The scary part is done now. Still tons left.

It has been a number of days/weeks since my last post and the last two weeks were a doozy.  This entire project has been peppered with me insisting that I’d planned enough time for any eventuality, doubled it, tripled it again.  And then still- pedal to the metal – we took twice as long to finish any one thing.  This last push was incredibly difficult with the overriding knowledge that it was the most expensive of the products going into the kitchen, the easiest to break, the heaviest to move.

We had hiccups at almost every step.  The initial movement of the slab in the garage, we broke the “arm” that made up the front of the sink (epoxy really IS my friend – whew!).  The faucet holes drilled easily in a few seconds with a paddle bit, but the hole for the dishwasher air gap took me, him, our next door neighbor, AND his drill almost an hour.  Building the dishwasher side was easy, but attaching it to the tiny area we left un-tiled wasn’t quick.  Attaching the false front to the sink cabinet took HOURS (and is crooked.  Whatever.  I didn’t notice off the bat and we can’t change it now.  It will be fine.)  Actually LIFTING the slab took him, the BEST UNCLE EVER, and our next door neighbor almost everything they had.  Much grunting, much heart pounding.   But it is beautiful!!

Unraveling the craziness of those two weeks will take me a few posts at least.  In the meantime, check.it.out.

Oh, and the dishwasher broke.  But it is fixed now.  Again, another long story.

Sink+faucet+soapstone

Second view. The slab on the "L" is not yet attached.

Really, I am still working on the kitchen

I’ve been avoiding adding new posts about the kitchen.   Crap on a cracker, this thing is taking forEVER.  We’ve been taking photos of each minor achievement, but I’m thinking no one needs to see the difference between loveliness in the freshly painted interior of the undersink cabinet compared with its pre-painted former self.  Um, ick.  So a quick catch up for you:

1. Some cabinet doors have been hung.
2. Of what is hanging, hardware has been added
3. There was a small piece of veneer on the inside of where the range hood hangs that needed to be removed because I didn’t account for the width of the hood with the veneer.  This has not been repaired yet.
4. The “wall” between the cabinet next to the sink and its partner to the left was cut to allow for a true blind corner.  This still needs to be trimmed & painted – both for aesthetic reasons and so that no one scrapes themselves on jagged wood.
5. The cabinet above the dishwasher has been veneered.  It is my best work.  Which saddens me only because the cabinets I’ve already done aren’t.  Fortunately, since the whole “L” bottom cabinet set needs to be veneered, those will be super-nice.  Funny how doing things freehand ends up being better than following directions.
6. Oh yes, the range hood is up and the ducting is nearly completely done.  Just some aluminum tape and we are golden.
7. All the cabinet drawer fronts have been cut down to accept the new drawer fronts.  Those are still to be attached though.
8. A slight bit more build out is needed for the 42 lower.  I need to add a filler piece at the corner else the knob on the adjacent cabinet will hit the drawer.
9. The lip to set the sink into the plywood has been routed out.  This was no small feat and ended up with me attaching a patio door steel ball bearing to the bottom of the router as a guide to run it along the curve.  It totally worked.  When this is done, I will eventually take a class of some sort on how to work a router.  I have a feeling it would be fun once I get the nuances down.

Major items still to be done:

1. Test cut the faucet holes into scrap soapstone.
2. Cut the faucet holes into the real soapstone.
3. Pull off sink area counters; detach sink etc…
4. Pull cabinet away from wall and shim up.
5. Finish dishwasher side panel to match the shimmed height (will also attach a ledger board to the wall to assist in holding up the soapstone.
6. Install sink, counters, faucet.
7. Rebuild soffits.
8. Build closet.
9. Back door.
10. All trim.
11. Oh yeah – THE BACKSPLASH.

Of course the stove works!

Yes, you knew that already.  But tonight we had to do the official BAKING TEST FOR THE HOLIDAYS.  Or as it is also known, the obligatory stash of treats for the 2nd graders to celebrate you know who’s birthday on Monday.   The result is that the chocolate chips (what else?) came out fantastic.  They took FOREVER to bake though.  The first batch on a fully preheated oven took almost 18 minutes.  And this is the Nestle Tollhouse recipe that says 9 to 11.  The second batch took about 15.

Hmmm… what does this mean for the Christmas butter cookies?  Hard to screw up chocolate chips.  Quite easy to screw up butter cookies.  What about pie?  Too bad I don’t have time or inclination or room for THAT many spare calories on my hips to do many test batches.

Chocolate Chip Cookies. Best. Cookie. Ever.

For your drooling pleasure….

I hate table saws

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.

Can I borrow a dollar? Or possibly 51 bucks?

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.

Cabinet Jewelry

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.

Fields of stone

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.

Roof repair – check! Next?

Got up on the roof today with the tar and gooped up many tiny little cracks.  I would have brought up the camera to document some before and after, but that just seemed dumb.  I don’t mind heights, but that might be pushing it even for me.

I wish I could say that I’m looking forward to the next rain storm to ensure my work holds.  I’m not.  Keeping the dry-rot out of this discussion, my work stretched the life of that roof 9 years.  I know my work will hold – slapping roofing tar around isn’t exactly brain surgery.   Especially when you subscribe to the more=better theory of tar.  I will just worry about the cracks I didn’t see.

I will wait for that rainstorm before I re-paint that area of her room.  I don’t want to do that twice.

And the curtain rod in the dining room pulled out of the wall today.  &**^%^%$#@.  Serenity-freakin-now.

Mercury, roofing tar, and some perspective

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.

Uh…I did an oopsey.

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.