November 6, 2009
I have a reasonable amount of skill with circular saws, jig saws, compound miter saws, tile saws, & most hand saws. Can’t work a reciprocating saw because my hand isn’t large enough to pull the trigger and set the safety. I’m improving on my routing skills. I flippin’ hate table saws. I just burned one of the oak thresholds. Yes. Burned. Trust me. The house smells like the inside of a fire pit. No, I wasn’t sawing inside. Burned oak smell travels.
It’s my dad. When I was in high school, he buzzed the top of his right thumb clean off with a table saw at work. One might argue with the scope of this project that I’m a gal with a overdeveloped sense of confidence in her abilities. Put me in front of a table saw and all of a sudden I’m a meek little mouse. When it comes to power tools, meek equals… well, danger, sure, but a shit cut as well. GAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have I made progress in the kitchen since my last post? Yes. Am I going to talk about it right now? No. I’ll be over here pouting for a while.
October 4, 2009
The “sample” hinges came this week. The frameless IKEA-like hinges did turn out to be a different model number. The new one fits properly. I scrounged around looking for cheaper sources and found them in Billings, MT.
Oh, the treasure! First, nice prices. Second, some extras for future projects here and here. I’m calling these guys in the morning before I place my order because I need some drawer glide advice, but I thought I’d share the joy first.
Oh! And the knobs and the handles came. THEY ARE FANTASTIC!!!! The knobs satisfy (I believe) my very particular guru’s requirements for comfort. The handles satisfy mine – my fingers+rings don’t get stuck when I put my hand fully in the handle. Which I had to train myself not to do because I’d get stuck. You would think I have sausage fingers, but no.
Health Update: The little one had a mild fever this week. Two days home sick. Naturally, my turn next. My mild fever doesn’t want to entirely leave, but I’m functional. He is now exhausted from covering for me and many too many meetings after school last week running him ragged. Still have pain in my hands, but our insurance changed so I need to pursue finding a REAL doctor who can fix me.
September 25, 2009
Have you seen the home improvement shows where they talk about the cabinet hardware as the “jewelry” of the kitchen.
Weird.
I placed the order for the door handles & knobs (finally), so I’ll be able to attach the new drawer fronts when they arrive. The white drawers are both driving me nuts and have become invisible to me. Much the same way that I barely notice that we’ve been using mortar encrusted plywood countertops for months now. Ew.
Now, I still haven’t ordered the hinges. Why? I’ll tell you. Remember how I’m incorporating some IKEA cabinets into this kitchen? I actually BOUGHT hinges from IKEA. They are Blum hinges (same brand of hidden hinges that the cabinet door people sell). They *seemed* to fit the exact hole on the door. But the adjustments are a pain in the backside. Can’t get it to sit quite right. I’ve proclaimed that we will not do any additional messing around with those hinges until I’m absolutely sure that they are the exact right model.
So last week I purchased – with a FIFTEEN PERCENT HANDLING CHARGE OVER AND ABOVE SHIPPING COSTS – two hinges from the cabinet door people. One for framed cabinet applications – befitting most of the doors of my kitchen. One for frameless – for the IKEA cabinets. The woman at the cabinet door company would not tell me the model # of the hinges – because of COURSE I’m going to scour ebay and beyond to find them cheaper. So I wait until the box comes and THEN I’ll decide which hinges I need to find inexpensively.
Even though I included the links to these on the last set of comments, here are the pics of the knobs and handles I just ordered.
Knob for the upper cabinets
Handle for the lower cabinets
We really do plan to bust some ass this weekend completing more of the projects. But we are also supposed to have a heat wave again, so we might wimp out. Time will tell. Wish us luck.
September 23, 2009
Let me fill you in on the interesting task of cutting the small soapstone slab that belongs on the narrow counter to the left of the stove.
Bought a diamond blade at Sears for $16 bucks when we were back east. Seemed challenging to find a 7 inch blade at Home Depot or the other 3 places he went to purchase one back in July. You cannot get a diamond blade for a cordless circular saw – apparently you need “real” electricity rather than battery to support the blade’s cutting power. Whatever, dude. I can’t work the 7 inch saw. Too heavy and the motor is on the left. I will hurt myself if I try. So hubby to the rescue.
Can’t do a straight cut without a guide. Stone too wonky. Attempted to setup the neighbor’s table saw and load our blade onto it until we realized that the table saw needed a 10″ blade. Back to Home Depot. Woops! Those suckers are $80 bucks. I’m nearly ready to bring the slab back to the city to have the professionals cut it. Then calmer thoughts prevailed and we decided a call to the Tool Lending Library was in order. Ty to the rescue! He hooked us up with a clamped guide. We made the attempt this evening and voila!
Check. Us. Out.
See my arm covered in dust? This stuff flew around the WHOLE backyard - over 12 feet high
Different veining pattern. Still gorgeous.
September 14, 2009
Ack. I’ve been whining a lot lately. I’ll attribute it to Mercury being in retrograde. I’ll be back to happy on the 30th. But while I’m at it:
Would you like to know why I’m whining today? The roof is leaking. The roof that is MANY years past its prime. We are saving our pennies for our dry rot repair (10K+), and will probably have the roof done then as well, since they have to peel part of it back to fix the wall.
But it leaked in her room. Her pretty NEWLY painted purple room. And now – on top of having to climb up on the roof with the tar and repair the tiniest crack ever – we have to get out the primer and paint and touch-up the wall under her window where the water found exit to the interior. You can see it everytime you walk in there. Cause the leak came in all black and yucky as it grabbed 90 years of interior wall dirt with it on its descent.
A leak was bound to happen since we are pushing the re-roof job to its limits. Wish it was in our room and not hers. But I’m annoyed because the place that it is leaking from is the edge cap where the roofer applied this two course process goo that clearly has a shelf life of only a few years. Because it has shrunk back from the edge and the crack is at the tippy top of the stucco where it meets the roof cap.
Yes, there are plenty of other things to be gloomy about. I’m burned out on the kitchen. I need new glasses. And we were not so gently reminded of the preciousness of life as one of his old college friends was just killed in a motorcycle accident on Friday. So perspective returns and we spent much of this weekend talking or hanging out. It is very easy to make a hurried miscalculation – we ALL do it. But very sad when the mistake is such a final one. Rest in Peace, John.
September 9, 2009
So remember how I said that the dishwasher isn’t attached to anything right now? But it still works, so we use it carefully and hold it up while opening the racks to load and unload? Until the Granite Grabbers can be attached to the yet to be installed countertops?
Something was weird about how it kept wanted to tip forward for even the slightest thing just now. Perhaps I should have been more zen about the weird. Because I turned around for a second – yup, a SECOND – and the whole thing came crashing down. Full. Casualties include a few glasses and the mug with my name on it that my dear little girl picked out especially for me when she went to Yosemite last year.
I contemplated taking a picture of the up-ended dishwasher. I came to my senses quickly enough and decided to clean up the damn mess I just made instead. So you’ll have to picture the destruction for yourself.
I WANT MY SOAPSTONE. NOW. However, much to do before the countertops on that side of the room are ready.
I’m going to run the dishwasher now. It doesn’t look like the fall caused the water line or drain hose to break. I suppose I’ll find that out soon enough.
September 7, 2009
1. I cut the toekicks down to accomodate for the height difference we forgot about last week.
2. We levelled and installed the 30 inch lower cabinet.
3. I did an adequate job on the veneering for that cabinet. Not great.
4. Through sheer force of will, the two of us managed to carry a 300 pound slab of soapstone up from the garage and popped it on top of that bad boy. Truthfully, he carried a much greater proportional share, but I carried enough of the weight to have me huffing and puffing and feeling a wee bit lightheaded the rest of the day.
So here you go – another glimpse of the future kitchen! And we now have a place to put the crockpot, so it is CHICKEN GUMBO for dinner tonight!!!
The dining room floor was a waystation until we were ready. I slipped my hands out of my gloves so we could lay it down.
The adequately veneered 30" cabinet
Rubbing in the mineral oil coating
This stuff is CRAZY pretty.
August 30, 2009
All set to fasten the 30″ inch bottom cabinet to the right side of the stove today. Leveled nicely front to back and side to side. Then I was staring at the stove. Which was exactly the same height as the cabinet. Hmmm. Let’s get the soapstone sample.
Wow, that sucker is 1 1/2 inches thick – can we raise the stove?
Yes. But then the cooktop is practically up to my chin. And the stove now looks like it is up on stilts. Hmmm.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah…… We raised the floor. Like an inch or so. What to do?
Looks like I’m cutting the toekicks down. I think it is funny that of ALL the things I’d thought through, I never even saw that one coming.
Feh. I’ll get to it this week. Or Labor Day weekend. I’ll need to sit with it a bit to decide how much to cut off the bottom. Plenty of other stuff to get to in the meantime.
August 27, 2009
I veneered the stove wall cabinets today. Yes, there are flaws – completely expected as I’d not done this before. Actually, that isn’t quite true. Veneer and its application is not unlike Formica/laminate. My dad and I re-laminated a desk while I was in college. It was a prop from a soap opera he’d worked on and had the character Mac Cory’s script lines written inside. The major difference between today and 20 years ago is that the laminate project required contact cement – which stinks crazy bad. Today’s project had self-adhesive peel-n-stick stuff. Much better.
I really wish I’d gotten around to buying the hinges and then the full impact would be infinitely cooler. But here you go:
The test cabinet - with door nearby
Work in progress
The view from my desk
