New kitchen windows

Our new kitchen windows finally arrived Wednesday from Cascade Lumber on Camano Island. Oddly enough the brand name is also Cascade.

After a run to stupid Home Depot (I hate that place), we started demo, the best part.


The hard part is ripping out all the little wood trim pieces, but with a chisel, Wonder Bar, and hammer, it goes pretty quickly. It helps to first score the cracks with a box knife so that none of your paint rips off the spots you want to save.



Since it's January, I recommend taping up some plastic while you're cleaning, drilling, fitting etc. to keep the house from chilling. Either that or turn off the heat.


After you pull out everything, you get to cut the pulley ropes and let the weights drop back behind the wall. It's so fun!


Those weights obviously need a hallow passage to move up and down in, so if you're not going to use them, it's a good idea to drill holes and fill the area with insulation. We bought cheap expandable spray insulation. The stuff is nasty and sticky, so be careful and wipe up immediately.

The next step is to tear off the vinyl tabs most new windows come with. Some contractors may refer to these as "window nailers." They come with holes so that you can nail the window right up to the 2x4 frame, but we obviously don't have those exposed. You can sit and try to bend, pry, and cut them off with a box knife, but the easiest (and fastest) way to get them off is to use a reciprocating saw. Have one person hold and the other cut right up against the window. Obviously you will never see this part of the frame, so don't worry about smudges, little cuts, etc.

After some swearing and leveling, shim the windows up against the interior piece of trim. Now the question is "Do you level the window to a true level or do you eyeball it so that it looks good up against the sill?" We did these windows by eyeballing it. The first (north window) was fitted with the level.....and it now looks a little crooked. So it just depends on what you think is right.

Here are the new windows! They still need to be cleaned, but I'm waiting for the caulk around the sill and trim to dry.


The outside looks nothing like the beautiful inside. The outside is ripped up and there's a huge gap under the bottom because the sill is angled down. We will have to borrow a table saw to rip a nice, angled piece to fit under the bottom. Caulk that up and then fit some decorative trim around the whole thing to make it air tight (and hide the old wood).

Replacing interior doors

I'm thinking about replacing some of the interior doors. Ours are so crappy. They're basically hollow shells thrown up on a hole in the wall. Even the hinges and knobs look like something out of a horror movie. My favorite is slamming the door TWICE every morning because it won't latch the first time. That's after it swings close like a squeaky gate. Frank Door and Lumber in Shoreline is an excellent door company, but kind of expensive. So I browsed their scrap doors. Found a good one, but not really the look I was thinking.
I went to a salvage store in Ballard today and found they organize their doors by number of panels (one panel-BINGO, on up to six!). They also have the measurements written on the side. I figure it'll be a slow project....maybe a door per month until all seven are replaced. It's some minor sanding, planing, and painting. Knobs are another story.

Side project:: Scraping popcorn ceiling

Today I scraped a ceiling in our hallway. I sealed 'er up pretty well with plastic and tape. Bought a garden sprayer to soak the popcorn. A 3 inch scraper took the crap off very quickly. I was only exposed to possible harmful chemicals for about 45 minutes. As you can see, I did take some precautions. I even taped up my latex gloves so nothing could touch me. The picture doesn't show it, but I did wear goggles.
Here's the mess left behind. I sprayed it all again with water before rolling it up and properly disposing it at the King County Waste site. Wrap it up in A LOT of plastic. The dump sites require 6mm, but you can see that I have a TON on the walls.
Here's the hubby adding some mud to our millions of cracks and the holes I gouged in the ceiling. They'll probably need another coat and they still won't look like a brand new wall, but anything is better than popcorn.

Note: you should always send in your popcorn to have the local authorities test it for asbestos. Airborne asbestos can cause Mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer. I think the jury is still out to whether a slight exposure causes the cancer. I'm betting scraping one house worth of ceilings won't do too much damage, especially when compared to second hand smoke. There are services out there that will seal off your home and scrape your ceilings. They are VERY EXPENSIVE.

Shopping for appliances

So we just got back from shopping for kitchen appliances (dishwasher, microwave, refer). We bought a new Kenmore (white) stove/oven the day after we moved in because the old green one that came with the house wasn't even worth opening.
We have decided that since the stove is white, we will buy all white appliances. Yes, it's not the trendy stainless steel, but this house will always be a "first time homebuyer" home, so why waste the money?
Anyway, it's crazy how much a dishwasher and over the range microwaves cost. Here's a breakdown.

Albert Lee
Whirlpool microwave: $329
GE microwave: $359
Whirlpool dishwasher: $509
GE dishwasher: $559

Sears:
GE microwave: $218! but smaller (1.5 cubic)
Whirlpool dishwasher: $509
Kenmore dishwasher: $399! yeah

So at Albert Lee, we'll get about $50 off each appliance because we still have a contractor's discount (even the business no longer exists....shh). Just a thought: Would it be worth it to get a business license for $15 with the state and open an account at these places? You'd save money at the paint store, Home Depot, etc. Seems like a good deal.

Now the Fridge:
Side by side freezer/fridge? or drawer in the bottom? Is a door in the bottom better? It seems like room on the inside is diminishing compared to the 1980s versions. I'm almost tempted to buy the old school freezer on top version. And how important is water? It seems most come with an ice maker or the option to install the kit, but water is a whole new ballgame. Seriously, what's wrong with tap water? or the Brita? Here in the G. NW we have some of the best tap water in the world. Plus, it's fluoride injected. Of course, the significant other wants all the bells and whistles. He insists we'll be taking the fridge with us if we move, so it's an investment. We'll see what "the new buyers" ask for in the purchase. Ugh, thank god we don't remodel kitchens for a living.

Side project: Linen cabinet doors

We built cabinet doors for our linen cabinet (or whatever it's supposed to be) out of a 4x8 sheet of 1/2 inch poplar plywood. To make them match the rest of the shaker style doors in the house, we added strips of 1/4 maple and birch from sheets. We would have gone all maple, but there wasn't enough at the store. We're going to paint them white, so it doesn't matter too much.

Anyway, we don't have a nail gun, so we glued and nailed the strips on and then used a punch to sink the nail. Fill the nails in with wood putty, sand, wipe and prime the doors. The nice thing about remodeling a kitchen is you know you can trash it beforehand. It turns into our garage!

Mentally preparing for new kitchen windows

Ken, the window guy, came out yesterday to measure the kitchen. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of that, but I was wrangling the dog. Anyway, he explained to us that ripping out all the trim isn't necessary. What happens for old houses is the window manufacturer will cut off the nail strips (the little trim that you would normally nail or screw into the 2x4s). This is obviously very easy when building a new house because there's easy access while the siding and trim aren't yet installed.

So we take off that first piece of trim, pop out the sashes, cut the rope, let the pulleys drop, insulate that empty pulley space, slip in the new window, push it against the outermost trim, cram a wedge under the window (because our sill is angled), caulk 'er up, nail that first piece of trim back on and call it good! Sounds so easy.

It'll look a little like what "the boys" on This Old House are doing on their "How to replace a window" section on the handy website.

If you haven't visited the This Old House website, I highly recommend it.

Kitchen tile ideas

I think we're going with this countertop (Impala Black granite) in 12 inch tiles. We'll probably use black grout to hide any potential stains. I'm starting to like the slate colored porcelain tiles for the floor. Although I'm still going to look into peel and stick black and white vinyl tiles. The blacksplash options are there. There are so many options; it's hard to figure out what looks right. Might do the white subway tiles.

Kitchen before pictures

This is what the kitchen looks like now:




You can see that the cabinet doors are hideous and held shut with rubber bands (so the dog doesn't get his nose in too far). When we first moved in we didn't have a dishwasher, but added that and a disposal (notice the switch to the right of the dishwasher). The floor is peel and stick linoleum in a slate color. The curtains are the only cute part of the kitchen! I even hate the sink. I'm starting to grow fond of the exhaust fan above the window though. It sucks out burning smoke really quickly.

Kitchen remodel, the beginning

Well, this is it. We've pulled the trigger on a major remodel project! We sent a check in (50%) deposit for our new kitchen cabinets. We figured this is the major expense and probably the cornerstone of the project that we'll use for timing. In other words, if the cabinets show up Feb 15, we need to plan demolition, electric, plumbing, and maybe new windows around it.
So here's where we're at. Check goes in the mail tomorrow (roughly $3,400). The rest gets paid upon delivery. It took about 2 months to get to this point. Comparison shopping and then sitting through people dragging their feet and not calling me back.
We have several tile (porcelin and granite) sitting around. We're trying to determine floor and counter tops. I heard Costco has good granite counter tops, so we might look there this weekend. There's a builder's auction in Fife (a long way south) at the end of the month. I want to try that out, but sig. other is a little apprehensive about it. We'd have to hire a fabricator to piece the slabs together. The floor has to stand up to dog nails and dirty shoes. I hate cleaning grout, so brown or black it is if we end up with tile. I'd prefer black and white peel and stick vinyl tiles!
Haven't even gotten around to researching a backsplash. That's easy though. Next weekend we'll go pick out our appliances! New microwave and dishwasher. Our stove is still really new and we might wait a year on the refrigerator. I don't want it eating up our budget and the old crapper is okay for now.

That's it! Enjoy reading about our trials and triumphs!