall doesn't appear to be structural, but we're going to put a blg beam up across the opening just to make certain. Finished to match the dining room floors it should be stunning.

The 1967 wet wall is still critical though. We can't take it out until we're ready to put the new stuff in because handwashing dishes for 6 in the laundry sink is nobody's idea of a good time.

More Demolition photos here:

http://pics.livejournal.com/mbvoelker/gallery/00011g4f

01:05 pm: Photos!
Demo and plan photos are up.

I love seeing the avacado green appliances in the trash where they belong!

09:17 am: Cooking and Racing
The Kyle Busch crockpot doesn't really match the planned decor, but it will look just fine over near the TV my DH suggested including.



Gee, I think he doesn't want dinner to be late on Sundays when the later start time means that the Nascar races don't finish until 6 or later. ;) :D

He even suggested that we include a couple places to plug the laptop into the internet. So I'll have a wired kitchen.

08:00 am: Design and Re-design
I figure that its a lot easier to make mistakes on graph paper then in wood and plaster. I've redone the west wall 5 times now. LOL

The standard sizes of base cabinets and the standard sizes of wall cabinets don't match up -- the bottom corner cabinets are available in 33 and 36 while the upper corners are 27 and 30. That messes up the space between the wall and the range terribly since I'm trying both to not leave any dead space and to stick with stock sizes only to save money.

I've finally gotten the floor, base cabinets, and countertops finalized. Today I have to finish the wall cabinets and lighting.

We did get an appointment with the kitchen person -- tonight right after dinner. Its a different person than we had before. A good thing, probably because I wasn't especially impressed with the first one.

12:43 pm: Kitchen Demo, part one
DH has torn down all the cabinets except for the ones that hold the sink and dishwasher. When investigating the base of the wall we have to tear out and relocate we made an amazing discovery -- down under all the layers of subfloor and old linoleum (the kitchen floor is the only part of the house that was ever redone), there is hardwood.

Instead of the plywood that is usual today they must have laid thick, hardwood, tongue and groove as subfloor and finish floor in one. Then they covered it up in the kitchen because hardwood doesn't make good kitchen floor.
This is good because we didn't know how we could resolve what is going to be nearly an inch of difference in floor height between the kitchen bar and the dining room -- right where the stools will sit -- once we get the tile down. So we'll take up the layers there to expose 12 more square feet of hardwood; a small enough area to finish by hand.

I spent last night drawing up the near-final version of my kitchen plans and figuring out what I'm going to want in the way of cabinets and drawers.
I got it all done and inked and was looking up the part numbers on the specific cabinets only to discover that the sizes of the upper cabinets don't match the sizes of the lower cabinets so I couldn't make them match between the wall and the range/hood.

Fortunately, I discovered that if I switched the 18 inch drawer unit with the 24 inch drawer unit -- moving the stove 6 inches closer to the sink -- I could find cabinets that worked out to the same measurements. But it would have been nice to figure that out while I was still working in pencil. LOL

The trickiest part is working in a little "slop" on account of the fact that things aren't always precisely the size they say they are.

I need to have my freezer overhauled and recharged. I'm looking into having it painted black while we're at it since everything else is black -- except the dishwasher which we aren't sure if we're keeping or replacing.

Today we're going to Lowes to chase down a kitchen design person to turn it into pro planning. This could be trickier than it sounds because this is a standalone Lowes that doesn't have a Home Depot in town yet.

It doesn't matter which one a town has -- if it doesn't have the other as well the selection and service are lousy. But as soon as you get one of each within a mile of each other the competition makes both of the great.

Wish me luck -- we're looking at several weeks of getting our water from the bathroom once we have everything in place to finish the demolition and start the new build. Maybe we can hitch the dishwasher to the utility sink?

10:54 am: Where to Begin?
I've been telling people about the new house we've bought and its appalling, 1967 kitchen -- a tiny, galley, jammed into one corner of the huge den with its original, 1967 appliances in all their avacado green glory.




The cooktop and oven are so old that I've been afraid to turn them on. The house inspector said they worked, but they way the report was marked "Age 20+" in heavy ink with an underscore made us think that he'd have liked to have said they didn't.




Here are the other pictures. I don't know how anyone ever cooked a meal in here.