Measure a couple times, drill a couple more

I had a remodel hiatus while I was out of town through the weekend, but I returned yesterday and commemorated Memorial Day 08 by installing and assembling cabinets. My good friends, Monster and the Commish, came over to help. It was so fun--even when I became a major stress case when the Commish used his mitre saw to shorten up some of the trim already installed around the window. But because he is a whiz with the saw and I'm a whiz with drywall mud, you'd never even know we performed a miracle--unless of course you come over to see the kitchen in which case we both will probably tell you about how amazing we are and what we did.

The story I probably won't tell you is about how I forgot how high I wanted to hang the cabinets and accidentally hung them too low the first time. But we considered that a dry run, repeated our steps and rehung them. And except for you, and the next person that remodels this kitchen, nobody will ever know.

Here are the hung cabinets. I am really impressed with us (and with IKEA, which you know I heart), only I don't think these pictures do the work we did today justice. Trust me, the cabinets (even without their doors and hardware) look amazing!

Be on the look out for more cabinet installation updates later this week...

Week in review (vol. 3)

Floors were refinished.

Other than that it was a low-key week and weekend which allowed me to do some yard work and help my friend the Commish replace a portion of his sidewalk. Heck yes. I added sidewalk making to my personal resume.

Not much will be happening in kitchen land until after the holiday weekend, and then you can expect a few action packed weeks.

This picture's worth a thousand dollars

Give or take a few bucks. Seriously.

Today was floor day, and that's a big day. Last night after I pulled up the vinyl tiling, I had a moment of dread. When I was getting bids for the floor every person told me there would be no way to guarantee refinishing the floor. But then Kevin came into my life. He's a miracle worker, they say. From everything I heard and read, he is the Midas of fir floors.

But could Midas fix this?


Others said it would be difficult to get the adhesive off, that it would gum up the sander and that it would be nearly impossible. And this morning, when Kevin made a comment to the effect of, "Wow it's really sticky," I began to think it would be impossible. Especially when he taped off a good portion of my dining room. Could he really get it to match the existing floor?
Yes. Yes he can.
The floor is old, so I expected some discolorations, like the one you see by where the old sink was, but I actually like it. Especially because, look! Look how the kitchen is matching the dining room.
Trust Kevin, he does have the touch.

IOU

Here are more of the pictures I meant to upload after the weekend, a couple more views of the paint and the new wainscoted walls:

Week in Review

Week two didn't see much action until the weekend. On Friday evening, I finished attaching the wainscoting to the new wall covering the old chimney and also applied two coats of primer to the new walls.

Saturday was a day full of painting. Fortunately, I LOVE painting. LOVE it. Unfortunately, I'm ridiculously anal retentive when I paint, which means the result is good, but getting to that point is an intense process. It's best if I'm left alone to this project--in fact, a DIY painting project may have been the first step down the road to splitsville with my ex. Ah, but now I am the boss of my own painting projects, so neener-neener.

Gone is all of the yellow (well, you may see hints of yellow here and there but it will be covered by new moulding or subway tile). These pictures don't do the room justice, but on the walls you'll see Clarksville Grey (it's more of a brownish/greenish/grey), on the ceilings Linen White (quite possibly my most favorite paint color of all time--if you're looking for a beautiful white that's not too stark and has an antique-y feel to it, look no further) and White Dove on the wainscoting. All colors are from Benjamin Moore so they're a little on the spendy side, but are exceptionally high quality paints and beautiful colors (I've painted every room in my house except the bathroom with them).

That concludes my endorsement of Benny Moore's paints--I'll be collecting my check soon.

On the docket for this week:

1. Selling the old range--if not selling it, moving it out of the kitchen to make way for...
2. Floor refinishing on Thursday--this could stretch into the weekend so I'll be moving out for a few days.
3. If there's time, installing some of the wall cabinets--this seems like a HUGE step, one that I'm a little intimidated to take.

Keep your fingers crossed that Kevin the floor man can work the magic he's promised. Can't wait to see the results... stay tuned!

[FYI--More pictures coming, Blogger's not letting me add pictures at the moment, and I'm tired of trying to trick it into letting me do it]

Let there be a light!

After much battling with the light fixture that I love so much, I am proud to say that with little-to-no blood, a heck of a lot of sweat, a few tears of frustration, and one or two minor cursing fits that would have certainly made a handful of Seattle's finest sailors blush, my kitchen has a new light! (And in case you've forgotten, here's what she replaced.)

I'm just going to keep this image burned in my memory and try my best to forget the fact that I just attached that light to really old wiring. And also that when I took out the old fixture lots of stuff (and when I say stuff I mean little critter pellets and maybe things that critters would use to make a nest) fell out of the ceiling. I'm hoping that's all historical stuff and that I don't have any critters living up there now, because quite honestly, it was so hard getting that light up there in the first place that I don't think I have it in me to do it all over again.

And the last thing I'll say about that is that the stuff that fell out of the ceiling was less than one-tenth the size of the stuff I found in my basement earlier this winter, which means whatever was down there must have meant business. And I feel vindicated being wimpy and girlie.

Week in review

Because I've been thinking about this remodel since I bought the house (actually since my realtor brought me through the first time), it feels like I've been working on this project forever. Granted, I have done a ton of pre-work (buying appliances, setting up contractors, drawing and redrawing plans), but the project really didn't start until last weekend.

That means, it's only been one week, but it feels like it's been months. Maybe that's because so much has already been accomplished. Just one week ago, my kitchen looked like this:

And today, it already looks like this:Here's a little recap of what happened this week:

1. Demolition--104 years of wood and other things ripped off the walls and thrown out on to the deck (which I then neatly organized the next day on my back patio--it brought be great joy to organize the mess). This project was followed by much vacuuming.

2. Installing the new window--I was so freaked out and nervous about that impromptu decision, but I am so glad that the Man of Iron convinced me to do it.

3. More demolition--As the first round of demolition happened, it became apparent that the entire wall needed to go to make drywalling easier. I was hesitant at first, but after spending the better part of the weekend dry walling I realized that made a huge difference. My friend the Commissioner came over and helped (after the wall attacked me) and we knocked that project out in a few hours. Again, much vacuuming followed this project.

4. Plumbing, Electrical, and Door Installation, oh my!--These are three of the four the projects I'm not doing myself (or with the help of others). And I had them all in last week. Guess what followed them? That's right, vacuuming.

5. Insulating the walls--Decked out in layers of protective clothing to keep the fiberglass at bay, I installed insulation. All by myself. Yay.

6. Drywalling--Late Friday, the Man of Iron came over and we got to work drywalling. We worked into the wee hours of the morning, we got tired, he crashed on my couch, we got up early on Saturday and got back to work on the drywalling. There's more to show and tell here, but I'll save that for another post. This called for yet some more vacuuming.

7. Trimming out the windows--more on this in an upcoming post.

8. Cabinet assembly--late Saturday night, the Man of Iron and I started assembling cabinets. The joy of IKEA construction continued today as another friend stopped by and we threw together a few more.

And that, in a brief nutshell, was the first week of kitchen fun. Week number two holds much in store:

1. Finishing mud on drywall

2. Finish wainscoting the new wall.

3. Prime and paint

4. Finish cabinet assembly and start to hang wall cabinets

5. Vacuum (undoubtedly I'll be pulling that puppy out again. I've never vacuumed so much in all of my life)

Word of the day

Code. As in, "My electrical is now to."

Hooray for my electrician who came in and took out some of the scary old wiring, and the even scarier updated wiring that was done quite shoddily.

The beauty of this is I now have an outlet for my stove, as opposed to what I had before...

And, because my electrician is so great, he's installing canister lights on the covered portion of my deck just off the kitchen. I can't wait for summer!