News!

I don't know if anyone is still watching this blog, but, we have news:

Almost four years after beginning our kitchen remodeling project, we have finally ordered our wall cabinets!!

Our last update was December 2008, two months before Isaac was born! At that point our plan was to save enough money to use cash to buy the cabinets. We actually had the money saved by that spring, but Isaac had to spend a week in the hospital with RSV, and our cabinet money went toward our medical insurance deductible.

We started saving again, and by the time we saved up enough, Isaac was needing tests for some minor developmental delays, including a very expensive MRI. There went our cabinet money toward another deductible. Soon after that, we needed to buy a car, so there wasn't much hope of saving up very quickly.

This week, however, we finally received the balance of our federal adoption tax credit. Yay! After several months of letters from the IRS asking for more paperwork proving the adoption, and proving the expenses toward the adoption, they decided we qualified for the credit. The day after the money was deposited in our checking account, we headed to Home Depot to order the cabinets.

I'm not sure how long it will be till they come in, but we will certainly post some pictures of the process, and the completed kitchen.

nearly finished

Since we last posted, I've built the small white cabinet in front of the chimney and added the chopping block top, and put up four window moldings and sills, and other miscellaneous moldings. I'm now working on door moldings. We've also bought three bar stools, and installed the range.

Sink!

Mark worked all day, and finally got the sink installed...almost.

The sink is in, the faucet is hooked up, the garbage disposal is installed, but the drainpipe isn't connected to the sink drains. So, we have running water in the kitchen, but we have no easy way of disposing of it yet. For now we have a tub under the sink to catch the water. Hey, it's still a huge improvement over having no water at all.

Some good friends of ours were so kind as to offer to buy us a faucet for our new kitchen. How thoughtful! We picked this one out because one of the friends has it and their kitchen, and we really like it.

He looks very tired, doesn't he? He's been working so hard all day. But everything works, and there are no leaks! Yay!

Still a little more work to be done. It would have been done tonight, except the guy at the plumbing store sold Mark the wrong kind of trap for our plumbing. But a bucket will work for now.

We Have Counters!

The countertops came in last Monday, and Mark and I installed them (well, mostly Mark, but I helped). It makes a huge difference in how things look--it looks close to being finished! As I write Mark is downstairs installing the sink and garbage disposal--hopefully that will be done tonight. Having running water in our kitchen is going to be amazing!


Here's an idea of what they look like up close--they're black with whitish streaks that look like slate.

base cabinets

Here's where things stand now. We're waiting on the countertops to come in. We're also still waiting to see if the discount cabinet place can get any wall cabinets for us, otherwise we'll have to buy them from Home Depot which will be more expensive. I haven't gotten much done on the moldings. I'm out of the habit of working on the kitchen now, so it's hard to get started on anything. Plus I've been spending more time doing gardening.

New flooring

I've gotten alot done since my last post, but I don't have pictures of everything yet. We finally took our old 1960's oven out to the curb a few weeks ago so I could put down the underlayment. It was in this state for a couple weeks while I filled the cracks and nail heads with wood filler and sanded.

We moved all our living room furniture into the dining room so we could unroll the new sheet vinyl to let it flatten out and then transfer the design and cut it out.

It is now firmly affixed to the kitchen flooor, which was quite a difficult job which Mindy helped me with. It's not perfect, but I just have to remind myself of the old faded, ripped, rumpled, grease stained carpet and be grateful for the vast improvement.

Thursday night (during Lost) I finished tuck pointing the chimney. Today I finished installing the base cabinets, which required much shimming and adjusting to get them level and parallel to the pattern on the floor. Tomorrow someone is coming from Home Depot to measure for the countertops and place the order. In the two weeks or so that it takes to get the counters delivered I will work on window and door moldings, kick plates and quarter rounds. And if I have time, I need to build a broom closet to go next to the new range.

I'll post more pictures when Mindy takes them.

Top coat done

I know it doesn't look done, but we just didn't paint behind where the cabinets are going to go to save paint. I only bought one gallon so we had to strech it a little. After finishing the blue, I realized I still hadn't done any mudding behind the oven, which we left sitting there so we can continue to use it. I finished the mudding the last couple days and tonight primed it. We have a little bit of blue left so I will paint that tomorrow.

We finalized our choice of flooring and I ordered it tonight. It's a sandstone colored sheet vinyl with a 9 inch square pattern. As soon as that comes in we'll take the old oven out to the curb so I can nail down the 1/4" underlayment, which Mindy and I bought and strapped to the roof of my car last weekend.

walls primed

slow

Well, I had hoped to get the mudding completely finished before this weekend but it didn't happen. It took all of Monday evening to sand the first coat, and all of Tuesday evening to do less than half of a second coat, and I will need at least one more skim coat coat to smooth things out.

In this first picture you can see some wood shims on the wall which are holding pieces of wire which I will use to pull the actual wiring through the walls for the recessed xenon lights under the cabinets. I ordered Pockit lights that hadn't come in yet at the time we hung the drywall.

mud & tape

All the drywall is hung now, and although the pictures don't show it, there is one complete coat of mud and tape on the seams and screws.

No more sink

This morning I removed the sink and remaining base cabinets. I was then able to finish insulating and drywall the last outside wall. I also put in the outlet for the new dishwasher and disposal. So tonight Mindy and I washed dishes in the basement sink.

Gas pipe

This little gas valve took me two trips to Home Depot and 3 hours work to install. Now we have the capability of gas or electric range. We got a dul fuel (gas range/electric oven) so I had to install a new 120 V outlet for the oven and the gas supply for the range.

Plumbing

This weekend I replaced some iron pipes supplying our upstairs bathroom. It had to be done now, since the wall containing the pipes was exposed. Here's my new beautiful copper plumbing!

Header drywalled

I finished drywalling the header over the old wall and doorway today. I also started chipping out the old mortar between the bricks of the chimney. This feels like a major victory because I was avoiding doing the tuck pointing since I've never done it before. Now I've broken the barrier and can move forward without fear of the unknown. That sounded a bit epic.

Ceiling done

Yesterday my Dad helped me drywall the ceiling. We finished it, and got one wall board up. I had thought of putting 12' sheets on the ceiling to avoid butt joints, but I decided I'd rather spend a little extra time mudding and sanding than struggle with 12 footers. I'm glad I did, because we had a hard enough time with the 8 footers.

Lots of wires

I've added 9 new circuits in the kitchen: one for each outlet, dishwasher, disposal, microwave, oven and one for the lights.

Some Pink Stuff

Last window

Here it is at last. It looks a bit small in the picture, but actually lets in a lot of light and affords a nice view of the back yard. I've started insulating already.

windows!

Today we had three new windows put in. The one on the right has been made smaller to allow for the fridge to the left and a counter below.

The blank wall below will have a new window in it tomorrow. You can just make out two small holes the workmen drilled in the siding to locate the position of the new opening.

The other big news is that all the wiring is finished, exept the plugs for the dishwasher and disposal, which I will install after I tear out the old base cabinets and counter top. I plan on insulating and drywalling the rest of the room before I do that so we can postpone tearing out the sink until absolutely necessary.

Progress

(This is Mindy posting)

We've had some progress in the last couple of weeks, but haven't taken time to post. First off--Mark finished tearing down the plaster, and tore out the wall cabinets. Here is the sink wall before:

and after:

Besides the fact that we no longer have a place to store many of our dishes or our boxed and canned foods, this development has made things very dismal in the kitchen. While it is still functional (sink and oven/stove still work fine), I don't like being in here. I have avoided cooking for the last three or four days.

On the bright side (pun intended), today Mark finished installing the recessed lighting. Before, the one overhead light we had was very dim, and cast shadows whenever you stood in front of the sink or stove. Also, there was only one switch to turn it on or off--that switch was by the back door, which didn't help if you weren't coming in to the kitchen from the outside. Now, we have a switch at both doors, and with three can lights strategically placed, I think we'll have plenty of light. Mark still plans to install a light right over the sink, and some under-cabinet lighting, but aleady the kitchen is significantly brighter.