Archive for March, 2005

The site was down for “repairs” for about a week, but now it’s back with a new layout, and a new version of wordpress. Complete with spam filtering! I still have some more tweeking to do, and I need to resurrect the walrus..

The cabinets and countertop are in! The next phase of the project starts this weekend: compounding, retiling, and painting. I’m unskilled, pretty slow, and I lose interest in things quickly, so this will probably take me a couple of weeks to complete.

Although we’re not finished with the project yet, we couldn’t be more pleased. The changes completely met our expectations, and the guys who did the installation did a great job (and they were really nice). Send me an email if you want his name, I don’t want to post his email so he doesn’t get spammed by viagra and poker ads.

The new sink drawers. There’s less room underneath the sink now, but much more cabinet room. We also added one of those lean-out drawers in the sink base for sponges and stuff. When I came home, karen had turned on the dishwasher and it was making the worst sound imaginable. They simply forgot to turn on the water under the sink to the dishwasher. A quick turn of a knob, and we were in business. There’s also a fine layer of grit over everything, which was totally expected.

The new peninsula cabinets. Glass doors on both sides.

The crazy squiggly line underneath the cabinets is scored-up sheetrock that needs to be compounded. This entire strip will be tiled.

Stove-side cabinets. Tile will go back here too. They also raised the oven a few inches, which was nice. It was really low before, which allowed dirt to fall to the floor easily. We also raised the microwave about 4 inches from the stovetop, bringing it to code. This will make working on the back burners a little easier.

An empty dining room. On the right is the new bar, which is almost 4″ wider than the old one. We’re going to throw some stools in the dining room so we can eat on it.

New shelves in the pantry. I will need to throw a couple of coats of paint in here, and putty over the holes in the wall made by the old wireframe shelves.

You-know-who, nosing around while I take pictures.

Everything started today around 9am. Here are the pictures:

My worst fear came true! 2 of the pipes that supply water to the sink were directly in the way of our new drawer cabinet, and the guy doing the install wasn’t a plumber. I called my plumber (Aiello Plumbing) and they were on the scene in about 2 hours. The day was saved. If they didn’t come when they did, he couldn’t complete the install and the entire project would be in limbo.

The modified pipes. It took the plumber about 1/2 hour to do the work. A big sigh of relief. Problems that are time dependent and relatively complicated are a big reason why I hate doing home improvement. I have a great deal of respect for people that can do this sorta stuff. Because I certainly can’t.

The sink side cabinets, completely gone, down to the sheetrock. They took out a lot of old sheetrock out of the kitchen (which I didn’t expect), including any sheetrock that had tile on it.

Stove side. The crowbar and sledgehammer spared nothing.

Peninsula cabinets and bar completely gone, with only giant holes in the ceiling remaining.

Obligatory picture of Sangi, wondering why her room has been completely demolished.

The guy who did the work is amazing. By the end of the day, he had gutted the entire kitchen, put up the new sheetrock, installed most of the cabinets, and installed the sink base. Tommorow they are putting the new shelves in the pantry, and doing finish work.

The stove side, with the new cabinets installed. Although this side looks like it is pretty close to being finished, there is still quite a bit to do.

Tommorow they are coming to tear everything down, so I had to completely empty the kitchen tonite. Including dismantling the pantry. It took me hours to do, and it sucked, but I’m finally done.

Cabinets are totally empty, and ready to be dismantled.

Completely cleaned out the sink (which is going to be reused). There may be a problem with 2 of the pipes behind the wall. They may be in the way of the new cabinet. We’ll see what happens there. Could get ugly.

This is probably the cleanest this stupid pantry has ever been. It was really nice taking it apart, because I hate it.

I can’t even believe all the junk we now have laying in the living room. Sangi made sure there were no open containers of food lying around.

Living room at full messiness, and Sangi at full nosiness.