Hardware and Dishware

Installing all of the pulls for the drawers was a bit more effort the knobs on the cabinet doors. Centering and leveling is very important for the resulting look. After marking the locations, I drill pilot holes for the bolts. Unfortunately the pulls came with standard 1" bolts, which were fine for the cabinets but too short to go through the draw frame and front face. The new longer bolts work well for the standard drawers, but the faux drawers at the sink have even less depth than the cabinet doors. I need to return to Home Depot to get 3/4" bolts for these two handles.

When I finish this simple task after multiple days I celebrate with a beer. I begin unpacking my kitchen dishes, drinkware, silverware, pots, pans, etc. I finally get to unpack my gifted William-Sonoma monogrammed glassware, but realize that I am lacking in matching silverware and dishware. After research I determine that Ikea will suffice and fill my other cabinet with dishes and coffee mugs and my silverware drawer with a bamboo organizer.

Pantry, Refigerator and More

After the crazy month of non stop house efforts, I took a couple weeks off. I went to Vegas for a long weekend and then celebrated St. Patty's Day enough for this year and next. This past weekend I got back to work in the kitchen.



The first step of the weekend was moving the pantry into place next to the upper. The outlet for the refrigerator is behind the pantry, so I thought it easiest to cut a whole in the pantry and put the outlet in there. With the baseboards removed I was able to slide the pantry up flush to the wall. Or as flush as possible with a hand molded plaster wall. I used shims on the pantry as well as loosening some screws on the upper and shimming out its bottom.





Next I began preparing all of the trim pieces, including the quarter round, the white skins, the casing, and the baseboards. The first step was painting them all white and letting them dry. Then the fun part: measuring and cutting. I bought a manual miter box that allows for simple 45 degree cuts for corners. For the larger skin pieces, I used a circular saw to make the "precision" cuts. It took nearly a full day to cut all of the trim. I am still missing the large skin for the side of the pantry, so the nail gun rental will wait until next weekend.





The hardware for the cabinets arrived a while ago and it was nice to finally start installing them. I was only able to install the cabinet knobs so far because the pulls came with 1" bolts and I need 1.5" due to the thickness of the drawer faces.

I picked up a sample piece of "reducer" transition to test the height and color match. The height is perfect and once the full length piece is mounted, I will add 1/8" of grout between it and the tile. This piece of wood is dry and the way to test what a natural stain will do is to rub water on the wood. The result is a perfect match for my floors, so I will be using a clear stain on this transition piece.




When I cut the baseboard to fit the back wall of the kitchen, I realized something very unfortunate. The tall baseboard that I had chosen to cover the line from the previous baseboard is not going to work in my kitchen. The base cabinet against the wall has 3 drawers and this style of cabinetry has very large drawer faces that cover nearly the full width of the cabinet. As a result, the baseboard is too tall and does not fit. The toe kick is about 4" high so I will need a standard 3.5" high baseboard. Unfortunately this means fixing the bottom of the wall so that the line from the previous baseboard is not visible. This starts with putting mud on the wall.

Next I began working on the refrigerator panel that goes on the other side of the upper opposite the pantry. The front of this panel has a trim piece to match the rest of the cabinetry, which I attached with wood glue. The resulting gap between upper and panel is 1" so I glued together some shims and glued them to the top of this panel. Now I can apply screws through the upper into these shims and 0.25" into the panel. Two of these screws in the back and two more through the front trim piece holds the panel in place. The two in the back required some team effort from Mike Tall and Brooke.  I intend to add some "L" brackets down below the upper to provide stability all the way down the panel.



With everything mounted together, I finally tightened the screws on the upper and mounted it to the pantry. Then I mounted the pantry to the wall through a stud, not that it is going to move anywhere. The final touch on the pantry is mounting the outlet and applying the face cover for a nice looking finish.

Now that I will not be working on the house nonstop, my posts will be more like this with weeklyish updates about accomplishments. I hope to finish the kitchen (minus painting) in the next week or two and I will create a tab for before and after shots. I will add to this when I paint the kitchen and buy the wine fridge and full sized refrigerator.

New Curtains

The trim looks good and after letting it dry I get to hang my new curtains. I bought them last week, but haven't had time to deal with it. I was on a roll this morning with the touch up, so I figured I'd go for it. Plus I worked far into the evening yesterday, so I have some flex time. Curtains are relatively straight forward but tedious. I have sheer white behind a light brown fabric that reminds me of an old style couch. For the smaller window I have a single matching brown curtain. The rods are oiled bronze with highlights to match all of the hardware in my place so far. Tonight will be the test of whether I need black out curtains behind these or not.

Crown Moulding Touch Up

I finally got around to touching up the crown moulding after the caulking. My perfectionism made this a more drawn out effort than it needed to be. Last week I taped up the moulding and painted the upper wall areas. Then I tore off the tape and despite the glorious reviews of the frog tape, my lines were not that great. I blame this more on the uneven nature of the plaster behind the drywall. So this morning, I used a tiny brush to go around the room again and touch up any spots that needed it. The result looks much better and my OCD is mostly satisfied.

Door Installation

With a level sill and a square rough opening, we are ready to install the door. We add the caulk to the sill and the bottom of the door sill. From the outside we work together to connect the sills with the door at a 45 degree angle out from the house. Then we push it in to place and I run around the house to check it from the inside. Turns out that we underestimated the slope of the flooring on this old house and the door does not open all the way! We quickly regroup, remove the door and cut another piece of 5/8" by 5'3/8" redwood to add a layer to the sill. Wood glue and deck screws again to secure the piece. We add caulk again and repeat the process. This time the door opens all the way and we are good to plumb the door.

There is a suggested order for installing the shims, starting with the bottom, then the top, then the hinges then 8" above and below the corners on the handle side. The goal of the order is to create a door that is square and plumb, with a 1/8" gap between the frame and the door on the handle and hinge sides. This means that the door will open and close correctly. This process takes quite a long time, but finally we have the door how we want. So we install the screws through the hinges, shims, and stud for each of the three hinges. Next we install screws on the handle side through the shims 8" from the top and bottom as well as through shims on either side of the deadbolt opening. Now we score the shims and remove them. Look! A fully functional door!

Now we install the deadbolt and handle to make sure that everything lines up and the locking functionality works correctly. It looks more and more like a door every step of the way.

I'll use this space to point out the doggie door. Isn't it lovely?

The final step for the day is the addition of the minimal expanding foam. Don't let the name fool you, this stuff expands and expands and expands. You don't want to go overboard, because it is strong enough to warp the door frame, or at least move it and ruin the perfect 1/8" spacing. Also, this stuff is highly toxic, so if ever there was a time to wear gloves and glasses, this would be it. We wore them the whole time because I didn't want to have to pay Shannon workers comp for an injury. This foam makes a perfect seal and the door has function but not yet form.

The future steps to truly complete this project will have to wait. These are all cosmetic additions however and since my place is a construction zone, it's alright waiting. I need to install new casing around the door on the inside and outside, which covers the door frame and foam insulation. Then some white caulk should create a nice finish. Also this door is only primed, so I will need to remove and paint it at a later point in time. Finally, our process removed the wood threshold that connects nicely to the tile, so I need to find a solution for that as well.

Perfecting the Rough Opening

The rough opening has a lot of problems. Because of one completely termite eaten side board the opening was too wide. The sill was constructed of two different thresholds, only one of which was mounted down. And the distance between the tile we must clear and the top of the opening was too small. We knew we needed a trip to Home Depot for wood, but we needed a game plan first. We ripped out the sills so we could build up a level sill ourselves. We also cut out the two-by-four across the top of the opening with the sawzall to allow enough room for the door once our sill is built.

After some Capriotti's to recharge and a trip to Home Depot for some pressure treated wood and naturally durable redwood, we are back in business. We use a two-by-six of treated wood for the main sill, which we shim to level. Liquid nails plus coated deck screws mean this sill isn't going anywhere. Then for the extra bit of height we need, we put a 5/8" by 5'3/8"piece of redwood over the treated wood. We place a 5/8" by 3'3/8" piece of redwood on the side to get the correct width of the opening. We cut the excess drywall and complete our nicely spaced rough opening.

Removing Old Door

Shannon came over to help with a nice Saturday project. Neither of us knew what we were in for.

According to the online videos and how-to's, the first step is to remove the old door, casing (both interior and exterior), and the door frame. Of course in these videos it takes about 12 seconds to do all this. For us, the big sticking point was the security door which is by definition a tamper proof metal door. A lot of prying and hammering and sawzalling removes the security door and the exterior casing.





The interior casing takes a bit more control in the removal so that the casing can be
reused after the new door is installed. Alternating flathead screwdrivers down the length of the moulding creates a gap for the pry bar. A couple pulls and the casing is off.






The door frame requires cutting through a lot of screws or nails that are holding the frame in place. A sawzall with a metal blade (or even a wood blade) can easily make these cuts. One good kick and the door frame is down - not really, I carefully push the framing down and out of the way. The result is referred to as the rough opening and the goal of the rough opening is to have a sill that is high enough to allow the door to open and the width/height are large enough to fit the door. This "simple" goal becomes the bane of our afternoon.

Exterior Door Planning

The back door to the house is not plumb, doesn't open, and has signs of termite damage in the framing. So this weekend's project is to replace this exterior door with a pre-hung door. How do I end up with so many in progress projects at once? So off to Home Depot to buy the door and all the fixings. Note: Doors are expensive. I am lucky to find a custom door that was returned and was marked down to 60% off! And the bonus custom work is an XL doggie door! If you ever purchase a door, it is a good idea to have a friend even for the purchase process - putting this door and ladder into my rental car was the heaviest game of real life Tetris I've ever played.

Finish Drywall Patch

The drywall patch where the access panel used to be has taken forever. Every time I go to work on the house, I procrastinate this particular project. Over the weeks there have been multiple rounds of adding mud and then later sanding it down. The goal is to get a fairly level and seamless wall. Finally I am to the last round of sanding! I dust off the wall and use the shop vac to get up all the dust. Now for the fun part - adding texture. The technique is quite simple - set the spray can nozzle to the desired texture style (fine to heavy) and then spray at the wall from two feet away in circular motions. Note: The temperature of the can matters! Too cool and you don't have enough pressure to spray evenly.

The texture looks too heavy at first, but after a few hours of drying it flattens down to approximately the correct texture. I will be painting the kitchen in the relative near future (color TBD) so I just need to prime the area to seal it in. I don't have primer, because all the new paints are primer plus paint, so I go with the Arizona White that I have been using for trim. Finally I am done with this wall and can mount the pantry cabinet after it dries!