Day Fifty: Half way there?

Day Fifty. Wow. A half century of days on this project. It slowly moves forward. We hung the fourth wall cabinet and built the corner base cabinet. See them in place:

You can also see the new floor. Here's a better view:

The corner base cabinet took much longer to assemble than expected, but that's the only one, so now we should be able to cruise along on the rest. Hopefully Day Fifty One will have the cabinet over the microhood installed, and some more base cabinets. That would be nifty. Stay tuned.

And just to mentally prepare yourself, the blog will be on vacation from October 1 - 6. The family is heading south of the border to celebrate the birthday of one of our supporters. ¡Olé!

Day Forty Eight and Forty Nine: Here comes the cabinets.

Continuing to move forward with the kitchen, we've installed the new overhead light fixture (above).

Okay, joking aside, it was a very productive weekend. I installed the light bulb because we took down the previous light fixture so we could paint the room. A coat of primer and two coats of paint later, the room is ready for cabinets. Which was Sunday night's task.

We installed the rails and the corner cabinets. To put this in perspective, the sink will be on the wall on the left, and a long counter with the dishwasher will be on the right. But we had a bit of a measuring problem... when we measured the room, taking into account the soffet (sp?) on the far right (just out of the picture), we measured the bottom part. The bottom part is smaller than the top, which meant we couldn't fit the cabinets we wanted on the wall (the wall above on the right). So we'll take this opportunity to come up with a creative solution, either shelves, or a narrower cabinet. E is going to Ikea in a couple weeks so we'll see what we decide.

And to get a better view of the paint, here's another angle (you can also see that darned top-heavy soffet on the left).

It's kind of hard to tell from the photos, but it's just a shade off of white towards gray. I think it's going to look great once all the cabinets and counters are in place.

So tonight will be putting in the rest of the wall cabinets on the rail above, and hopefully getting the cabinet above the oven installed. We'll also probably start busting out some of the base cabinets. Which all contributes to the room starting to feel, well, like a kitchen. Go figure.

And go Tribe.

Day Forty Seven: Once, twice, three coats a lady.

Last night we applied the third coat of joint compound. Hopefully this will be the last coat so we can get painting tomorrow. As E and I discussed, without all this drywalling, we'd be missing out on all this quality time together.

Since most of the walls will be behind cabinets, we were very judicious in our compound application, so hopefully the sanding tonight should go smoothly. Ha! Smoothly! Sanding drywall! Oh I crack myself up.

Anyway, at the top of the post is the south wall of the kitchen. There are going to be wall and base cabinets along most of this wall. Here's the pantry:

The wall on the left of the photo is basically going to have cabinets running from the ceiling to the floor, and almost the entire width of the room (about 6 feet). This will hopefully provide some much-needed storage off the kitchen, as opposed to having to keep stuff in the basement.

And here's another angle of the kitchen:

You can see the stove in the foreground with a lovely sheet draped over it. When one of the inspectors came to the house, E was talking to him and he recommended putting down sheets to help control the drywall dust. While they don't suck the drywall dust up like a sponge, they do keep it from blowing all over the place like it would if it was just on the plastic tarps. So that was a handy tip. We'll have to make some kind of tapestry or flag or something with the sheets when we're done. Or maybe use them in the guest room?

E and Dr. Drey went to Home Depot today and got the paint, so we'll be ready to throw that stuff up on the walls hopefully on Saturday.

Oh, and the back door. Long, long, LONG story... basically our salesperson (the Rickster) has a habitual mis-information habit... so for the last 2 weeks I'd been getting the runaround on where our new door with the right hardware that opens on the right side was. So after speaking to pretty much everyone that works at the window company, it sounds like it will be installed next Wednesday. It had better be.

But I wouldn't bet on it.

Day Forty Six: White haze, all in my brain.

***Splog update: because I still seem to be getting automated comments on the site, I've had to add "word verification" for comments being posted. Hope this doesn't keep you from continuing to contribute your feedback and positive reinforcements! More on word verification...***

Quick update on the first coat of joint compound... mission successful! Kind of in the same way that a banner on an aircraft carrier might indicate a mission was completed, but is really just the start of the challenge...

But enough about politics, let's talk home improvement. The first coat of joint compound has been applied and sanded. I've simulated what it looked like in the room while sanding...

While the power sander was, well, powerful, it definitely kicked up some dust. But the first coat is sanded, and the second coat of joint compound has been applied. Tonight is sanding the second coat, though I think we're going to forgo the power sander. It's just a bit too much power for the second coat. The texture variations and nuances of sanding by hand are going to prove beneficial in this second coat to minimize the amount of joint compound and sanding necessary for the final coat.

We're hoping to start priming the room by Saturday, and for the Indians to be in control of the AL Central lead by Monday.

Day Forty One to Forty Five: Here comes the mud.

***Special Guest Blog entry by E. while the Master Renovator (MR) is working. Also, the commenting has been removed for non-blogspot members. I've been getting tons of blog spam (splog?) so in order to post comments, you'll need to have a membership. We'll see ow that works out.***

Well, faithful readers, as you may have guessed from the dearth of entries, we have been busy doing work rather than blogging.

Big stuff this weekend! We installed the cork floors (thanks to P-town 'rents for their help). We can't show you the entire room as they have already been covered in plastic for the sanding and mudding phase, but here's a closeup:


Also, the rest of the fence and the gate were also completed. This considerably adds to the privacy of the kitchen windows.

Finally, we also completed the first coat of mud. Here's a pic:


You may ask, having seen the picture of the now empty kitchen, where the heck is everything? See for yourself:


Unfortunately, our spirits were not running as high as you would think given this weekend's successes... my (E's) purse was stolen from outside of our house on Friday morning, and so all day that day we were dealing with cancelling accounts, making calls, police reports, getting new ID, etc. Not only was the loss of the wallet/purse and it's contents a major blow, there was the fear of identity theft (they have both E's ID and checkbook) and also that they know where we live (and how much we have in the bank). A serious bummer, not to mention the inconvenience (no cash + no credit cards + no checks = no buying anything). ARRGH.

Tonight, we did, however, have 2 important developments which may get us back into happy renovation mode. First, we met with a home security salesperson, and it looks pretty likely that we will allocation funds to having a hardwired security system installed. Second, MR figured out that we should at least TRY using the hand sander for sanding the mud... and it was FAN-frickin'-TASTIC. Regretfully, it was too loud for the sleeping beauties, but worry not! It takes so much less time than doing it all by hand that we can do it before bedtime tomorrow and still have time to do the second coat of mud. Gotta stay on top of the timeline. HA! that's just plain old funny.

Day Thirty Six to Forty: Closing up the walls.

As we go into Week 6 on the project (with time off for travel, of course), we finally see some visual changes on the constructive side in the kitchen. All the drywall has been hung (except a couple small pieces in the pantry). See for yourself.

(photo above: looking at kitchen from dining room)

(photo above: east wall of kitchen)

(photo above: south wall of kitchen)

(photo above: west wall of kitchen, looking into dining room)

Always ones to look at innovative building materials, note the aluminium foil to the left of the stove in the photo above. No, it isn't permanent... just there to protect the wall until we get the stainless steel to cover that part.

Next steps will be to finish up the pantry drywall, then it's going to be a "mudfest" with applying joint compound over the next few days. I will be greatly relieved once that's done, as it will be the messiest part of the project and by far the least enjoyable.

Next set of photos should show some taped seams, at least I hope they do.

Day Thirty Two to Thirty Five: Approved!

Yes, the electrical was approved yesterday! Apparently the guy came in, spent about 2 minutes looking around, and said it was all good. I guess when they give you a list like the one below, they figure you're going to fix it all, so what's the point in checking it.


All of this means we'll be hanging some drywall this weekend. That and putting some exterior shingles on the back of the house where they put in the new door. Since we're in mid-September, we're tempting fate to leave it uncovered for too long here in the Pacific Northwest. And if you were curious, 13 sheets of drywall are heavy when loading them yourself onto a cart at Home Depot. They're a bit heavier when you're loading them all into your truck by yourself. By the time you get home and unload them into the basement by yourself, they're really quite heavy. But man, now I am so buff. I've found my weight training program.

And in the last post, I talked about Dr. Drey's room... here are some photos so you can check it out. The curtains were custom made by E, and they turned out great. The fabric/pattern is so cool; a beautiful blend of little girl with sophisticated modern design. Still need to paint the window trim, and hang the door trim. Someday...


The futon is not going to remain in this room... it's only living there until the guest room downstairs is finished (maybe sometime this winter?). Also, the crip isn't going to remain in the nook/closet... it will move once the futon is out of the way. Don't tell anybody that our daughter sleeps in a closet.

We should see some major transformations in the kitchen over the weekend with all the drywall hung. Our preliminary schedule has us finishing the kitchen by mid-October... we shall see.

Day Seventeen to Thirty One: Setbacks and progress.

Yes, it's been a long time. I've missed you all. But sometimes it's more important to actually work on the house and deal with other things instead of the blog. (Is it blasphemy to say maybe I shouldn't be blogging on the blog?)

So here's a quick rundown of what's going on. First, the setbacks.

Had the second electrical inspection on the kitchen. Unfortunately this time the inspector was a lot more thorough than the first one. So there were some minor infractions that need to be fixed before we can get another inspection so we can hang the drywall. They range from switching the oven's plug from a 3 prong to a 4 prong to adding staples in different places to putting more length on the leads inside the junction boxes. So, just will take some time, and I've already done some (the range is set up, some staples are added, wires are lengthened on about half the outlets).

Now, the progress.

Since there's electrical stuff that needs to be fixed, we couldn't hang the drywall, which moved us outside to the beautiful Pacific Northwest September weather. My wife (from now on to be identified as "E") tackled the front yard, ripping out a bunch of plants and cleaning it up. See for yourself:


While she was working on the front, I started putting up the new fence outside the kitchen window...

(photo above: the fence outside the kitchen)

(photo above: the fence looking out of the kitchen window)

And there's more. The bedroom is basically done, and it's resident has moved in (Dr. Drey seems to really like her room). We'll have those pics later in the week.

This week will be finishing up the fixes on the electrical so hopefully the next inspection will pass smoothly. That would mean drywall by this weekend, which would be exciting (well, as exciting as drywall can be), because that's the next step in getting closer to a sink and dishwasher in the kitchen. Doing dishes in the utility sink in the basement is getting old, and we're looking at probably 6 weeks at least without it, and probably closer to at least 2 months. But we'll see...

Thanks for hanging in there with me, sorry for the delay in the post, and hopefully I'll keep back at the updates so you know what's going on.