The Kitchen Looks Kind of Like a Kitchen!

Dad left a week ago Friday and we've been on our own since. Gulp. Things are going okay, we've just been too busy for updates! 

Before Dad left, he made one last astute observation: The space for the fridge was not anywhere near large enough for the fridge. Um, oops? I'm still not 100% sure where we went wrong and I'm not entirely sure I want to know (because it's probably my fault...). Basically I think we made two disconnected decisions: one was to just leave however much wall we needed between the door and new opening; the other was to make the corner between the living room wall and the kitchen wall a nice tidy 90 degree corner. Turns out that decision two didn't play so nice with decision one. 

Anyway, we fixed it! We pulled the trim from the kitchen/hallway door and framed it a bit smaller so that the wall is large enough for the fridge and cabinet. Here the fridge's home as of today. The drywall around the door is primed but not yet painted to match the kitchen. 

Part two of the fix is an extra little 7" wide cabinet that our cabinet guy is finishing up now. Upside: more storage space? We went through just about every possible solution, and this seemed best overall. Hopefully when it's done it will all be lovely and it won't seem like we screwed up then tried to fix it. Stay tuned...

Before Dad left, he and Devon finished the kitchen drywall, painted the ceiling, and did a first coat of the gray paint. Doesn't it look great?! 

The cabinets were delivered Monday after Dad left. They look so so good. Here are a couple of pre-installation pictures:

I was bad about taking cabinet install photos, but I can ramble about the process a little bit. In the photo just above, you can see a base cabinet and also a toe kick/base piece. Those base pieces were installed first and leveled. Next were the uppers. Devon put a support piece on the wall at the bottom of each and then measured the studs and pre-drilled the cabinets. The ever fabulous J+K came over and helped us install them. Luckily there were only two, but one was massive, and one went over kind of a wonky bit of drywall. The cabinet install isn't done because we're waiting on our new cabinet and on one fridge panel that had some issues. 

Here are the cabinets today! The blue striped bit is the panel for the end, next to the dishwasher. The little lid piece (no idea what that's actually called) isn't really installed here - we still need to trim those down. Yesterday I put in the drawers and doors, mostly because we were worried about ruining them with them stacked all over the house and garage. They definitely make it look more finished! 

Here's the other side. The range is super heavy and hard to move (luckily Dad and Devon brought it in before Dad left!), so that's why we've left it stylishly located in the middle of the room for now.

Here are some cabinet glamour shots. They're so nice!

Devon has also been working away on pantry drywall and other drywall patches. For some areas, we need to attempt to match the texture of the old drywall, but the inside of the pantry is all done and primed.

Today we got a start on the concrete countertop molds! We made two so far, both for the sink side of the kitchen. We're basically doing whatever Fu-Tung Cheng tells us to in his awesome book. I mean, except where we're blatantly cutting corners. Here's the bottom of the big mold in place for final measurements. We wrote all over the bottom to make sure we wouldn't screw up which side was inside versus outside of the mold. 

And here's the finished mold! Before it's ready for concrete, we need to seal the inside corners and put in the rebar. I made a trek to Berkeley to buy admixtures, slurry mix, sealer, wax, and polish from Cheng's shop. Yesterday we got the concrete itself. Poor Devon had to move 5 80-lb bags 3 different times while I stood around and watched.

And one last random project - I made some charming templates for the cabinet hardware. I started drilling the holes earlier, then I got hungry. Now I'm on the couch and fairly unwilling to get up. More pictures to come when I find my motivation.

On Almost Dying in a Fire and/or Earthquake

Hysteria first, backstory later:

OMG, WTF:

What you see are the charred remains of the inside face of the drywall and the charred top plate where the in-wall furnace used to be. The drywall is just white in that one spot because it crumbles and falls apart when touched. This is all very bad and very scary, but we are all fine. 

Okay, backstory:

Today Dad and Devon finished with the drywall sanding and mudding at 4:00ish, so they decided to start in on the pantry framing. The pantry was on the "nice to have" list in terms of things to do while Dad is here, but since nothing much can happen while the mud is drying in the kitchen, there's a little time to work on it. 

There was an old boxed-in chase in the hall just outside the kitchen. Long ago there was a furnace in the crawl space, plus the kitchen stove vented into this chase at some point, plus maybe something else. Anyway, nothing in there is in use anymore, so it was just taking up space. The grand plan was to take out the vent pipes, take out the in-wall furnace, build a pantry, and install another form of heat (something hydronic, possibly underfloor). We had the demo guys remove the actual vent pipes (one was transite - not something we wanted to touch), but we still had the heater and the framing from the chase. We don't have a full plan in place for the new heat system yet, but since it's not that cold and the old heater wasn't that good anyway, we decided we can get by with electric mattress pads and maybe some electric space heaters for awhile. 

After much cursing and muttering, Dad and Devon got the furnace out.

We discovered a pretty shocking number of horrible things upon removing it. First of all, the vent pipe wasn't insulated and/or wasn't placed/braced properly. It was obviously getting way too hot, hot enough to char the drywall and the framing.

Next, the framing is a total disaster. This is the most major bearing wall in the house, and both top plates are completely missing. 

It looks like they were removed by chewing, or perhaps with a dull butter knife. Super shoddy. 

The bottom plate is also completely missing. There was no need to remove it! Just put the heater on top of it! As Devon was cutting a clean line in the drywall (to make patching easier), the stud he was cutting down the middle of fell out of the wall. It wasn't continuous, but instead there was some random cross member and then a little cripple stud that just went to the subfloor since the plate is missing. And it was obviously not nailed to any of the other framing. Here's the random cross member and cripple after the stud fell out:

Ugh, such a mes. 

So that's where we're at. We have no heat, we have an extra little doorway to the hallway, and we have some framing to patch up, but we did not die in a fire or an earthquake. Upside! 

Milestones

The project is coming along at a pretty good pace. Even though we have a ways to go until it's complete, we've ticked off some important milestones lately.

On Thursday we had a fully functional bathroom!

There's a fair amount of finish work to do, but it's all working and not leaking (as far as we know).

It was also our first night back in the house. We were all a little cold (the heat is off since it would all just go through the gaping holes and into the attic), but we've since plugged in the heated mattress pads.

Tonight we had our first meal back in the house. I think we did alright with a grill and a microwave:

The living room is still a bit of a war zone, but I cleared off the couch and vacuumed a little no-shoes zone:

In actual work progress, the kitchen is fully drywalled! This is after taping and mudding. There's a lot of sanding and mudding left to do still. 

We've also been plugging away at installation of outlets, switches, and fixtures (PUN INTENDED). Let the record show that today I single-handedly assembled and installed a ceiling fan! I didn't electrocute myself, it works, and it hasn't fallen down yet. I did have rather a lot of parts leftover, though. Devon has in fact electrocuted himself several times, but he seems fine except for that slight tic. He might have had that before - can't be sure. 

Oh, and we bought and installed a medicine cabinet, but I forgot to take a picture. When the bathroom is 100% done, I'll post many more photos! 

An Update in Pictures

Too tired for words. Here are some pictures instead!

Some drywall in place so you can see what the kitchen will feel like

Modified framing for the new spice cabinet

Setting tub surround tile

Our new tile saw is serving us well

Marble window sill in the shower, metal tile edging

Tile done! 

I found this hole covered in blue tape. Electrician is back on the shit list.