Backsplash!

The molding is up and we're moving on to the backsplash. Check out the amazing grey marble. Apparently it's not as easy to install as we thought, but the good news is marble is easy to cut...very soft material.

Crown and Base

Check out the huge saw we're using to cut all the molding. This thing comes in handy when you build a jig and begin cutting your crown.

Check out that new cabinet. You're barely even going to notice the old fuse box. We painted it white and the removable shelves will fit in right over the top. Beautiful! You hardly notice the window is all messed up again. They removed the casing and readjusted it so that it sits in there flush.


The crown is done. Now comes the crappy part, filling nail holes and caulking the little gaps. Fortunately, the gaps aren't too huge. Nice work fellas!

Electricians suck!

First off, before we get to the electricity, check out these countertops! We finished the grouting the other night. Some of the grout around the sink is already sealed. I'll do this portion maybe tomorrow. Waiting for the grout to fully dry.


After some research, I've discovered we should probably seal the actual granite itself because on flat black, the grease spots and water spots will stain the tile. This stuff doesn't show up on earth tone granite. While that granite stains under grape juice, wine, and coffee, ours stains with pizza boxes and condensation. Everyone suggests spending A LOT on the best stuff... from a real tile store vs. a home improvement store.


Okay, the electricians showed up for day 2 to hook up the under cabinet lighting and plugs. All for $430~ Holy crap! So now we're up to $1430 mostly cash under the table. I need to become a journeyman! After all that (plus he has to come out for 10 mins. Monday to install a smaller under cabinet light under the small cabinet), we tried plugging in the range and it was the wrong plug in. He installed a dryer plug in! (right top). We went out and spent $5 for the correct one.


You can bet that we called him and left a message. He finally called back and said it was something we could fix. He apologized and said he didn't really pay attention to what the warehouse gave him. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Que catso! We even went to the store to buy a 99 cent box of Mac n' Cheese I was craving. We finally switched it out and ate crappy, delicious, pre-packaged dinners.

Do you think I'll have some comments when he comes back out to install the last light? Good lord. Contractors are worse than used car salesmen. There, I said it.

New sink!

We have a new kitchen sink! Seriously, Buddy has to help do everything. We put the faucet together before we mounted the new sink, which made things a little easier on the lower back.
One thing to remember: tape the counter, measure and make some markings so that it's easy to center. We did make a mess with the silicone, but some experimentation with Paint Thinner did the trick.
Just found out the electrician is pushing back his final visit to Wednesday instead of Saturday. AAAH! I don't know how much longer I can live without my stove. I'm craving a crappy box of Craft Mac n Cheese like no one's business. I'm sooo hungry. Or some brownies. Or spaghetti. hmm. scrambled eggs. By Sunday we should have most of a working kitchen. The counters will be grouted and sealed and we'll have running water.
Wish me luck. It might be a fast food night.
PS. Still haven't ordered the backsplash! Woah. I know! Worst wife ever (:

Counters, Buddy, and backsplash

So the counter tile is coming right along. The grout is dry on the main part. Now we're tackling the right of the stove and the wrap around under the window. The mastic is being spread at break neck speeds. The tile saw is humming as I write.

Then Buddy and I take a break to cut down boxes and find new treasures in the kitchen section of the attic! So many wedding gifts unopened, it's like Christmas morning.

Buddy loved the box for the new lasagna pan I found. We celebrate 4 years in a month, so that pan has been sitting there forever. I have 8 champagne glasses! Who would have guessed?
The recycling gets picked up tomorrow. Thank God for that. There's no room. We're hauling more to unload in the work dumpsters.
Is what I should be doing is deciding on backsplash tile. The one on the bottom middle is what I think I want. It's tumbled marble. It's about $12 / sq. feet. So that adds up to about $320. Good lord. Why does everything have to cost so much? Art Tile in north Seattle hooked me up with free black grout for the countertop, so I'd love to show them love with a big purchase like backsplash. They're super cool.

I'm thinking of adding a row of glass. It'll resemble the beach....is what I was thinking. I'll do either a racing stripe or random squares. Thoughts? So many decisions.

Side note: Never buy anything from Millers Interior in Lynnwood, WA. They won't let me return my black and white vinyl tile. They told me last week they'd charge 25% restocking fee, which I accepted. I went in 4 days later and they said "No can do!" I called and went in in person to argue, but ended up taking home 180 square feet of something I don't need. Arg! I based my decision to redo the hardwoods on the fact they would return that tile. Makes me so angry. I filed a complaint through the Better Business Bureau, so hopefully something comes from it. It's also sitting on Craigslist. BUY IT from me (:

Sunny and cold

I'm tired of being inside working on this. So here's what I did. I planted Sweet Pea seeds in the little peat pots. I'm going to insert them in holes full of crappy soil up that hill that you can barely see to the left. Hopefully they'll climb that chain link fence. I also planted Snap Peas along that wall. I planted some radishes right in front. I'm excited to get the garden going, even though it is only 35 degrees outside. Those are all cold weather crops, so we should be fine. I'm about ready to order my hops starts! Home brew here we come!


Speaking of the yard, check out this ghetto yard. A combination of the heavy December snow and dog sitting completely ruined the grass. We'll have to rip up this crappy sod, mix in good soil, and plant new seed. I'm not really sure when we're supposed to be starting that, but I know it shouldn't happen before we get gates built to keep Buddy in the back yard for a few weeks. Poor Buddy. Look how deprived he looks.

And the tiling begins...

We did a lot of measuring, pondering, and working out layouts before finally deciding on what the counter tops should look like. We've decided to put a 3 inch row along the wall and then use two 11 inch tiles. This gives us an adequate overhang to create an edge. This happens a lot when your tiles are only 12x12 and you have a 2 foot cabinet.


Here is the first tile to go down with a thin layer of mastic. Feels good to make some progress. As you can see, we got the microwave in. It's vented straight outside. Probably the only dumb luck we've had on the kitchen was discovering the vent fit perfectly between two studs. How amazing is that?
I began the horrible job of lining the shelves and putting things away. I used a combo of clear contact paper (for light traffic) and thick, hard, clear plastic sheets (for heavier traffic). It doesn't matter how detailed you plan and think things will be great, you're never going to get it exactly right. There were things I noticed would be slightly annoying when I started putting things away. I'll get used to it. A trip to Storables might help me make more sense of things, like the spice rack and lids.

Now that's a tile saw set up. It's too bad it's upstairs, but that's the only place out of the way indoors.

Look at that! One down, 1 1/2 more to go. The tape helps keep the "self edge" from sliding down and possibly falling down to the floor. The edges look great too. All the tiles showed saw marks on them, but we used a series of sand paper to buff them out. We couldn't buff too much because we bought absolute black honed. Honed means far less sanding and no reflections.

This week we'll work on grouting and getting the sink in. The electrician comes back again Saturday to install all the outlets and finish up the under cabinet lighting. Then we have our stove, dishwasher, and garbage disposal back! We already moved the fridge back to its home. It feels good even to be this far along.
I have to work on ordering the back splash. I think we're going to do a grey, tumbled marble in subway tile. I was thinking of add a row (or random) of frosted, blue, tumbled glass. I'm not sure if they'll be 2 inch squares or little subway tiles.
One thing I didn't realize is that we are creating a lot of garbage! Not only are we throwing away cups, plates, bowls, and utensils, but also cardboard boxes, plastic sheeting, paper, and whatever demo scraps we create. The garbage man is earning his keep this month.

New kitchen floors

The hardwood guy has come and gone. If you're ever looking for a good guy in Seattle, I recommend Golden Hardwood Floor Co. Joe and his wife, Cindy, run the operation. Very nice people.

You can see here where Joe was able to piece together the oak and fir at the threshold. Those smaller pieces are where the heat register used to be. He did the same sort of thing to a spot near the laundry room door. It looked like there had been a burn spot and someone used floor leveler before laying the crappy 1960's vinyl.

You'll notice a few damaged spots that we left, but I think it adds a little character. Along that right wall you can see old water damage. It looks like there's another burn spot too. Maybe a hot iron or something. It's fine. It's an old house. You should see the living room ceilings!

You may see a few white fuzzy spots. That's the camera lens. I tried to clean it, but not very well obviously.

We're still not walking on the floor. We're getting the tile area ready (upstairs on top of some old visqueen) and fitting the shelves with shelving paper, etc. These are all things that can be done outside the work area. After work tomorrow I'll lay down paper and take the plastic down. The dog isn't allowed in for a couple more weeks. I want the finish to have some time to cure.

So the place I bought the black and white vinyl tile, Millers Interior in Lynnwood, WA is not letting me return it. I even called the day I realized we were dealing with hardwood and he said we could with a 25 % re-stock fee. Showed up yesterday to return it, even though it's still sitting in their warehouse, and salesman Jimmy Martin said the manufacturers won't take it back. That's $500 worth of stupid vinyl tile. I'm so upset. I told him he has until Friday to find someone to return it to. I'm going to take my hot-head brother down there to "talk" some sense into them. So unfair....and I was going to buy my carpet from them. Not anymore!

Note: Make sure you don't put all your appliances on one cicuit in the "makeshift" kitchen. We have to turn off the TV when we use the microwave so we don't blow a fuse, which are in the kitchen!

First round of kitchen cabinets

Another weekend of kitchen. It feels like it'll never end. Here we are with everything laid out in order. It's good to get it all in there before you start making it permanent. This gives you an idea about adjustments.

What these pictures don't tell you is that we spent the first 5 hours jacking up the right corner of that far wall. It was off about 1 1/4 inches. I guess the problem is someone before us chopped the rim joist to add our laundry room door. Of course, no one bothered to replace it with support. So we jacked it up and threw 2x4s on top of the foundation. Needless to say, we have some cracks in our laundry room (to the right). TIP: Use a box knife to score around all your sheetrock corners, which allows for some flex. We also removed 3 of the 4 screws holding in the new window. We noticed a lot of movement in the hardwood floor. There's about a 1/4 inch gap between the first and second board along that wall. No biggie though. Except you can't open that old laundry room door. We'll tackle that this summer.


Everything turned out pretty well, except the cabinet company measured one upper cabinet incorrectly. The current one is 15 3/4 wide and we need it to be 14 1/2. Not sure how the mistake was made, but it was. Also, we have a taller than standard ceiling and our cabinets were made the standard 42 inches tall (why, I don't know). So that means our back splash would have to be more than 18 inches (standard).


Well it gets screwed up because we have one cabinet that sits on the counter. So that means it's about 4 inches shorter than the ceiling.....THE CROWN MOLDING DOESN'T FIT. So Spencer Cabinets in Monroe, WA says they're currently correcting the situation. We should have the new cabinets by Saturday, when the uppers will be installed. ((the messed up cabinet is that one in the middle sitting on the counter top, with the blue tape))


We got the plywood counter tops on. It feels like a kitchen with those on. I'm ready to stain them and shine 'em up.


Next up: the floor. We replaced the subfloor where the heat register was. The floor guys comes Monday morning. Obviously, that has passed. I will take pictures tomorrow when it's all dry....and then write about it. Let's just say it stinks a little in here.