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Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Kitchen

August 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Kitchen taped

Things are starting to come together at the house. Let’s see if I can touch on all the things that have happened in the last ten days. First, we got the bedrooms and kitchen taped off and I took my second try at the paint sprayer. I’m going to say that I like the results better with the pressure higher. A good primer/sealer and high pressure and you can do one coat of paint. The trick is to not put on too much paint (it starts to run) and follow along right away with a brush to touch up any spots that need it. It’s not easy when the goggles continually fog up and the paint coats the outside, but frequent breaks to improve visibility help a lot. The paint we bought stinks like ammonia, which made it hard to go for long stretches, but I got through it. Unfortunately it went through more paint than expected and we had to run out and get more.

Kitchen painted

After we got the painting done we brought in the cabinets. We got the cabinets second-hand, so they aren’t exactly designed to fit, but we came up with a combination that works pretty well and used most of them. We got a used dishwasher from some friends and got that installed next to the base cabinet for the sink. I got the plumbing mapped out and installed after only six trips to the hardware store. The girl at the return desk at The Home Depot suggested (on our second visit) that maybe I should hire someone. Ha!

Cabinet and dishwasher

Leveling the cabinets was interesting. The floor is not very flat and it took several shims to get everything straight-ish enough to get the counter top installed.  Once the sink was installed, the faucet was working, and the counter was screwed down, that’s when I decided to replace the faucet with the single handle model from the other sink. Of course, it turned out that one leaked and the hex bolt to remove the handle and fix the leak was stripped. So we wound up buying a new, cheapo kitchen faucet (did I mention the six trips to the store).

Sink installed, cupboards going in

We of course didn’t install the upper cabinets first, because it would have been the right way to do it. Sarah said it was fine to put them up high, but when she saw what we meant by “high” she said they needed to be lower. We got all the upper cupboards in and the next step is the range hood and the stove.

Cupboards installed

There’s another section of cabinets over by the refrigerator. We carefully measured to make sure the back door would open and still let us fit as many cabinets in as possible. It’s really starting to feel like a kitchen! I still need to attach the counter top to the other cabinets, but everything else is looking pretty good. Sorry the pictures are a bit fuzzy, the phone isn’t doing a great job. We took photos with the camera too, but they still need to be uploaded.

More cabinets

We’re probably going to put another tall cupboard above the refrigerator, just to maximize the storage space. It might look a bit strange because it’s one of the tall ones, and getting to the top will require a step ladder. Oh well. It’s getting there!

On other fronts, I’ve been working on electrical rewiring and installing ceiling fans, and Sarah installed carpeting in the bedroom and office. We’ll have posts for those items shortly. The big news is that we’re planning on moving in this weekend! It will be two months to the day from when we closed, and it’s time. We’re both tired from working every day on the house and driving back and forth from the condo is getting old. We started bring over some boxes and stashing them in the front room. Sarah’s going to clear out the living room so we can install quarter-round on the trim, and then make way for furniture.

Thank Goodness for Friends and Family!

August 13, 2011 / / 0 Comments

It has been a long process. Almost two months since we have closed and we still aren’t quite ready to move in.

However, I would be remiss if I did not thank my family and our friends for their help over these past two months.

Matt B. looking VERY tired after all of his hard work

Thank you Aaron, Eileen, Collin, and David for your awesome demoing and gardening skills. Thank you Matt L. for helping us move big items. Thank you Will for helping us remove cabinets and flooring. Thank you Matt B. for sacrificing your vacation days to come down and help. Thank you Dean and Siobhan for everything that you did, especially for the use of your truck and the kitchen appliances. Thank you Meg and Eriq for helping us install various items, clean walls, and the air conditioner. We have used it more than a few times! Thank you James for helping with the kitchen, the microwave/ladder, and for stopping by to see if we needed anything. Thank you Nikki and Rob for also helping us transport big items, for lending out your awesome tools, and for the amazing ceiling fans that you found. Thank you Tony and Jenn for the free dishwasher. The loan/gift of various appliances have made it so we can afford to do the structure right away. The free labor also helps us with this goal.

Sarah’s Dad

And, a very, very big thank you to my parents who helped us out every single week. Without your generosity with help and tools we would not be moving in on the 20th. You really do spoil the hell out of me. And if you ever need ANYTHING, please do not hesitate to ask. We are just a phone call away. 🙂

And, if I forgot anyone, thank you so much for everything! We have the best family and friends we could ever dream of.

The Little Things

August 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Sometimes the things that make a place seem crappy or nice are very small. Once the living room was painted I replaced the electrical outlets with nice new ones. The old outlets were just one more manifestation of the wealth of wrong that permeates the house like some fetid disease.

Every time we plugged in a fan, a delicate balancing act ensued where you tried to gingerly step away and not have the plug simply fall out of the outlet. “Why not simply spread or narrow the prongs on the plug, so it holds?” I hear you thinking. I mean, I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the first thing most people do when confronted with a plug that won’t stay in. Suffice it to say that indeed occurred to me as well and despite all manner of bending, it simply hung out of the outlet as though the plug felt dirty for being put into such disgusting places, and was merely trying to escape.

Old outlet

The outlet had been painted at some point or three, it was connected with fabric-wrapped corroded copper wire, and of course the polarity was backwards. After removing the old, broken thing, it disintegrated like a vampire exposed to sunlight.

Properly wired

The new outlet, one of the Decora-style Levitons I’m a fan of, literally makes the entire room feel newer. Now, the fans gleefully remain plugged in to its slick, tamper-resistant, hot-and-neutral-correctly-wired, properly grounded new outlet.

New outlet

It’s the smallest thing imaginable. Five minutes to install, less than three dollars for both the outlet and the vinyl, crack-proof cover, and yet such an amazing effect.

Busy Busy

August 5, 2011 / / 1 Comment

We’ve been working on the house so much that we’ve fallen behind on the blog! I published a post about trim that I actually wrote early last week and forgot to finish. We’ve made a ton of progress since then. Let me re-cap. To get things caught up I’ll jump back about a week and a half. We got a used stove and refrigerator from Dean’s with the help of Sarah’s family. Having more than a cooler was pretty nice with how hot it’s been recently. I took off work Wednesday through Friday because we had a party planned for Saturday. My friend Matt came down on Thursday and helped us a ton.

In the bathroom we stripped the sea-foam green stucco from the walls, which left the rough drywall paper. So Sarah and I plastered the walls and ceiling with joint compound, then she and Matt B sanded it and painted it. I scrubbed the tub, installed the mirror and light bar, and put up a towel hook. Unfortunately the light bar isn’t working, so that’s still on my to-do list.

Preparing to Paint

In the living room and dining room we got everything cleaned up and taped down plastic over the floors and windows. I took down the ceiling fan and broke out the paint sprayer. Between the cloud of paint, the speckles on the outside of my goggles and the fog on the inside I couldn’t really see what I was doing, but the paint sprayer was awesome just the same.

Painting with the sprayer

I ran into a problem halfway through the first room. The inlet hose on the sprayer briefly left the paint and I couldn’t get it to maintain pressure. It would spray for about five seconds and then start dribbling while the compressor ran noisily for thirty seconds. Matt B came to the rescue and suggested I prime it again. That did the trick and I was back at it. Something to note: don’t leave it on maximum pressure. We wound up with drips of paint on the walls and I went through a five gallon bucket in a room and a half. Oops! It didn’t take long to blast through the two rooms though. The good news is that the blue trim and almond walls are now a blissful white.

Living room painted

Taking down the paint, the room looked amazingly better. It honestly started to look like a place we could move into. Friday we did touch ups with rollers and really got everything smoothed out. Then we cleaned up the yard while Sarah planted her seedlings in the garden. With everything swept off Saturday morning we threw a nice outdoor barbecue for friends and got to show everyone how far the house had come. Sarah’s parents and brother brought down the first load of kitchen cabinets. A friend of the family was remodeling her kitchen and gave them to Sarah’s uncle, who then discovered his ceilings were too low to use them. So now we’re getting them, but we have to take all of them, and there’s a lot.

Sarah’s sister Nicole found a great deal on ceiling fans, and Rob got them installed earlier this week. We got the rest of the caulking done and are planning to get everything taped up today and tomorrow. Then we’ll paint the kitchen and bedrooms on Saturday. Saturday morning, Dean is helping us pick up a dishwasher from our friend Jenn. Sunday we’re off to Sarah’s grandmother’s to get the rest of the kitchen cabinets.

If everything goes to plan, we’ll get the cabinets installed and pack up the condo next week, so we can hopefully move the following weekend. We’re checking items off the list and trying to get everything coordinated, but it remains to be seen if we can keep on top of it all.

Getting Trim

August 4, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Things are coming along at the house. It’s starting to look like moving in isn’t some far-off fantasy. We created a list of things that need to be done for each room in order to move in, and we’ve been crossing them off as we finish. One of the bigger projects was the trim. Sarah removed much of the trim around the doors and windows in the kitchen because they were disgustingly dirty and the area behind them was packed with dead roaches (Ew). We cleaned everything out, Sarah and her mom washed all of the trim, and I put them back up with the help of Dean’s compressor and brad nailer.

Door edge

Not all of the pieces were salvageable, and with the pre-hung doors we put not being as tall or wide as the openings, we had to case in some spaces. The end result is a bit, uh, rustic, but it will work. We want everything closed up tightly and caulked so that in the event any of the nasty bugs are left alive they’ll be stuck in the walls and not in our cereal boxes.

It’s been time consuming. We got all of the doors and windows encased, put quarter round in the kitchen at the baseboard, and now are going around and filling all the gaps with spray foam, wood fill, joint compound, and caulk. We’ve gone through more than twenty tubes of caulk and are just about done with everything.

Installing trim