And the Kitchen Sink As Well
Cabinets, counter top, appliances, sink, faucet, garbage disposal, and dishwaser: I think that’s officially a functioning kitchen.
Water lines by Rube Goldberg, aka what happens when you tell the guy at Home Depot that you want to hook up a dishwasher without soldering anything.
Eh — maybe I should have just left well enough alone.
Another couple run-throughs without leaking and I’ll put the cover panel back on the dishwasher. You were wondering.
bkd
This Is What the Kitchen Looks Like Now
Some calm, boring day in the future I’ll do a retrospective video slideshow that I’ll never want to watch again. In the meantime, for those living vicariously, here’s what the kitchen looks like as of an hour ago. No, it’s not done. It will never be done. Srsly.
Hoping to get the sink, dishwasher, and disposal done this weekend still. Today? Sure, I’ll hope that, whatever.
Still to go:
- Sink
- Faucet
- Dishwasher
- Disposal
- Sink Cabinet Doors
- Toe Kicks
- Caulk on Countertops
- Outlets (2x)
- Backsplash (this might not happen soon)
- Over-the-Range Microwave (ibid)
- Window Blinds
- Baseboards
- Paint Touch-Up
- Floor Transition Strip
So I got that going for me.
bkd
Kitchen Floor: Slated
Still needs to be washed another 30 times and then sealed (twice? we’ll see), but otherwise it’s done. Enjoy the photo retrospective. Or not, whatever works for you.
What the in-store sample tiles looked like.
It wasn’t very gauged, either.
The dry run. Also on the floor: a hammer, wire strippers, small wonder bar, four-foot level, joint tape, and a Dremel.
Thinset.
It’s like an under-utilized veterans’ cemetery where there was in-fighting about what direction the crosses should face.
Spray away, buddy.
All done but the grouting.
The float at work. I’m not sure in what sense it “floats”.
Semi-dry grout awaiting clean-up.
Light’s green, trap’s clean.
It occurs to me that life is like a box of slate tile: (1) you never know what you’re going to get; (2) even once you see what you have, you have no idea the ramifications of it or how it’s all going to work out; (3) then you cement them to your floor because, man, you gotta do *something*; and then (4) it becomes permanent and you live with it.
Was also weird to me how different the floor looked before and after grouting. Before: wild, like there were a bunch of rocks on the floor. After: like the floor in some fairy-tale castle. Kind of liked the wild floor better. Maybe I’ll see if I can get a three-inch-deep stream of water to flow over it permanently, that might help.
bkd
PS, Next time I’ll over-order by 25-percent rather than 10.
PPS, Where you see all the dark tiles grouped together, those are the areas getting covered by cabinets and appliances.
Cutting Slate Tile with a Wet Saw
This was kind of fun.
And now I have a power tool that shoots muddy water at me. Finally.
bkd
Light Switch Replacement: 15 Photos
Nine switches down, four to go — upstairs. Then I can hit the basement! Good times, good times.
bkd
Installing the Kitchen Sub-Floor
And underlayment. The problem with this overall house renovation project is that it’s mostly finish work, which is no fun. Finally got to do something that wasn’t finish work. Now I want to go and frame something or shoot some .22 rounds into concrete maybe. Next house.
Not pictured that should’ve been:
- Dremeling the underlayment to fit.
- Applying the latex underlayment putty to a couple uneven spots.
It was just the area where the old cabinets used to be and the floor exposed by taking out the wall that needed new sub-floor and underlayment. Took a few tries to figure out what thickness both of those needed to be (19/32 for the subfloor, 5 mm for the underlayment). Learned that all wood screws aren’t the same and that just because two boxes of nails have the exact same description on them, that doesn’t mean they’re the same quality of nail.
And if anyone in the Pgh area needs help installing a new plywood sub-floor, I’d be happy to help.
bkd
Bedroom Getting on Toward Done-ish
Befores and currents:
Other direction.
Done:
- Floor stripped, sanded, and re-finished.
- Closet hardware removed.
- Closet wall and ceiling replaced.
- Ceiling primed and painted.
- Walls primed and painted (“Barraud House Blue” and “Tyler Stone Medium”).
- Trim primed and painted.
- Baseboards cut to fit modern registers.
- New registers installed.
- New light fixture installed.
- New three-prong outlets installed (x3).
- New light switch.
- New closet organizer installed.
That’s really not much of a list. It really shouldn’t have taken so long.
Still to Come:
- Window coverings (x2).
- Ceiling vent replacement.
- Door painted and replaced.
Really looking forward to it.
bkd
Removing Vinyl Tile: A True Story
Maybe it’s just factual, not so much true. Anyway: here’s a video of me removing a vinyl tile from the kitchen floor. I think the video captures 85 to 90 percent of the tension and raw emotion of the live event.
The sound in the background is the fan in the living room. It’s 95 degrees outside and I don’t have air conditioning is why. Some of the tiles came off more easily than this one and some were more difficult. I finished about half the floor, but wanted to leave a race track around the edges so I can paint without having to walk on glue residue. The word “residue” seems underutilized.
bkd
Kitchen Plan an IKEA Fan Made for Me
I think this is what I’m going with. Turns out my kitchen is small. I’m probably not going with the doors shown here, though. They cost extra.
I’m probably going with these instead. Yep.
Yeah, so I posted a question on ikeafans.com and a couple people responded with completed designs. Pretty cool.
bkd
First of the Gang to Die
My greatest victory of the project so far: fixing the one bum circuit in the upstairs. I’ve had only occasional electrical in my living room and two big bedrooms. For some reason it took me a month to figure out that the problem might be caused by one bad connection at the start of the circuit. Then it took me two more weeks to figure out that the outlet in the corner of the living room — you know, directly above the breaker box in the garage, might be the first outlet on the circuit. Then I replaced it and everything worked and, yeah.
Here’s what the inside of that outlet box looked like:
You can sort of see that the shielding has worn away on those wires there. I guess that’s bad. Trimmed them down, taped them up, stuck them back in the box. Brilliance on my part. Also, turned out that these old outlets are grounded after all (even though they’re two-prong outlets), which is sort of super.
I’ve also started (very gradually) swapping out the other outlets and light switches.
The old push-button switches look all cool and stuff, but in reality they just sort of don’t work well and I’m replacing them. But cool-looking.
bkd