Cabinet Minister

All last week was kitchen cabinet week. Roy and Dino were here every day installing cabinets. The cabinets themselves were made in Canada and got delivered a few weeks ago. We've been storing them in the garage until this week. Roy and Dino haul them upstairs one by one.

The two corner units, in particular, were a problem. They're heavy, for starters. But they barely fit through the door, with maybe a half-inch to spare. I don't know what they would have done if they hadn't fit--open up a window?


Naturally, none of the walls are straight. Even though all the plaster is new, you can't fix hundred-year-old studs. There's a bit of a wow along one wall, for example, that confounded Roy's attempts to line up the cabinets. In the end, he had to remove it and change the shims to get everything to line up. No problem; he likes to sing while he works.

Now that most of the cabinets are in, the room is looking pretty pale and colorless. The plaster is pale, the cabinets are pale, and the doors and drawer fronts are pale ("bone"). It'll get better when the chocolate brown countertop and knobs go on. We're reusing the old tarnished brass knobs from the original kitchen cabinets and supplementing them with some new knobs that look about the same. Kathy plans to paint the walls green, and that'll add some color to the room, too.


The appliances arrive on Monday, so we're almost ready to start thinking about cooking again.

Iraqi Bomb Site

This is how the backyard looks. Charming, eh?

And this is actually pretty tidy, after several loads have already gone to the dump. The workers just toss stuff off the second-floor landing (with our blessing) and let it land in the yard. When the pile gets big enough, they haul it down to the street, load up a trailer, and haul it away. That's happened about... four times so far, I think. Plus, Kathy and I have hauled at least two loads ourselves.

This is what's left after a bit of electrical work, some plaster work, some plumbing, and a whole lot of floor sanding (which doesn't make much of a mess). I think we'll give it a few more weeks to get really nasty, then we'll haul this away, too.

The New Old Floor, Part II

All this week Gilbert the floor guy has been sanding, staining, and finishing the floors in the second-floor kitchen and laundry rooms. He finished on Friday and it's been drying over the weekend.

Gilbert sealed off both rooms, first to prevent the sanding dust from escaping, then to prevent outside dust from entering and ruining his finish. I've kept the doors shut... until now.

I had a peek Sunday evening to see what Gilbert hath wrought. Methinks he doth good work.

The floors even match, even through they're different species of wood (redwood in back; Douglas fir in front). It still smells like wood stain in there, but I imagine that'll go away as soon as we open up the doors and windows and get a little air in there.

Tomorrow -- fingers crossed -- the kitchen cabinets go in.

The Floor Model

Today started the serious kitchen floor refinishing. Yesterday, Gilbert the floor guy spent the entire day on his knees sanding down the kitchen and laundry room floors. He sealed off the rooms with plastic first (thanks, Gilbert!) and had at it. Naturally, it was also the hottest day of the year.

Today the sanding is mostly complete and Gilbert started staining and finishing the two floors. The kitchen is redwood, but the laundry room is Douglas fir, so they're different colors. We decided not to stain the redwood and just put a clear protective finish coat on it. The fir we're staining "spice brown" to match the redwood.

And it looks pretty good! The rooms are sealed off now to prevent dust (and people) from ruining Gilbert's work. Tomorrow he comes back to apply another coat.

New Old Floor, Part I

We've decided to keep the original redwood floor in the kitchen.

You'll recall that this was the "three-floor floor." There was a layer of tile, a layer of new wood, and a layer linoleum all stacked over the original wood floor. Kathy stripped all of that off, dropping the floor level by a good inch. At bottom are once-nice redwood planks. Against the polite urging of our contractor, we've decided to sand and finish the wood rather than tile it over.

When I say "we" I mean "somebody else."

Today the somebody else arrived, and he wept in despair. Not really, but it wasn't 10 minutes before he was on his cell phone whispering to our contractor, "this is gonna take longer than you said."

Part of the trick is going to be replacing two long planks right in the center of the room. These were carefully pulled up and set aside -- and promptly lost. They were removed to plumb the island in the middle of the room. We could replace them with new redwood, but the color won't match.

Instead, the plan is to carefully pull up two different planks, and not lose them. If we pull up wood from under the cabinets we'll never see them. Those can be replaced with new boards, using the old boards to repair the center of the room.

We'll let you know how it goes.

One Step Forward...

What good remodeling story doesn't have at least one flooded bathroom in it?

We had ours about a week ago. The 2nd-floor bathroom was stripped out to the bare studs, with even the floor pulled up to expose the joists, wiring, and plumbing. The latter two got replaced while the former got braced and sistered where necessary. The project took three or four days... the point being that the plumbing was left unfinished and open for two or three nights.

Naturally, the plumbers left everything in a safe condition at the end of the workday. They're professionals, after all.

Scene: interior, kitchen. Time: morning. Jim makes coffee on the 1st floor while Kathy takes a bath on the 3rd floor. Jim notices sound of splashing water, presumably running through new drain pipes nearby. He idly lays a hand on new pipe, makes a confused face, looks up, and... Splash!

The water isn't just running inside the new pipe, it's running on the outside, too. And puddling on the floor. In fact, the 1st-floor bathroom is flooding. Bathwater has been running from the open pipes directly overhead, through the cut floor, and leaking through the ceiling into the 1st-floor bathroom. At least it's got vinyl flooring.

I wait until Kathy's out of the tub to tell her that the toilets use the same drain pipe.

Let's Get Plastered

Right after the insulation went in, the plasterers came by and installed wallboard and then hand-plastered over it. The plaster surface has little "cat faces" in it: little imperfections that make it more interesting than perfectly smooth Sheetrock would be. We thought it was more in keeping with the age of the house.

The guys hung up a plastic sheet (seen here) to close off the room, built some tables/scaffolds to stand on, and started smearing. It took exactly one day; they finished at 4:30, cleaned up, and took off.

That stuff is wet! The house is all muggy and damp now that the plaster is in. By evening, the inside windows were dripping. We opened the kitchen windows and door, and left 'em open for two days to let the room air out. Eventually the plaster dried out, at least enough that work could resume. We're told it'll take a full week for the plaster to fully dry.

Unlike the previous plasters, these guys didn't leave their bottles behind the walls.

At least, I don't think so...