Thursday Progress

Finally a few pictures of what all of this looks like. I didn't do a lot this evening - it's a short day because of a thursday night activity we go to. I put up the cabinet that goes over the refrigerator, brought in the big one the wall oven will go in, and cleaned up. Also lots of planning.





The cabinet for the oven will need to be modified for the oven to fit. Scary as it sounds, I'll be putting that in this weekend. Somehow. For starters, the hole in front isn't big enough. Better be careful trimming that because any mistakes will show. Then I get to build in support along 3 of the sides of the cabinet. Oven's gotta sit on something you know. Once that's in (done at the same time the cabinet goes in so I can hit as many studs as possible) I can find a way to install the oven and off we go. The one thing left over after that is that we need to find a new trim piece that goes along the bottom. Somehow that didn't make it. Luckily Sears carries it in stock and it's inexpensive.

This weekend will bring some big changes. I'll get done installing the cabinets because that's the most important part, then move on to preparing the walls and plastering them, and lastly the dishwasher will go in and the floors get grouted. Every day it looks like the end of this project is right around the corner and this weekend is no exception.

Multi-room Update

I've been busy since the last post. In the kitchen, the cabinets hanging on the wall above the cooktop are in, and the microwave is installed and up and running. All the fun stuff that makes that work (electrical and venting) took ages to do and I've got the cuts from making the vent ducting to prove it. The laundry room is also more or less put back together. Still need to finish up with grouting and baseboards in there. I think I'm happiest about having the microwave in. It's coooool compared to the old one, and it took less than a week from when the old one went out to the new one going in.

In the bedroom, the update is that the furniture is finally in! Things are getting close to being done in there; I lack reworking the blinds, cleaning the carpet and getting something nice to hang on the wall. Also the mirror was damaged during shipping so we'll have to wait on that.

Tomorrow I plan on getting the drywall back in one piece and grouting underneath the refrigerator. I also want to get the small cabinet that goes above it in, and I think I'll get to work on the huge cabinet where the wall oven goes. I don't think it'll be that big of a challenge to get in, but the challenge will be... getting it in. It's taller than the doorway and weighs a ton. It's also upside down right now. Anyway that's tomorrow. Friday will be finishing up where I left off there, and doing floor cabinets. Kind of crazy to think about it but I'll be more or less done with my work in the kitchen before long. Probably within a week. I guess after that it'll be time to throw down some tile in the bathrooms upstairs and start working on smaller stuff.

The end is in sight. It may not be near, but I can see things start to finish up.

Tile is DONE

The tile is finally DONE. Under the refrigerator, the hard pieces to cut where the kitchen and living room meet, under the washer and dryer, in the pantry and under the water softener. DONE. Even a small strip behind and in between the cabinets so all 4 sides will be supported by tile. Should make shimming the cabinets a lot easier...

I didn't do a lot else besides that. Just cleaning up some which is never enough, and grouting under where the washer and dryer will go so they can go where they belong tomorrow. Also got a few supplies for tomorrow and read up on the installation guide for the new microwave. Should be pretty easy.

So the gameplan for tomorrow is to pick up where I left off. Put the washer and dryer back, take care of everything the microwave will need, do a bit of plastering on the walls and put in the microwave. Basically a bunch of small stuff. Should be some pics tomorrow to look at because it'll start looking pretty different really quickly around here.

Two posts in the same day!

Actually finished everything I planned for the day. That's a first...



Snowy wonders why I won't walk around in the kitchen like he does.



It looks terrible but the stuff had to come out so I could tile the laundry room. At least that's done so I can go ahead and grout tomorrow and put the washer and dryer back in. Unfortunately we'll be without water for most of the day because I have to move the water softener so I can tile underneath it, and then the thin set has to take some time to dry before it can go back. I'll try and do this as early as possible to try and minimize the inconvenience.

So tomorrow the plan is to tile the last few odds and ends that need to be done, then do a little grouting in the laundry room and move on to working on the microwave wiring and vent. After that's done the sheetrock will need to be patched and then plaster can go up. I may just focus on that one area so I can get a few cabinets put back up and think about installing the microwave. If all that is done tomorrow I'll consider myself very lucky. Scary thing is, if I work hard on this the kitchen may be put back together by the end of the week except for countertops.

Saturday Morning Already?

I put down another 50lb thin set bag worth of tile this evening. Could've done more, but the two pieces going from the kitchen to the laundry room and pantry were really complex. Luckily I think those are the only nasty cuts. There's another doorway to deal with but I got lucky how everything comes together around it. Several small cuts on a bunch of tiles = good. Complex cuts on one tile = bad.

So anyway the informal dining room is done and the laundry room and pantry are getting there. The kitchen has all of two tiles in. The gameplan for tomorrow is, first do the kitchen minus the refrigerator and place where the dishwasher will go. Next, pull the washer and dryer out of the laundry room and do that + the pantry - the spot under the water softener. That should keep me busy most of the day. Those missing spots - I'll do those on Sunday and grout everything.

Sunday I'll be free to relocate the microwave plug and move the venting into the wall. It was a downdraft vent and took up a ton of space in the cabinet. Both of us hated it. Right now there's a 6in (or maybe 9?) inch pipe coming up from the foundation as the vent line going out but that shouldn't be hard to work with. Otherwise on Sunday I'm basically going to just do plaster and maybe if I'm lucky hang some overhead cabinets. Once those are in we'll be able to hook up the first of the new appliances, making it a grand total of 3 days that we used my brother's microwave from when he was in the dorm. Not bad.

By the end of next week I basically expect to be done minus the granite. Doesn't that sound familiar...

Kitchen Chaos

Today has been a big day. This morning a couple of people from Habitat came by. The reason being, I decided to donate nearly everything in the old kitchen. That is, everything that nobody in my immediate (nearby) family needed. Everyone wins with this - you get a tax writeoff and free removal, Habitat gets a much needed donation, and everything can be reused so it's not going to a landfill.

Anyway here are a few pics of the work in progress. There wasn't anything underneath the cabinets except for a Dominos Pizza ad from 1992. Coupons expired almost 18 years ago so I doubt anyone nearby will take them.









A clean slate. Well, a slate anyway.

Underneath the tile I noticed a fall elm leaf in the concrete. There weren't (until I planted one last January) any fall elms nearby so it must've blown in from somewhere. Surprising that something that delicate would've survived being tiled over and then having the tile removed.



I put down another thin set bag worth of tile today. The breakfast room is pretty much done, and tomorrow I'll be able to do the kitchen if I'm lucky. The the pantry and area under the refrigerator on Saturday / Sunday. Doing the area under the washing machine and dryer will be a challenge, along with the water softener. I can NOT wait to get that done because it'll cut down on so much dust around the house. Having cabinets again will be cool too but there are a few other things that have to happen before I can do that.





Anyway it's coming along nicely. The yellow and white things are a tool to make sure the new tile goes in level and control lippage. They're called LASH and sold at Home Depot. Works great if your grout joint is 1/16" or more. The top part of the tab breaks off and you can reuse the piece that looks like a cheese wedge. My advice - only buy a bag or two of the cheese wedges because that's about all the tile you'll want to do in a day anyway.

So the good news is that today we've basically hit the bottom on this project and that from here on out things will only start looking better.

Kitchen pre-installation

This is the kind of stuff that will consume any and all time you throw at it, but it still has to be done...

One of the big differences between an OK and a great tile job is in the layout and preparation. Lengthwise it's all figured out. Widthwise the informal dining room is about 3 inches too wide unfortunately, even if I get creative with the grout joints. I haven't even bothered to look into where the tile will run into the wood flooring in the dining room yet.





So this evening no real work got done. Actually I spent about 2 1/2 hours dealing with the debris from the demo on Sunday. Tomorrow is trash day and one of the trash cans was filled past the top with thinset and broken pieces of tile. After loads of shoveling most of the stuff that used to be in the trash can is now in a bunch of old grocery bags. With any luck it'll all be gone (in addition to the two large boxes filled with broken tile) in a month or so.

Tile Removal and The Other Side of Renovation

It's hard to believe that the last update was as recent as Saturday because the place looks so different now. On Sunday I set out to remove the tile in the kitchen just like I wrote about, but since the tool from Harbor Freight uses more air than my compressor can deliver I needed to go a new route. Say hello to my little friend...



There's a LOT of tile to remove here.



Did I mention that this was going to stir up a little bit of dust? By the way, the shards of tile that went flying everywhere are almost as sharp as glass. I have the cuts to prove it.



The good news that I got it all done. Nothing makes you move fast like an expensive tool with a 1 day rental. No tile or thin set could stand up to the 4" chisel and hammer, and this would've taken at least a week to do on my own with my tools. The bad news is, it took 11 hours from start to finish and today I'm too tired to do anything. It's just as well because even though I used dropcloths and a fan to enclose the area a lot of dust still got out that I spent this evening cleaning up.



Which brings us to the other part of this post - life in a construction zone isn't always easy.



For the next three days we'll have an oven, kitchen sink and cooktop. We won't have an oven again until the cabinets are in (after the floor, venting, and electrical work is done), and we won't have a cooktop or kitchen sink until a couple of weeks after that because there won't be a countertop to put them in. Right now there's no floor in the kitchen, informal dining room, pantry or laundry room so that means there's a lot of dust flying around until the tile is in. I'm not exactly sure where the microwave will go... probably upstairs somewhere. The only thing I can do in the meantime is work hard so that life can return to normal as soon as possible, hope the wife is patient and try and be creative with what I cook in the microwave.

Plaster is Up

I worked for about 8 hours today getting the plaster up in the breakfast room today. Would've done the kitchen too but the new cabinets will be a different size than the old ones are and I'd just have to redo part of it later anyway. I'll wait until everything is out and do the kitchen part all at once.

Here's how it came out - exactly the color I was hoping for. Too bad pictures really don't capture what it looks like in person. Guess the oven can go in the garage with the rest of the appliances tomorrow since it's not like both cars fit in the garage right now anyway. Snowy also made it in the picture. Not too sure he's a big fan of what's going on.



Tomorrow I'm going to Harbor Freight if they're open to get a tool to remove the tile, and I'll get started with that. I really have no idea how long this will take, but it's something that has to happen and there's no sense putting it off. If I'm lucky maybe I'll be done with it by Monday or Tuesday (yeah right) and I could start putting in the new tile.

Better wrap up this entry now because clearly I'm getting delusional...

We have a shower!

Title says it all. Shower glass is in. Now we're just waiting on the countertops and then the mirror and medicine cabinet can go back up.

Wallpaper Gone

This evening I started the kitchen + breakfast room remodel with something simple. Just make the wallpaper go away. 3 1/2 hours later the job was done. I think part of why we got lucky was because whoever put the stuff on primed the wall first and went easy on the glue.





What worked was starting near the bottom to get things going, then hold one hand on each side of the wallpaper palm to palm a foot or two away from the wall. When my hands got about two feet from the wall I moved in closer again. Pull with the wallpaper at about a 30 degree angle to the wall. Really you're pulling a lot more out than up. This is what really worked for me. When I pulled on opposite ends of the wallpaper it would tear. Anyway that took off the outer layer. To get the inner paper layer just mix some Dawn (blue) dish soap with water in a spray bottle. Squirt the paper and about 5 minutes later the stuff is ready to almost fall off the wall without a trace. As an added bonus I won't have to prime the walls since that's in good shape.





Tomorrow the baseboards are coming off, I'll patch small nail holes and start emptying out cabinets. With any luck we'll be finished with the plaster in the breakfast room before the weekend is over and I'll maybe start working on removing tiles. Because of schedule with someone I know with a trailer it may take too long to get the machine that removes thinset from concrete in. I may give the air chisel at Harbor Freight a try instead... just need to make sure it would survive the job. With a 4in blade it'd be a lot faster than going it with the 1" air hammer and I wouldn't be on my hands and knees the entire time.

I'm still working on it, but I'm hoping to donate all the old kitchen stuff (cabinets, sink, countertop, appliances minus the fridge) to Habitat. They have a group that can come in and remove everything. It's a total win / win because they do all the heavy lifting and do it a lot faster than I ever could, they get stuff for their store, and I get a tax writeoff. And it's the most environmentally conscious option since everything gets reused. I emailed the person on their website this afternoon. Hopefully they'll reply tomorrow.

Done Painting

I managed to finish up painting this weekend and put the final touches on this afternoon. Here's how it came out.



I'd have pictures from other angles, but the new mattress is leaning against one wall and the mirror for the bathroom is against another. That stuff will go away once the new furniture comes in and the glass company does their thing.

So what did I figure out:
Using the sprayer - it's way too slow. I kind of already got into that earlier, but this weekend I confirmed it... a roller is MUCH faster. Two people with a roller are even better, especially if one of them is my wife because she paints faster than I do.

Two coats are better than one. Even if the color comes out pretty solid, you'll still notice where you had to go touch up a few thin spots. However if you have to touch up after two coats you won't notice anything.

If you mess up and get paint on some trim you can still wipe it off the next day - assuming you're using latex paint. I don't know where you get oil based stuff anymore anyway, but this one is good to know just in case you thought you'd have to paint over any of those kind of mistakes.

I'm glad this is the last room I plan on painting aside from a little touch up stuff here and there. Did I mention anywhere that I still don't like painting?

Today was one of those quiet days right before things get crazy again. The pictures are all taken of the way the kitchen looks right now, and tomorrow baseboards come off and we get to work on the wallpaper. I could've started a couple of days ago but this is kind of the last chance I had to take care of other non-house related things before starting another big project. More to come tomorrow!

Why I Hate Painting

We all have something around the house that we avoid doing at all costs. For me it's painting. What looks like it will take just an afternoon takes all week, and coats that look like they should be perfect coverage wind up too thin or spotty. Not to mention masking everything... It's annoying.

The bedroom has been all sorts of colors. White with forest green on the chair rail and crown molding (?!), bright apple red, and then sort of an olive color which is different from the rest of the house. The green really wasn't working out, and since it was dark it made the room feel smaller than it really was. Darker colors are a major commitment - make sure it's really what you want if you're considering doing it.


Yes, I'm redoing the blinds with white fabric instead of forest green so they'll look normal.

The bedroom as it is this morning:





So what doesn't work? Power sprayers - the kind you see at any big box store. It took 2 coats during the first round of spraying, then coming back for a second round the next day to do this. About the best thing I can say about them is that they use far less paint than a brush or roller. I think the problem is, the smaller homeowner type aren't strong enough to give broad coverage with common latex paint, and the larger ones are too expensive for just doing a few rooms once every few years. I have a feeling these things work out much better for thinner oil based paints or stains. Maybe I'll find out someday.

What I'm trying for the remaining 2 1/2 walls is going back to a roller with a thick nap. It's intended for use on stucco type textures, but hopefully it will also work on the knock down texture that's been common in houses in the area for the last 20 years or so. The problem I had last time I used a (cheap) roller was that it did a great job getting the top of the texture and a horrible job getting the lower areas.

More later on how well it does or doesn't work...

Bathroom - nearly complete

The bathroom is basically done now. At this point we still need shower glass and countertops but there isn't a whole lot that I personally do with either of those two besides call someone. Both should be in sometime next week. Countertops and backsplash go in, then the mirror and shower glass can come. Since the mirror will basically sit on top of the backsplash it has to go that way.



This picture still shows the bathtub with a lot of spacers in the tile, but you get the idea. It'll look a lot better on the after pics that are coming soon...



Right now I'm still working on the main bedroom. At this point I'm really not sure if the airless sprayer is faster than using a roller. The first coat is faster for sure but then you have to come back and do a second, and sometimes 3rd and at that point I think any advantage is gone. Color is hard to describe... it's a very light grayish blue. I am doing this now before the bedroom furniture comes in because it's a lot easier to paint a room while it's empty. I also need to rework the blinds to change the cloth webbing from forest green to white.

And the kitchen... we're still preparing. I'm not sure if Habitat will take all the old stuff but hopefully they do. It's a lot easier than dealing with strange people on Craigslist and a tax writeoff is always a good thing. The tile is in and this afternoon someone called to let us know the cabinets are in. The oven is in, other appliances are on order. Everything will be here soon so the only thing holding us back will be doing the actual work.

Last but not least the living and family room stuff I ordered came in. We're still waiting on two pillows but can get an idea for what it looks like now.





And now for something totally random, a tropical storm came through and dumped a bunch of rain here. Seriously it was like a foot of rain and winds were around 50mph from what I read. Fun times!