MelissaH's Kitchen (Renovation) Dreams

[MelissaH]

Not much happened yesterday. My husband had meetings on campus, and by the time he got home, all that there was time for was more Fun With Mud. I'm expecting to hear the sander start up any time now. (The sander itself isn't so loud, but we have the shopvac attachment to try and keep the dust to a minimum, and the shopvac is an ear-killer. It always sends our cat Leo, who really hates noise of any kind, hiding under the bed, or into the closet.) I'm guessing that before the end of today, we'll have at least a coat of primer everywhere.

The other issue is the baseboard, which we've agreed needs to go sooner rather than later. We haven't heard anything from the plumber. But we did find heat-proof cloth at the local hardware store, and over the spring semester my husband learned how to sweat pipes. (That happened when he converted a cooler into a mash tun, for a batch of beer that hasn't yet been bottled, to my knowledge. And until the cabinets are up on the kitchen walls and out of the garage, it won't get bottled.) So my husband closed the relevant valves of the heating system, and he's decided to take care of it himself. I hear him whacking on the housing for the heater, which (to me) looks like it's been painted in place many times. I plan to clear out of the house in less than an hour, ostensibly to swim but also because I don't want to know what all will go on.

Yesterday took a little different turn, dinner-wise. At about 12:30, I got a call from my husband: he and a colleague were walking out to Rudy's for lunch, and wondered if I wanted to join them. I was just about ready to head onto campus to swim anyway, but went to lunch instead. Because we had a good-sized lunch (with ice cream at Bev's afterward) we didn't need much dinner. So we just grilled the chicken leg quarters because we wanted to be sure they got cooked, and then refrigerated them. Today we'll turn them (and the sausage) into jambalaya, or whatever you want to call it.

I tried swimming in the evening yesterday, since I didn't go over lunch. Lunchtime is specifically a lap swim, which means that you can get a fair number of people in the pool because we're all just going back and forth. But the evening period is open swim, and they don't rope off a lane for lap swimming. The pool felt more crowded than it does over lunch, largely because there are multiple activities in the pool and the etiquette isn't as well defined. I gave up after only 400 yards.

My husband picked me up and then we headed downtown for the farmer's market. What a difference a couple of weeks makes! Last time we were there, about the only thing we saw was asparagus. Yesterday we only saw one vendor with asparagus; I guess the season's about over here and it's time to let the patches rest until next spring. But there were radishes (big red ones, larger than an egg!), copious bunches of rhubarb (which I'm not overly fond of, especially when I don't have an oven to bake in), strawberries galore, spinach and other greens, and even a couple of places that must have greenhouses with tomato plants. One vendor had multicolored chard. The honey people were back, and there's a couple of places with maple syrup. The usual apple places have apples, but I'm sure they've been stored and I'd rather wait for this year's crop. (Rumor has it that one place has Transparent pie apples, which supposedly are harvested in July. Maybe I'll have an oven by then!) We bought a quart of peas, sugar snap peas in their pods. My husband insists on shucking them and eating only the peas themselves. I eat the whole thing.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

The kitchen is painted. (Kouign Aman, my husband did put a bit of blue tape over each of his ceiling Xes, as you'd suggested.)

Nothing happened until late yesterday. For most of the day, we had another food-related activity: my husband helped to judge the homebrew competition for the New York State Fair. So shortly before 7:30, we headed out to pick up our buddy Jeff, who often stewards for competitions. Then, we headed to Syracuse and the fairgrounds.

We got there just before 8:30, as we'd planned. There were a whole bunch of guys (and I do mean guys, as beer judges seem to be almost exclusively male) milling around because the building housing the demonstration kitchen was locked. Eventually an official came to open the door, and based on the amount of beer still left to judge (we didn't go down for the Friday night session) we guesstimated that they'd be done in the early afternoon.

I headed out to run a bunch of errands. The food-related errands on the east side of town were a stop at Petsmart to get the cats something to eat and a visit to our favorite Asian grocery. I considered going to the DeWitt killer Wegman's store, but it was already starting to get really hot (near 90 °F) and I didn't want to risk getting the sorts of things that I usually get at Wegman's (produce, fish), even with a cooler and the capability to buy ice. So instead I went back to the east side of town, hit Home Depot for a piece of pipe insulation for the kitchen, got a slice of mediocre pizza at the Fairmount Wegman's for lunch, and then did some shopping there. I didn't see anything fabulous or tempting at the fish counter, but I did get some corn and nice salad greens, a container of yogurt with the only ingredient "cultured milk", and a big bag of ice. By the time I got out, the thermometer in my car said 97 °F. (This is a Subaru Outback, and the sensor for the thermometer is not inside the car. We've found it to be pretty accurate for the outdoor temperature.)

There's not a whole lot to do, if you're looking to kill time in the Fairmount/Camillus area of Syracuse. I couldn't find a bookstore in any of the strip malls, and didn't have a clue where the libraries in the area were (or if they'd be open on a Saturday afternoon). So for lack of anywhere better to go, I went to the brand new Super Walmart. It was a zoo! I took a careful but quick look through the grocery section, and decided that the selection was actually not even as good as what we get in our supermarkets here in Oswego. The Super Walmart is just across the parking lot from a P&C supermarket, and it will be interesting to see what happens with those two in the future, and if both survive.

Finally at about 2 PM, I was sick of killing time, and went back to the fairgrounds. I had an air-conditioned building to sit inside, at least, for the last hour while my husband and Jeff finished up with the judging. After the goodbyes, we all headed back home. Jeff's currently living in a place that's still being built and doesn't have a functioning kitchen either, so we're actually better off than he is in that respect. The other members of his household were out of town for the weekend, so we invited him over for dinner later. (I didn't have a clue what we'd do, but knew that we had plenty of food in the pantry.)

By 5:00, the painting process was underway.

Step 1: Wall off the kitchen to keep the cats out. The side entrance got a barrier of cardboard, blue-taped from the hallway side, as high as my shoulders. I'm sure the cats could jump over if they really wanted to, but unless they can see that there's a nice high surface, they won't usually bother. Across the dining room opening, the adjustable poles and sheets did the trick.

Next: a coat of primer. My husband won't use anything but Kilz, after bad experiences with other primers. One coat of Kilz takes care of anything that might show through on the wall. Just as he was finishing, Lyon decided to push his way through the sheets and investigate whatever was happening in the kitchen. He was chased out before his giant bushy tail gave or received any damage, and a couple of strategically placed clothespins further secured the kitchen.

While Casey was painting, I did the dishes. Then I surveyed the available food and freezer inventory, and decided to quick-thaw a bag of boneless chicken breasts to grill. We had two red and one green bell pepper, and some small (not quite as small as cherry) tomatoes, as well as flour tortillas, sour cream, and cheese. And the corn from Wegman's. I lit the grill, and started by roasting the peppers. Once the peppers were done enough to toss into a bowl (which I covered), I put the corn on, just as it came from the store. While the corn got started, I seasoned the chicken breasts with some salt and a bit of Penzey's jerk seasoning, and threaded the tomatoes onto a couple of metal skewers for easier handling. The chicken and tomatoes went on the grill also. While everything else grilled, I peeled and seeded the peppers and cut them into strips. The corn was done before the chicken, so I was even able to get that shucked before we were ready to eat. I unskewered the tomatoes, but made the mistake of trying to toast the tortillas slightly on the grill while I cut the chicken into strips. I burned the first batch pretty badly, and had to do that again.

Dinner wasn't fancy last night, but it hit the spot for all of us.

This morning, the last coat of paint went on the walls and ceiling. Once that was dry to the touch, the barricades came down. We'll still need to paint the dining room slider wall yellow, and the dining room ceiling with Betsy's Linen white. We also have to get the side doorway with paint, because when we removed the dark wood casing we discovered baby-poo yellow paint underneath. (My husband finally also agreed with me that there had been bright orange paint in the kitchen at one point. I'd seen a little bit peeking between the old backsplash and the brick, but he'd been sure that it was just drywall backing. I said no way!) Those will be trickier than inside, but we'll probably just pick a time when the cats are napping...or we'll seal them downstairs until we're done.

I just heard the shopvac going again. I predict that we'll be starting to lay flooring very soon. Now that we have a piece of pipe insulation, my husband will be able to box in the pipe that remains where the baseboard used to be. Most of the pipe will be hidden behind cabinets, but there's a smidge that will still show between cabinets and sliding door. We plan to use a bit of extra baseboard to box it in, so it matches the cabinets.

The directions of the Marmoleum sealer say to put two coats on to start. It needs to dry for 30 to 40 minutes between coats. That means we could be starting to place cabinets Monday afternoon!

eta: Yup, I was right. The floor underlayment is down. That means we'll be walking on Marmoleum by this evening!

MelissaH

Edited June 18, 2006 by MelissaH (log)

[MelissaH]

The floor is in! However, the instructions that came with the flooring were not tremendously useful. The first couple of rows were a bugger, until we figured out the trick that wasn't in the instructions.

I should explain: to put the floor in, you start by clicking a row together. Once the row is a single unit, you click it onto the previous row. The problem: getting the pieces to click together and not show a seam isn't so easy. My husband wound up putting the individual pieces over a piece of wood. to have the space underneath to bend them so they'd click in.

He called me to help connect the second row. It wouldn't go, no matter how much we pushed. We pushed in, we pushed down, and nothing we did seemed to get rid of the line. Finally, my husband got frustrated enough to grab a wooden shim, stick it into the groove of the flooring, and start pounding the pieces in with his hammer on the shim. It worked like a charm. So then he headed down to the table saw to cut a tenon in a piece of hard maple, to make a better tap block. He also brought the mallet upstairs. Once we figured that part out, it went pretty quickly, even where we had to notch out for pipes. My job for the rest of the flooring became bringing pieces in as needed.

We'll be doing cabinets tomorrow.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

And now, an interlude from the story for some pictures!

I'll post these, starting from the beginning, with demolition pictures in this post. I'll follow with the pictures of us putting the new kitchen back together, after we'd taken the old one apart.

The kitchen beforehand: You've seen some of this in my early postings. This was taken on 1 June, as we started to pack the kitchen up. It was quite chaotic, and has remained so since then. Note the floor pattern!

With everything out, including the refrigerator. Our friend Bruce helped relocate the fridge; you'll see more of him later.

My husband removing the cabinets. As you can see, the original kitchen must have been painted after the cabinets went in.

To get out the wall cabinets, the soffit had to go. This turned out to be easy, requiring only a blunt object and some brute force. Underneath the soffit, we found drywall and nothing else. Even though you can still see a light in the ceiling, we'd turned off the circuit breakers to the kitchen, so the light in these and following pictures is coming from a halogen worklight.

Casey and Bruce examining the wall behind the oven cabinet. Bruce came over at our request because the oven was heavy!

Floor under floor under floor. Directly beneath the floor we'd been looking at for three years was the red stuff, which we unearthed when we removed the semicircular shelf. But we got a surprise when we pulled that up: a third (first?) layer of floor. It's kind of the same idea as the red, but in smaller tiles and pastel colors. We didn't cry to see it go.

With the demo pretty much done, my husband took a break to work out the details of the mod for the corner cabinets. This is one of the ball bearing turntables on the new shelf. It can support 750 pounds.

And this is the plywood Pac-Man that will get attached to the turntable hardware. These pictures were taken before I finished the new shelf and the Pac-Men with a coat of clear satin polyurethane.

This is the mess of the living room, once the appliances arrived. Until yesterday, it wasn't so easy to walk through the living room.

The emptied kitchen! You can see that my husband's been hard at work with his electrician hat on, and you can also see the baby-poo yellow paint in the entryway of the kitchen.

Next up: putting the kitchen together.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Now: Pictures of putting the kitchen back together.

Before we did too much of anything, my husband put together one of the upper cabinets, and hung a section of rail for it, so we could see how they'd go up and check the height. It's easier to adjust things when you aren't worried about freshly painted walls. This was also so we could see what the bottom of the wall cabinets looked like, for undercabinet lighting. This was after the electrical outlets and switches were in, and all the drywall had been patched.

Down came the rail and cabinet, and up went a coat of primer and two coats of paint! We didn't paint everywhere, because we didn't want to bother painting areas that would be hidden by cabinets. It made the painting job much easier, because it meant that sloppiness wouldn't be a problem.

With the paint done, it was time to start putting the floor in. Once my husband figured out that the pieces needed to be banged together to fit snugly, it was a one-person job in our kitchen. (If we'd been laying the floor the long way, it would have definitely been a two-person job, as the pieces need to get fitted together into a long strip, and then the long strip gets pushed into the growing expanse of floor.) Bruce is quite interested in redoing his kitchen floor, so we made a point of saving our hard maple tap block for him.

Our completed floor, with the red "zipper" across the center. This was relatively easy for us to do, because our kitchen is nearly exactly 8 feet across, and the floor pieces come in 3-foot and 1-foot lengths, so we were able to use the pieces as-is, for the most part.

With the floor in, we promptly covered it with protective stuff so the area could be used for cabinet construction. The cabinets are going together much more easily than we'd anticipated: in our original timetable, my husband had penciled in 10 days for cabinet installation. We're well ahead of schedule!

For those of you who haven't seen it, here's a close-up view of some of the cabinet hardware.

First, the box goes together.

Then, the back gets tacked on.

And when you turn it over, here's what the inside looks like. The metal pieces are where the cabinet hangs from the rail. As long as the rail's level, the cabinets will be level also.

Here's the rail attached to the wall. There are a couple of hangers that slide into the rail for each cabinet. If you get them positioned in about the right place before you try to lift the cabinet up, it's much easier to get the cabinet to click into place.

Once the cabinet is hung on the hangers, nuts get spun on to hold the cabinets in place. We learned that you do them loosely at first, because you need to give the cabinets some slack so that you can match edges and wind up with flat and level fronts. You clamp or otherwise hold adjacent cabinets together, and then drill a hole through both so you can bolt them together. My husband did the first set here, and then discovered that the place he'd chosen for the bolts was exactly the place where the door hinges would need to set, so he got to do that part twice.

When you get a few boxes hung, here's what it looks like. This has a piece of molding stuck in, so we could see what it looked like and check the height. We haven't put the doors on yet.

The day we were dealing with this section of upper cabinets was the hottest and most humid day of the year, so far. Lyon sprawled out on his bed, because we'd covered up the nice cool new kitchen floor and he doesn't care for the hard family room floor that stays so cold that humidity from the air condenses into puddles on it.

Remember the modified corner cabinet? Here's what it looks like, with the shelf in...

...and with the turntable in place.

So, that's where the story currently stands.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

When we last left the tale of the kitchen, it was Monday morning. That afternoon, the HVAC person was coming to replace a valve on our heating system (that makes 2 out of 3 total that have been replaced since we moved in) and to tell us about our options for venting the hood out the roof. The valve was an easy fix, but as far as the vent, we learned that they were backed up with ductwork. Furthermore, we had to go through the roof! So the repair guy gave us the name of someone else who would better be able to service us, someone who does both HVAC and roofs. (I love small-town life.) We didn't do much with the kitchen on Monday afternoon, and certainly not Monday evening because there was a hockey game to watch. (Hey, the Stanley Cup's probably going to come to Oswego, courtesy of Erik Cole!)

Tuesday morning, the HVAC roofer came out, to look at what we had and to give us an estimate on the job. We decided to go with everything stainless rather than galvanized, because neither of us relished the thought of having to go up on the roof and paint stuff every year or two. We decided the price was fair, and said yes; the sheet metal should have arrived by now, so we'll have a working hood before long. (But more on that later.)

The floor was in by Monday, and some of the upper cabinets were in. One corner cabinet was modified, but still sat in the middle of the dining room because it weighs about 120 pounds empty, too much for one person to move easily. So we called Bruce on Tuesday afternoon to help put that cabinet and its mate into the end of the kitchen. Once those were in place, the refrigerator could get moved out of the dining room and back into the kitchen!

The floor was covered with cardboard (mainly from IKEA cabinet pieces) to protect the surface. The refrigerator refused to roll on the soft cardboard. We borrowed a hand truck from the neighbors. That still didn't work. Fortunately, Bruce's parents own an appliance dolly, so we ran down to Fulton (ten miles south of here) to get it. It's amazing what having the right tool for the job does, to make things easy. (While Bruce and I were running out to get the dolly, Casey started cutting the holes for the recessed can lights, which arrived on Tuesday morning.)

One thing we realized right off the bat was that we still need to reverse the door of the fridge. It won't really matter until we have countertop in place, though, which is why we didn't bother right away. Another thing we realized is that the refrigerator is really big, and space down in that corner is really really tight. We'll still have plenty of room for the door to swing open without bashing into anything, even once the countertop goes on, and the cabinet doors don't bang the fridge either. But it's a really tight corner. We can shimmy the fridge down a couple of inches, which will help free up some space. And when this refrigerator reaches the end of its lifetime, we'll be replacing it with a smaller, counter-depth model. We hope by then, there are more options available that aren't side-by-side.

The refrigerator corner, before the center cabinet is in.

As long as we had the appliance dolly, we decided to also relocate the range into its new home. My husband had previously marked out on the wall where it would need to sit, as dictated by the hood placement from the rafters. And that was when we discovered that the people who delivered the appliances were even worse than we thought.

My husband started looking at the installation instructions while we were running to Fulton and back, before he started cutting circles in the ceiling. There was a big goldenrod piece of paper included that said, "IMPORTANT THERE ARE THREE (3) INSTALLATION AIDS INCLUDED IN THE PACKING MATERIAL. PLEASE SEE THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR A MORE COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF THEIR USE." and then went on to describe the three (3) installation aids and how they are supposed to be used. We couldn't find a single one, and surmised that the delivery gorillas, in their zeal to get the pieces moved in so they could finish their day, must have tossed them with the rest of the packing materials and boxes. The delivery company will be hearing from us. To find out more, my husband phoned the Monogram people, but the person on the other end of the line was clueless and couldn't (a) find an installation instruction manual or (b) even figure out how to pull one up on the Internet. By then we were back and ready to move the refrigerator and then the range.

By reading the instructions, my husband was able to figure out what the missing pieces were, and either make replacements or kluge something else together to function in the same way. One missing piece was a large board that was supposed to protect the floor underneath, during the moving process. Oh well, we had plenty of cardboard and other stuff. The other things were two long skinny boards to act as "runners" underneath the feet of the stove, to help distribute weight. (Feet? Hey, we learned that the delivery people were supposed to pull out the feet of the range also!) So we got the range moved in, with its feet pulled out and on the runners. Just as the range was just about it, I said, "Isn't there supposed to be an anti-tip device?" I could tell that the two guys were about ready to kill me for asking, but they agreed that it would really suck to have a 350-pound range tip over. So that went in also. Just before we pushed it back against the wall, we plugged it in and turned on the gas valve up here. (The valves downstairs are still closed. Today or tomorrow we'll pull the range back out a little bit, turn the gas on everywhere, and leak-test it with some soapy water before pushing it back in. Then I'll have a functioning range, which I'll be able to use once we put the stainless backsplash in place!)

However, we had a new problem. The specs for the range say that the top of the range must be at or above the level of the countertops. No problem there. The specs for the hood say that the bottom of the hood must be 32 to 38 inches above the top of the range. Both my husband and I are of average height, at most, so he'd measured and put the hood exactly 32 inches above the range. But he did the measuring before we knew that the range had feet. So with the range on its feet (and leveled), we hung the hood on its board to check for distance. And we came up with only 31.5 inches. Because the hood must be installed before the HVAC roofing guy gets here, we'll be raising the hood a few inches today. I can still reach the controls easily if we raise the hood to as much as 36 inches over the hood, so that won't cause a problem.

The range and too-low hood, to be rectified later today. Like the fingerprints? (There are two bars that will attach somewhere to the hood, that we can hang things from. I guess we'll figure out what to hang from them when we put them up.

The whole kitchen, last night, with some lights in and wires ready for more.

Yesterday morning, my husband woke up with a sore and swollen knee. We think it may be bursitis, because he spent a good chunk of the day kneeling on the floor. So instead of kneeling on the floor some more to build cabinets yesterday, he spent the day doing electrical stuff. All the ceiling cans are installed now (we have a little cleanup and a touch of drywall patching and a few areas of paint touch-up work to do at some point) and the triple UFO fixture is over the sink area. The recessed cans all work, and the dimmers function brilliantly (get it? ) but the UFOs won't light up. That fixture was put right where the old over-the-sink light was, and we'd made use of the old circuit. But somewhere in the course of rewiring everything, that old circuit lost power so the UFOs won't light up. My husband will be going back to the attic to make sense of what's going on there.

Yesterday I went out and ran errands. Among other things, I went back to Lowe's to look at under-cabinet lighting again. And this time, I spent a lot of time looking at fluorescent lights and discovered that they do have under-cabinet lights that get hard-wired. I brought home two: one 18-inch and one 24-inch, with bulbs for both. The lighting guy at Lowe's said that they could be daisy-chained together to work from the same switch, so that's good. I chose those two lights because they use different diameter bulbs, and both bulbs are available in "Sunshine" color rather than the yucky bluish color of standard bulbs. I brought both home because I figured we'd use both somewhere (and if they don't we can return them) but also because I wanted to be sure that both would be low profile enough to get hidden by the light valance.

We'll need to figure out what we're doing between the two upper cabinets before we can place the undercabinet lights and complete the electrical work. There's a wire going up the wall for an iPod-docking radio, but we don't want to cut a hole for an outlet until we know where the outlet will go. (We want both decent speakers and a radio tuner. We're thinking of the iHome version.) Depending on the radio we choose, we may also want a clock there. We should also wind up with some display space, for some of our prettier items.

The kitchen, with lights on last night!

This morning, my husband built the last of the base cabinets, to complete the refrigerator end of the kitchen. That's the first cabinet he's done with drawers rather than doors. It's sitting on the floor, but nothing's connected together yet because we'll need to add filler strips. That may happen later today. We also learned that the halogen bulbs that came with the ceiling cans get really hot, so we'll probably replace at least some of them with incandescent bulbs. Presumably, we'll also have the UFOs lighting up by the end of the day. And it's Thursday, so it's farmer's market night!

Dinner yesterday wound up being quite good. A while ago, we'd butchered up a whole beef tenderloin, and a few days ago I'd pulled two filets mignons out of the deep freeze to start thawing. Yesterday they were finally ready to cook, so I lit the grill. While the grill heated, I sliced some portobello mushrooms. I sauteed them and a little bit of leftover onion on the gas stove in a little butter, deglazed the frying pan with sherry vinegar, and set it aside. Then I cooked some orzo to be sort of like a risotto: twice the volume of broth as orzo, bring the liquid to a boil, dump in the orzo and give it a stir, take it down to a simmer (gas stoves are wonderful, even if it's a little tricky to get a simmer without having the wind blow your burner out) and let it go till the pasta's cooked, about 12 minutes. I stirred the mushrooms into the pasta, and set it aside until the rest of dinner was ready. We started with a mâche salad, with a little generic blue cheese crumbled on top and a spritzing of sherry vinegar. Then the medium-rare steaks and mushroom-orzo risotto. For dessert: frozen blueberries we picked ourselves, dipped in a touch of sugar.

My husband's home now, putting on cruddy-looking clothes. This can only mean he's getting ready to go back into the attic. So I should get off the computer, in case he turns the power off here.

MelissaH

[memesuze]

wow - just look at the difference between the two kitchens - you guys, including Bruce, rock. Thanks for going into so much detail about your whole process with us.

[MelissaH]

The hood's been moved up, the power's been connected, and the motor is installed. The warmer light turns on, as do the two other lights, and the hood sucks! (Just back into the room for now: there's no duct yet.) We have a little less than 36 inches between range and hood, which is just enough that I can reach the control knobs. The hood does make a bit of a racket when it's turned on high, enough that Leo the noise-hating cat didn't want to come inside the kitchen. He's really been very good about everything, even finally getting to the point where the sight of an orange extension cord (meaning that someone's going to pull down the stairs and head up to the attic) no longer sends him cowering under the bed or into the closet.

In an ideal world, we need to scootch the range to the left by about half an inch, so it lines up perfectly with the hood. We should be able to accomplish this when we move it out to leak-test the gas line. We hope we don't need to redo the entire anti-tip device.

The UFOs now light up, also. (Did I say that the electrical system in this house was arcane?) The wire path to this light goes up, down, and around before settling. My husband found the wires that were disconnected, and reconnected them. At the time he disconnected them, he thought they went elsewhere. He also found some old wires with frayed-looking insulation, and replaced them. There's still a couple of circuits turned off, and for now we don't have power to the upstairs hallway or the ceiling fan in the dining room. We don't know if they're on circuits turned off, or if there's yet another trip to the attic in store. I hope it cools off, if there's another attic journey to come.

My husband's building the sink cabinet. I heard a shout from the kitchen not long ago: "Hey, it's just like all the other cabinets, only wider!" Once that cabinet's been built up, we'll be able to put a couple of boards across the top and get the sink off Lyon's bed. (You can actually see a corner of it in the picture above.) It's getting warm again this afternoon: our "Lyon thermometer" says half-stretched-out. (It also tells us when the floor is cold: Lyon hops on three feet. We believe this goes back to our time in Ohio when the boys were permitted to go "out" to the screened-in porch. They loved to go out, no matter the weather, but in the mornings they'd both play in the tub after whoever was up first showered. One day, we noticed that Lyon kept one front foot off the ground, just until he crossed the threshold back inside. If he went back out, he hopped again as soon as he was on porch rather than floor. We checked his paws, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. And it's not always the same front paw that gets held up. All we can figure is that one day he got a paw wet and it froze to the porch when he went out. And ever since then, we know that it's cold if Lyon hops. Even here, where we don't have a porch, sometimes the family room floor (which is laid directly on a slab) is cold enough that Lyon hops if he's not on rug.)

MelissaH

[jgarner53]

Wow, you can really see the difference, just in the light alone! Things are really coming along. Congratulations!

[coquus]

Ahh, just as soon as I wasn't able to read anymore you posted some pictures. It looks really nice. I just finished making some built in seating on my screened in porch myself, so it's nice to see some others sweating in this unseasonably hot and (currently) sticky upstate June weather we've been having. I like the way it's been coming. The soon to be in-laws are also doing a renovo this month, they are a good ways along as well, but I think you have them beat by a yard or so. Their original budget of 2000 is shot full of holes however, how about your budget, holding up still? I know mine fell somewhere between the cabinets and countertop, not to mention the floor which we switched to tile midstream into heat seamed marmoleum (ten bags of leveler, that's 450 plus numerous bolts, nuts, and osb board). Arrgh, the memories.

[MelissaH]

Tonight was a glorious night at the market. We came away with four quarts of peas (which my husband shelled into a bowl already), a quart of locally grown strawberries, and a quart of Queen Anne cherries imported from downstate. (Our local cherries won't be in for another month, at least. But when they do come in, we'll have sour ones. I hope I have a kitchen worthy of pie-baking by then!) We made a quick stop at our local bookstore before going to Anne's for dinner. We had mac and cheese (Blue Box for my husband, Annie's brand orange box for me, some of each for Anne), salad, and leftover roast chicken.

I have a chicken of my own to cook tomorrow. We've had a tough time finding small birds of late; I got lucky and stumbled upon one that was only 3.59 pounds. Most of the ones we see around here are in the 4.5 pound range, which is really too big for the two of us, and too big to grill nicely. My plan is to come up with some kind of yogurt-based marinade (maybe the one from the latest issue of Fine Cooking?) and grill the bird tomorrow for dinner, either whole or butterflied. I'm a bit nervous about contaminating the entire family room cutting out the backbone, so we'll see how that goes (and keep the bleach bottle handy).

It's really nice to be able to come home at night and turn on a light in the kitchen!

Tomorrow we'll probably get help with the rest of the upper cabinets, because the ones left to hang are on the large side, too big for one person to easily deal with. The horizontal cabinets could be a trip to get up properly. Then, it looks like it's supposed to cool off for the weekend, so maybe Saturday morning will be a good day to go back to the attic, if we haven't fixed the electrical problems by then. (Must remember to get more batteries for the walkie-talkies beforehand.)

Who uses an iPod in some kind of dock as a kitchen music source? We would like something that plays from the iPod, has a radio (at least FM, but AM also is a nice bonus), and charges the iPod directly. I love the way the Bose dock looks and sounds, but it lacks any radio. I've been looking around at the other options, and so far the iHome version has caught my eye the most. But in doing some poking around, they're coming out with a new version that includes a subwoofer at the beginning of next month. It looks a little big and clunky for the kitchen, though. I'm wondering if the under-counter mounted model might be our best bet, because it's got everything we want (including weather band radio, which we really enjoy having in our car). And the fold-up design would keep the iPod itself safely out of the line of fire. Any thoughts on the subject?

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Ahh, just as soon as I wasn't able to read anymore you posted some pictures.  It looks really nice.  I just finished making some built in seating on my screened in porch myself, so it's nice to see some others sweating in this unseasonably hot and (currently) sticky upstate June weather we've been having.  I like the way it's been coming.  The soon to be in-laws are also doing a renovo this month, they are a good ways along as well, but I think you have them beat by a yard or so.  Their original budget of 2000 is shot full of holes however, how about your budget, holding up still?  I know mine fell somewhere between the cabinets and countertop, not to mention the floor which we switched to tile midstream into heat seamed marmoleum (ten bags of leveler, that's 450 plus numerous bolts, nuts, and osb board).  Arrgh, the memories.

←

Our budget is still holding up fine, as far as I know. The vent duct materials and installation were a bit more than I'd imagined, but we've been under what we'd predicted on a bunch of other things (including the electrician). We haven't added up all the hardware store and Lowe's receipts, but right now we don't see any problems in coming in close to what we'd wanted. We haven't gotten any really nasty surprises so far, knock on wood. And the time savings over what we'd predicted is also a big boost. We haven't been eating out at restaurants much, so our food costs haven't been out of the ordinary for the past few weeks. It helps immensely, having a handy husband and willing friends.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

More pictures to come tonight.

The cabinets are all put together and placed. (The base cabinets won't be tied together or to the wall for a little while yet, at least until we figure out how we want to deal with the plumbing.)

The ceiling is most definitely not level. We started placing the upper cabinets at the corner between the baking area and the wall with the window, and worked our way across the baking area first, then down to the window. All the bottoms are within a smidge of each other, according to the laser level. (We hung it on the wall, and let the fluid inside settle, so we know it's not whacked.) There's plenty of room to slide in a piece of molding above the cabinets on the window wall. But next to the fridge, there's enough less space that the molding will need to be shaved down, probably on the table saw. And over by the hood, there's barely any room at all, even though the bottoms of the cabinets are all still at the same height. We're thinking we won't put any molding at all at the tops of these, because they're pretty independent (just one cabinet on either side of the hood).

We decided to put the two horizontal cabinets stacked one on top of the other, with an empty space at the top. We'll put the end panel all the way up to the ceiling, though: there's going to be countertop extending past the edge of the upper cabinets. If we left the opening available, I'm positive we'd find a cat up there, probably sooner rather than later. Or worse, we'd hear a cat try to make the leap, but not quite get there. We'll use the space to display whatever pretty stuff we can find that we don't think we'll want to use often, because it's up pretty high.

Time for me to go downstairs and do some cat dishes, to clear out the sink. Then I'm going to butterfly the chicken that's waiting for me in the fridge, and see if I can avoid sliming anything with toxic chicken goop.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Here are today's pictures. It's really looking like a kitchen now!

Here's standing in the dining room end of the kitchen, looking toward the baking area. You can see the recessed can lights on, as well as the triplet UFOs over the window. The gaps between the cabinets will all be filled when we bolt everything together. As you can see, the cabinets are all put together, but the pulls aren't on yet. The dishwasher's in place, so we know how things will fit in. And we brought up two big pieces of laminate countertop to see how they'd fit, and determine where to put the two seams we'll need.

My husband read through the dishwasher installation instructions last night. They recommend putting some insulation and vapor barrier between the top of the DW and the bottom of the countertop directly over. We have a piece of floor underlayment that should fit both counts nicely. We'll also add some support bracing to the area over the DW, to help support countertop.

I still can't believe how much light we have in the kitchen. This picture was taken at about 9 PM!

Here's a slightly wider view of the same thing. It's a little hard to tell, but the backsplash is in place between range and hood, and the warming shelf and tool hanger rods are installed on the hood. Before we did that, our friend Jeff came over to help give us a little extra oomph to pull the range out so we could leak-test the gas line (and then to push it back against the wall) and to haul the countertop up. While he was here, he helped scoot the fridge over closer to the door so we gained a little more breathing room in our tight corner. When we moved the fridge closer to the door, we realized that not only is the ceiling not level, the doorway isn't square either. Oh well, I guess we all sag a little bit after 40+ years. (And I can say this even though I myself am not yet there. )

We don't know what we'll hang from the hood yet. One idea that crossed my mind: you know how, in appliance stores, they tie plastic fringe to their fans so you can see the fringe blow when the fans are on? We could do something similar, and watch the fringe get sucked into the hood. Or maybe not.

In this picture, you can also see a piece of butcher block over by the range. There will eventually be butcher block in this location, so we can take stuff off the stove and not have to worry much about it.

If you think you see an uncovered junction box in this photo, you're right. That's for the phone line, which we never bothered to get turned on since we just use our cell phones for everything. We didn't want to completely hide it, but we need to get a white box cover for it, next time we go out.

Here's the tight back corner, looking around to the window and sink. The sink cabinet doesn't have a front or back yet. The front's not on because it will be much easier to deal with plumbing without the front in place. The back's not on yet for much the same reason. We know what we'll need to do with the plumbing: basically close off or remove one arm of a Y. We think it will be easier to close off the one arm, simply because the tail of the Y extends very close to the wall, where a mistake could have grave consequences and require tearing out a large portion of wall. So we're planning to take the easier way out, and just cap off the arm we don't need. (That will also allow us to leave open the option for going back to a double-bowl sink in the future, should we decide we don't like having one large single bowl.) But as long as the Y is in place, for us to put the back on the cabinet and then slide it up against the wall, we'd need to cut a large hole in the backing. Better to wait until the plumbing's modified, at which point we'll only need to make a small hole to allow the pipes into the cabinet. (We'll be putting a garbage disposal in.) My husband did notch out the bottom to let the water lines up.

We'll have some water line work to do, as well as the drain line work. For one thing, the incoming hot water pipe's quite a bit taller than the cold water pipe. We plan to shorten it (and then just use a longer flex-line to make the connection to the faucet). For another thing, we'll need to add a T to the hot water line, for the dishwasher. That's another reason to shorten the hot water line: so we have more room for the T. What this all means is that the next thing we need to do is get the plumbing worked out, so we can at least put the back of the sink cabinet on, and cut the drain hole, and then tie it all together.

Once everything's tied together and to the wall, we'll also need to cut a hole through the sidewall of the sink cabinet, for the DW drain hose. That shouldn't be a problem.

Something that's not entirely clear from any of tonight's pictures is what we think we'll do with the countertop seams. The laminate countertop came in 8-foot lengths. We're only a few inches too long to be able to use only two lengths to do the entire run on the window side of the kitchen, unfortunately. This means we'll need to do two seams, not one. Our plan is to put the seams on either side of the sink, over the gaps that will be covered with filler strips eventually, symmetric with respect to the sink. That way we'll have plenty of room to glue or bolt or whatever the sections of countertop together, and it shouldn't look too weird.

Here's the range, standing slightly back into the closed end of the kitchen. These cabinet areas will all get butcher block countertop. We measured today to be sure that the counter height would be at or below the level of the range.

Speaking of the range, once we'd leak-checked the gas line and then pushed everything back into place, we turned it on! It took a little while for the air to get pushed out of the lines, but once that happened, all six burners lit and burned beautifully. The simmer setting looks tremendously low, especially after recent fights with the outdoor propane stove setup. Jeff was particularly impressed with the Monogram burner grates---all six reverse to a curved surface designed to cradle a wok. He wondered if they were available to retrofit to other stoves. We don't think they are, unfortunately.

I can see that we'll need to figure out how to best remove fingerprints from stainless.

Down at the far end next to the range, there's another cabinet that doesn't have a front. This is on purpose, because the microwave will live inside. My husband still has a little work to do on the cabinet, to figure out how to best support the microwave, and make the leftover space useful (and possibly even covered). The microwave will be down close to the dining room, and close to where the cats are fed.

Here's what's between the sink and the dining area. The horizontal cabinets have a glass shelf inside, and we chose the glass doors. We think our glasses will be stored in these, and we'll find something pretty to go up top in the open area. These cabinets only came in white frames, but we'll put a birch end panel outside all the way up.

We're currently debating whether these horizontal doors need one or two handles. My husband's initial thought was one, but to me they're long enough that two hands feels more natural. Maybe that's just because I'm short. We also need to figure out whether 30-inch drawers get two handles, or just one. I vote for two, again. We calculated this all out at one point, so I should go look at the numbers.

And finally, here are the three UFOs, turned on and reflected in the window. We plan to trim out the window with molding, and also probably to repaint the tan with either Betsy's Linen white (to match the ceiling) or Cream Cake yellow (to match the wall) in something glossy.

We're actually getting to the point where apart from the plumbing and the vent duct, the work yet to be completed is largely cosmetic! I didn't expect to be this far for at least a few weeks yet, maybe even a month. We'll need to do all the toekicks and endpanels. We still need to futz with base cabinet legs (to make the top surfaces level for the countertop) and drawers (so things slide smoothly). We have zillions of knobs to attach to doors and drawers. We plan to make the top of the sink cabinet a tip-out, rather than just a dummy panel, so we need to get the hardware for that and install it. We also have molding to work with, and that's going to take a bit of time given our unlevel ceiling. The countertops and sink need to go in, as does the 2-by-6 tile backsplash we've chosen, but that's a bit off yet. And thresholds for both the dining room and side door. Lots of stuff to do, but most of it's little.

The kitchen's starting to feel semi-functional. Now that the backsplash is in place, I could actually use the range if I wanted. (I'm hoping the weather stays good at least till the roofer duct guy comes to make the hood vent outside.) Having the countertop pieces laid on top goes a long way towards a feeling of functionality, I think.

We determined today that the drawer dividers my husband got in Burlington, ON, as he drove back from Michigan last month are definitely the wrong size. Since they came from a Canadian IKEA store, they need to be exchanged at a Canadian store. This isn't a problem for us, as many Canadian stores are closer than New Haven, the nearest location in this country. We could certainly go back to Burlington, but the border crossings in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area are generally nightmarish (last time: 2+ hours waiting, although the sign said only half an hour; in 2 hours, it's almost as efficient to go through Toronto around the north side of Lake Ontario and come in from the north!) trying to get back into this country. We're going to be better off visiting Ottawa. So we're planning a trip next week, to do the exchange and figure out what else we need (possibly a new silverware holder; definitely a paper towel holder). Guess we should probably count door pulls carefully, to see if we need to get more.

Tonight I cooked downstairs, but we prepped dessert up in the kitchen! For dinner, I started by cutting the backbone out of the chicken with my shears, and then flipped the bird over and pushed down on the breastbone to flatten it. I tucked the wings in behind, and cut a little slit in the skin next to the thigh, to tuck in the end of the drumstick. I put bird, along with cutting board and toxic shears, into the little barsink and rinsed everything with cold water. (I really miss having a sink I can turn on easily with just a wrist, or an elbow, if need be!)

Then I went to a different sink to wash my hands, and started working on a marinade. I scooped out a bowlful of yogurt, added a couple of palmfuls of Penzey's sweet curry powder and a few pinches of kosher salt, and gave the whole thing a stir until the color was even. (I didn't measure anything. Bad chemist, me!) Then I scooped the whole thing into a gallon-size ziplock bag, and sat the bag in our 9-by-13 glass dish for secondary containment. I brought the glass dish up by the sink to transfer the rinsed and drip-dried bird in, and then moved dish (with bird) back to the cart. I rubbed the marinade under the skin of the bird as best I could, and then washed my hands (again) so I could seal the bag and carry it up to the fridge.When I came back down, I dug out the bleach and sanitized the chicken-contaminated cutting board and shears, as well as the sink. (We can't leave containers of liquid open, unsupervised. Lyon's a "water cat" and he will play in, drink, or both with any body of liquid available to him.) I also cleaned the top of the cart, although I didn't think I'd splattered any chicken juice.

The bird rested in the fridge for about three hours, and then I lit the grill. While the grill pre-heated, I prepped the thermometer and probe, inserting it into the thigh. I put the chicken on the grill skin side up, turned the middle burner off and the other two down to medium, and set the thermometer alarm for 165 °F. It took probably 50 minutes or so to get there, at which point I turned the chicken skin down, re-lit the middle burner, and let it go over the direct heat for 10 minutes or so, to get the skin really crisp. While it crisped, I chopped up some red bell pepper and a few cherry tomatoes, along with a smidge of sweet onion and some cilantro, to go over the last little bit of mâche leaves, with olive oil and sherry vinegar.

My husband finished showering just as the bird was coming off the grill to rest. He prefers white meat, while I really love dark, so we each got one of our preferred quarters. He asked what I'd used in the marinade, which usually means it's a keeper.

After that, he munched on a few corn chips, while I ate the cherries from the market yesterday. Then, dessert, upstairs! We brought bowls and an ice cream spade up, and scooped the ice cream in the kitchen, on our new counter! (Then we brought it back down to catch up on recorded Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares.)

It's so close to being done...yet so far.

MelissaH

[coquus]

Ahh, cabinets are up, it must feel like it's close now. The finish work takes alot of patience to make it work in any house, let alone an older one. Now is the time you really need to keep those workers happy. I love the UFO's.

[MelissaH]

Ahh, cabinets are up, it must feel like it's close now.  The finish work takes alot of patience to make it work in any house, let alone an older one.  Now is the time you really need to keep those workers happy.  I love the UFO's.

←

He's really pretty easy to keep happy. I just try to stay out of the way, and make sure dinner's good.

Today's morning excursion took us to Lowe's, where we got a bunch of plumbing materials to make the connection from the sink (and garbage disposal) to the existing drain and water lines. We also got some other random pieces for electrical stuff, the tiles and grout for the backsplash, and a new ceiling fan (as long as my husband's going to be heading back to the attic to trace that wiring anyway, we figured we might as well replace it with something we like better).

If the plumbing goes without any real problems, I may have a sink in by the end of the weekend!

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

The plumbing went relatively well. Only one slightly burned finger from a drop of hot solder, and no obvious leaks. We wound up reusing the old trap, because we inadvertently got one the wrong size. But we'll need to go back anyway, to get paint (we decided on Betsy's Linen for the window quarter-round, in something really shiny; I hope they sell samples because that's about all we'd need for the job) and I'm sure other things will come up also.

An oddity did come up today: how to get the back on the sink cabinet. The drain comes out of the wall, but the water lines rise up from the floor. If we put the back on the cabinet before pushing it into place, the drain could come through but the water lines would be stuck outside the cabinet. And we couldn't really push the cabinet in place and then slide the back on from the outside because there's a wall there! What wound up happening: my husband cut a slot for the drainpipe, and slid the back over the drain but behind the water lines. Then he pushed the sink cabinet up to the wall, and somehow managed to push (pull?) the back to a reasonably tight compression fit. Then, he used the screws that hold the cabinet to the wall to help hold the backing on. But it's mainly just a compression fit. Here's the result, without sink cabinet doors:

This afternoon after the plumbing, we leveled the cabinets from the refrigerator around past the sink to the sliding door, using the legs. Those corner cabinets are a real bugger to do, especially the legs at the back where they're nearly impossible to reach from the front.

Up now: countertop cutting. Jigsaw and lots of blue tape...but we hedged our bets at Lowe's this morning with a tube of formica filler, which works wonders on small chips.

We're currently in discussion about backsplash. I want to wrap it all the way around the baking area, across the butcher block counter. My husband doesn't. I think it will look funny if there's a black line that goes partway over, and then just stops. He thinks that if we replace that section of butcher block with marble earlier than we redo the entire countertop, we'll have problems with the backsplash being there and we'll make a mess trying to remove the tiles. The current compromise is that once the countertops are all in, we'll try it out and see if it really does look odd.

Our next-door neighbor was over today. He's a retired art professor, and he was quite impressed by the kitchen. He said his wife's going to be jealous, especially of the range.

MelissaH

[jgarner53]

Your Monogram range looks great! I am contemplating the same range myself (what others did you consider, or did you?) and am eager to hear how you like it when you start using it.

[MelissaH]

Your Monogram range looks great! I am contemplating the same range myself (what others did you consider, or did you?) and am eager to hear how you like it when you start using it.

←

No question from the beginning: we wanted gas burners and an electric convection oven. I'll pick up the decision process after we finished agonizing over cooktop and separate oven vs. range, and 30-inch range vs. 36-inch range.

Once we'd decided that we were going to do a 36-inch range (which pretty much put us down the pro-style path, as there doesn't seem to be a 36-inch consumer-style range in existence) we started looking at our options.

We restricted ourselves to things available in stores within about an hour's drive. This was not so much because we wanted to buy locally (which, as it turned out, we didn't, because the price tag for purchase and delivery would have been a couple thousand higher to go more local) but because we wanted to be sure there was going to be someone around who could service the range, should the need arise.

Then, once we knew what stores carried the higher-end appliances here, we visited them to see what the people were like. And we didn't like the people in the Syracuse stores: in every single one of them, the people either didn't call us back when I phoned to ask a question, ignored us completely when we showed up, or were incapable of giving coherent information when we tracked someone down. We therefore decided that we'd be going with something that the store in Auburn carried, which gave us five options: Monogram, Viking, Wolf, DCS, and Thermador (if I remember correctly). We spent quite a while in that store, where the salesperson talked to us as soon as we entered, answered our few questions, and then left us to play in peace.

We ruled out Thermador right away, because we thought it ugly and because that giant oven temperature dial looks, to me, like something else that periodically needs to be tweaked or calibrated to stay in sync with the oven dial.

We also ruled out Wolf, both because we'd heard that they weren't as reliable as others and because we wanted all 6 burners to be high-powered as long as we were going the pro-style route, and according to the specs, the Wolf has wimpy burners.

We liked the way the DCS looked, but the floor model at the store had a broken door. Cross them off the list!

So, this left us with Monogram and Viking, which were the two at the top of our list even before we started to look at everything. We have friends with a six-burner Viking rangetop, and it is an absolute joy to cook on (especially to us, since last time we visited them, we were still saddled with the old electric cooktop). We also liked that Viking is available in something other than a stainless finish. (Stainless is nice, but we were both concerned about having what appears to be a giant hunk of metal in a relatively small kitchen.) Our friends' rangetop has been fine, in terms of reliability, but we weren't sure about getting someone to our small town if something came up here. (Our friends got their rangetop the year before Viking came out with sealed burners. They said that given a choice, it's a no-brainer: sealed burners are the way to go.)

In Monogram's favor, it's a GE, which means that it should be relatively easy to get it serviced, should the need arise. I also liked the wok holders on the flip side, since I realized long ago that many of the things I keep on dreaming about cooking someday are things where a component gets fried in oil, but could be done in relatively little oil if I used a wok. (My husband just discovered the wok holders when I showed him a couple of days ago!) We liked the look and feel of the range.

The deciding factor? In the end, it all came down to price. When we looked at comparable Monogram and Viking models side by side, with price tags, the Viking was over a grand more expensive. Therefore, Monogram it is.

You didn't ask, but I'll also tell you about how we chose the hood.

Once we settled on a Monogram range, we wanted either a Monogram hood, or a hood made by someone who doesn't make ranges. The other big thing we wanted: filters that go in the dishwasher. Again, we looked for things available locally. My husband didn't like Vent-a-Hood when we saw one in person, so it was going to be something by Monogram. We narrowed down to two choices: the Straight Side Professional Wall-Mounted Hood or the Restaurant Style Professional Wall-Mounted Hood. (They make a taper-sided hood also, but because it was going between wall cabinets, we wanted the straight sides. They also make all kinds of more decorative hoods, but they either don't suck as much air or have a second blower and are therefore more complicated. Anything "pretty" or "architectural" would get lost in our kitchen, because the hood will be largely invisible from the dining room, unless Superman comes over for dinner and sees through the cabinet.) Functionally, the two are about the same, and we think they use the same motor. We went with the Restaurant Style hood for one reason: cost. The Restaurant Style hood comes with a stainless backsplash that works for us, but the Straight Side hood does not come with a backsplash (and buying one adds on a few hundred dollars to the cost). Had we not been satisfied with a plain stainless backsplash, we might have gone the other way.

Speaking of hood: we heard from the roofer duct guy. The stainless he needs to build our ducting didn't get delivered last week. He's expecting it to arrive on Wednesday, so we'll probably see him towards the end of the week.

I may very well have countertops (at least the laminate ones) and a working sink by the end of today!

MelissaH

edited because my brain got ahead of my fingers

Edited June 25, 2006 by MelissaH (log)

[MelissaH]

Grrr.

The sink hole is cut in the countertop. The sink fits beautifully in the hole. (We also had to trim the top rail of the sink cabinet slightly, so the sink would fit in.) And then my husband looked at the pieces to attach the sink to the countertop. The screws that came with the clips are designed to work only with 0.75-inch countertop. Our countertop is 1.5 inches thick. The clips don't work with the countertop.

Why don't they tell you these things when you order? (This was an order I placed over the phone! All it would have taken is a "How thick is your countertop?" from the person on the other end of the line?) Who knows how long it could take to get in the "real" replacements!

A workaround with readily-available materials is coming...I hope.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

We did our day trip to Ottawa today, and got a whole bunch of little stuff (trash cans for under the new sink, a pullout rack for the cleaning stuff under the sink on the other side, a cat food holder, a magnetic metal bar to hold up recipes, drawer dividers, etc. The trip itself was uneventful.

We did stumble upon a couple of bonanzas in the As Is section. We found another horizontal cabinet door, for CDN $5. We also found two drawers, no fronts (but those can easily be constructed in our color out of birch plywood if necessary) for CDN $5 each.

My husband just glued the countertops together with epoxy. I can't do that, because I'm allergic to one of the ingredients in the uncured resin. Here's what it looked like last night, with the plumbing all done and the bucket below DRY:

The epoxy will be cured tomorrow morning. Then, the trim work really begins.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Pictures and details to follow, later today I hope.

The end is in sight. My husband is currently in the attic, following wires so we can have a functioning light in the hallway again, and also a ceiling fan (with light) that works as well. (It's not super-warm for the moment: the Lyon Thermometer says loosely curled up, with head over tail.)

But: momentous occasion last night: we cooked our first meal in the new kitchen, and then ran a load of dishes in the dishwasher for the first time! (Slightly less momentous occasion: we burned something in the oven for the first time also. But we'll forget about that.)

We've been spared the worst of the rain, unlike what's apparently south and east of us. However, it was thundery and rainy enough last night that I was relieved I didn't have to go outdoors to make dinner.

In a couple of hours, we'll head to Syracuse to run a whole bunch of errands, including visits to Target and Home Depot. Then we'll stop at the airport to pick up my cousin, who arrives from Paris to do an internship in the chemistry department here. (Dinner plans for tonight include the all-American burgers on the grill.)

In the meantime, I need to finish clearing stuff out of the room that will be his for the next six weeks. Hope Lyon doesn't mind sharing the bed for a while!

We've started putting stuff into drawers. This is harder than I thought, trying to figure out what should go where, knowing that once something goes somewhere it probably won't get moved for quite a while. We're hoping that Target (or Home Depot) has better options for drawer organization than Lowe's and BB&B did locally. We're also looking for a new stepstool, so I can reach the upper portions of our beautiful TALL cabinets.

My husband is wonderful!

MelissaH

[fou de Bassan]

Your kitchen is wonderful!!! I love the UFO's too, and am suffering from severe outlet envy!

Re the iPod, if you can get the undermounted player I would do so. We have the Bose dock and use a separate radio. I would love to have the two together.

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Hi, MelissaH--

I'm new to this discussion, and your project has stimulated my own kitchen-renovation cravings. In my case the space is large enough but apparently it was laid out by someone who did not cook. Work space is 4 steps away from the cooktop, sink occupies what should be work space--it goes on and on. However, I've cooked in this kitchen for 23+ years, and I guess I can go on a little longer until we decide to either move or remodel.

I think I have a solution for one of your dilemmas--the dreaded corner cabinet. In my kitchen the dishwasher and a base cabinet create a square space behind them, in the corner, that is wasted space. Think of a right angle, facing the kitchen, with one side of the angle being the front of the dishwasher and the other the door of a base cabinet. The space behind them, which is a sizeable square space, can't be accessed from the kitchen.

(This is hard to describe--you have 3 rectangles. Two of them face the kitchen, joined at a front corner at right angles, and the third is the one we're talking about.)

However, you can get to that third square from the other side of the wall behind it. After being cranky about the wasted space for several years I finally realized that I could put a door on the other side of the wall--in my case, into the dining room--and turn that wasted space into a cabinet. I now store large platters and other items that I use only occasionally, and I'm no longer cranky.

Seems to me that at least one of your corner cabinets--the one backing up into the hall--could be used that way. Depends on how much storage you want in the kitchen, but this space could be very useful in other ways. Think about the kinds of things that you might want to store in that area--sports gear, boots, kid toys, holiday decorations. The other corner cabinet space exits into the bathroom, and if you have the tub or other permanent items in the way you may have to just go for the traditional wobbly turntable in the kitchen, or that cool Magic Corner thing.

Just a thought. Good luck with your planning. I think your project has stimulated a lot of wistful thinking--gee, we could do our kitchen too, doncha think?

N.

[MelissaH]

Wow, things got ahead of me in a hurry! I meant to get back to this a lot sooner, but it obviously didn't happen.

As I'd said, we have cooked our first dinner entirely in the new kitchen. (And since then, we've cooked a few other dinners partly upstairs, since it's gotten nice enough to use the grill again the last couple of evenings.)

We don't yet have a hood that actually vents outside. Until we have a hood that actually sucks dirty air somewhere, we can't do anything too noxious. But it's coming. Wednesday afternoon (that was the 28th) the stainless steel was delivered to our HVAC roofer guy, and then he needed to make the sheet of metal into the ducts and various other pieces. The original plan was for him to come on Friday and do the work (yesterday, that is) but the rain we've had backed things up enough that all he could do was come over quickly and get up on the roof. Because of the way the roof extends over the back deck, we actually have two different pitches of roof on the backside of the house. Depending on exactly where the stove is in relation to the roof, we may or may not be able to go straight up the way we want. But we do have options, and because we have lots of extra wiggle room in terms of the amount of ductwork we can use, we'll be able to find a viable workaround, even if it involves coming out somewhere other than straight up. He'll be over Monday morning, and the kitchen may actually be done that day, completely! (Did I just lay a curse on the kitchen? I hope not!)

The moldings, filler strips, and end panels are all in place!

The story of our first dinner: nothing too exciting, just a bag of cheese ravioli from the freezer with what was left of a jar of sauce, and a loaf of store-bought garlic bread. Whatever salad fixings had been left over in both our kitchens. We'd been working and running around (three of us individually: me, my husband, and our friend Anne) enough that nobody wanted to take the time to do anything much or that would involve massive prep work or time. Hence our meal selection. (Dessert was good, though: the last of the blueberry pie.) The stove heats water beautifully. We didn't do the scientific experiment of measuring the amount and temperature of the water in the pasta pot, and starting the stopwatch the moment the burner ignited, to see how long it takes our stove to boil water, but it was fast enough that nobody complained.

But what really impressed us: the simmer setting of our burners. Our friends' Viking simmers with what seems to be little spurts of flame, but this baby has a very very very low, but constant flame. (Part of the difference may be because our friends run on propane, but we use natural gas.) The neatest part was that we could actually get the flame so low that the sauce heated but didn't bubble or blurple everywhere, for once.

Casey at the stove, before the burning

The stove without Casey

But then, the part about our first burning. I hope that our non-ceremonial burning was enough to satisfy our kitchen gods for a good long time. It happened to the garlic bread. The instructions say to bake for a while, as a whole closed-up loaf, and then open the loaf up and stick it under the broiler for a bit to crisp the top. (You can probably all see where the train wreck's coming from.) We baked as directed, and then switched from bake to broil. On our range, this entails pushing the "broil" button and turning the knob all the way past 500 to "broil." Casey did this, and a couple of minutes later checked the bread. Nothing seemed to be happening. Another couple of minutes, another check, still nothing. We thought maybe it was too far from the broiler---the one knock we'd heard about this particular range was that the broiler might be a little wimpy, compared to some others---so we rested the bread on top and moved a rack up right to the top. Still, after a couple of minutes, nothing. Then, I asked whether the oven lights were on. There are lights on each dial which switch on when the burner or oven is turned on, and there's also a light that turns on when the oven is heating. And lo and behold, the oven lights were off. The knob has a little bit of a click at broil, and my husband had gone past it a smidge. (The only thing past broil is clean.) He turned the oven knob to where it clicked into broil, and you know the part that comes next. Three minutes later, we had a loaf of garlic bread nicely charred at both ends. We cut the ends off, and ate the rest with our dinner.

Casey at the sink

That night we ran the dishwasher for the first time. I like that we have a display that tells you how many minutes are left in the cycle. We can barely hear it at all when it's on, which is nice. I also like that it's easy to load, and holds lots and lots of dishes, and cleans them well. We discovered that our two largest plastic cutting boards really don't fit in well with the top rack in place, so unless we have lots of tall stuff to do, we'll continue to wash those by hand. But even that's not such a big deal anymore, because we have a beautiful huge sink that can hold even our largest cutting board flat so it's easy to wash. There were a few other things that don't go in the dishwasher, so I also did those by hand, and just spread them all to dry on a kitchen towel on the counter. In the morning, I just had to put them away and hang the towel back through the fridge handle, and that was easy. Back to the dishwasher: in the morning, things were a touch damp still, so I guess the drying cycle isn't quite as efficient as leaving things on a drying rack overnight in the breeze. But I can live with that.

I like having my dishes in a drawer right next to the dishwasher. It's very easy to load and unload.

The sink (and the glass-front horizontal cabinets) without Casey

Thursday we spent the day, more or less, in Syracuse. We didn't get anything too big or wild, with the exception of my 20-year-old cousin. We did get a tone generator to help sort out the electrical messes, as well as to ease any future electrical work. We found some containers to help organize the stuff in our new drawers. On the way back into town we stopped at our farmer's market and got a couple of tomatoes and some potatoes. The tomatoes were for the burgers we grilled for dinner that night. The potatoes we did inside, salt potato style. We also threw some corn on the grill. My cousin was rather appalled to learn that in this country, store-bought ground beef needs to be cooked until it's completely dead. After dinner, we loaded the dishwasher again, added some other stuff from downstairs, and ran it. My jet-lagged cousin headed to bed, and we finished dealing with the last of the electrical issues. The hallway light turned out to be easy: in the process of running a new wire from Point A to Point B, because the old one was so old that much of the cloth insulation had crumbled away, my husband hadn't realized that the wire was supposed to go into and out of a junction box under a sheet of plywood. That was easy to rectify. The ceiling fan was a bit tougher, and we still don't know exactly what's going on with it. By bedtime on Thursday, that wasn't sorted out, but playing with power is not a good thing to do with a tired mind. So, to bed we went.

Friday morning, first thing to do was to fix the power. With a clear mind, my husband realized that it doesn't really matter if he understands what's going on, so long as all the wires are capped off properly and the switch associated with the fixture turns it on in one position and off in the other. Furthermore, even having a working switch isn't all that important, because the new fan operates by remote control, so as long as it has power, it's fine. In the end, we determined that the fan and switch function, so that's how it currently stands. With that sorted out, my husband replaced the old ceiling fan with the Avian model from Lowe's. It's got three wide blades, one halogen light, and is much more visually appealing and up-to-date than its predecessor, especially combined with the new cabinets. It also moves a ton more air, enough that the burners on the stove flicker a bit on the simmer setting.

The other thing we did yesterday was start to put things into our new cabinets. That meant that we had to put shelves in. I started with the spices, which went on a couple of sets of "steps" in the 12-inch cabinets over the baking area. I also put in things like the extracts and citrus oils, the honeys, the salts and mustards (we got a wonderful collection of sea salts, mustards, and peppercorns from France, courtesy of my cousin) here. I'm fully expecting to do at least one more full-scale reorganization once we've used the new kitchen for a while.

The corner cabinet next to the fridge is where the small electrical appliances live: hand mixer, immersion blender and normal blender, electric frying pan, waffle iron, crockpot, and the like. Casserole dishes also wound up here. The turntables make it really easy to get at everything. The other corner cabinet will hold flour, sugar, and other powdered baking supplies. We have upper turntable cabinets too, but I don't remember off the top of my head what we were going to put here. We looked back at our original list of what we had, and at the diagram of the kitchen where I'd indicated what should go where in the new kitchen, but we left it on the countertop when the cat was still interested in the brand-new countertops, and he obviously found it because one day I came home to discover a giant hairball spewed on top of it. Yuck.

We'd thought the toaster oven would go on the counter next to the fridge, so that's where we put it. It seemed fine, except that it was slightly in the way of the switch that will eventually control the undercabinet lights for that area. I still think it will be fine there, but sometime before I woke up today, the toaster migrated back to the other side of the kitchen, between dining room and sink. I think I'll move it back.

We've decided for now to keep the hinges of the fridge as is. For one thing, it's pretty easy to use the countertop opposite the fridge as a loading zone. And for another thing, you don't get boxed into the corner when you open the fridge. If we decide it needs to be switched, that can happen later.

This morning, my husband and cousin put one coat of paint on the dining room wall, around the slider that leads out to the deck. Then they went over to Anne's, to install her dishwasher. (It's only been sitting in her kitchen for a year now, because she couldn't decide which cabinet to replace with it.) She has the luxury of an open basement, which makes it much easier to deal with utilities than in our house. I put one coat of paint on the ceiling, and then I put the second coat of paint on the wall. I just now put the second coat of paint on the ceiling. That pretty much used up the ceiling paint, but we'll need to get some more because we have areas around the lights that need a little touching up. We'll do that next time we're out east.

The view from the dining room. Things are still a bit of a mess, but they're getting better.

So, what's next? First, Anne needs to have a functioning dishwasher. That should happen before the end of the day. She and her mom are joining us for dinner tomorrow, which is why we wanted to get the dining room painted today. We also have some little stuff that will need to migrate elsewhere. Once the paint is dry to the touch and I'm sure we have enough coats on the ceiling, and everything else is cleared out of the dining room, we'll be relocating into the dining room table my parents didn't want to move to Colorado. It's been in our garage the last month and a half. This is a beautiful oak table, 40 inches wide and about 74 inches long. There are two leaves, each of which adds 19 inches to the table's length. Now we also need to get a tablecloth to fit, before dinner tomorrow.

We also need to talk with our next-door neighbor, the retired art professor. He's probably going to have some good ideas for how to best transfer our Lion of Flanders onto the wall. (Right now, we have a computer printout taped up with blue tape.) Once the lion is up, we'll know exactly where we can put the shelves. Once we figure out exactly what iPod dock we're getting, we'll know how many shelves we can get up. We're thinking a clock would also be nice.

We still have to do the toekicks, which means we need to make sure all the junk is cleaned out from underneath. I see a Swiffer in our future, maybe. There's also a little bit of drywall patching to do still, as well as light valances and under-cabinet lighting. And the tile backsplash. And oiling the butcher block sections of countertop, but that needs to wait until all the other stuff is moved off. And....

But it's mainly little stuff now. The kitchen should be fully functional by Monday night!

MelissaH