Kitchen Renovation Winding Down

We’re finally approaching a completed kitchen. We’ve been drilling the holes to put the hardware on the cabinets and get them hung, but it turned out that we didn’t get a few of the hinges that connect the two piece doors for the corner cabinets. They arrived yesterday, so we should be able to finish hanging and adjusting the doors this weekend. We still have the backsplash left to complete and to finish getting the bottle bottoms mounted in the bar.

New Electrical Panel

New Electrical Panel, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

Yeah, we passed our final electrical inspection today. Here's our new relocated breaker panel. Not quite sure why it needed to be so large, it's less than half full. Now I need a tall narrow work of art to cover it up. Guess I'll have to look through the thousands of my husbands photos for something the right dimensions. I also need to pick out a paint color for this little hallway and paint the patched up wall.

Mounting Bottle Bottoms in Wood

Bamboo Finish on box to heighten Brick Wall

Bottle Bottom Template for Valance

Sometimes simple ideas are harder to execute than you expect. My idea of mounting glass bottle bottoms into the wood we used to build-up our brick wall to counter height took days & days of planning & practice to figure out how to accomplish it. 
First of all a lot of beer bottles appear the same size, but they vary ever so slightly. Also since we are using LED lights to shine through from the inside of the box, the bottles need to fit snug in the hole so light doesn’t bleed around the edge. The cleanest way to get a nice round hole in wood without chewing up the edges is with a hole saw. Only problem, they come in just certain sizes & the larger ones get pricey. Between the contractor & ourselves, we had quite a few, but not enough for all the sizes of bottles. We splurged on a few additional ones. My husband also found an adjustable hole maker, but it wasn’t cutting through thick pieces of wood easily. So after various practice holes and shaving down of glass bottles, he decided to use the adjustable hole saw to cut holes in a template, clamp that template to the box and use his router to cut the smooth round holes. So we ended up going out & spending almost $25 on the right router bit. In the end it was worth it.

Bob cutting Circle Templates

Adjustable Hole Saw

Hole Cutters & practice cuts in Bamboo

The Circle Templates

Special Router Bit

Box with Circles Cut Out (protective tape still applied)

Concrete Beam Repair

One wall in our kitchen is a concrete support wall so it was the only one we didn’t knock out all the plaster on. It was also the one most out of plumb; the room measures more than an inch wider at the ceiling than at the floor. There were some problems with the plaster surface over the concrete and we could feel some hollow gaps in between the 2 layers. That meant scraping the wall down, which lead to big chunks of the plaster falling off, all the way down to the rough concrete surface. Another repair not anticipated at the beginning of the renovation. 
Our contractor kept mentioning the steps we would be using to make the repair, but we were working on the other walls and when he left me on my own for a few days, I attempted the repair on my own. To fill those gaps back in bonding agent was needed to adhere the joint compound to the rough concrete. The concrete must first be clean & all loose particles removed. Then you coat the concrete with the bonding agent at full strength. Once it is tacky, but quickly before it dries, use an admix of bonding agent & joint compound and cover the raw concrete. You don’t try to fill the whole gap, but just cover the raw concrete. Once that dries then the next pass of joint compound will stick to the 1st coat.
Since the worst spots were at the corner joint, we needed to create a form on the underside of the beam to give a smooth edge to fill up to. My husband formed it up for me and I spread a very thick layer of compound across the wall and into those deep recesses. We had to let it dry for a day & a half before we removed the plywood form & even then, the underside of the mud was still damp and I even cut out a few big drips. Our contractor returned and decided to bring us a bag of durabond which is a dry mix of joint compound which is a bit more firm than the premixed stuff. Wish I had had it for the first layers; it was firmer & easier to work with. He had me add a few more layers of it to level out the corner as much as possible before adding the corner bead. Since the beam is solid, the plastic corner bead can’t be stapled into it, so I had to use the metal reinforced paper tape. Working again by myself, I smoothed on a layer of compound and climbed up ladders on each end of the beam to place the tape so that the bottom edge was level before I folded it under across the bottom side. There was of course a gap on the underside in the center that needed to be filled with joint compound too, but I’m pleased how well it came out. Now it just needs a few coats on each ace to smooth everything out nice & flat like the rest of the walls.

Bamboo Cabinets Ready for Assembly

The beautiful bamboo kitchen cabinets have finally arrived. They are now stacked up in two rooms in the house waiting for us to finish the walls & floor so we can assemble them and install them.

The Walls Are Back Up

Well we've gotten the kitchen walls back up. Who knew it took so many screws to mount drywall (besides the contractors). I was totally useless with the screwdrivers, so the guys had to handle all that. But I did tape all the joints and help mud them, still have the inside corner beads to do and leveling out the walls & ceiling.

 

Out with the Old, In with the New

So glad to say good bye to all the old, unsafe fire hazards that were part of the original 1947 wiring in our house, including the ungrounded cloth insulated wire, original meter box that was in the laundry room & that fuse panel mounted behind the kitchen cabinet.

And look at our shiny new weather head outside and some new outlet boxes, switches etc. We even added some new pendant lights at the front entrance.

Construction Mascots

Basil

Duncan

Duncan the guard dog

Basil cleans up

Our furry kids are always supervising the kitchen renovation.

The Inconveniences of Reconstruction

After two weeks of construction a few inconveniences are starting to get old. Mostly having all our belongings packed up & shifted to the center of every room so that the electrical outlets can be rewired. It makes for annoying flow patterns throughout the house. I already have matching bruises on each hip from bumping furniture corners. And of course as the rewire progresses, we're shifting boxes from one room to another, thus loosing track of where the hell to find things when we decide we need them. And then there's the constant drywall and plaster dust. Even with most things covered in plastic and their sweeping up after almost every hole they make, I still see a constant layer of dust everywhere I look. But hooray hooray, yesterday we passed the rough electrical inspection, so now we can proceed with patching up the holes and moving some things back. Of course, I'm wishing I had time to paint behind some of the larger pieces of furniture so I don't have to move them again later, but I'm needed to finish the floors, walls & cabinets in the kitchen.