A few months ago we finally got around to installing the faces on the fronts of the drawers in the kitchen. That last task took about a year and a half to motivate, even though they were painted and ready to go. So posting this picture of the completed litchen just a couple of months after the fact seems in keeping.
It was a lot for a Tuesday night, but we got both of the storage cubbies installed on either side of oven vent. Lots of prepping and predrilling made it more manageable than expected. The big brown squares will make more sense once those pieces laying on the counter tops are installed (tomorrow?)
After a week of version and revision we're pretty close to having the designs for the cabinets (shelving) in the kitchen and on the second floor complete. We had always had a pretty good idea what they would be, but this week we spec'ed them in enough detail that we can have the "boxes" built and afterward we will finish and install them ourselves.
I know it's still many weeks off but it's amazing how having something as simple as bookshelves is making me very happy. We should be able to place the order on Monday. The project plan said that task should be done today, but you know how it goes; last thing Friday, first thing Monday, same diff.
There's only been one month since starting this blog that have been totally undocumented-- or shall I say, without substance to document. While oh so close we've not been completely fallow, Michael installed this nifty little fluorescent as a central work light in the kitchen. It's not exactly what we had planned, but from the recess in the soffit it works great and given it was about $40 from the depot it was an extra sweet uncomplicated treat.
I hadn't realized how dim it had been until there was a bench line for comparison.
Michael's last day at work is this Friday, and Sunday is a round numbered birthday. I'm hoping February brings a bounty of progress in its short span of days.
After waiting more than month for the refrigerator repair guy to receive the evaporator fan I finally gave up. He said it would take 10 days minimum sometime in later September, and then he disappeared.
On Monday I called Marvel and ordered the part myself. Today it arrived.I have to say I am quite shocked by how small it is. I guess I was expecting something on the scale of the compressor fan, boy was I wrong.
Now that we have the part I'm still planning to call in a repair person for installation. It sits behind the cooling element (evaporating condensation as the name would emply). But, to get at it means dealing with regid copper pipes that I seriuosly don't want to muck up.
I called a new repair company this morning. Hopefully this fresh start (with the part already in hand) will finally expidite the project.
I'm often surprised by how many piles of materials there are waiting in the wings, it seems like by now we would have the timing thing down. This weekend we checked two off the stockpiled list. Interestingly both were waiting for different reasons:
1) Acquiring a particular material way before its turn in the batting order. There are a few of these piles around (I'm looking at you low voltage lighting for dining room).
Case in point: the oak stair treads. To be honest I think we originally bought these thinking we would have to install them when we demolished the old stairs and put in the open risers. In other words, we didn't plan to reuse the old treads as temporaries when we placed the order. Either way, fair to say stocking the beautiful oak planks was done way before it was needed.
Cut each of the 5/4" x 10" planks to custom lengths for each tread with a 1/16" gap to stringer on both ends. Numbered the sides so eventual installation should be a snap. No question the stair run is steep so we added a frictional element. Took a bit of testing on scrap blocks before deciding on three 1/4" wide strips routed 1/32" into the surface with equally sized spaces between them. Softened leading edges by running them across a 3/8" beading bit, countersunk so edges not completely lost. Next steps: sand, clean and polyurethane, polyurethane, polyurethane.
2) Functional is good enough. This is the flip side of "so excited about a project." More like "I'm so sick of this job I'm going to pretend it's done for a while."
Exhibit A: the kitchen drawer faces. They were cut from same plywood as the carcasses, all on Christmas eve last year. Assembly and installation of the cabinets went pretty quick, but we had the drawers built, which sort of made the project "someone else's" and by the time we got them installed neither of us wanted to take what felt like a step backwards to finish the drawer faces. They've been moved from spot to spot ever since. Got the pulls back in June hoping that would jump start the project...
Bonus satisfaction -- job done AND that many fewer raw materials sitting about.
I had been thinking about this day several months back; I wondered, "what would be the last thing we needed to demo to finish the renovation?" Tonight (unless we one day get crazy and redo the basement) I think I shot the last man down.
There's an odd peninsula that sticks out between the kitchen and the hall by the bathroom. It has structural support so we couldn't remove it. We needed to strip it back to the frame so we could apply the same thickness of finish layer as the other side has to make the "door frame" even.
It was really great to be knocking out the final bit, taking the extra care to get all of the nails out so prep for installation would be minimal. When I came back upstairs to write this post I realized I had forgotten something, I had missed six calls and a text message.
Doh! Michael! He was driving around in a car service somewhere near Canarsie trying to find the UPS depot. He was going to pick up the package with the ingredients for the beer we're brewing Sunday. Sadly I had become so engrossed in the "last soldier" I completely forgot that I was the map / phone number lifeline.
Hmmmm....
I'm guessing guilt alone will keep me pretty busy this weekend.
We installed a two drawer marvel refrigerator in the kitchen. Ergonomically it is fantastic; although there is a bit of hitch. There is a small fan that circulates air around the cooling element in the interior. Somehow that fan has gone bad. At first I thought it was the compressor fan from below that was either 1) rubbing on the housing or 2) had a bad bearing. No. It was this tiny little fan inside the unit that gently distributes the cold air.
"Gently", that little fan screeches like the worst screeching type metaphor you can think of. It's not that the refrigerator doesn't get cool, it's just way to loud to stay in the house. Because the cooling element was on stiff copper pipes I didn't want to muck them up prying to hard to get behind at the noisy culprit. We called in a repairman that has ordered the part, we think. It;s been a few weeks...
Thus far we've been over a month without a refrigerator. We've turned it on for special (loud) occasions, but for the most part we've been without
Something to think about; If you're going to the trouble of getting the exact make and model you want, possibly (as we did) ordering it on line, remember some day you may need parts. Multiply the hassle of finding the appliance by 15 for parts and then start the mantra, "if it were convenient it wouldn't be perfect."
On the up side we still have a freezer in the basement. We've become very fond of the vegetarian (not that we are) Indian frozen dinners. They take about 45 mins to make so they are decidedly not fast food,
kitchen kinetoscope
The kitchen renovation was the first time-lapse series we shot. Now that we found a quick way to make movies out of them, we dipped into the archive and whipped this one up.
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