State of the Kitchen Now

As of now, we have most of the cabinets up. We had a granite measuring deadline of yesterday and thankfully we made it! We only got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep, but by golly we made it! For the granite guys to come measure, we only needed to have all the base cabinets installed, so some of the uppers and the pantry cabinets are not up yet.

Cabinet instillation is not easy. Things we have learned through the process:

• All walls and ceilings are not straight- when you install cabinets you want them all to be level and straight. Since the wall isn't straight you have to shim the cabinets in places to make them all line up. Also, your floor will never be completely level so you have to shim the cabinets at the base as well.  

• Do not try to install cabinets without a laser level! I guess this could be done without one, but I sure as heck don't want to try it! The laser level was a life saver because we could set up the level line and tap in the shims to that laser line. AMAZING! It will set you back about $100 but it is definitely worth the investment. 

• Before installing the cabinets, take off all the doors. This will make them lighter and you also won't scratch them in the process. When putting up the upper cabinets, make sure to install a ledger board (that you have already made sure was level) so you can rest your cabinets on it while screwing them in.

• It will take time and at least 2 people!

When the granite guy came to measure he said the cabinets looked amazing! Especially for doing them ourselves and since this was our first time. That works for me!

Oh! I forgot to touch on drywall. So, drywall is difficult. Not so much to hang it, but to tape and mud it.  I taped and mudded this wall here and at least I didn't I have the pressure of it looking THAT great since our cabinets will be covering this wall. I would say the most important thing I learned is that the drywall installed needs to be level with each other because when you go to tape and mud it, it will be way more difficult. Also, the first coat of mud is difficult, but with each additional coat it gets better.

 

 

 

 Here is a picture of the ledger board and you can see the red laser line on the left wall.

Ta Da! Here are the cabinets so far. We still have a long way to go, but it's looking good. We have to put the crown molding on the upper cabinets, so they will look like they go all the way to the ceiling and we dont have the uppers installed on the far wall yet (where the microwave and the refrigerator goes)

The cabinets are two different colors: the perimeter cabs are a cream white and the island is a java color. Love! Can't wait to upload the pics after the granite and marble goes in!

Kitchen Plumbing

As many of you already know, we are doing this renovation all on our own; however, there are jobs that we decided we should not do on our own: plumbing and some electrical.

For the plumbing we went with a friend's neighbor who has his own business. His quote was good and he was prompt coming out to give it. That's where it ended. He never had time to come out and actually do the work and he just stopped returning our calls. The thing about renovations is one job is always dependent upon another one getting completed. Moving the sink was one of those jobs. We could not install drywall, cabinets, or have the granite measuring take place until our sink was moved.

We eventually looked up new plumbers and came across one one Angie's List that had great reviews. They came out the next day with a quote (that was 2 1/2 times more than the first guy) but they promised to have the job done in 1 1/2 days. Time meant everything to us at that point and I couldn't afford to have days go by and nothing getting done in our kitchen. We coughed up the dough and now the sink is moved, new gas line installed for the range, and the water line for the refrigerator has been set up.

             These are the sink pipes moved. We decided to pour the concrete over them ourselves.

Here is the gas line installed and you can see the refrigerator copper coil for the water to the right of the picture.

Outside Wall Changes

I know it has been a while since my last post, but renovations have been taking over our lives (and we had a week-long trip back home) :-) What have we been up to since then???? Well, we probably completed the scariest part of demo which was removing the exterior door in the kitchen, reframing that side of the house, and moving the window over.

I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, panic attack, and possibly a stomach ulcer all in the span of  about 5 hours! Why so scared? Well, taking down an exterior wall of your house and hoping it doesn't collapse is not a stroll in the park. Also, part of the wall had the corner of the second story resting on the header above the original kitchen window and taking that down was a nail biter! I don't think I have prayed more in my life. :-0

Here are a couple of pictures from that terrifying day!

                                                            Cutting out the window

 Here is a picture of the temporary wall frame Jason built to hold up the house while taking out the     window. 

                                                                        Another view

                             As you can see the second story corner is right over the hole! Ahhhhhh

 

 

 We worked on it well into the night with freezing cold temperatures.

  

 Here is the finished move. New french doors where the original kitchen window was and the window is now moved to where the old kitchen door was.

                                                                    Another view

Living Room/Dining Room Befores

Here are a few pictures of the living and dining rooms before. (The furnished photos are taken from the listing)

 

This is the living room before (from the listing)

 

Living room without carpet

 

Dining room (from the listing)

 

Dining room without carpet

And here is the den or family room. We dont have a picture of this right now (empty) because all of our new hardwood flooring is sitting in this room

Thinset oh thinset

Soooo, over Thanksgiving weekend I was busy ripping up all the ceramic tile in the entryway, hallway, kitchen and laundry room (Jason had school projects to work on). It wasn't extremely hard- just time consuming and labor intensive. I was pretty sore for a few days :-( The only problem was the fact that some of the tile would come up and leave the thinset behind on the concrete. After attempting to chisel it off with no success, we rented a heavy duty machine that has a wide blade on it intended to get underneath the thinset. This was waaaayyyyy hard too and took Jason a good 4 hours. All the thinset is not removed and we will have to figure something out so that the floor is level before we lay the new tile.

While Jason was busy grinding away on the thinset, I removed the rest of the kitchen cabinets and the drywall between the kitchen and the den (pictures below).

This picture shows how much thinset was left behind!(Entryway)

 

More thinset!!!

 

Here is the kitchen with all of the cabinets taken out (except the sink one)

 

Here is another view of the kitchen

Drywall taken off! Now you can start to see the "open concept" plan. You can also see the difference after Jason used the machine to get up the thinset. It's looking a little better!

We plan on taking the framing down soon

First Post

Our first blog entry!!! We have wanted to start a blog for a while now and the purchase of our new home gave us a perfect reason to!

 

This little gem of a house will be going through some MAJOR renovations over the next few months and we wanted to share this experience with our family and friends. We plan on updating y'all regularly and (of course) posting tons of pictures along the way. Below are some entryway and kitchen pictures before anything is done.......

Entryway

Staircase

Hallway to the kitchen (standing in the formal living room) Powder room on the left

 

Entering the kitchen

Kitchen

 

Tile floor

 

Kitchen looking at the eat-in area

Kitchen (another view)

Back door

 

We took a lot of pictures of the kitchen only because this is going to be the biggest change in the house. We plan on rearranging the layout and knocking out a wall. Should be fun :-)