Almost Finished...

Having finished all the grouting, and put most of the lamps, toasters, and small kitchen-y things back in place, I find that there's very little left to do except for bringing the cabinet doors (whose center panels I removed) in to have the amber glass installed, and finding the right glaze to do the routed edges of the door panels.

So, here's a couple of "after and before" shots, to see where we started, and where we're ending up.

Countertops, Part Four: BACKSPLASH!!!

Our accent tiles finally arrived Friday evening via UPS. I started out Saturday afternoon (8/23) putting them up right over the countertop. I used 1/8" spacers to seperate them and cemented them with the same acrylic cement I've used on the floor and countertop.

By Saturday evening, I had gotten the entire row of accent tiles cemented, and about 2/3 of the rest of the backsplash.

I've been cutting the tiles with a conventional sliding-arm mitre saw using a diamond-tipped blade. It's been working fine, but I clean it with a blower and oil it frequently, because the ceramic dust seems to build up very quickly.

As of this evening (8/24), I've gotten the entire backsplash done, and (probably) tomorrow, I'll hit it with some grout.

Pretty nice, yes?

PLUMBING!!! We've Got PLUMBING!!!

Installed the new garbage disposal today and hooked up the waste drain. I also connected the diswasher drain to the disposal. I had to put in a 2' PVC trap and connect it to the existing drain pipe.

I ran the hot and cold water to the sink, and put in a connecting valve to feed the refrigerator's ice maker.

And, of course, I connected the sink to the countertop.

Whew. I haven't done ANY plumbing in about 20 years.

Countertops, Part Three: Revenge of the Grout

Got the grout done today, and that's all I'm doing. I'm really beat.

It looks nice, and I'm having great fun, and saving enormous money, but after nearly two full months of this, I'm getting tired.

Next up this week: hooking up the water supplies to the sink, refrigerator (ice machine) and dishwasher, and the drain from the dishwasher and garbage disposal, and attaching the sink to the countertop.

We're almost there.

Countertop, Part Two

Okay. Tiles are down on the main countertop. Job took about six hours. Cutting the space for the sink was a chore-and-a-half.

With the wood mouldings stained a dark mahogony, it's a really nice match (I think). A lot of this, you must know, is pure serendipity. I'm never sure (for instance) when I'm picking out a stain that it is going to be a good match. The same is true for the grouts for the floor and the countertops. I bought one called "sahara sand" for the floor, because the tile is rough-looking and a little lighter terra cotta than the counter top. I bought one called "tobacco brown" for the countertop, because the stain on the mouldings is kind of deep in burgundy color and the terra cotta of the tiles is a much deeper red.

Here's what we started with six weeks ago, and here's where we are at this moment. If all materials come in within the next week or so, I should be done by next Sunday.

Countertops, Part One...

Did the small corner countertop between the oven and the refrigerator. Still needs to be grouted, but I'll finish the rest of the countertops first, starting tomorrow.

Mouldings!!!

Okay. Did the mouldings (which I stained over the weekend -- sorry, I didn't take pictures) today. Counter-end, cabinet and ceiling.

What a difference a few mouldings make.

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.

(Faux) Tin Ceiling

Put up a phony tin ceiling on Tuesday. Looks pretty good. Needs mouldings, which I've stained over the weekend and will be putting up later in the week.

When I got the ceiling up, I also installed the new fan and light set. Pretty.

Kitchen Floor is DONE

And I think it came out pretty good.

Meanwhile, in the Dining Room...

It looks like a Sears Warehouse...

Putting Down the Tile Floor

I began laying the tile on Tuesday, August 5 and finished it Thursday, August 7. Total time: about seven hours.

I was spared the mess of pulling up the old tile floor by finding an acrylic cement made especially for old tile as an underlayment.

Tiles are down. Next comes the grout.

NIGHTMARE PAINTJOB!!!

Okay. We didn't go crazy here with the paint.

Do you remember me saying earlier that we wanted a Tuscan/Provencal sort of a look in this kitchen? Well, Dutch Boy has a series of paints called "Old World Plaster" that is a four step series of applications that they promised would have the appearance of old Eurpoean plaster.

Well, we picked out our color (which actually entailed picking out two colors, a base coat and a finish) and we bought our supplies -- the base coat, the "crackle coat" (a clear polymer that inhibits proper drying of the finish coats so that cracks appear) and the top coat. And I went to work. Total work time: FIVE DAYS (mind you, I can usually do two coats in a room this size in one day, so this was some seriously nasty, complicated paint).

As you can see, the base coat, a sort of deep crimson, was hideous. Not the sort of thing you'd want in your kitchen. If you're normal. But then came the "crackle coat," which just made the horrible base coat look all shiny.

Next came the first coat of the top coat coat. This photograph doesn't do it justice, but when this coat dried, I was nearly despondent. I had spent three days paint a room that should have taken hours, and it was ugly as sin. It had sort of a 1960s, psychedelic, paisley effect to it. Hideosimus maximus.

But, son-of-a-gun if the finish coat didn't come out looking just like the color sample chart in the Dutch Boy brochure.

This was one mother of a paint job, but MP and I are pretty pleased with it.

Countertop Underlayment

The countertop underlayment consists of one layer of 3/4" plywood underneath 1/2" concrete sheeting. The tiles (if they EVER come in) will be cemented down on this underlayment.

Slowly Taking Shape

Okay. So the weather has been really bad lately for sanding and spraying -- extreme temperatures (90-100 degrees) and high humidity, so I've been doing some destruction and construction work. The weather this week has gotten a bit more manageable, so I expect to be putting the first coat of actual paint on the cabinet doors and drawers.

Meanwhile, I built a wine cabinet (see previous post) and a shelf unit that fits over the refrigerator. Today I installed them and gave them a first primer coat. It still looks like a disaster area, I know, but if you use your imagination...well...I can see what it will look like when it's completed.

More to follow.

Wine Cabinet

I had a six-inch space to fill in between the oven and the old corner cabinet. The oven used to sit right next to the older cabinet, with a six-inch space between the oven and the door. It was a waste of space, so we decided to move the oven flush with the door (not covering the door moulding, of course) and put something in the space between.

I built the wine cabinet out of 1/2 in birch-veneered plywood and clear pine. It's total cost was (get this) $16.00, and about eight hours of labor.

DESTRUCTION!!!

Well, I've done several chores since I last posted. I took out a couple of small cabinets and moved them (compare before pix with current ones), moved an electrical outlet so we can move the refrigerator, filled in some bigs holes with plaster, some small ones with spackle, primed the walls in preparation for painting -- and today I removed the countertop and backsplash. I've crossed the Rubicon, and there's no going back. It's time to put up, or shut up.
I've also been out in the spray booth (formerly known as my garage), where I just finished my third round of fine (220 grit) sanding and priming. The drawers and cabinet doors are now ready for the first of their two coats of paint...

More to come.

Today's Progress

Got pretty much all of the coarse sanding done. Filled in all holes, nicks, scratches, etc., with wood putty. Next will come medium and finally a fine sanding.

Here's the plan...

New cabinets were out of the question. The cabinets alone cost nearly $8,000.00. That does NOT include installation. So my only option was to paint them.

Now these cabinets are old and they've been painted already, probably several times. Who does that? I mean, these were fine oak cabinets stained, probably, with a dark walnut. Who paints over that with Dutch Boy white?

Because they have been painted (sloppily) several times, there were globs and runs and drip marks. So I needed to strip them. I am doing this more or less by hand, with a 3" belt sander using a coarse-grit (50) belt, then hand-sanding with medium grit, and finally finishing with a very fine grit (220) paper. I am leaving painted the routed edges of the styles and slats, because I am going to use a glaze to highlight the panels. You'll see when I'm done.

For about $100.00, I bought a spray head for my compressor (which I already had), an exhaust fan, 20 ft of duct, and 200 feet of 3 mil plastic sheeting, and built myself a spray booth for the inevitable painting that is now just a few days away.

In front of the spray booth, you can see some of the cabinet doors I've begun stripping.

Here's one of the cabinet doors from which I removed the raised center panel. that's for the double cabinet that hangs over the oven, where we have some nice wine and beer glasses. Howie (yes, that Howie) gave me some great advice about how to get that panel out without destroying the door.

What I'm Doing...

It's been a busy summer so far. I've just signed a contract with the University of Scranton Press to publish my new book, The Metaphysics of Media, early next year. I attended the Media Ecology Conference in Santa Clara, California, a few weeks ago. I've been gearing up for my summer class at RU.

We've been thinking, for a while, about re-doing the kitchen. We know basically what we want. And we know what we need. What we wanted turned out to be far more costly than what we need. But I don't give up easily. I decided to do the job myself, start-to-finish.

Here's what we're starting with:






















Nothing beautiful; cute, functional and small. A one-person kitchen (it's mine). But not much to look at, nothing dramatic, not much personality.

We wanted to try something Tuscan or perhaps Provencal. Terracotta tiles for the floor. A tile counter and backsplash. New cabinets (old looking, of course). A plaster-look paint in some bright southern France/northern Italy hue.

The price to have a contractor do this was astronomical. Prohibitive. Nuts. Even to contract out parts of it were too expensive to handle. So, I'm doing it, as I said, myself. All of it.