Back into the game

It's been awhile but we are back to working on the house. We did do a few random projects over the winter. Chris worked on getting his workshop set up and I finished up the door for the bathroom which was one of the hold overs from the kitchen project. I'll have to post about that one later as it was necessary to do some minor repairs to get the bathroom door in order.

This most recent burst of home improvement mojo is due to refinancing, a 2% drop in interest rate was just way to good to pass up. Especially when the mortgage lady thinks the kitchen remodel may jump up the home's value by 10,000. We shall see, but at any rate I want the stairs to be nice and complete because every little bit helps.

Anyways on to the pictures.

Here is what the stairs looked like in March of 2007, it's frightening but this project has been going on for 2 years. Yikes! I guess we let this one spiral a bit out of control.

And here is what they looked like after the removal of the paneling and carpet. Not bad but the tack strip removal and years of carpet encapsulation definitely was a bit rough on them. On a side note look at those awful kitchen walls. It's true what they say it definitely gets worse before it gets better.

After stripping, cleaning, sanding, and 3 coats of Waterlox over the past 3 days they look like this. I'm pretty excited that whatever the next project it won't involve hanging out on the stairs.
Paint will go on over the course of this next week. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be nice to finally have this wrapped up.

Grouted and caulked

Here is the updated pictures the tile is grouted, caulked and we got to take down all the plastic and admire it. The next and last hurdle is the floor. Wish us luck.

Continuing our slow limp to the finish

Today we did make some good forward progress with the tile we're at about 90% right now should only be another hour tomorrow to get the rest of it laid. We would have been finished today but Chris installed the new lights today and the thought of tripping over one another while we occupied the same space on totally different projects was not pleasing.

The new lights are the Quimby from Rejuvenation. When we pulled them from the box originally I was not pleased with them they were not quite what I expected. Because the wire on the fixture is exposed they use lamp wire to run through chain and up to the electrical box. When they arrived the lamp wire was pulled very tight so tight that it kinked the chain and made the fixture appear crooked. They also have a ground wire running from the box down to the light itself. It is inconspicuous now that they are hung but down at eye level it was a bit displeasing. We adjusted the cord and tinkered with them a bit and they are hanging much straighter now. After seeing them properly mounted I think that they really work and I cannot imagine having anything else in their place.


I also had some concerns that they would not be bright enough it seems that almost all kitchens will have a center light in addition to the pendants. However they seem to be fine we will also have lights on the stove hood and will most likely add a small undercabinet light to the corner closest to the sink.

Here is an updated shot of the tile. Tomorrow morning's tiling will consist of adding bull nose pieces to the edges and the addition of 2 rows of tile below counter top level in the stove area once those areas are finished up we will be ready for grout. We are scheduled to have visitors next weekend so it is unlikely grout will be applied so the tile project will probably carry on for at least 2 more weekends. In the meantime I will be starting to sand up the floor.

Tile Progress

Well the counter top is all stuck down and we are at about 40% on the back splash tile. We still need to do the other 60% of the back splash plus grout to complete the project. Chris and I are working as a team on this I do the layout, he does the cutting, and I apply the tile and then he will finish up with grout.

We pre-laid out all the tile but the first sink side got all discombobulated in the process of sticking the tiles down with the thin set so approximately 20 tiles had to be re-cut. The second side we only had to re-cut about 6 tiles so we did improve dramatically. Anyways on to the pics

Cabinets, Part 2

It is now day 2 of the cabinet install. Looks like it's going to be a couple of hours again tomorrow. Although I wish that it were done it is somewhat gratifying to know that we're not the only ones that have trouble beating the old girl into submission.

Here are todays install shots. The rest of the base cabinets are installed, the counter top base is in, and the hood is installed. Troy also installed the knobs for us. True this is something we could have done ourselves but at this point we can use all the help we can get.

The sink was also installed today. The sink has always been an interesting design challenge. You see our sink is right next to the refrigerator which is less than ideal to begin with and then when you work in the semi custom realm of cabinets things don't always work out perfect so we had to choose would the sink be centered on the the cabinet or would it be centered on the window. We went for the window. Right now I'm having a little bit of self doubt about choosing the window but I am relatively confident that when the faucet is installed it will all come together.

I'm also going to have to work out some things as far as the tile. The sink ended up being a lot larger than I thought it would be leaving only a small area to tile to the left of the sink and on the front edge. I'm hoping that if I draw it up I'll be able to work out all of the kinks.

Day 405 - We have Cabinets

After 405 days our Kitchen has Cabinets once again. The install isn't complete but it is an excellent start.

Here is what the kitchen looked like on our first tour of the house.

I certainly think it's an improvement. I'm excited to see what it will look like when it's finished. Troy will be back on Monday at 7:00 to finish up in addition to the cabinets he's going to install the base for the counter tops as well as the sink. Which will be very nice. I can't wait.

Weekend Update - The Grand De Dusting

We had a successful weekend on the house we finally got the kitchen de-dusted and Chris did a very impressive job replicating the trim on the two windows that we added. I spent Sunday night shellacking the wood, a process I am not going to do again that dyed shellac is a total and complete pain in the ass to work with but I committed myself early in the process and at this point I just need it to match. I'm going to see how dying the polyurethane or using the dye to make an alcohol stain works with the pine in future projects I also want to tame the color a bit as it turned out a bit darker when brushed than I intended. Anyways on to the photos...

Plaster

First off I will answer the question why in the heck did we decide to plaster in the first place. The first and totally impractical reason is that I just happen to like it. The second and much more practical reason that we decided to try plaster is that it has the benefit of of a flexible depth, which is very handy when transitioning from new wall surface to the old. If you have ever attempted to compensate for a difference in surface wall heights using joint compound you will know what I am talking about.

We decided to use a veneer plaster system we were able to find blueboard at our local home improvement store as well as Diamond Veneer Finish Plaster. However the prefered method is not to use just the finish plaster but to have a basecoat in between. Of course they didn't carry the basecoat so I went on a wild goose all over town. The moral of the story is don't screw around with the home improvement stores when you can go right to the building supply place.

The plaster turned out ok, it was hard work and although in general I improved on every wall I did I have a long way to go I ended up having to sand high spots and fill the low spots with spackle. Would I do it again? Yes, but I'm going to need awhile to recover.

Window Installation

Saturday Morning Troy came out to install the window that we ordered back in May. It took him about 2.5 hours and he took care of rough finishing for the inside and the outside. He also repaired one of the boots on our waste stack.

Before:

After:
The smaller windows do make things a little darker in the kitchen but the benefits far outweigh the costs. We'll be gaining some much needed counter space and we got rid of one of the vinyl windows to boot. I just don't care for natural wood trim up against a stark white window I don't think it looks very attractive.

We have a trim color

My Brown Mahogany TransTint Dye came on Thursday afternoon and Saturday afternoon I got a chance to try it out.

First I had to calculate the proper proportions of dye to shellac the bottle says 1 oz of dye to 1 quart of shellac. I scaled the recipe back to 1.56CCs of dye to 50CCs of shellac. For this step I used one of my measuring cups from Rockler and a syringe I bought from the farm section of my local Fleet Farm. I ordered some syringes and assorted measuring vessles from American Science and Surplus on Friday but alas they did not arrive on time.



Next I measured out the dye and shellac, I had to dump the dye out on a little plastic saucer in order to suck it up with the syringe the neck of the dye bottle was just a bit too small


After measuring out the proper proportions I mixed the dye into the shellac and then applied to my sample piece using a piece of an old t-shirt
I was so pleased with the way it came out I stripped my original test piece and refinished it with the shellac.

New (Here I'm comparing it with the trim that is yet to be stripped, I may darken this piece up a bit with another coat):

Old:By my calculations I should need two bottles of dye to slightly less than one gallon of shellac. I'm still thinking I should be able to do all the kitchen trim and doors with one gallon of shellac. Once I get the final mixed up I should be able to finish the door that has been sitting in my shop since January. Whoo hoo, Progress!