Can it really have been so long since we last posted? Sorry to everyone who keeps coming back and finding nothing new. We have made some progress since then. The plumbing is done. We had a new gas line put in for the new oven position, and new supply lines and a drain line for the new sink position. That required replacing the existing stack so while we were at it we moved the toilet in the bathroom about 10 inches further away from the wall. It had been basically right up next to the wall.
The sub-floor is completely secured which means that we are ready to start hanging cabinets! The cabinets themselves are all assembled and almost completely primed. After trying to paint them as is, we decided we needed to prime them first and then put them in place in the kitchen and then use the sprayer to paint them. So this weekend we will be doing that. That's about all the news. Not too much detail, but we are plugging along.

The Plan

It just occurred to me that we haven't really talked to much about what we are trying to accomplish with all this destruction and construction. As you can see in the before diagram below, our new house came with a very tiny kitchen, a good sized dining room, and in between a room that had a bit of an identity crisis. It was billed as a breakfast room, but the refrigerator also resided there since there wasn't room for it in the kitchen.

Our idea is to turn this room into the new kitchen and use the old kitchen as a pantry / laundry room. Among the many challenges are that the new kitchen space has 4 doorways and 1 window. To make it all fit we are moving one door and removing a partition wall into the pantry/laundry all together.

Before



After

Time is not on our side

So I know what many of you are thinking, "They haven't posted anything in a while, they must not be making much progress," and you're right. Unfortunately we have run into a few snags that have slowed things down.

First, there is the wall from hell. This is the issue Seth mentioned shortly in his previous post. I must admit that it was my fault. I got a little over zelous with some plaster filler on the seem between the plaster and the drywall. It took us about five days of sanding with an orbital sander to get it level. I guess you can say I learned my lesson. But even with the drywall mud the walls are taking forever to finess into level and hole-free beauties. If we could do it all over again, I think that we would have ripped down all of the plaster walls and replace them with drywall, but we don't have that kind of time now.

Next, is the cabinets. We had to order a few (which Seth mentioned) but most of them we were able to pick up that day. What's the hold up then? Well, becuase we went for less expensive cabinets, we are choosing to paint them. Therefore we had to first sand them, the wipe them all down and then paint them. Painting them; however, proved to be a much more difficult feat. We purchased one of those powered paint sprayers (you know the hand-held version you just plug in, not the huge air-compressor kind). I tested it out on one of the cabinet bottoms. The paint (eggshell black) went on in big drops and the cabinet looked like the side of a refridgerator. We want a nice smooth finish. So back to Home Depot to find out what to do. Here is what we learned...

* Spend the extra money and go for the higher PSI version. The higher pressure shoots out smaller drops of paint and produces a smoother finish.
* Thin the paint with 2 parts paint, 1 part water
* Start with one thin coat first, this will keep the thinned paint from running.
* Let dry with painted side level.

This process takes much longer, but produces a much nicer finish. We are currently about half done with the cabnites we have and we are going to the Depot to pick up the rest on Saturday. Since this is my project, I will have plenty to do for a while.

Third, we have discovered that plumbers are more than happy to run over to your place to give you an estimate, but they seem to be really busy when you are ready for the work to be done. Sounds backwards if you ask me. We finally found an estimate we were happy with and then were given an installation date of May 1st. So needless to say, we are trying to find a plumber that can get out here ASAP.

We plan to make a good deal of progress this weekend though. I should be able to finish painting the cabinets I have already started on and put together the new ones. Seth is going to finish sanding the walls and put in the last two electrical outlets. Then we will clean up (there is a sheet of dust EVERYWHERE) and put down the subflooring in the kitchen. Somewhere in there we will try to put some "Weed-n-Feed" on our yard which will most likely kill 90% of our yard (which is weeds) and green up the grass that I am told we don't want in our yard; so that'll be fun.

We also plan to move some of our stuff in this weekend, so if any of you want something to do... well, you know.