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.)

Don't worry - we're still working

Based on the blog, it looks like we've done nothing for the past few weeks. And that's partly true because we were on a trip to NY, but what the blog neglects to show is us walking the streets of Manhattan (and Brooklyn and Queens and Woodstock) discussing sink locations, plumbing problems, and wall supports. After much back and forth (and by much, I mean hella much), we ordered new cabinets for the kitchen on Friday night. Finally, I was able to realize my dream of being the very last customer to leave IKEA!

Next up: getting the washer/dryer out of the kitchen. This one has proven to be our biggest challenge so far.

In the meantime, Seth installed our "hotel style" shower bar this morning:


The bar bows out to offer plenty of elbow room - looking forward to trying it out tonight!

The Impending IKEA Storm

We're still putting small tweaks around the house (hello new knobs on the knob-less living room closet), but most of our work has been visualizing what we might want an updated kitchen to look like. At times if feels like we're rushing, but with Ilana having some good time before school starts (with probably little time after it starts), we figure it might be now or never (or at least 2 years from now). We've made one decision: IKEA cabinets. We've also nixed the crazy butterfly sink (though we like yours, Abby). Now, it's down to the actual cabinets and figuring layout. And though we can do this at home, it's much more fun to do it IKEA:


Perhaps it's because we like to go compare two different items in person, perhaps it's because we like to find the 21" cabinets not listed in the catalog, or perhaps it's because we like the IKEA employee to tell us we need 2" to separate two of our cabinets, thus screwing up our entire plan.

Just in case...

Just in case you thought Seth feared getting electrocuted (again), here's a shot of him re-something-or-other-ing an outlet:



And just in case you thought Seth was doing all the work around this place, here's a shot of me scouring off the grossness that will inevitably build up behind and under a stove over the course of 38 years:



And, finally, just in case you like gory details and want to see how gross it was:

Welcome to your new home, food.

Yesterday was a big day for Seth. The new fridge arrived. Seth's milk is safe!

We debated about whether or not to dump the old one. It was too big for the space and ugly, but technically it worked and since we both try to prioritize environmental stewardship over aesthetics, we had planned on keeping it until it completely died. But once we discovered stubborn mold that wouldn't come off despite our aggressive efforts, that was that -- the old Admiral fridge, circa our birth years, would have to go.

Two trips to Sears and a ton of internet research later, our new purchase arrived. Two burly delivery men got the old one out and the new one set up in no time. Here's something to know: people who are experienced at removing doors can do so in less than a minute. Our friendly Sears delivery men also told me that the old refrigerator will go to a recycling plant where its guts are mined for usable parts, so it wasn't a totally un-green outcome.

Welcome to your new home, food. We hope you like the weather.

Manual Labor!

After simply letting installation dudes in and out the other day, I finally did my own manual labor on the house. Work included:

• adding a latch to one of our side gates (Cost: $7)
• fixed latch on other side gate (Cost: Free)
• replaced the shower flange (Cost: $2)
  
• re-caulked some areas of the tub/shower, which was WAY harder than I imagined to get it to look the way my perfectionist self wanted (Cost: $5)
• replaced the outlet plate behind the stove in anticipation of its (the stove's) replacement, hopefully coming Wednesday (Cost: $5)

A good day.

Total cost for the day:
$19

Day One

Today is the first day of our home improvements. We purposely bought this condo to avoid some of the work that was necessary to update many of the older Berkeley homes we were looking at. Nevertheless, we've already got an extensive project list.

Today was a busy day...

- Comcast came out to set up our cable and internet. Apparently, the person (or people) who lived here before were a little cable-crazy so there are a ton of cable outlets throughout the house (many rooms have two). The line needed to be fixed and "excess" outlets taken out of the loop to make sure a couple newly-connected ones would work. The guy ended up being here for two hours. I got to listen to him talk endlessly about strategies for picking up "chicks," including his friend's apparently successful strategy of going to "tranny bars." However, he did do a lot of work for us to make sure it all worked so I gave him a $20 tip.

- We also wanted to change our locks. A guy came by and replaced all of the locks (we only need one key now), all the while using WAY too much lube (doors needed to be cleaned after).

- The last contractor I got to deal with today was a plumber. Sometime after our home inspection and before we moved in, the downstairs toilet stopped working. It was probably just poor timing, made worse by one of the seller's contractors turning the water off and on while doing some work. Luckily, the seller said he would cover the cost. The plumber replaced two older parts and everything's flushin' as it should. Cost would have been $150, but someone else is paying.

A time-consuming day, but all-in-all a success to start things off. Next up, new appliances!

You'll notice that the sidebar counts some trips to IKEA and Home Depot. That's because Ilana likes to get ideas. No work or supplies have yet to result from said trips.