Downstairs

Just before Thanksgiving we completed the floors and walls in the dining and living rooms -- phew! Of course we still have trim work to do, and probably need to hang a few things up on the walls, but it's coming together nicely. Gaining use of these rooms (which were basically storage rooms from May - November) has been great. It has actually taken time to get used to not having to go to the upstairs bedroom to watch TV, but we're adjusting nicely. Here are a few before/afters (just click on the pic for a better view):
Dining Room Before:

Dining Room After:
Dining Room After (2):

Living Room Before:
Living Room (after):
and last but not least, we finally have a washer/dryer!

Water

Its been a long time coming, but our kitchen now has running water. Sink supply, check. Sink drain, check...dishwasher supply, well, you get the idea. Needless to say, the dishwasher was busy for most of the weekend as we unpacked the plates, bowls, pots, and pans that have been in boxes since June. New electrical circuits had to be installed for each of the new appliances (disposal and dishwasher) - bringing to an end the 250ft of romex we bought when the kitchen upgrades began.

At long last, we have a fully functional kitchen. We still have work to do, i.e., the trim around the doors and windows, tile backsplashes, toe kicks, and a couple of side panels. Oh and we still have a few knobs and pulls to install but those are on order. On to the pics:

Note the sink!:

Plates are clean and in the cabinets (and theres that sink again!):
And we're liking this faucet selection:

Soapstone Commeth!

Tick that one off the list!

This stone is greener and more veined than the sample they gave us. Less chemistry lab, more new kitchen. Definitely not like Grandma would have installed. Seriously though, its better than expected. This looks fantastic!

Skim coating dining room

Progress is being made downstairs. Finished skimcoating the dining room walls over the weekend. As you can see from the pics, its not yet dry. Just have to sand her smooth then the paint begins!

Technical note for myself. When adding water to joint compound, mix it very well. The mud seems to be slightly aerated (little air pockets in it) so if those are still in it when you apply the mud, you'll have little bubbles on your wall when you sand it smooth. I was afraid over mixing could introduce bubbles but that wasn't the case.

Kitchen update

As mentioned below, we are now contracting out the countertop installation, so once thats done the sink and dishwasher will be installed and the kitchen will more or less be fully functional. Trimwork around the windows, floors and doors, and on the tops of the cabinets all still need to be done as well but that isn't as important as running water.

So the cabinets are all in. We're evaluating pulls and knobs right now. Heres a few new kitchen pics. Note the Samsung fridge - bottom mount, french doors. This thing is great. Tons of space. Really works well. And the stove has 2 ovens. Good for turkey day. We were at a friends place in Albany last weekend and they have the same stove. They use the top small oven all the time. I think we'll do the same, and the smaller size should translate into shorter preheating and lower gas consumption.

whole house update

We're kind of at a standstill at the moment. Cabinets are all installed. The next thing is the countertops. The plan from day 1 was to have that be another DIY project. Soapstone cuts easily enough. Just check out some videos and see for yourself here. Two problems with that - 1) I've been traveling a lot lately and simply do not have the time to coordinate the time and resources (i.e., friends with healthy backs) to get it done and 2) the corner area looks tricky. The walls aren't square and you need to glue 2 slabs together so its not as easy as it could be. Sure a good template will resolve that but that gets back to reason 1, no time for templating. So we have a contractor lined up and ready to go.

Offloading this project will allow me to spend what time I do have on skimcoating the dining room walls. Once thats done, we can paint that room and then the living room. Then we get the floors resurfaced on the rest of the first floor. That will make the house superficially complete. Trimwork will be an ongoing project thru the winter (as will some other projects), but getting the walls and floors done is obviously high on the list.

Ikea cabinets

Before the ink was dry on the mortgage papers, we purchased our cabinets from Ikea. This was back in April, to put things in their proper perspective. And despite some last minute second guessing on our kitchen layout, we are sticking to the design more or less exactly as it was way back when. First, here is part of what it looked like upon delivery. Boxes and boxes all needing assembly:



Before we even moved in, I spent a few days assembling some of the base cabinets in the living room. And thats where they stayed for the next few months. Until this past weekend, that is!

Still need to shim here, level there, but you get the idea:




You might notice a new stove in one of these pics. Yes, we accepted delivery on our fridge and stove. More on that later...

Kitchen floors & a little history

Last week the kitchen floors were resurfaced. Unfortunately, we don't really have any good pics that show just how bad it looked. When we moved in, the floors had vinyl tile. We peeled those off to find another vinyl tile underneath them (actually, those older tiles peeled off easier so we were able to take 'em off in a 2 for 1 deal). But those older tiles were connected to the floor with some brown paper, and the brown paper had some black tar-like backer to it. So when we removed all the tile on the floor, we had a brown paper floor that would wear away creating a constant stream of dust and debris that would filter through the house. The beaut in all of this is that under the paper, under the tar was some hardwoods that were installed in 1940. Underneath some of the hardwoods was some newspapers (?) with that date on it. When we ripped the plaster off the walls, I found other newspaper from 1940 in the walls as well. Apparently when grandma was our age she must have had a big house renovation project as well! The cabinets we ripped out way back in May were from 1970, so there was one other renovation between 1940 and 2007. That puts the pace of renovations about every 30 years or so. Lets hope this one doesn't look as dated as the last one!

So anyway, like I mentioned, no choice floor photos. But here are a couple pics that do show a part of the floor. You can get the idea from these:




And here is a pic similar to above, with the new old floors (and you might sneak a peak at a new appliance):

Kitchen color

We have selected Fusion from the Benjamin Moore Aura line. We have 2 coats up (except where we plan on having base or wall cabinets). On to the pics:

Soapstone slabs!

On Friday we took delivery of our 4 60" x 30" soapstone slabs. Luckily we were able to move it to the edge of our driveway during delivery. The alternative would have meant recruiting friends and moving each 270 pound slab from the curb to the backyard. That would have not been fun.

Some kitchen designer tweaks

Now that the kitchen is coming together, nothing like some cold feet/last minute second guessing to our layouts. We've already posted the working model. Problem 1 is one side has lots of cabinets while the other side has much less. Problem 2 is we have counter space on one side of the stove, but nothing on the other. So here are some alternatives:

Addressing problem 1 - we have 2 possibilties:

Here is the first option of adding more cabinets to the back. Here we completely enclose the fridge and move the only counter space over from the right side to the left:


For option 2, we have the stove moved to the back. We add a counter to the side of it, so we have more production on this part of the kitchen. Note that the half bath is to the left of the these counters. Some might think its odd to have the stove <5 feet from a bathroom. However, this layout also solves problem 2:


And with the stove moved to the back, the fridge therefore must move to the other wall:


Of course, moving the stove and fridge locations would mean more plumbing work and more electrical work. Plus we would have to buy a new 15" base cabinet and one of the wall cabinets we already bought would most likely not get used at all. So its more costly. But I do like the idea of having 18" of countertops on one side of the stove and 36" on the other. What do you think?

Ikea Kitchen

Here's our new kitchen design, courtesy of the Ikea Home Planner software.

The Ikea software app is one of the flakiest programs I've ever worked with. It crashes at the drop of a hat. But it's free, and if you can live with its shortcomings, you can have a lot of fun running through the possibilities.

Here's the main part of the kitchen:

Two minor things to clear up: 1) Near the corner (by the sink), you'll see some white where there should be cabinet. The software doesn't handle filler spaces at all. I will install 5 inches of filler between the corner cabinet and sink. Using toe kicks, I'll make it flush with the sink base cabinet (this is a pretty standard cabinet mod). The other issue is that area above the microwave; there's a cabinet there too. For some reason when you specify the cabinet WITH the microwave, the cabinet face disappears. Without the microwave you see the whole cabinet just fine. Again, another inconvenience with the software.


Here's the side wall with some photoshop magic:

The cabinet above the fridge will be flush with the tall pantry unit on the left of the fridge. To the the right of the fridge, we're planning on installing some shelving, or some aahtwork.

Kitchen Derailment

Sad times at Grandma's house, folks. Just when things were looking up, just when real progress was being made ... we've suffered a setback. The area that we reclaimed after demoing the closet was to have base and upper cabinets measuring 73" across. I (i.e. Brian)* told the contractor that we needed 73" to accommodate the cabs. I even showed him one of the assembled base cabinets. The contractor not only framed the area, but added sheet rock and mud as well. In fact, after a small amount of sanding, it would have been ready for paint.

Only problem is that the area the contractor created from wall to wall is only 72".

It's a hair over, but still almost an inch off. And try as we might, we're not fitting cabinets that measure 72.8999932342342 inches into a 72" space. Believe me, I looked at workarounds. I can shave off a small amount of overhang on the corner cabinet, perhaps as much as 1/8". And I could replace the sheet rock that is installed on one wall with a slightly thinner wallboard to gain another 1/8". But even with all of this, this dog won't hunt.

Thus, our timeline has taken its first hit. We scheduled appliance delivery (new stove and fridge -- yeah!) for Sept 1. But before we take delivery, we had to have the floor guys in to resurface and refinish the hardwoods. And before we have this work done, we want to have the walls done. Thanks to the aforementioned missing inch, a part of the wall must now be reworked. And even if it's done immediately, the floors still won't get done (3 coats = 3 days) before next weekend.

Never mind that in addition to all of the above, we were also set to start cabinet installation. And the base cabinets can't go in until the floors are done. And the upper cabs can't go in until the walls are done. Sucks.

In other news, we pulled the trigger on the soapstone for the counters. Another DIY project. They should be delivered the week of the 10th. And if we can get back on track, there is a possibility that the cabinets could be installed, ready and waiting for coutertops upon their arrival. Anyway, on to the kitchen pics:




*Editor's note: If you haven't realized this by now, when we say "we", we really mean Brian. He's the hero here. Stephanie merely edits the blog from time to time, and picks up lunch. Just wanted to make sure that was obvious, if you weren't clever enough to figure it out already.

Reed Fence

There's lots going on inside grandma's house, but we're not totally neglecting the exterior. We're blessed w/ glorious chain link fence along the perimeter of the backyard. When we moved in, it was topped off with barbed wire (squirrels beware)! We yanked the barbed wire immediately, but the chain link remains. We kicked around the idea of using the existing posts and building a wooden fence using these brackets; another thought was to go with a reed fence over the chain link. Only issue with the reed was getting it at a good price: the local nursery was pricey, and it was never in stock; an online purchase meant hefty shipping charges.

And then one day we lucked out: reed fence came in at the local big box home improvement shop. On to the pics:

Before (with Rudy):




After:

The Kitchen Kronicles

The kitchen at Grandma's House needs the most severe renovations. It was probably last updated before we were born. The original plan:

1. Remove wallpaper, washing machine, dryer, counters, and cabinets. Initially, the old stove was going to remain. Eventually, we decided to sack that as well.
   
2. Knock out a closet from the next room, and utilize the space for the kitchen.
   
3. Paint walls; tile backsplashes.
   
4. Install retro-styled, black and white commercial vinyl tile in a checkerboard pattern.
   
5. Install Ikea kitchen cabinets, ceiling lights and under cabinet lights.
   

So here's what it looked like before the carnage:

Note the absolutely useless nook in the far corner -- you can't use the counter space or the cabinets under the counter. The wall jutting out hides the closet that's set to be annexed to this kitchen. Someday.
So here's what it looked like after step 1: appliances/wallpaper/counters/cabinets removed:

A funny thing happened after the wallpaper was removed... the walls looked horrible (although still not as bad as they looked with the wallpaper). As half of the wall was coming down, Brian figured he should replace the plaster with wallboard. Parts of the other three walls were in rough shape as well. Not sure if the pics do justice to the large cracks, uneven surfaces, and poor transitions from where some plaster was removed and wall board installed. All in all, not something that a coat of paint can cover up. So Brian decided to rip down all the walls and start from scratch. That way he could also insulate the exterior walls and upgrade all the electrical.

Here's the closet with the kitchen wall plaster and lathe removed. You can see the plaster from the closet:


Once the closet plaster and lathe is removed, you can see the closet door. The closet frame is all that remains:


Once the frame's gone, you can see the closet ceiling and floor will need to be matched with the kitchen ceiling and floor. And that junction box needs work too:


Another view of the now defunct closet. Note the new track lighting system, and some new plumbing work:

Here's a shot of the dumpster we rented, with what's left of the kitchen walls:

This weekend, we're installing insulation on the 2 exterior-facing walls. Also, I hope to install a new ceiling fixture, but no promises.

Basement work

We contracted this work out, and unfortunately I really don't have any good before pics. But there are some good during pics. Good enough anyway to get a feeling for how anxious we were when the concrete was poured. Anyway onto the pics:

Stairs leading to basement are removed, you can see what the walls looked like on the left here:


First they constructed a footing, then they built up forms on this footing. Here's what the forms looked like:
Before the concrete arrived, the forms were reinforced:

Forms reinforced, here comes several tons of concrete (we even needed a second truck):
Forms removed, here's what it looks like now, a much more stable foundation: