Kitchen Renovation Part Four Saturday to Monday, Feb. 24 - 26, 2018

Saturday morning, when I was out for a walk, I passed by Just Blaze Smoke Shop, Art Gallery and Apparel.  I had passed by before on Camelback Road, but today I came north on 8th Place and saw the back and side.  There was a lot of artwork on the building and the adjacent walls.  And the pictures are like something from Portland, OR.

Among other things, we unpacked the new stove for our kitchen.  It had a dent on the right side, but we decided that would never be seen so we did not worry about it.

When we got the stove inside, we had to attach a pigtail - the four foot long cord with four leads to handle the 220 volts of electricity for the stove.  While I could have done the job, Megan is more agile and smaller than me, so she did a great job behind the stove.

Once we were done, we slid the stove into place and made sure the anti-tipping device protected the stove from tipping forward.  We then leveled the stove and it is now done.

Among other things, on Sunday the big task was to add a new electrical outlet for the fridge.  I ended up putting in an access panel around the new plug.  We anticipate our friend Gus will be able to help me with patching the hole I had to make over the old outlet.  The reason all this had to be done is that we moved the fridge about 10 inches left so that the fridge door and the dishwasher door no longer conflict.

Monday morning, again because Megan is more agile and smaller, she hooked up the hose to the new fridge and then we put it in place.

The vendor for the quartz counter top came just after we finished - he took all the measurements and created a template for the new counter, which will come in two to three weeks.  And this is what the kitchen looked like as of Monday.

Later in the day, the piece of transition came - it makes the transition from the wood laminate floor to the new tile in the kitchen.  I had ordered the T-Mold from Home Depot last week and it was delivered by UPS.  It is ready to be installed Tuesday.

The new glass door cabinets only came with two glass shelves, so Patty and Megan went on a multi-purpose excursion to Ikea: return a half dozen unneeded parts that came in the shipment of 164 pieces, get more glass shelves and get things for organizing the new drawers and cabinets.

Kitchen Renovation Part Three, Wednesday to Friday, February 21 - 23, 2018

Wednesday morning, Lance and Mike from Traemond came and started installing the cabinets.   One issue we resolved first thing in the morning was the sink drain.  Because we were moving to a smaller sink, a single 24 inch deep basin instead of the 30 inch wide double basin we had, the drain had to be moved.  To do this, we had Josh and his dad John come and look at what could be done.  A major problem came because we could not cut through the wall because instead of just a two by four stud, there was a four by six column - that wall is a supporting wall for the building.  However, they were able to move the drain horizontally and by cutting into the back of the cabinet, were able to move the drain and not have it impact the drawers in the new cabinet (the old cabinet had shelves, so even though the old location went through the cabinet, it was not a problem because it was the back of the shelf).  Here is what the kitchen looked like Wednesday afternoon,

Thursday, things went smoothly and Lance and Mike got everything done except for two doors on the upper corner cabinets. They had projected two and a half days to complete their portion of the job.  After they finished, it was cleaning up time and putting some temporary tops on the cabinets.

Patty had planned to use part of the space to the left of the fridge to put her cookbooks.  Her thought was to convert a couple of the shelves in the wine rack from shelves for wine to shelves for books.  The only problem is that the shelves could not be changed - so that means we just need more bottles of wine to fill the wine cabinet.

Friday morning, Mike returned and installed the two remaining doors on the upper cabinets,  We started putting things together.  Our plumbers, Josh and brother Jeremy came.  They did not think they could put in the sink temporarily.  Apparently they had never done anything like what we had done in Westford with a temporary counter top.  After much discussion, they agreed with my idea, and lo and behold - we now have a kitchen sink.  As they were finishing the sink, they had to leave for an emergency flood for another customer.  So I cleaned up.  Later, when Megan and Patty returned from lunch and shopping, we installed the dishwasher following Josh's instructions.

I then worked on hooking up the upper cabinet lights to the left and to the right of the microwave.  The kitchen is coming together.

Because we moved the refrigerator about twelve inches to the left, the wall outlet is now on the wrong side of the wall.  So I have to install a new outlet on the other other side of the wall that separates the space for the fridge from the new wider cabinets to the right of the fridge.  That outlet will also be used for the upper and lower cabinet lights.

Friday we also moved the fridge from the garage into the living room - so we are done with using the ice chest.  And we moved the dining room table back from being against the wall to being in the center of the dining room under the light.  And I cleaned up the patio - it is no longer needed as a storage and work space for the construction, so after vacuuming, I started returning the patio furniture to the patio.  We have been making progress.

Kirchen Renovation Part Two, Friday to Tuesday, Feb. 16 - 20, 2018

Friday morning, Randy and Debbie came from Habitat and removed the counter top from the half wall, and loaded all the cabinets, stove, sink and garbage disposal and took them away.  Then Amir, Solomon and Oscar came from Urban Floors LLC.  First, they removed the old floor and got it ready for laying the tile.

Friday was spent installing the tile.  Saturday, they put in the grout.  And the new tile floor was done, just like that.

Sunday involved painting the laundry room.

Ikea delivered 164 items on Saturday afternoon - we only verified the number of items.  Sunday, we went through and verified each of the items and found four errors.  I moved most of the big items to the patio so as to be ready for the installation.  Monday, I went to Ikea and got the four problems fixed quickly and easily.

 
Monday evening had a beautiful sunset - in both east and west.  The photo with the two palm trees is looking east, the other photo is looking west.

Tuesday was finishing the paint, installing the cove base and returning things to the laundry room - and doing the first load of laundry in our new laundry room.

Next step in the contractor putting the kitchen together.

Kitchen Renovation Part One, Saturday to Thursday, Feb. 10 - 15, 2018

I always enjoy my early morning walks.  The morning skies are often very colorful.

Because of the unusually warm winter temps - highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s - plants have started to blossom way too early.

We went to Floor and Decor to pick up our order of tiles, grout and glaze.  They were very busy and we had to wait about 40 minutes to get our materials.  I walked around the shopping center and even though it was mid-morning, there were crowds, especially with Last Chance - they have bargain basement prices (pun intended) as they are in the basement level of this shopping plaza.

Much to our surprise, the 19 boxes of tile, the four bags of grout and two buckets of glaze all fit comfortably in our car - we thought we were going to have to split it into two or more loads.  When we got home, Patty was able to carry the two buckets and four bags, while I made 19 trips with the boxes of tiles, and got everything neatly on the patio for the floor installers.

We started emptying out the kitchen cabinets and ended up giving some things to Goodwill.

But the bulk of things ended up in  boxes in the bedroom.

I considered buying a new ice chest, but decided that it was not needed.

 

We ended up removing most of the cabinets ourselves, as well as the washer and dryer.  On Thursday Gus came with a helper, and they helped me remove the microwave and the kitchen stove, and they took the fridge which we were giving to Anne and Shawn for their casita.  Then the plumber came and removed the sink, garbage disposal and dishwasher.  Then I removed the last of the cabinets.  Much to my surprise, the unused corner between the sink and the stove had a real mess under the counter.

Here is what the kitchen used to look like.

And this is the final removal.

And finally we were ready for the floor installers.

Next, the new floor will be installed.  Then all of the 164 pieces will be delivered from Ikea, then some repairs will be done to the walls.  And then the cabinets will be installed, the appliances will be returned, water turned back on and then the counter tops will have to be made.  This is major construction!!