The Kitchen

 Click here for the kitchen photo page
3/21/2004      Now that all of our things are officially in the house and our friend, Monte has left, it's time to start facing the fact that renovation is the next topic to breach.  Luckily, we've already found several areas of the house where we'll be able to get the work completed without tearing out as many walls as we'd originally thought.  The floors aren't in too bad a condition and my brother Tom will be out today to let us know what will be needed to replace all of the plumbing.  The ball is rolling even though it doesn't feel like it, at least not now.
3/22/2004       I started my new job renovating other people's homes today.  Easy job, I have to admit.  Meanwhile, Beth stayed home and accepted delivery on her new brushed steel refrigerator, range, dishwasher, and microwave. Did I mention we also bought a brushed steel trash can for the kitchen?  No?  Let me tell you about it.  It holds 35 gallons and has a 'butterfly' opening lid with internal hydraulics so it closes slowly and (according to Beth) won't upset the cats when it shuts.  I'm serious.  For $179, we now have a pretty trash can that won't frighten the cats.
    God help me.
    We also looked for a brushed steel can opener to replace the one we forgot to take off the wall but we didn't see one we liked.  We did, however, see a brushed steel thing-a-ma-bob that mounts on the wall.  You put your old recyclable plastic bags from the grocery store in it and then you can yank them out of the bottom like so much Kleenex.  Clever, no?
     I just don't get it.  Why do I feel guilty when I go to Home Depot or Lowe's to buy renovation supplies that add up to perhaps $80 and then cave in and succumb when Beth wants a designer trash can?  I guess it's because I'm a good husband and our home will look really nice when all is said and done.  This is all just a part of the process of fulfilling a common dream, right?
      Right?
      Help meeeeeee.......
3/26/2004      An important element of any good renovation process is time.  I've just finished my first week of employment and so I'm home today and looking at what needs to be done to get the kitchen ready for the new cabinetry.  This means I have three days to rip out the old walls and try to install the new windows, etc.
    Since this is totally unrealistic (or is it?) I'll do all I can and hope Beth can wrap up some of the details on her own while I'm at work next week.
4/5/2004     Yes, it was unrealistic.
    It's been two weeks and the kitchen is only 70% stripped.  Beth hit a stumbling block when she single-handedly ripped down part of the ceiling and got to a light fixture and a fan so I have to take them down before she can continue.  We also discovered a large supply of German lapboard siding under the one wall and that has to be taken out but my new job has been taking up all of my time and strength so that part has all come to a standstill.  The good news is that the weather has afforded me a day off today so I'll be home alone to work on these things while Beth and Christina are off doing the 'quality time' thing.
4/9/2004      It's 9:00 am and Lowe's should be here at any time with 50 sheets of drywall and a mountain of insulation rolls.  Beth is asleep and I suppose I should wake her but I just can't seem to bring myself to disturb her as she's worked very hard this week ripping down the old walls and ceiling in the kitchen.  By the end of this weekend we should have the new drywall up.
4/14/2004      I'm still tearing out the walls.  There was wood that I needed to preserve and store in my shop and it took ages to get it all out because of the way the kitchen was attached to the main frame of the house.  
      The new windows and counters will all be here over the next seven days.  Time to get moving.
4/21/2004      We really picked up the pace with the kitchen today.  While the cabinets aren't going to be here until the end of the week (Thank you, God.), we got to hang a bunch of drywall .
     Oh, yeah.....this is getting to be fun.
4/22/2004      9:00.....woke up and had a cup of coffee.
     9:30.....Beth sands drywall seams while I drive into Frederick to purchase wire.
   1:45.......lunch
   2:00.......Get distracted by boards that need to be cut back.
   3:00.......Get distracted by heat and install window.
   6:30.......dinner
   7:30.......Think about putting up drywall on ceiling but blow it off.
4/24/2004     Both windows are now installed in the kitchen.  This meant having to rip out the old huge pair in the West wall to install one single window which is considerably smaller than the existing space.  While I tend to keep this page focused mainly on the house I have to mention here that my older brother went into the hospital a few days ago with congestive heart failure and nearly died yesterday.  At about the time I managed to put a gaping hole in the house my younger brother called me to meet him and go to the hospital.  Beth and Christina jumped in and sealed off the hole with a plastic tarp.  Not only that, they installed quite a few areas of insulation.  Very impressive.
4/29/2004      I've returned to work and that means work on the house has slowed to a snail's pace.  The large opening on the West wall of the house is still just a large opening.  This isn't too bad in regard to bugs because an odd cold snap came through dragging the outdoor temperature down to 32.  Of course, this also dragged our indoor temperature down to 32.  I really must get that opening sealed up this weekend.
5/7/2004     One of the biggest obstacles one can face in completing a project is Life itself.  Every time something comes up that eats into the time when we could be working on the house we fall three steps back.  Today is a great example.  We have to zoom into DC to pick up one of Christina's friends from Florida.  This is fine but will devour 5 hours of working time.
    I only mention this because people think taking on this task should be a simple thing  but it's not.  It seems as though we should be finished by now.  We should have been able to just adopt a take-charge attitude, grabbed the bull by the horns and knocked it out in a week or so, right?  Well, it just doesn't work that way, trust us on this.  Life's obligations and nuances come first and then you get to have some fun.
5/11/2004      The kitchen's drywall work is completed and drying.
     The windows are in.
     This is a great moment in this house's phoenix-like transformation.  We will soon be able to paint it and then make fire for cooking our food.  I've spoken with dozens of people in this business and they all say the same thing: the kitchen is always the biggest pain in the ass.
     If all goes well we will be able to prime and paint by this evening.  Then the shelves will go up!  Yahoo!
5/12/2004      Okay, I'm learning to recognize what is physically possible and what is a pipe dream.  Half of this day was spent ripping out a poorly laid section of drywall and shaving down the 100-plus year old timbers beneath that were bowing it out. It was hard work and it sucked having to rework the entire area but we pushed ourselves and the newly laid section looks terrific.
     What I learned is this: "I don't want a home that was rebuilt quickly.  I want a home that was rebuilt right."
     It was today's mantra.
     I also learned that it was great having invested hundreds of dollars into some shockingly cool power tools that saved us hours of work and sweat.  "The right tools for the right job" shouldn't just be a saying or a Madison Avenue blurb.  It should be a religion.
     But this page is winding down and as I read back on it I have to laugh.  There's so little for a reader to absorb compared to the overwhelming amount of mental calculating,  physical work, and sweat that went into this room hat it must seem simple.  "Hey!  These folks went out and bought a fixer-upper and it looks pretty simple so why don't we do it, too?"
    Let me tell you why...
    My hands are swollen.  I have several infected cuts I'm actually concerned about.
    I wake up with no feeling in my arms.
    I dream about things like plaster melting all over beautiful flooring.
    This kitchen cost us over $20,000.
    My wife started up a PTA just to be able to talk to other people.  She has cabin fever so my hi-tech wife, who is perfectly at ease dealing with international executives, is starting up a PTA just to have people to talk to.
    Walking through our dining room should qualify us as participants in some God-forsaken event in the Olympics from Hell because you have to avoid every deadly tool ever invented as well as various piles of lumber.  I have no idea what's actually in this room.  It looks like a combination of Rod Serling's 'Night Gallery'  and an isle of Lowe's that Stephen King might have designed.  I can't even imagine what it's like to sit in there and eat a meal.  Only Salvador Dali would be able to feel at peace in that pile of clutter and crap.
    Our living room?   Well, there's a fireplace in there somewhere but it's been buried behind a pile of drywall for so long that I can't seem to recall what it looks like anymore.  I'm dead serious. I think it had some stone in its structure but who knows?
    And forget the sofa or loveseat.  They're long gone, pal.  I have not seen them in their fullness since the winter months because our kitchen cabinetry is blocking every spare inch on the largest room in the house.  I can't even get to the front door.
    I'm going to bed.  I really need a serious night of uninterrupted sleep.  You want to buy a run down old Victorian and fix it up in your spare time?  Be my guest.  You're an idiot.
    But we really do love this old place.  Don't get us wrong.  Every nail....every slathering of joint compound.....it's the fulfillment of a dream and worth every bit of sweat and frustration.
5/14/2004      Here comes another fun-filled day!
      I get to start by sanding down the joints where I put in that drywall I mentioned. Then I also will fill it and hope it dries by this evening so that it can be painted.
     The ceiling gets another coat of ceiling white, which is an industry standard color description I'll never understand. It should be changed to "ceiling gray that leaves streaks and runs like water".
     The walls have their color except for the repair area. This is a good thing because I have about ten drops of paint left. Beth wanted the walls in the kitchen to have just a tad of cream color to them so I primed the almost-white drywall with white primer and then painted them with her almost-white cream color. I did this at dusk so now I am blind.
     When all of this is done I have to take up the plastic covers protecting the floor and go over every square inch to remove any last staples that I can find. At some point in history there was a linoleum floor in there and whoever put it in thought staple guns were a lot of fun. When the flooring got little tears in it they must have figured glue was too much trouble so they stapled the loose pieces down, too. This has left an array of old rusted staples embedded in the planks, which is why today we call the kitchen Lock Jaw City.
     Following the removal of all the staples (except one that I'm sure will enter my knee cap) I have to again go over the floor with mineral spirits and 10,000 rags. This will ensure that the floor is 100% free of dirt, grease and and small traces of the previous tenants' feet  that might still be in there.
     Next will be the ceiling's crown molding which will add a touch of elegance as well as hide the seam between the walls and ceiling that I didn't feel like filling. I figured that if the 2nd floor bounces a little it will need a little flexibility, ya know?
     Today's final step will be to wax the kitchen floor. Twice. While it's drying I'll have the back door off so that I can attempt to restore it as opposed to buying a new one. The inside isn't too bad but the outside was exposed to what has been described to us as "two of the meanest dogs you ever did see". These dogs wanted in and the wood is shredded like spaghetti squash. Time to break out the belt sander and some Bondo. My only fear is having to caulk the windows because if I get a splinter I'll most likely see a red line travel up my arm toward my heart and I'll only have 10 seconds to live.
     All of this will be done today. I must hang the cabinets or face madness. I must.
5/15/2004      4:45 pm: We have cabinetry in the kitchen.  The upper cabinets are in and half of the floor has its first coat of wax.  Of course, the floor sucked it right into the wood but that's okay.  It'll harden and seal so that the next coat will be shiny and lustrous.  I'm figuring three or four coats ought to do it.
     11:45 pm: El wrongamundo about those three or four coats of wax.  Think about it.  There are century old planks on that floor and for the first 50 years it was an outside porch exposed to mountain winters.  They're sucking up the wax like an alcoholic falling off a 20 year ride on the wagon.  This could take up to ten coats just to start seeing a sheen.
     On the other hand, the part of the room we haven't yet started waxing looks like thick sheets of papyrus compared to the waxed side so we have hope.  Tommy is coming by to work on more of the plumbing tomorrow so Beth will no doubt keep on with the hourly treatments while we slave away with the pipes.
5/26/2004     I had today off and did a minimum....minimum, I tell you...of 25 laps into the cellar.
    I sweated my rear end off because none of my brilliant electrical work in the kitchen was working correctly.  Hours of studying and running wire had not paid off and I wasn't happy about it.
     I began running all sorts of numbers in my head to attempt to find the most clever and logical way to eliminate the source of the problem.  As anyone who knows me can tell you I live for mathematics.  Not the big, fancy kind like you might see in movies such as 'A Beautiful Mind' but the more basic carpentry-kind that would befuddle even the most competent mathematics guy.
    (This is carpentry.  This is why you pay carpenters lots of money.  Remember that.)
    Anyway, after about the 18th run to the cellar where the service panels house the breaker that was ruining my entire day I finally figured out what was wrong and now we have kitchen lights and switches that turn them on and off.  The entirety of my angst and agony was based on one little wire at the end of the kitchen's circuit.  I felt so stupid.
     Anyway, all I have to do now is frame out the decorative trim on the windows and doors and the kitchen is finished.  I also have to take down the filthy door that the crack addicts never washed and their dogs repeatedly raked with their nails, belt sand it, fill it with Bondo, prime & paint it and then I'm finished.
     Oh, yeah...and hook up the power to the dishwasher and garbage disposal.
     And hook up the power to the dishwasher.  Both of the above are exclusively lined to their own breakers.
     And touch up all the final fixes I made on the drywall.
     And install the new deadbolt on the door.
     Then I'm finished and can move onto the dining room.
     2 months and five days later, I'm almost ready for the next room.  One almost down and only 11 more to go.
6/9/2004      It's been almost 3 months since we started the kitchen and it's almost completely finished.  On Friday (6/11/2004) the counters will be installed and after that it's just a tweak here and a tweak there.
    The guy who measured our kitchen for the template to create said counters said my leveling was off by 1/16th of an inch for the most part but added that I had to reset the counters so that they were level and in a few spots where they slightly exceeded the industry standard of 1/8th of an inch, otherwise our warranty would be waved.  I ended up redoing almost all of the counter cabinets. I'd say they are now within 1/64th of an inch leveled throughout the entire 28 feet of their continuous area.
     This is a typical example of the 'little details' people have to face when taking a project of this magnitude.  It's easy to say you yourself would feel it would be a labor of love but something like this takes the ability to constantly accept bad findings and deal with them.
     Another thing we've found is that by simply living here through the seasonal changes we've run into seasonal problems that force us to constantly re-prioritize whether the disaster is extreme drafts or warm-weather insects.
     These are tangents that have to be worked into the equation, which most people never even think about.
    
6/21/2004    The counters are in, the walls are painted, the appliances are up and running.  The plumbing....now, there's another thing.  I've discovered I'm utterly incapable of installing a kitchen sink.  My brother spent the weekend taking care of this only to find the entire set of drainage pipes were filled with rust and utterly useless.  Beth and I spent this morning cutting away the old pipes and installing temporary PVC so now it all works!
7/15/2004      I'm going to just take a moment here to mention that we've really been making some impressive progress on the dining room and left the kitchen in a state of incompleteness.  I have a short punch-out list of things to do in there that I can never seem to get around to doing.  They're just little things like touching up areas with a paint and putting on switch plate covers but the kitchen was such a nightmare that I find myself almost afraid to go back in there bearing tools.  It's as though the simple act of putting on a plate might blow up the house.
     Must be strong....must be strong...
6/2/2005      We just finished painting this room for the second time.  We decided a yellow color would be much better with the lighting and we were right.  It looks terrific!
6/21/2005          I started refinishing that old kitchen door today.  It's been a sore spot since the first day we were here and has been through hell over the past century.  I have to sand off 105 years of dirt, several coats of paint, rust off the hardware and (worst of all) damage from crazy dogs.  They scratched and gnawed huge areas of wood into splinters.  On top of all that, the windows are next to useless and need to be removed and replaced.  The moldings are destroyed and the glass rattles in place and lets in drafts in the colder seasons so they have to be completely rejuvenated.
    My preference would be to replace them with double panes but it would probably have to be special ordered and be expensive.  I'd also like to finish the door to match the kitchen cabinets, but Beth says she'd prefer to just have a smooth door that's painted white.  I think it will look dirty in no time.  Oh, well.
9/7/2005     Almost finished with that %#@*& door.  I went through three sanding drum sheets on that thing.  THREE!  It took one to do our living room.  On top of those, I used half a gallon of some acid that barely phased the paint but sure as hell hurt when a pinhead-sized drop touched my arm.  I also used two tanks of butane for my torch.  I finally just painted it white.
9/21/2005    With that stupid door hung, I needed a small diversion so why not stink up the whole house with some chemicals?  I decided that the kitchen floor was long overdue to be refinished.  Beth had done her best to wax it but all that really did was seal in a very ugly floor.  I decided to sand it a little and use the same stain sealant I'd used on the bedroom floors.  Well, it looks better than it did and feels a lot better under bare feet but it still has a sort of beat up antique look.  I suppose that's okay considering the circumstances.