It's a Blue Green Grey

It's been a while since we posted, but that doesn't mean we're not making progress. And for those of you wondering why I'm posting this on the eve of perhaps one of the most important days in our nation's history: anything that can distract me from hitting refresh on fivethirtyeight.com is a good thing.

So, since the installation of the microwave and final cabinet, we've been working on some of the "finishing" touches to the kitchen:

My mom was nice enough to give her time to help us paint. And by "us paint," I mean mostly mom and Ilana. And by "paint" I mean paint from noon until 8pm, and then some. Here she is painting the pantry I made (the doors went on last night!).






Here is Ilana painting around the cat door. That's right, we gave Seymour a cat door. It's got a magnet sensor (he wears a magnet -- or as I call it, "the all-access pass") that let's him come in, but no other cats. It also has locks that override the magnet, which we use at night to keep him in. Unfortunately for us, he's managed to pick said locks. He's also managed to remove a piece of wood that was part of a shield I made to keep him from picking the lock. He's quite the Houdini. I have one more idea on how to truly lock him in... results to follow.

If you're wondering about the color, it's kind of a blue green grey. Looks a little blah in the photo, but it looks great in person.










Hopefully the last major construction piece to the kitchen is/was the "light box" that goes above our pass-through. Here it is, almost secured to the ceiling (I designed and constructed it myself). As you can see, it's supported by what I call a "Frank System"; that is, barely secured pieces of wood held up for just long enough to get the job done. And get the job done they did.


It's all ready for Matt the electrician to do the final wiring. Then I need to cover it up with sheetrock and paint it.

And feel free to admire Ilana's electric bike in the background. That's right: electric bike.

So that's why it's called duct tape.

Though there was definitely a sense of completion after we got the counters and sink in (as evidenced by our victory pizza), we are not yet done with the kitchen. There are finishing touches to put on, as well as a few small construction projects. The first was the cabinet and microwave that lived over the stove. We had been ignoring them, as they did not impede any of our other tasks and our goal was to get a functioning kitchen again. But now that functionality was taken care of, it was time to tear down one more cabinet.

I was so excited to get these things down that I failed to take a good "before" picture. Here's the black microwave that had no place in our white kitchen (and, to be perfectly honest, was pretty disgusting), and the last of the original cabinets. And yes, like the other ones, this one was nailed into the wall with four inch nails and was just as difficult to rip down. Didn't they have screws back in 1969?

Because I don't like to make anything easy, I also decided to take out a piece of drywall that had some old water damage. It was a pain to have to cut and hang a new piece (notice there's an air vent and an outlet), as well as seal and spackle it, but I'm glad I did it and ensured there are no current water issues.




Because the new cabinet was about 3 inches taller than the previous one, I had to cut a filler piece of duct to get the stove fan vent to make it out of the house. And yes, I finally realized why it was called duct tape.






Here is the final product. We are now officially done installing cabinets, and all of our appliances have been updated.

Next up, constructing a box for lights above the pass through and a pantry.

Back in Business

And we're back to a functioning kitchen! After almost four weeks without a kitchen sink, we now have a beautiful one that has water and a drain and everything. You might not think it's amazing, but it is, at least for people who have been eating off of paper plates, licking utensils clean, and doing dishes in the bathroom. In addition to our sink and lovely faucet, we also have a new garbage disposal and a dishwasher. And it hasn't been all about utility: we've also finished putting the doors on all the cabinets, along with the knobs and handles. There are probably some in-between photos, but we're going to cut to the chase:

We needed a little help from our plumber Michael to feel good about the plumbing setup. He was a great help today.




And there we are. Cabinets, counters, a working sink, a dishwasher, and a cluttered dining/living room in the distance.



Another angle.







To celebrate, we made a nice home-cooked meal of pizza. It's been tough to cook things without a sink, so there have been a lot of microwave meals. Needless to say, it was delicious. But not as delicious as sliding a few of the vegetable remnants from the counter directly into our undermount sink. Sweetness.

There are still many things to attend to, but we're just happy we can live like normal people while we work on them.

Let there be light!

In case the kitchen and the start of school and wedding planning aren't keeping us busy enough, I have also been working on a side project for the past month: getting the tree next to our living room window removed. Not only was it blocking so much light that we felt like we were in a basement, but the type of tree that was there, a Podocarpus, was way too big for the space and had potential to damage the roof and the fence. Moreover, we were already seeing signs of damage on the walkway from the roots.

I got a bunch of competing bids, selected the best one, conferred with the HOA neighbors, gave a heads up to our next-door neighbors, and scheduled Matthew Bowman from Complete Tree Care to come out and do the job. Not only is he a great arborist, but he lives just down the block, so bonus points for supporting our local-ist economy.

Well, what a difference a day makes. Actually, in this case, what a difference twenty minutes makes. Matthew and his guys worked so quickly that I didn't have time to get a good before shot. But here's a mid-way shot:













And here's an after shot of light pouring into the living room:









While it's definitely not easy for environmentally-conscious people like us to give the okay to remove trees, we're going to eventually plant some shrubs that are better suited for that space, so bring on the oxygen!

Confidential to Seth: I told you so!

I love it when a plan comes together

Have you ever decided on a paint color from one of those color swatches, only to find that once you paint a whole wall that color it doesn't look like you planned? Needless to say, we were concerned about this issue when we picked our new (super permanent and not the cheapest thing we've ever bought) countertop based on two 3"x3" samples. Well, they were installed today and we couldn't be happier. Take a look:

Isn't it pretty? It matches the floors nicely and finally makes our kitchen look like a kitchen again.





Ilana is looking forward to sliding crumbs straight from the counter into our new under-mounted sink. However, she's going to promise to not slide too many vegetable remains in because garbage disposals aren't miracle workers, right?

Now all we need to do is hook it up and we have a kitchen sink again. Hallelujah!

Cabinets!

With the floors now done, we are starting to actually put our new kitchen together. Though they're the most difficult, we had to start with the wall cabinets (because they're easier to hang without base cabinets getting in the way).

This is our first cabinet. Once it was on, and on sturdy, there was much rejoicing.










Due to a heating vent, we had to make our first modification. Though it was the most substantial, it was far from our last. I'm pretty sure every cabinet has a touch of customization.







Here they are, side by side, framing our new cut-out very nicely.






However, because we're us, and because the cabinets looked so nice on the walls, we decided we had to take them down and paint, because we didn't want to make it too difficult to do the same in the future. We decided two coats of primer would do it.





And then the cabinets went back up.







And we could turn our attention to the base cabinets. This was taken with a self-timer. And no, we don't coordinate our carpenter wear; we're just All-American like that.



So, after much progress last night, with most of the cabinets in place, we were feeling good; we were ahead of schedule and things were looking great. Ilana was so excited that she asked me to rest the new sink in the cabinet to see what it would look like. I did so, and out of curiousity, held up our newly purchased garbage disposal to see how much room we would have under the sink (not much, by the way -- we've got a big sink and it rocks). Unfortunately, the garbage disposal didn't fit under the sink hole because one of the water pipes stuck out too far. We knew we would need a plumber (disappointing) and decided to hang it up for the night. So we took showers, and after Ilana finished, she noticed that the water wouldn't shut off completely. A steady drizzle was coming out of the shower. I tried all my tricks, but ended up having to turn the water off for our whole place. We went to sleep on a low note, knowing that we now had two reasons to call a plumber, and one couldn't wait.

Luckily, this morning, Ilana found a super nice guy on Yelp who lives nearby and came over within two hours. He fixed our leaking shower, showed me how to do the same in the future, and moved the kitchen sink pipe all for a ridiculously low price. He's our new plumber. With all that solved, we were able to turn our attention back to the cabinets.

This is our current setting. We're getting pretty excited; it's nice to get a sense of what our kitchen will actually look like, as well as actually have some room for things (Ilana has already used some cabinet space for pots and pans). Notice the sink is there, and the disposal fits fine this time.

The counter installers are coming tomorrow to measure everything so they can install next Wednesday. Then, perhaps, we can stop doing our dishes in the bathroom sink.

Floors!

On Saturday morning, we stopped by a flooring store, picked up some floating floor samples, and headed off to a very relaxing weekend with a good friend. As of Sunday night, we were planning on doing the floating floor (basically wooden tiles that stick to each other but not the floor), and installing them ourselves. As we figured out how we were going to do that and stay on schedule to install cabinets to stay on schedule to get our counters installed, Ilana made a proclamation: we should get the floors professionally done. The next day, we pushed everything back a week (more microwave meals!) and I was able to find a great store that could sell us ceramic tiles and install them for just a little more than the floating floor was going to cost us (and without us having to learn to and/or do a poor job installing them).

Last night we moved the fridge into the living room and this morning we put the stove in the carport. (See? We still do some things on our own!) That left us with a bare naked kitchen:

After many weeks of tearing apart our kitchen, we now get to start building it back up again. Ten hours later, this is what our kitchen floor looks like:


Don't mind the shine, they were still wet at the time. We got a matte finish. How'd we get here? One word: Joaquin.

Here he is starting off in the only portion of the floor that will not be covered by a cabinet or appliance. One of the reasons we are glad we didn't pay much for a floor is because we realized less than half of it is viewable.



Here is Joaquin working himself right out of the room. The legs in the back are of his assistant, who did all the tile cutting. He was the silent partner. But he whistled sometimes.




Here's the final, grouted product, with a little less shine. We're very pleased. Now it just has to dry.

It's getting hard to keep up

The changes are coming so fast and furious that it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the blog updates. Having my dad here was a huge help and we got a lot of good work done. As you saw from Ilana's post, we finished enlarging the kitchen-dining pass-through. Then we made it look pretty:

It's amazing how once we put the wall back up it looked like the hole was there all along







Following that (and finishing the wall in the new laundry closet), we decided to take out the rest of the old cabinets, including the kitchen sink and all the cockamamie pipes and wiring. I especially liked the wiring job that came out of the wall, travelled through two cabinets, then went back into the wall.

I could not have done it without my dad.








Here is the mess we made in the process, filling up our carport.








So Ilana and I loaded up my dad's truck. Take note of the fungus colony that had been living under the sink cabinet. Finding things like this have helped us to realize this was a necessary project, despite the difficulties.



We then got to go the dump, which I believe has been Ilana's highlight of this whole project (despite the rusty nail incident -- don't ask, but she's up to date on her shots). It was very cathartic to throw away all our crap -- 600 pounds for just $34!


We have now shifted our attention to the floors. Here is Ilana taking up one of the three existing flooring types (old-ass tile, 80s tile, and linoleum). We currently have a cement floor and are off to Home Depot tomorrow to figure out our flooring solution.

Moving and Shaking

And by moving and shaking, I'm referring to the walls, which are doing so as I type this.

Seth and his dad, Frank, are in the kitchen drilling and hammering away. As is often the case, pictures speak louder than words, so here's a little photo montage of our recent activities:

Here's Seth working to get the counter top off. As with everything else in this house, it was "stucker" than we anticipated it being.







And once the counter was gone, we figured we might as well do the corner cabinet as well.










And that's when Frank arrived!

The goal: enlarge the small pass-through in the wall in order to open up the kitchen.

Seth and Frank make a good team: Frank is all about demolishing first, planning later, while Seth is a plan first, then demo kind of guy.

Here they are surveying what needs to be done and how. Little did they know what they would find beneath the sheetrock ...



... lots more support beams than they had anticipated.









Brilliantly, they figured out a way to swap out the beams, all the while supporting the ceiling and preventing any potential sagging.












The finished product! (At least for one day.)

Holes in Walls

As previously seen, last week we removed the cabinets. Though part of the reason was that they were being replaced, another major reason was that we needed access to the wall behind them in order for our awesome plumber, Edgar, to connect a new drain pipe for our soon-to-be-moved-upstairs washer and dryer. So remember the last picture from last week (not including Seymour) and then take a look at our new and improved wall:

(drain pipe seen on right)

Don't worry too much about the holes in the walls -- my dad is coming next Wednesday to make an even bigger one so that totally 1970s pass-through actually becomes a useful opening between the kitchen and dining room. Let it be known that whenever we discuss the utility of the new opening, it is to determine how easy and/or enjoyable it will be for a guest to sit there and cut vegetables while we prepare food in the kitchen. So be forewarned -- if you come over for dinner, you're sitting at that window and choppin' stuff up.

Now, the downstairs is only a portion of this project. We also are putting washer/dryer hookups in our upstairs closet (we know the closet is not ideal, but it's more ideal than keeping them in the small kitchen or the expensive move out to the carport). Here's what the closet used to look like:


And here's what it looks like now:

More pictures of our kitchen "update" can be found here. It's not as fun/ny to write about the work other people do, but don't worry, there will be plenty of forthcoming Seth and Ilana shenanigans once we try to put together and install our cabinets. And our sink (which came today). Oh yeah, and we finally have couches. And our guest bed is now a guest futon. We're making moves!

Big Day

And by big day, I mean HUGE. Today we passed the point of no return by pulling the cabinets off of the wall. For some time now, we've been on the fence about this whole "re-doing the kitchen" idea. Despite finally buying cabinets at IKEA last week, we knew we could always return them and nix the plan. As you'll see from the photos, we're now in pretty deep and although we had a few scary moments, we're feeling excited about moving forward.

Here I am unloading the contents of the cabinets. Poor things knew nothing of what was to come.







We had a naive understanding of what it would take to remove these things, as evidenced by the very DIY support structures beneath them and me bracing them against the wall, you know, just in case. In reality, it took another 2+ hours and a lot of sawing and hammering to get them down.


Hands off, ladies (and fellas)! He's handy as hell and he's mine. Andrew Dan-Jumbo's got nothing on Seth. Well, maybe a little something on him -- but really just a little.

Before beginning this little venture, we guessed that the cabinets were original. Halfway through, we surmised that the house was built around them. We couldn't get all three out in one piece, so Seth used every tool he had to cut one off. I should add that everything was balanced on a stack of books at the time.


And, finally, the finished product. Looks better and feels bigger and brighter already!









Don't be fooled by this photo: Seymour did absolutely nothing to help our effort.

But we do need to give a shout out to the two playful guys at the Berkeley Tool Lending Library who rescued us by finding us a circular saw in all of five minutes. Our property taxes at work, folks.

We had a number of surprises today -- too many to go into on a blog post. We stressed a little, learned a lot, and even got a few jokes in. Bottom line: we're a kick-ass team and happy to join forces to fight that stubborn kitchen every step of the way.

(Click here for more photos of the nitty-gritty details.)