Kitchen demo & repairs just about done

Hooray for the holiday weekend: 3 full days of demolition fun!

But first, some pictures of a mama raccoon moving her three or four babies to a new home. She got them up the back wall, onto the roof, and down the security gate on the front. It took a whole day.

Then, off they went into the neighbor's bushes.

Back to the kitchen. We started with this bank of cabinets on the north side of the room. It was the easier of the two to deal with -- no sink, no pipes, and I knew the counter was just resting on top:

Foreman Pickles inspects the job site.

They all unscrewed easily from the wall &, after some muscling to loosen them up from the toe kick, came out cleanly. Except for this one:

This is AJ wondering how we're going to get it out from under the new counter, without damaging the counter. She may also be praying for guidance.

We ended up having to completely destroy it, and take it out in pieces. Mission accomplished:

That pipe is an old gas line. We figure the stove must have been over on that side at some point. It's completely disconnected now, but stuck firmly in the wall, so we'll ask Mr. Bunkport his opinion on removing it.

Next: removing the wood paneling:

Good job, AJ the Builder!

As usual, Pickles kept watch outside, to make sure no intruders got near the garden bed:

All of that went pretty easily. As expected, the counters on the other side of the room were a lot tougher. We had to take all the cabinets out in pieces to leave the gas lines for the stove and the sink in place. We're holding on disconnecting either of those until the very last minute, to minimize the length of time we're without either.

Here is AJ expertly wielding her wrecking bar, after we cut and removed the countertop to the left of the sink:

Finally, we got it all out:

After we got all the debris out of the house, we set to disinfecting and cleaning up decades of mouse parties.

Dead critter count: 2.

As expected, the floors need substantial repair work from a professional.

It's hard to show in the photo, but there is a significant slope that needs to be leveled -- there is a drop of about 2 inches over 12 feet:

This is the spot on the far left of the above photo, where the original floor meets the new floor built in 2014, to give you an idea of the drop:

There is also beetle damage underneath this fine linoleum:

And plenty of big holes.

Here is a quarter-sized mouse hole on the north side of the room, worn smooth from decades of happy traffic:

And, on the south side (the sink side), here is a mess:

After cleanup, we started patching and repairing the walls. Overall, the walls are in much better condition than we expected.

I thought the space next to the stove would need substantial patching. It's actually covered with some sort of linoleum-style material printed in a tile pattern:

I can't see any reason to try to get it off and release whatever nastiness might be lurking under there. It will be mostly hidden, so we're just going to paint over it and move on.

 We only needed to cut about half a dozen small drywall patches. Here is AJ measuring, marking, and cutting out patches:

Most of what was needed were small rectangles. There was a tricky one needed behind the stove, though -- it was a large, irregular rectangle shape, with a cutout for an electrical outlet. Here is AJ's fine work:

It fit perfectly! Here is the finished patch, to show how great it worked out:

By lunch time on Monday, we had all the debris out and tucked in the garage:

Yes, many of the cabinets are actually made out of wood paneling.

I'm hoping to reuse about seven feet worth of the cabinets that came out cleanly, plus the long counter, to make another bank of cabinets for the workshop area of the garage.

This is now all that remains of the former kitchen:

After that, we got through some odds and ends tasks, such as making a tool to help get the tile level. Here is AJ trimming up a piece of plywood cut out from the back of one of the cabinets:

Then, I stapled on an old ironing board cover I just replaced, and added a handle:

AJ braved cooking one last real dinner, for old times' sake:

For the last time, we turned on our version of a range hood, this fan blowing on the hardwired smoke detector:

And after much walking to & from the living room, much asking where various things have been put, and somehow maneuvering on the four square feet of counter space left next to the sink, she produced these delicious fish and grilled pepper tacos:

Obviously a glutton for punishment, she then turned around the next morning and made waffles topped with her sister Meghann's famous homemade pepper jelly:

Next up: pull out the sink and have Mr. Bunkport come to fix the floors and install the new range hood.

Kitchen: GO!

Kitchen fun times have begun!

I started Saturday with a quick trip to the hardware store for drywall repair supplies. I didn't have to get any sheets of drywall to make patches out of, though -- someone put these 4'x3' scraps of drywall out on the sidewalk. These are perfect for the holes we will need to patch.

Job number one: mice have been having a party on the top of the cabinets, so first thing first, spray down the top of the cabinets with a bleach-water disinfectant mixture:

AJ held up a stage coach right after doing this.

Next step: take down the cabinets!

I should have taken a closer picture -- you might be able to see it here, but none of the corners or joints had been finished, so that was repair job number one.

And here's where the mice have been coming in:

Sneaky bastards!

Here's my first ever drywall repair:

I also found that the back corner ceiling was starting to sag -- there's nothing to attach the drywall to in that corner, so I guess the guys just stuck it up there and hoped for the best. I put up a 2-foot piece of wood to support the corner, and am also now hoping for the best.

Getting that corner to look neat was unbelievably tricky, so I feel compelled to immortalize it, in particular:

Next, we moved on to the cabinets. We are going to try to reuse two of them.

First thing, remove the grease of ages using vinegar, & scuff the laminate surface to help the paint adhere better:

Next -- prime:

Last step -- a coat of semi-gloss bright white:

 

Ready to roll!

Third project this weekend: seal the saltillo tiles leftover from The Big Project of 2014.

We have about 10 full tiles & several half-tiles left over from that project that we can use on the parts of the floor that will be visible after we remove the lower cabinets. We also had a quarter gallon of tile sealer left over, as well, so off we went:

Why are we sealing the tile ourselves & not having the contractor do it, you ask? Because we have decided to lay the tile ourselves! It's completely madcap, but also a great chance to get some experience doing it: it's only about 30 tiles, mostly hidden under furniture, so even though saltillo is trickier than regular tile, it's lower stakes than trying this for the first time on a whole floor.

Even better, all the stuff we will need to do it is covered by this gift card that I got from our mortgage company as a thank you a couple months ago: 

Can't wait to get started on that in a couple weeks.


Lastly, meant to post this last time -- for your amusement, here is the high traffic part of our kitchen, now in the living room, in the bottom half of the china cabinet:

Next week: removing the lower cabinets, doing more wall repairs, and hopefully priming!

Curtains, blinds & final week of kitchen prep

Last week, we busied ourselves with some final tasks and errands needing to be done before starting the kitchen.

Ikea cabinets were assembled:

This one received the Pickles Seal Of Approval.

I spent a @#$@$ hour removing this #@$(* chimney from the back of the #@$*#@ stove so that we can get the #@$@@ thing into the @#$)@*#$@ house:

Pickles helped in her usual way, from the garden bed:

And we began moving stuff out of the kitchen cabinets:

After all that, I put up these curtains we had gotten at Ikea while getting the kitchen stuff:

The guy at Ikea forgot to sell us the drain assemblies that go with the new sink, and, of course, the sink requires a hard-to-find size, so Susie very kindly (& bravely) ventured with me to Ikea on Saturday. For the uninitiated, Saturdays in there are like the running of the bulls in Pamplona. We started our adventure by fortifying ourselves with Swedish meatballs at the Ikea cafe (cafe? cafeteria? kafe?):

And, of course, they had exactly one drain assembly in stock (don't forget we need two), and no plans to get any more in the warehouse for another month, so I had to go back to trying to find one online (I did eventually get lucky). Frustrating, but while we were there, I picked up these cordless blinds:

As proof of how great they are, look at how soundly Pickles is sleeping here:

This is Pickles before she got up the next morning. You have seen many, many pictures of her napping during the day, but never one of her before she got up. Usually when I get up, she does, too, but for whatever reason on this day, she just kept on snoozing. Must be the blinds.

Yes, she sleeps on the couch in the bedroom. Mostly isn't interested in sleeping on the human bed. She just prefers the couch.

We also picked up the tile from a place just down the hill (turned out the the tile company had discontinued the tiles we used originally, of course, but we found a pretty decent match -- thank you to Auntie Berta, Auntie Mary, & Mama O'Brien for their input on Plan B!), and got baseboard trim.

Ready to roll!

In other news, last weekend, there was a major fire in the building next to the one where we lived before we moved to Mars. The building where the fire started was completely destroyed, and our old apartment, #31, is too damaged for the tenants to get back into: 

Other neighboring buildings were damaged and destroyed, as well, displacing 40-50 people.

Needless to say, we're feeling very, very lucky right now.

Assembling must-have materials for the kitchen

We're now only three weeks out from starting the kitchen, so we spent some time this week working on getting the remaining must-haves for the project: sink, furniture for the sink, faucet, vent hood, and floor tiles.

AJ's dream sink is a vintage double-bowl farmhouse sink, like the one her grandmother had. And my dream is to find an interesting old cabinet that we refinish and cut a hole in to fit the sink into. Our original idea was to spend some time going around to recycled building materials places, flea markets, etc. to see if we could fulfill our dreams, but 1) those sinks are in demand so will be hard to find and likely expensive if we did find one, and 2) the prospect of spending weekends driving around shopping rather than sitting in the backyard in the sun was unappealing. So this week, we cut to the chase and went to Ikea.

We got this sink and faucet combo:

The sink cost less than half what I've seen farmhouse reproductions going for elsewhere, so our budget is happy about that.

Done.

We also got this low-profile vent hood/extractor for a good price:

Done.

We went ahead and bought the cabinetry that's designed to go with them, as well. Mr. Bunkport is very clever and can make any random assortment of components work, but we want to have him in and out fast, so we decided to take the path of least resistance.

We picked the beadboard-style cabinet fronts:

 

And these porcelain and nickel knobs:

 

Done.

We also bought a set of these nickel rails for the walls, to hang pots and pans on:

And we bought this ivory-colored steel utility cart to replace the lazy susan corner cabinet that's going away. It will sit under or next to a worktable that we're replacing that bank of cabinets with.

We took the rails and cart home with us from the store. Everything else is being delivered next Thursday.

Here is an updated drawing of what things will look like (more or less...I can only get so far with this tool):

The table-ish thing in the corner is the one the cart will go under or next to, depending on what we finally decide. The height of the vent/extractor is just a guess right now -- it needs to be a certain height over the stove, but not so high that AJ can't reach it. Once we figure that out, we'll address the weirdness with the other cabinet being a radically different size.

On Saturday, I spent some time researching local places to get the 33 square feet of tile we will need to finish the floor when all the lower cabinets come out. We ordered the tiles for The Big Project from an online source. That ended up being a very rough experience: the site was frustratingly unclear whether you were ordering by the tile or by the box (10 to a box, it's the difference between buying 200 square feet and 2000 square feet), a company rep tried very hard to help but was ineffective, the shipment ended up going to a port depot instead of being delivered to the house and sat there for a week or two before we were notified, and the percentage of broken tiles was excessive so we have patches on the floor where the guy had to use a different type of tile to make up for the shortfall (we got a refund for the broken tiles, but those patches are irritating). This time, we're happy to pay a little more to avoid all that hassle. I should be able to submit the order on Monday or Tuesday, and have it arrive at the store for pickup in time for the start of the project.

Lastly, on Saturday, I also firmed up the final elements of the project plan, putting together a to-do list with dates over the next three weeks for our remaining prep work.

Here we go!

More tiny projects

Spent this weekend studying and working at the new bench.

First, a couple additions to the workspace.

The workbench needed some additional light. This bike-wheel-turned-light-fixture that I got from a friend moving to Hawaii is perfect:

The space also needed a place to sit down. This fine pleather chair happened to be out on the sidewalk for free:

Pickles isn't sure pleather is quite the right aesthetic. She is wrong.

After getting all that organized, I could get back to that planter I started last week. Here is the finished product:

From further back:

After we get some soil, we are going to transplant some of the fast-growing lillies from the front of the house into it.

Lastly, I took some of the 4x4's that had been supporting  the kitchen in the house's former life, and edged the garden with them:

When I have time to plant a garden again, this will help keep the water on the garden soil instead of it running off into the mulch. I'm going to plant some flowers there in the meantime. Pickles likes the dirt patch aesthetic, but once again, she is wrong.

Lastly, we spent another lovely Sunday at Jonny's, making flatbread pizzas on the grill and watching Tootsie outside on his deck, projected onto a wall. His gorgeous fire pit kept us warm late into the evening:

Thank you for another wonderful evening, Jon!