FRIDAY I had Jory for a couple hours mid-day, so I made a quick stop at the house to make sure the new replacement cabinet (that was delivered on Thursday) would fit right. I needed to get a coat of paint on it, too! I have to say I’m impressed- it looks amazing!
I managed to move it to the kitchen and put it in place…. and discovered that the footprint didn’t line up with the old cabinet. Uh oh. We had specifically requested that it be designed to fit where the old cabinet was, so that we wouldn’t need to modify the tile flooring at all.
He had measured that, and the base of the cabinet had the same dimension, but I think it was just assembled about 1.5″ forward:
This made the front of the cabinet sit on the tile floor, instead of the sub floor. We’d have to cut the tile back! I marked the overlap with pencil to show how much would need to be cut.
The whole length of the cabinet. No bueno.
I immediately emailed Dave with my concern….and he immediately dispatched a crew to come out and fix it! I don’t know the ins and outs of cabinet construction, so I’m not sure how they fixed it, but they did! (I later figured out that the cut out the front piece to accommodate the tile flooring).
Meanwhile, I made a run into Lowe’s to pick up the plethora of items I had ordered online the night before (in doing this through eBates, I got an extra 4% off the purchase price!).
– cellular blind for the dining room
– wood roman shade for the kitchen
– hinges, handles and knobs for the kitchen
– handles for the master bathroom
– light fixtures for both bathrooms
– tile grout refresher (basically grout paint)
– replacement shelving pegs for the kitchen shelves
After work I took the kids to karate, met Jim at the house, we sorted through all the trim to determine what we still needed to purchase, measured the new cabinet counter-top to determine what we needed to purchase…..and headed out the door to do the rest of our shopping.
– trim for the attic room
– trim for the columns at the entry
– plumbing parts to fix both toilets
– door stoppers (every door knob had gone through sheetrock- we had to fix every wall!)
– tile for the countertop
Sadly, we discovered that the moulding in the living room could not be matched.
It was not something that Lowe’s or Home Depot carried in stock. The millwork guy at Home Depot suggested we try Woodcrafters in Portland. I checked their online catalog and think I found a match! It’s Finger Jointed Pine #150 and runs about $0.97/ft. Guess I’ll go there on Monday (holiday) since I have the day off. Can’t spare any time this weekend!
SATURDAY was a work work work day. Ugh.
We got over there around 8:30 and started our projects. The first priority was to get the counter height set on the new cabinet. We ended up raising the whole cabinet by putting subfloor underneath it. Which means all that focus and time Dave spent measuring to make sure the drawers would line up with the other cabinets, etc…. all went to waste! We had to create a top that would be easily removed, though, so that if/when the kitchen is ever gutted, we can re-use the cabinet. I think we did a good job creating a top!
We had to secure the top in such a way that down the road it can easily be removed….yet be secure enough to not come off easily.
Jim’s focus was painting the new trim that we had picked up from Lowe’s the night before.
My focus was getting a the kitchen ready to re-grout (in a couple areas) and getting the new counter ready to tile. I decided to start at the top and work down- by cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and washing the shelves. My mom came over about that time and I had her work on sweeping and vacuuming the 2 bedrooms so that we could consider them ready for floor trim and outlet covers.
Jim used his leftover white paint to do another coat on the sides of the trim around the windows. I do believe we are completely done with window trim. (Except the Living room window which always gets neglected).
Mom did some more degreasing of the range hood and helped me clean the kitchen cabinets- they are just so greasy inside, too! I used the engine degreaser product again. I plan to use the commercial deoderizer spray in them once the doors are up- so I can shoot the spray and close the door and trap it! Lol!
The girls came over for a bit and helped put outlet covers back up….and that was about all they could offer, which was fine.
Jory came over and painted the upper hall it’s final coat, and painted the master bathroom it’s final coat. That officially puts us as DONE with all of our painting. (Except as I’ve removed the tape for trim painting, there’s a few touch ups needed around the windows- oops!) When Jory left, she took the girls back with her to drop them off at our house.
OH, we had Papa Murphy’s Take & Bake for lunch, wanted to give the oven a test run! Also ran the dishwasher to wash the range hood screens.
After lunch I got the tile installation done on the counter and the other side of the range….
Since I had the mastic/adhesive out, I went around the family room/kitchen and replaced any missing base tiles. YAY feels good to have that done!
Then I tackled the Master bathroom hardware installation.
Notice the window? We noticed some water damage on the bottom sill, but the big shocker was when I took the blinds down and saw the upper sill:
Um, that’s a little warped. Here’s the other side of it:
Definite water damage. Fortunately it was DRY, which means it’s an OLD issue and not a current issue, but that means we need to reframe the window. Ugh.
The remainder of the evening was spent installing floor trim. Until our brad nailer went kapooey. That made our quitting time around 10pm, otherwise I think we would have kept going until closer to midnight!
OH, before we left, I put a coat of paint on the new cabinet and drawers. I didn’t want to do that earlier in the day with everyone using the kitchen so much.
SUNDAY we didn’t work as hard, or as long. We got there just after 9am. Jim dropped me off so he could run out and buy a new brad nailer, and pick up some replacement wood for the master bathroom window.
While he was shopping, I worked on putting another coat of paint on the new cabinet and drawer faces, then finished installing the bathroom hardware in the main bathroom.
I couldn’t figure out where to mount the shelf…. to the right of the sink would mean nobody could put a cabinet or etagere there. To put it above the sink would make the mirror situation awkward. Below the light switch would be too low. So I went to mount it directly over the light switch, but then the towel bars had to be hung super high so the towels wouldn’t be on the shelf. So instead, I mounted the shelf high and the towel bars at a height where the light switch and outlet would be usable and not covered up. Who woulda thunk there’s so much planning needed for hanging bathroom accessories!??!?
I opted to hang the two towel bars end to end on the other wall….
We finished installing the rest of the trim. Got everything cut and in place! The newly installed trim needs to have the nail holes filled and the corners caulked, but other than that- the bedrooms are completely ready for carpet!
The only room that still needs trim is the Living Room- which I will go get on Monday.
The sun was shining so Jim went out and worked on fixing both gates, making some roof repairs and a few other exterior repairs (I didn’t ask exactly what).
Inside, I worked on painting the living room window sill (which has been neglected this whole time) and the door jambs in the kitchen/family room.
When Jim came in, he built the new window sill. Cousin Todd came over for a bit and he helped Jim with that.
(Todd also helped us by finishing the wallplate/outlet cover job from the girls).
And my final project for the day- was grouting the new counter top!
Elisa's Ramblings 