The Money Mustache Community

Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:33:57 AM

Title: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:33:57 AM
I've been keeping busy this year doing a small addition to our house with a full remodel of the kitchen. The addition is only about 180 sqft of interior space with a large covered porch area. Because it is our kitchen and we have a family of five for most of the year, we compromised and hired part of it done by a contractor with me doing the rest of the work, mostly interior and outside finishing work. We are hoping to limit ourselves to not having a functioning kitchen for a few months versus maybe an entire year of me doing everything myself. Fortunately we have a gas cook top so I'm hoping to plumb that in our basement temporarily plus move the over the range microwave to the dining room so we can do some cooking even if things are scattered out around the house.

I've been too busy to take the time to post some pictures but have a break to try and catch up. The bottom picture is of the front of our current house taken a few years back when I was residing it. The top one is an artist rendering of the new look we are shooting for and the middle picture is a floor plan showing old walls (dashed) and new addition with walls. We ended up getting an architect to help design the layout and to hopefully get more realistic quotes.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:41:32 AM
We poured the concrete slab which is the exterior portions of this addition. The two formed "pockets" are where two bumpouts will be. The closest one is going to be a pantry but plumbed up to be an upstairs laundry room at a future date. The far bumpout is an expanded entryway mostly to keep it symmetrical in nature. We will add joists later to allow for plumbing, electrical and HVAC to connect into the bumpouts. The slab is going to be level with the house floor so there are only two steps to get onto the porch from the sidewalk and the rest will all be on the same level inside and out.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:46:06 AM
Here is a picture with the trusses up and tied into the house along with all but what will be the new kitchen outside wall.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:51:07 AM
They say every project ends up being more expensive than what is planned for and I guess this one was no exception. We budgeted a lot more for the contractor work and supplies by a factor of two and also got detailed plans to help limit change orders. But when tying the structure into the roof, we hit our first change order. The roof was originally sheathed with 1/2" plywood instead of today's normal 3/4" and 50 years have taken its toll on it. It was quite soft and spongy in places. We had been planning on only shingling the front side of the roof but ended up tearing up all the shingles, putting down an additional 1/2" of plywood on top of the old and shingling everything. The roof is quite solid now and it allowed me to flash the chimney correctly which the last roofer before we bought the place didn't do. With a new roof, I hope it will be the last time I have to deal with it in my lifetime.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:56:37 AM
This post more or less bring the project thus far up-to-date. We have the new kitchen exterior wall built and everything temporarily sheathed in and wrapped. After we get the new windows and a temporary door, they will be installed, all except the center double window which will be left out until the kitchen is gutted and all the debris hauled outside. Since the gutting of the kitchen will commence shortly, I have stripped the kitchen down of everything of value and moved it to various points throughout our house. We spent quite a bit of time on weekends making meals and freezing extras, plus have the cooktop in the basement, the grill outside, microwave in the dining room, food and kitchen paraphernalia stored in the living room upstairs and family room downstairs. Last night's dinner was like an exercise session going up and down the stairs all the time. Hopefully as we settle into life without a functioning kitchen, things will organize themselves to where we need them most.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 09:59:21 AM
It thought I would throw up one more post showing an artistic rendering of what we are shooting for the inside to look like when finished. A number of small things have changed but the end result will follow this rendering fairly close.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: mrsnamemustache on July 18, 2019, 10:18:30 AM
As someone planning a kitchen remodel, this post is making my day. Can you tell us some things about your kitchen finishes selections (cabinets, floor, countertops) and reasons for making selections?

Did your architect do the the kitchen rendering?

Care to share details on costs?
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Roots&Wings on July 18, 2019, 10:49:52 AM
+1 for more details if you're willing to share, and awesome job so far! It's looking great!!

I'm going to be building a backyard cottage (hiring a GC for the exterior shell/rough carpentry/plumbing/electric) and doing the finishing myself. This is great inspiration!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 18, 2019, 12:12:52 PM
Although the architect made renderings of the interior, these particular renderings are from the cabinet showplace where we are ordering our cabinets. I highly recommend having them design it as the design changed quite dramatically, for the better I hope, between the architect and cabinet showplace.  The cabinet showplace was much more in tune with the flow of a kitchen and what sort of things we were interested in. As soon as the gut is complete and the interior walls are in their final places, the cabinet showplace will come out for a final measurement and then it will be six weeks for delivery of the cabinets.

We remain undecided about the floor other than it will be solid hardwood flooring. For budgeting reasons, we aren't doing this right away. I will most likely do it this winter or early spring of next year along with the rest of the first floor living areas in our house which are currently carpet. Before I do the floors, I still have to go through room by room and scrape down the popcorn ceilings, repair and paint them.

The countertops are quartz that we picked out at a local manufacturer. We didn't want something that has to be sealed which is why we went man made but it is has faux marble veining look.

Our whole plan is to pay cash for the project from what we have saved over several years.  We've put 50% down for purchase of materials and have the other 50% sitting in our checking account to make payments as milestones are reached with the contractor part. Because this reduced our savings account which we use as our emergency fund/big ticket item purchasing fund to a lower level than we normally try to maintain, we did apply for a home equity loan last fall but we have no plans to tap it. All the finish work inside and outside we will cashflow as money comes in over the next year and hopefully build up our savings account back to minimum amounts.

While the contractors are doing their thing to gut the kitchen and get the interior walls moved (requires some beams that requires more than just me to install), I am working on painting the exterior which I have been working on this year. A extremely wet spring followed by a scorching summer thus far is making that job take much longer than I thought it would.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: mrsnamemustache on July 19, 2019, 12:28:37 PM
Thanks for the details. Looking forward to hearing more.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 23, 2019, 06:50:13 AM
Well the kitchen is gutted and after doing some rejiggering to get the load bearing wall moved out four feet, we have finally got the old exterior wall removed to the addition so we can see the true size of the new space. The old boxed in areas above the old cabinets still are hanging on but will be removed and the entire ceiling will be flat with can lights. Still have to build the little stub wall for what will be the enclosed pantry in the right bumpout and move the far wall in a foot to allow the entryway hall to be a foot wider and line up with the far bumpout.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 25, 2019, 09:22:16 AM
We paid to have someone professionally design the addition to our house. That person did a good job but was not a kitchen designer. He just roughly threw some cabinets into his design (see post above) to give us some idea of space and floor plan. It looked really great on paper.

Yesterday, the new hallway wall on the far side of the kitchen was framed in per the floor plan above with the entryway into the kitchen, lining up with an existing hallway wall. As soon as it was up, I knew it was too narrow. When I measured our china hutch (also shown in the plan), it was far larger than drawn in and further reduced the effective width between the cabinet corner and it. I knew we were going to have to probably give up some cabinets on that side of the room to make it work.

This past winter after making our down payment on this project officially making it a go, we headed to the city and went to a cabinetry showroom that also makes their own cabinetry. We gave her the rough dimensions of the new kitchen layout given to us by the architect and she professionally laid it out. But before ordering cabinets, she said she would wait until the stud walls were in place and then go down and make final measurements before placing the order. She came this morning.

The good news was that the wall length causing the pinch point above was 17 inches longer than what she had in her original design. This means our choke point immediately grew roughly 15 inches wider. We decided to lop off an additional 9" lower cabinet on that side and shrink the uppers to gain another 9 inches so that we will end up with a four feet wide passage between our lower cabinets and china hutch and not the 24 inches we would have had if we had just ordered cabinets and built things per the architects rough dimensions.

Measure twice, cut once.

So the cabinetry designer will work on it the rest of this week and send us computer generated plans and images to approve the first of next week and we can get them on order. It takes roughly six weeks for delivery. Between now and then, there is a lot of electrical, plumbing, HVAC and drywall that needs to be done on the inside along with plenty of work to do on the outside. Due to state laws, I legally cannot do anything on that list but the drywall since this is new construction. I hate drywall work and so the contractor is taking care of that entire punch list. I still need to side the addition, box in the beams for the gable end detail and put the tongue and groove boards on the porch ceiling. The contractor is going to farm out the new gutters to be install around the entire house plus the addition, install the soffit on the addition, and put in a concrete stair step. I'm painting the interior and exterior surfaces, building all the storage shelves/cabinetry for the pantry, and flooring. Plus I am repainting some 100 year old antique globe sconces that I bought a few years back at an auction that will be our porch lights. There is no shortage of work to be done.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 26, 2019, 08:19:15 AM
Four or five years ago at an architectural salvage auction, I picked up two antique globe sconce lights, one of which is pictured here. I had no plans for them at the time but they were beautiful and I won the bid, so I took them home and stuck them on a shelf. With the addition/kitchen remodel project, I thought they would be perfect for lighting our new front porch so I drug them out and am in the middle of rehabbing them. It took several days and trying various things but I eventually got them taken apart into individual pieces. Every single screw holding them together was seized (100 years and different material types will do that) so I had to drill every single one of them out. Some parts were aluminum which made that even more difficult. I ended up doing some damage by drilling into materials that I didn't want to but I patched all those holes with JB Weld and sanded it back flush. I am not in the process of painting everything white to match our house trim. Next week I hope to put them back together, drilling new holes and putting in new fasteners, and rewire them so they are ready when I get the siding on.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on July 28, 2019, 03:59:53 PM
Got it reassembled after paint and I think it turned out nice. I ordered some tubular LED lights to put in them because the LED light that is in there now only shines upwards though it is hard to see that in the photo. Spent the rest of the weekend ordering plumbing fixtures and figuring out where all the lights, switches, outlets, etc. are going in preparation for perhaps a plumber or electrician showing up. I'm anxious for the drywall to go up so I go start going to town doing the rest.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: mrsnamemustache on July 30, 2019, 09:23:38 PM
Very cool light. Impressive work!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: soccerluvof4 on August 02, 2019, 03:10:52 AM
Looking very very nice and I like the plan. I know you said you went over because of the roof but if you dont mind sharing what was your overall budget and how are you doing on that so far? I have a 70's ranch with a walkout I have remodeled over the last 5 years about 90% of it and the last 10% seems to never end.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 02, 2019, 08:07:19 AM
Because our state has laws preventing anyone without a license to do electrical, plumbing or HVAC work on new construction which are addition is considered, our project has been on a holding pattern. I am working on painting the outside of the house during this time. The contractor did subcontract out the gutters which were replaced  yesterday. We had the old K-style gutters that were held on by six inch nails and spacers and they had seen their better days. I spent quite a bit of time hammering in those nails every spring to keep them from just falling off. To make matters worse, our house is bracketed by a huge maple tree on one side and a huge oak tree on the other. That meant that in the spring our roof gets covered with maple seed whirly gigs that end up in the gutters plugging it and turning into saplings. All winter long, the oak leaves gradually fall onto the snow on the roof getting soggy and sliding down in the gutters plugging the downspouts. I was ready for that to end.

So now we have six inch gutters with leaf guard screens to prevent those seeds and leaves from entering into the gutters. We also have the larger downspouts to handle the increased water load, not because it will be raining more but hopefully our gutters will be catching more rain than the old ones did.

I thought I would add a word about our budget since it has been asked a couple of times. I think our budget number would be useless to anyone else out there for a couple reasons. One, I live in very rural America in a LCL place. Anyone who lives in a larger city, would pay a lot more for material and labor than I would. Two, because I live in a rural area, I have less of a selection when it comes to hiring a contractor which probably would drive my price up due to lack of competition compared to someone who lives in a larger city. Also, stating the obvious, I am going quite a bit of labor which is essentially "free" so if you were hiring someone to do all the things on my list, that would drive the price even higher. So with that quantification, we are paying our contractor $90k for the work. We have budgeted roughly $120k for project overruns plus all the materials that I will buy to complete my end of the remodeling in the year to come after the contractor is paid and gone.  We are roughly adding 180 sqft of living space which comes out to $670 per sqft which is a very high number. But it doesn't take into account the roughly 300 sqft of exterior space we are adding plus general house improvements we are lumping into this project like the new roof, gutter, upstairs hardwood flooring, etc.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: LostGirl on August 02, 2019, 11:31:19 AM
Great progress. Are you itching to get it done, you seem very zen with the overall process.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 03, 2019, 12:11:34 PM
Great progress. Are you itching to get it done, you seem very zen with the overall process.

I'm itching to get the contractor/sub-contractors parts done so I can be in control again. It is hard having to rely on someone else's schedule. Right now I'm battling with the kitchen designer to get the cabinets ordered. Once the kitchen was gutted and walls moved, I had to wait the better part of a week for her to come down for final measurements. Then I had to wait another week for her to finalize the design and our schedules to align so we could drive the 120 miles to her office to finalize everything. We did that yesterday evening but she wanted to put the order on hold until the electrician had been there because there was concern that there wouldn't be enough room between a cabinet and a door jam for a light switch. I put my foot down and shortened a broom closet cabinet by three inches and told her to order it, I wasn't waiting anymore. She is supposed to get the order in the first of next week but I'm going to keep calling to make sure. Just her part has delayed this project two and a half weeks longer and I just want it going again. Once they are ordered, it is a six week wait but at least there is a firm timeline.

So no I'm not zen like I may come off. I have my sleepless nights.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 06, 2019, 02:51:47 PM
We finally got a final 3D color rendering of our cabinets as ordered. We also set a date for appliances to be delivered in six weeks so hopefully that gets the ball rolling to get the electrical, plumbing, HVAC and drywall completed before them.

Although we are doing well and have probably only ate out a handful of times since this began, it is getting old fast. It really sucks having to go between three rooms and two floors multiple times to prepare a meal, of which an oven can't be a part. We compensate by cooking enough to be eaten for several days in a row. I have a feeling we might gradually increase our eating out as the weeks progress.

Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: AMandM on August 07, 2019, 07:03:25 AM
I am very impressed, and I love the sconces.

One question, out of curiosity: why doesn't the concrete foundation go under the bumpouts? I am sure there is a reason, but to me (ignorant of construction) it seems like more work to pour the foundation with pockets and more work to build the bumpouts without the foundation.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 07, 2019, 11:31:49 AM
I am very impressed, and I love the sconces.

One question, out of curiosity: why doesn't the concrete foundation go under the bumpouts?

The bumpout on the right is being designed to be an upstairs laundry some day in the future and so will need plumbing and HVAC. The "holes" in the concrete is to allow those to be tied into the existing house system underneath the floor. We did the expanded entryway bumpout the same way to allow for an additional HVAC vent there as well. The plan is that stuff will go underneath the floor of the bumpout but on top of the old stoop concrete surface and through the old rim joist.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: kenmoremmm on August 07, 2019, 03:58:27 PM
i've never seen 3/4" roof sheathing. what part of the country are you in that requires this?
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 08, 2019, 02:09:26 PM
i've never seen 3/4" roof sheathing. what part of the country are you in that requires this?

Sorry about that but I misspoke. The sheathing standard for 24" O.C. in the Midwest where snow accumulation on roofs is common is 5/8", not 3/4" as I stated. I had only 50 year old 1/2" sheathing over 24" O.C. spans that definitely wasn't supporting my weight anymore and adding an 1/8" wasn't an option.  Adding another 1/2" sheathing on top of the 50 year old sheathing was cheaper than replacing the existing with 5/8" sheathing. I can't remember if I wrote this on here or not but while they were adding the extra sheathing on top, I walked up on the roof to take some photos one evening and just about fell through in one spot that still had just 1/2" sheathing.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: coffeefueled on August 08, 2019, 02:21:52 PM
I really like the two tone cabinets.

I hear you on the multi-room shuffle to cook meals. We bought a hot plate, but for the most part we're doing grilled meals and salads. We're hoping to finish by the first week of September, so hopefully we can keep the eating out down if it's only another month or so.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: economista on August 08, 2019, 03:13:32 PM
I really like the kitchen design. I hope your contractor stays on top of the schedule and everything turns out on time. We closed on a new construction house in December and it was supposed to be done in October. We kept being told the subcontractors were not showing up or doing things on schedule. Hopefully with just one room it all gets done a lot quicker.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 09, 2019, 08:31:43 AM
Well the kitchen cabinets are on order now and set to be delivered Sep 2 and the appliances the week after on Sep 9. Later this morning I meet with the electrician to review where everything should go. We are on vacation all next week so other than the electrician, I doubt any progress happens next week. Still waiting on plumbing and HVAC before the drywall starts.

I'm still painting the outside of our house and have one more coat to go on the last section and then I am caught up with construction. After the electrician is done, I can side the addition and paint it. I am also using this opportunity since our old door isn't being used (entrance is still boarded up) to repaint it. We decided to paint it the same color as our lower cabinets to tie the hallway to the kitchen. I have one side painted and the other side primed. I will have to paint it when we get back from vacation.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: affordablehousing on August 09, 2019, 12:43:49 PM
I'm really encouraged by this and think your design looks great, super sensible and I love the integration of your own architectural finds along with more available materials. I hope to do something similar at my house and have 7 months to plan while I await zoning approval for a 120 SF kitchen expansion.

My question, how did you find a contractor who would let you take over some of the scope and how did you define what is his/her responsibility and what is yours? Assuming I'm up for most interior tasks, have you found any best practices for how to keep finger pointing to a minimum? For instance is the right hand off after all the utilities are in the walls and the GC gets sign off, then you put the rock on and mud and paint it? How do you deal with something picked up in the final inspection if it were related to his work that yours covered over?

Looks like a great project.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 19, 2019, 08:46:12 AM
Unfortunately, we really had no choice when it came to finding a contractor. I live in a rural area and gave prints to about eight contractors within a 100 mile radius that all said they were interested in quoting our project and only two of those eight actually quoted the project. One gave just a single line and a price that was extremely high. The other gave line items but was extremely cheap, way too cheap by my estimates. We ended up working with the cheap contractor to narrow down the scope and design with lots of specifics which just about doubled his initial quote but was still significantly cheaper than the other one.

In the interest of our busy lives and schedules, we opted to have a general contractor do much of the work to a point where it could be signed off and he could leave. We decided not to pick and choose jobs where the contractor would have to stop and wait for us to say, finish the drywall, before he could install cabinets, etc. So the agreed upon method was that the contractor would come in and build the addition and get the kitchen to a functioning point before I take over and finish up everything else. I will be doing the flooring, the painting, building out the pantry, building cabinet extras like a spice rack, doing exterior work like siding, painting, landscaping, putting up porch railings, etc. I am hoping this eliminates any finger pointing since the contractor will be done and gone before I start. This also allowed me to focus on other aspects of the project like painting the entire exterior of the house while the contractor is doing their part.

I would have liked to do the entire project myself but my wife wasn't willing to live without a kitchen for that long so this was the best compromise. If I had been doing it myself, I would have just subcontracted out all the jobs that I couldn't do myself due to laws or ability and wouldn't have hired a general contractor.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 20, 2019, 04:51:56 PM
Nothing much happened while we were on vacation and the cabinets are coming in two weeks so I was relieved to see some trucks pull into our driveway this morning. The contractor's crew showed up to frame up the walk-in pantry wall where three different light switches and an outlet need to go. They still have to do the wall with the pocket door but since there aren't any utilities in it, they are leaving it out until they are ready to drywall for ease of access. They were also drilling various holes for the HVAC, plumbing and electrical crews. Best of all, they temporarily put my repainted front door in its new home so I can at least exit the house that way without having to go through the garage and walk clear around the house. I painted the front door the color of our lower kitchen cabinets.

At the same time they were doing their thing, the HVAC crew showed up to figure out what needed to be done. The plan is they will show up tomorrow and do some of their work. The remainder will have to wait until the cabinets are installed so that positioning can be where they are needed but out of the way. Also at the same time the electrical crew was doing their thing. Because my office is underneath the kitchen, this meant removing my ceiling panels (think false ceiling but attached directly to the bottom of the floor joists) to access various stud bays to remove and string wire. Now my office is a wreck but a sacrifice that must be made in order to get things done. Still missing are the plumbers but I was assured they would also be here today and they weren't so perhaps tomorrow. I'm hoping that in a few weeks, I can start doing my end of this project in a productive way. Up to now, I have mostly been doing odd things and acting as a general contractor to the general contractor to make sure every thing is where I wanted them.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 22, 2019, 07:46:54 AM
I thought I would attach another interior picture now that the electricians have some temporary lights in place that I can turn on. This shows our expanded and reconfigured front entryway/hallway so that we will be able to greet guests at the door and let them into our house without having to suck in a gut and squeeze by or walk backward in front of them telling them to shut the front door on their way in. Our front door used to be in the same orientation as the window on the left but ten feet closer. Now it is turned 90 degrees and just out of sight around the corner in the bumpout that we did on that side giving us a greeting place. We also moved the hallway wall in towards the kitchen a foot so it is wider and two adults can now pass walking normally.

The HVAC person is supposed to show up today and finish up moving the duct into the two bumpouts. The remainder of their work will be done once the cabinets are in place so we can get the registers exactly where they need to go. Still waiting on the plumber.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 26, 2019, 07:34:49 AM
The most frustrating thing about hiring contractors to do a portion of a addition and remodel is that you have no ability to speed things up. Our contractor told us this was a two month project once dirt was turned for the addition, three months on the high side. It has been three and a half months and I'm still waiting on the plumber and HVAC people to arrive before sheet rock can go on. Our custom built cabinets, which we were supposed to be waiting for due to their six week lead time are due to arrive next week! They will now be waiting on the contractor. I called the contractor this morning to express my displeasure and after many apologies, he assured me that they would be hustling this week to still have things ready for the cabinets. I can't wait for them to get them installed with the countertops so they can leave and then I can start doing things by myself at a much faster pace than they have been going.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 27, 2019, 08:48:24 AM
A phone call seems to have done the trick. It has been non stop action these last two days as different trades rotate in and out. It has been so busy, I haven't been able to finish the last of my exterior painting project because I've been to busy answering questions and selecting finishings. We went to a big box store to look at solid bamboo flooring and found one that we liked. I stopped in at a locally owned flooring store to look at their stuff fully expecting it to be much more expensive for the same thing. To my surprise, it was nearly a dollar per sqft cheaper for the exact same thing. Once I get this contractor out of my life, I will place my order and have a project to work on this winter. Right now, the contractor is outside getting ready to put the porch roof ceiling tongue and groove on so I can get the last of the siding, box in the decorative gable roof element and dress the porch beams up before installing a railing. Still hope to get all that done before snow flies and I'm pretty much given up on landscaping until next spring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on August 29, 2019, 06:51:13 AM
Finally the electrical is complete and passed inspection. The plumber promised to be here today with an army to finish the plumbing. The HVAC if part way done, at least the part needed to get the cabinets installed. The rest will be finished up after the cabinets are installed. The contractors got 95% of the tongue and groove porch ceiling installed so the boxing of the beams has started. They will eventually be painted white to match the trim and provide some contrast.

I priced out renting a cherry picker or lift to paint my chimney, the last little bit besides the unsided addition to paint on my house. It was going to cost me twice as much as just buying a 32 feet fiberglass extension ladder so I went with the latter. They were going to charge me $80 to deliver it three miles across town so I bought some five dollar ratchet straps out of a bargain bin, strapped it down to my mini van floor using the middle seat clamping spots to attach my straps too and drove it home myself with a good chunk of it hanging out the back end. I love having a minivan when it comes to DIY projects. Although I hate heights, I pulled up my britches and climbed up their anyway. I have it primed and one coat of top paint. When the sun comes out I hope to get the final coat on today while the army of plumbers is doing their thing.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 03, 2019, 07:28:36 AM
Battled through a terrible cold going around this Labor Day weekend so didn't get as much done as I hoped. But we passed all the mechanical inspections late Friday afternoon so sheetrock can begin today which is a good thing since our custom cabinets should also arrive today. I'm hoping things will go together quickly from this point, especially since I have a trailer full of insulation and drywall parked out in front of my house.

With the porch ceiling in place, the decorative beam work was mostly completed. Ran short of some screws so  it will have to wait to get finished when more can be obtained. Before the contractor took away his rolling scaffolding, we opted to make use of it and stain the porch ceiling before the last of the trim and siding go up so we don't splatter it with the stain. I'm so looking forward to sitting on my porch watching a storm roll by.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 04, 2019, 08:10:04 AM
Finally drywall started going up yesterday. More is going up right now along with insulation. Although the inspection passed, the plumber had a loose end to tie up once the construction crew got the flooring back down so he is here as well. The HVAC guy is supposedly on his way to reinstall a duct run that had to be uninstalled to get a drain pipe through an area where the duct was passing through. The HVAC guy is going to switch to an oval duct to slip under the drain pipe instead of the round duct he had before. Met with the contractor and ran through list of things needing to be done so feel good that he is still committed to getting this project done. He initially promised 2 months with 3 months being the outside limit and we are now six days from three months being complete. He won't make it but he sounds committed to not making it any longer than he has too. The cabinets that were supposed to arrive yesterday didn't. I suspect it was due to the holiday weekend and they forgot about Monday so I'm looking for them to arrive today sometime.

To pass the time, I climbed my 32 feet extension ladder to put the final coat of paint on the upper recesses of my chimney. I was glad to have that project done until I got my feet on the ground and realized that I was holding a tinted primer can and not my finish coat can. Now I am waiting for paint to dry, literally, so I can go back up and correct my mistake before it gets to hot today.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 05, 2019, 07:13:52 AM
Things are moving fast now for a change. Nearly all the drywall is up except for around where our walk-in pantry/future upstairs laundry room is going to be. The plumber made an audible to protect pipes from possibly freezing which meant that HVAC, electrical and construction all had to come back in and do some more work. The construction framed up a stub wall, the plumber came back up and finished but still waiting on HVAC and electrical to move their stuff so that the drywall and wall containing the pocket door can be put in.

I love the new entryway hall which we made a foot wider. Now two humans can pass by normally instead of each one putting a back to a wall and sucking in guts to pass by each other.  Well worth the effort of moving the wall over a foot.

Best of all, our custom cabinets were delivered yesterday. What a pile of boxes and hard to believe right now that they all go in our kitchen which will be just about the size of the square area they are taking up in my garage right now. Lots of packaging material. Best guess is that they can start going up sometime next week, assuming the HVAC and electrical guys can get back out here to finish their work.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 06, 2019, 07:04:50 AM
HVAC guys showed up and got the duct rerouted underneath the drain line using a round to oval to round boot. We got the floor on which allowed us to get most of the remaining sheetrock on and a coat of mud applied to everything. Still waiting on the electrician and the pockethole door before they can button up the pantry but at least we can progress with the rest of the kitchen so that cabinets can start being installed.

I spent my day supervising and priming the decorative gable end to our new front porch and researching column wraps for the front porch. Has anyone used any of those faux stone wraps made of polyurethane in such an application? They look fantastic and are priced well but I just wonder about fading/weather checking over time. I may still go semi-old school and use actual stone veneers but that is really expensive, more than I want to stretch our budget anymore. The other option is to just find some rock and do it old school. Either of those two ways will probably mean I have to wait until spring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 09, 2019, 07:26:59 AM
No pictures today because nothing is really different except two layers of drywall mud which isn't terrible exciting to see. The third and final layer goes on today. Tomorrow will be final sanding and texturing the ceiling. Wednesday will be priming and painting so that cabinets can start going in Thursday. Can't wait. Sherwin Williams is having a 30% off sale through today so I am going to get the paints needed to get us through the cabinet install portion. I'll wait to buy the rest when they have their less frequent 40% off sale.

Regarding the last post, I just went ahead and moved the electrical boxes in the pantry that we were waiting on the electrician to move. There was enough wire to move them to the proper spot and it was getting ridiculous waiting just for that. The contractor came and got that area mudded so it is caught up with the rest and the third coat can be applied there. Still no word on the pocket door situation. The contractor is supposed to let me know today. I'm going to be a little pissed if a stupid pocket door that we've known about for over three months now holds up an entire wall of cabinets because it hasn't arrived yet.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 10, 2019, 09:00:00 AM
I was excited when the pocket door showed up this morning until I turned the box over and saw it was a 36" door. The opening to our pantry will only accommodate a 32" pocket door. The crew has a call in to my contractor to get it remedied today. If not, I am going to the big box store across town and buy it myself just so we don't have to wait "weeks" to order the correct one.

I attached two pictures of the progress from last night. You can see the bare 2x4's where the pocket door wall will go for our pantry, eventually. The hallway to the bedrooms had popcorn ceilings and last night as the construction crew was leaving, we discussed how to make the transition. Since I want to remove the popcorn eventually, we decided that we would scrape the popcorn far enough back to tape and mud the seam and I would do the rest later.

While laying in bed I had second thoughts. I want to put down hardwood flooring just as soon as the kitchen is in and will need to run it down the length of the hall anyway to match up with the kitchen. So rather than make a mess knocking wetted popcorn ceiling material on my newly installed floor, I got up early and removed it myself along with the carpet and baseboard trim before the construction crew arrived. Since they are subcontracted out by my contractor, I offered to throw some money their way if they just texture that ceiling while doing the kitchen and he agreed. Now I won't have to try and match it later.

I'm taking a break to write this update and then I'm off to get some tongue and groove plywood to put over the subfloor to match up with the plywood in the kitchen so that everything is all nice and level for the hardwood flooring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 11, 2019, 07:07:43 AM
As you can see, we were able to at long last obtain a pocket door for our pantry from a competitor of our contractor and got it installed, drywall hung and a coat of mud applied. At long last, there is nothing preventing us from hanging cabinets except smooth walls and a textured ceiling both of which are in the hands of the contractor and primed and painted surfaces which are in my hands. I've already told them that I will paint all night after the texture is dry so that it will be ready for them to work the next day just so they don't take a day off on another site.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: charis on September 11, 2019, 08:47:03 AM
Posting to follow!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 12, 2019, 10:27:01 AM
Texture went up yesterday. House is at 70% humidity still a day later. Not very pleasant for sure. The cheapo engineered flooring on my basement floor (that a previous occupant installed without any vapor barrier) is all warped accordingly but it has been on my replacement list for some time. While waiting on the texture to dry out, crew is outside putting on the siding and then their part of the outside work will be done other than pouring a concrete step. The plan is to do touch up work today on the inside texture, prime it tomorrow, paint it this weekend top to bottom and start installing cabinets on Monday.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 16, 2019, 08:35:51 AM
Went through about a dozen gallons of paint this weekend painting the ceiling and all the walls so that the cabinets could be hung perhaps starting today. The plan is to start casing windows and doors first while it is fairly nice outside and then transition to cabinets later when it gets hot. My shoulders ache and my hands are sore from all the painting so I'm taking the day off to clean out the garage. Whenever working on a project like this, clutter of tools and supplies no longer needed piles up on every horizontal surface so when a horizontal surface is needed for something useful, it isn't available. So my plan is to clean up and organize so I'm ready to go as soon as the cabinets are hung.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 17, 2019, 02:08:25 PM
Frustrations would be my new title of this thread after today.

After busting my hump putting up all that paint over the weekend for cabinets to be installed on Monday, the construction crew showed up without 1/2" plywood necessary to set the lower cabinets on the same plane as the flooring I will be installing after they get done. After three hours of waiting for the plywood which never came, rather than move onto anything else, like installing the upper cabinets, they left and I never saw them again until this morning.

They showed up late this morning with the plywood and started setting cabinets but ran into two problems. On the left wall in the photo, the gas pipe for the cooktop comes up through the floor. The problem is the cabinet that holds the gas cooktop has two full depth drawers so the gas pipe needs to be put within the wall cavity and come through the back of the cabinet above the top drawer. A pretty simple task but for liability reasons, the contractor has to have the plumber do the work and last time, the plumber showed up two weeks after he said he would arrive. So we are stalled out on that run of lower cabinets.

So we started working our way down the wall with the windows and were doing great until we got to the last cabinet which sits 24" away from the adjacent cabinet to allow for a standard sized dishwasher to fit between them. It was supposed to have plenty of room and came with a filler strip to take up any extra room. However, with the cabinet all the way to the wall, the dishwasher cavity is exactly an inch too narrow. I think the cabinet people forgot to take into account a 1/2" of drywall on both walls when they took their measurements. 

So right now the contractor (who promises to make it right) and myself are waiting for a return call from the cabinet people to hash out options. Having done this myself, I think I know what my options will be, either make it work or they will reorder the last cabinet an inch narrower and we wait however long for it arrive, delaying this project by that much time. It took six weeks originally to get the cabinets and the project is right now, a week past the completion date and we still have to do countertops, backsplash and appliances after the cabinets are installed.

To make it work, we can cut a cabinet sized hole in the drywall to gain a half inch and with the use of a planer, gain the other half inch by removing material from the face frames. It will mean the reveal of the face frame around the last cabinet won't be the same as all the others, but perhaps won't be all that noticeable unless you are down there with a tape measure. But that is a solution we could implement tomorrow and not have to wait for a cabinet to be reordered.

So right now I'm waiting and trying to sooth over my frustrations while waiting for a return call from the cabinet company, contractor or both.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 18, 2019, 07:07:02 AM
After thinking it over and talking with the cabinet people, we ordered a new cabinet that will be one inch smaller. We want it done but we want it done right. Also it helped that they will expedite a single cabinet so we might get it within two weeks. Until that time I hope the rest of the cabinets can be installed and the countertops measured for, ordered and made so that when the replacement cabinet arrives, it can be quickly installed followed by the countertop. Also, there are a few details left for the contractor to tie up outside before it can be turned over to me to finish. Perhaps they can get that done while waiting so I can start doing my things outside so when the interior is done per the contractor, I can finish building the pantry cabinets and installing the floors.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 19, 2019, 07:15:01 AM
Another progress report, this time with me helping the crew just to drive them a bit harder and make sure things get done the way I want them. We started installing the uppers and found them extremely finicky to set with inset doors. Any slight imperfection in the walls would translate into the door gaps  being all over the place. So we had to spend a lot of time, screwing, unscrewing, shimming, retightening the screws, etc with every single cabinet to get them fastened with door gaps that looked even all the way around.  It probably takes four times longer than traditional overlay doors in my experience.

We got about halfway done with the full wall cabinets that will house the refrigerator, oven and microwave before we ran into a problem. The electrical outlets for the oven and microwave fall just outside the cabinet and need to be moved four inches. So tomorrow we will pop off the drywall in that section, do some framing so we can move the outlets and then put the drywall back up and proceed. I'm hoping to get that finished and get the island mocked up so that we can get the HVAC guy in here to put in a supply in the toe kick before we fasten it down permanently.

Still waiting on the plumber to move the gas line so we can finish the row of cooktop cabinets.

Still going way to slow but at least it is progressing.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 22, 2019, 01:47:41 AM
Cabinets have been installed, at least all but the one that had to be reordered. With the too wide one in place, they will be measuring for countertops tomorrow so perhaps by the time the new cabinet gets here in a couple weeks, the countertop should be ready to be installed. Since I took this picture, the toekick and top trim around the cabinets has been put up but I haven't been able to grab a picture of it yet. The contractor should be back the first of the week to install the pocket door and finish up a couple things outside (finish the porch ceiling, pouring the concrete step and repairing the concrete sidewalk that got damages) and then should be out of my hair completely. I am so happy to have them gone so I can work at my pace and not theirs. They will of course come back to pop in the last cabinet and the subcontracted out trades (HVAC, electrical and plumbing) will all be back but for short visits that won't interfere with things I will be working on.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 24, 2019, 11:24:55 AM
Well here is the updated picture with the shims cut off, cabinet trim and hardware installed. The countertops were measured and I was told that they now have a backlog and they can't install them until Oct 10. For the last four months, they always said less than a week since they are quartz and in stock all the time. So... since I have three weeks to play with, I think I am going ahead and ordering my flooring so just as soon as the electrical and HVAC guy finish their ends, I can go ahead and install flooring while waiting for the countertop and appliances.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 25, 2019, 06:49:08 AM
Thought I would throw up a photo of the outside progress. Got the porch step poured and the sidewalk reattached to the front of the house again. The rest of the carsiding came in and was installed as well as most of the siding. Ended up about three boards short. I finally decided that instead of stone veneer, I am just going to sheath the lower porch posts in a shaker design and paint white so I can do that weather permitting. I'm hoping by spring of next year, I will have the porch swing installed so I can sit out there and enjoy the lemonade for a change.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Roots&Wings on September 25, 2019, 11:41:04 AM
It's really coming along! The porch swing sounds lovely. The white shaker post base will look fantastic with your porch design, that's such a classic design. Potentially a bit more maintenance/painting to keep clean and bright than the stone, but could be easier for railing connections.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 26, 2019, 06:39:22 AM
It will be a bit more maintenance but since the beam design in the gable end will periodically need the same kind of maintenance, i.e. white paint, from time to time, it won't be much more maintenance than what we have already consigned ourselves to. It will definitely be easier to attach rails which we plan to go with something maintenance free like PVC or coated metal.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on September 29, 2019, 05:45:58 AM
The cabinet designer mismeasured one wall resulting in a cabinet an inch too wide. The reorder should be arriving sometime perhaps late this week. I've ordered my flooring and it should be coming maybe early next week. Countertops are slated to arrive the second week of October along with appliances. Electrical final should happen early this week as well as HVAC final. Things are really starting to come together now.

Unfortunately, now that the contractor is gone, it has been raining cats and dogs every day so I haven't got any painting done on the outside. I did make wraps for my porch columns and primed them so I can install them on the first day without rain. That doesn't look likely to happen until late this week. We'll see.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 02, 2019, 07:38:57 AM
Nothing picture worthy to show but I thought I would give an update. In between rains I got the rest of the concrete siding primed at least. That however has been the extent of my outside activities the last few days. The electrician is here for the second day and is continuing to button up all things electrical. I was excited to have lights in the new addition/remodel but they brought the wrong ones (yellow instead of white light) so they will have to reorder them. However all the outlets and switches have been done (albeit with a mixture of temporary lightbults in some cans) and they are working on the undercabinet lighting and power right now. They still have to wire up the island later and they should be done until the reordered lights get in.

The reordered cabinet arrives today and will be delivered tomorrow or Friday. Still waiting on the HVAC guy to tie up loose ends but then it is just waiting for either flooring to arrive hopefully sometime next week or our countertops on the 10th.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 02, 2019, 01:28:31 PM
The electrician informed me that we had a problem because he wasn't sure if they had pulled a wire for undercabinet lighting and outlets on once section of cabinets. He said he will have to start removing drywall to verify which wasn't really that big of deal since that area will be tiled backsplash eventually. But I pulled out my smartphone, scrolled through the pictures and found one of the wall in question after the electrical rough-in that clearly showed the wires in the stud cavity next to the vent piping and they had been covered over by the drywall crew. Now that we had proof, we could cut a much smaller hole to fish out the wires. Two days ago, when they stopped by to make a list of supplies to bring for the final electrical work, they noticed that the switch for the garbage disposal was "missing". I had used the same picture to verify the switch on the right did exist and got it cut out before they returned yesterday to start.

Two reminders why it is good policy to take pictures of your work progress daily just in case it might be needed as reference in the future.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 03, 2019, 02:19:20 PM
Thought I would give a pictorial update today. The first picture shows the outside of our addition with new covered front porch. The cement siding is primed. I just using the same tinted primer on all the trim but will eventually go back and paint that white. I also boxed in the porch columns and primed them white. Originally we were going to put stone up about half way and perhaps someday we will but for now, I just put some thin pieces on them to give them a shaker look. The second picture is a close up of the lights I bought at an architectural salvage auction several years ago and refinished earlier this spring. I am really pleased at how they turned out and they are definitely unique.

The reordered cabinet arrived so after getting it screwed into place, I am ready for countertops when they arrive. It is an inch narrower than the one it replaced so that the adjacent slot for the dishwasher can be the standard 24 inches and not 23 inches with the old wider cabinet in place. As a bonus, they left the old cabinet behind so it will go into our pantry and be one less cabinet I have to build this winter. A nice bonus.

Our contract specified that backsplash tile was included and the contractor just told us to go out and pick out a backsplash and let him know. We did that a month ago and were told that it would arrive 6 to 8 weeks later which would be 2 to 4 weeks after the countertops were in place. He called today to say it will be here a week after countertops but that he needed a change order of $2000. I pushed back hard and let him have it a bit but no budging. I did ask him what he budgeted and he told me. I'm not sure what we will do at this point but I'm tempted to just tell him to refund me what he budgeted for backsplash and I will do the work myself. I'm not sure what my SO will say about that since she is desperate to get her kitchen back ASAP. I'm going to sleep on it and make the decision tomorrow. Another lesson learned that I should have asked for a budgeted number before signing the contract.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: economista on October 03, 2019, 05:03:08 PM
If you go the diy route I can say from experience that backsplash tile is extremely easy to do. It just takes two days since you have to let the thinset dry for 8+ hours before grouting. I did it myself in two days during the federal government shutdown in January.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: rosarugosa on October 04, 2019, 03:53:29 AM
The exterior looks great!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 04, 2019, 06:50:09 AM
I've done backsplash before several times so it isn't the work I'm leery. At the end of the day, we decided to just pick a different material that was within the "budget" given to us a month after we picked the tile. It is still a nice tile. Mainly we feel like we are hemorrhaging cash and don't want to spend another $2k just for backsplash. Even if we could have gotten the allowed budget refunded and bought the stuff ourselves, it would still cost more than we really want to spend after all this is said and done. Our checking account will be down to a bare minimum but we haven't had to touch any of our investments, taxable account, or home equity loan and would like to keep it that way. If for some reason five years down the road we don't like it, I can change it up then.

Right now we just want a kitchen. We've been without since June 10th and considering we started boxing and moving stuff about a month earlier, it has been a painfully long time to be without a kitchen. We have a little over a week to go before we have a functioning kitchen and depending on when the new tile and flooring is delivered and I can install the latter, perhaps a few weeks before a completed kitchen. I can't wait.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: former player on October 04, 2019, 07:11:01 AM
Do you even need a backsplash?

I mean, I know it's a standard element of kitchen design, but it's one that is a hangover from decades ago, when 1) cooking was a far messier occupation (more mud on the veg, fewer dishwashers), 2) other messy operations went on at the kitchen sink other than cooking (fewer utility/laundry/shower rooms), 3) paint was of worse quality and less easy to wash down without taking it off the wall (I'm talking just about ordinary emulsion here, not even waterproofing paints like gloss).

The alternative is to just have painted wall, or perhaps just to put up smaller panels behind the sink and cooker if you think you need them - it should be fairly easy to find something to stick on the wall, although preferably something flameproof behind the cooker.  If you are concerned about liquid spills on the counter then seal the back of the countertop well, and perhaps put a low run of countertop (an upstand) along the back.

In other words, before spending $2k put a bit of creative thought into alternatives.

(Also, tile is a very outdated technology.  It's 2,000 years old, for dog's sake.  You can do better.)
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on October 04, 2019, 07:23:50 AM
Late to the party. PTF so I can read through when time allows.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 05, 2019, 09:59:17 AM
Do you even need a backsplash?

Around most of the counter, not really. I do like them behind the cooker for the obvious reasons. I also like it around the rest for aesthetical reasons as well and since it has already been quoted in our contract and we picked out something that was withing the "budget" given to us belatedly, we will keep the backsplash. But yes, it isn't worth $2k which is why I balked when they told me that.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 07, 2019, 07:04:31 AM
Not a lot to report on the project. I spent the entire weekend painting and there is still plenty of painting to go. I have one more coat to put on the exterior siding, and two coats to put on all the exterior trim. I primed all the bare wood inside and got the trim ready for a top coat of paint. I've done lots of touch up painting on surfaces previously painted but really should just give up and wait until everything is installed because it gets scraped up again.

Electricians are hopefully coming back today to finish the undercabinet outlets and lighting. My flooring arrives today but requires a five day acclimatization so I will probably just wait until appliances go in a week from today before starting in installing that. Countertops are still slated for Thursday. I'm hoping this is my last full week without a functioning kitchen after four long months.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 08, 2019, 07:25:57 AM
So that is what 850 square feet of solid tongue and groove bamboo flooring plus vapor barrier looks like shortly after delivery. I'm glad the delivery was included in the price because it certainly wasn't something I could fit in the back of a minivan as I had envisioned. After carrying the smaller of the two pallets inside yesterday to start acclimatizing, it also isn't something that my minivan could physically handle even if it had been small enough to fit in the back. Each box weighs I'm guessing around 125 to 150 pounds and there are 32 of them. After carrying 10 of them inside, I took two advil and quit until I could think of an easier way and a different place to put them. I was planning on just keeping enough to do the kitchen upstairs and putting the rest in the basement until I redo the dining and living rooms later this winter but I'm certainly not carrying all those heavy boxes down any stairs. Now I'm thinking of spreading them out among the upstairs bedrooms for the time being.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on October 09, 2019, 07:28:34 AM
Not a lot to report on the project. I spent the entire weekend painting and there is still plenty of painting to go. I have one more coat to put on the exterior siding, and two coats to put on all the exterior trim. I primed all the bare wood inside and got the trim ready for a top coat of paint. I've done lots of touch up painting on surfaces previously painted but really should just give up and wait until everything is installed because it gets scraped up again.

Electricians are hopefully coming back today to finish the undercabinet outlets and lighting. My flooring arrives today but requires a five day acclimatization so I will probably just wait until appliances go in a week from today before starting in installing that. Countertops are still slated for Thursday. I'm hoping this is my last full week without a functioning kitchen after four long months.
Wow, I'm confused.  Shouldn't it be flooring, then appliances,  then paint? You definitely want the flooring under the appliances, not in front of them, especially the...well, everything.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 10, 2019, 07:36:21 AM
Wow, I'm confused.  Shouldn't it be flooring, then appliances,  then paint? You definitely want the flooring under the appliances, not in front of them, especially the...well, everything.

Flooring can be done either way. In my case, I have a cooktop and two wall mounted ovens so there is no flooring underneath any of them anyway. I never put flooring underneath the dishwasher so really the only appliance in my case that will have flooring under it is the refrigerator and I'm keeping my old one and it will stay in the dining room until I get the flooring installed where it will go. Because I will be having countertop crews today and then the appliances guys on Monday, it seemed better to just leave the flooring off until they are all gone to minimize chances of the flooring getting damaged.

As for the painting, I did interior painting (ceiling, walls and trim) before cabinet installation so I don't have to worry about splatters all over the new cabinets or new floor. It saves a lot of time since you don't have to mask or cover anything. All I need to do in the interior will be to do touchups on spots that got scraped between then and now. Most of the painting I referred to in the last post was on the outside of the house.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: charis on October 10, 2019, 10:32:25 AM
Wow, I'm confused.  Shouldn't it be flooring, then appliances,  then paint? You definitely want the flooring under the appliances, not in front of them, especially the...well, everything.

Flooring can be done either way. In my case, I have a cooktop and two wall mounted ovens so there is no flooring underneath any of them anyway. I never put flooring underneath the dishwasher so really the only appliance in my case that will have flooring under it is the refrigerator and I'm keeping my old one and it will stay in the dining room until I get the flooring installed where it will go. Because I will be having countertop crews today and then the appliances guys on Monday, it seemed better to just leave the flooring off until they are all gone to minimize chances of the flooring getting damaged.

As for the painting, I did interior painting (ceiling, walls and trim) before cabinet installation so I don't have to worry about splatters all over the new cabinets or new floor. It saves a lot of time since you don't have to mask or cover anything. All I need to do in the interior will be to do touchups on spots that got scraped between then and now. Most of the painting I referred to in the last post was on the outside of the house.

Same here (but used a contractor).  Paint first - it also sounds pretty difficult to paint around cabinets and appliances, even if you could do it perfectly - Cabinets - Flooring (except under cabinets or dishwasher) - Appliances. 
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 11, 2019, 06:58:47 AM
Definitely starting to look like a kitchen now. The countertops were installed yesterday as well as all but one bar of undercabinet lighting. The countertops are quartz so no maintenance which we wanted. The undercabinet lighting bar didn't work out of the box so the electrician is going to bring a replacement one today when he installs the reordered can light LED's with trim rings. The original ones were the wrong color temperature and the new ones were supposed to arrive yesterday afternoon. The place where we ordered our appliances called to confirm Monday morning installation. Not sure how that is going to go down since the gas and water connections are only roughed in and there is no venting yet for the range hood vent. The contractor's crew is supposed to be here though during appliance install so hopefully between both of them, we get some functioning appliances. I suspect we will have to wait for a sink until the plumber comes back after the appliances are installed.

I moisture checked my flooring and it is within specs to install now but like I mentioned previously, I am going to wait until the appliances are installed just to minimize chances of damaging it. As it happened, I slipped on a steep muddy hill behind our house yesterday and pulled some apparently important muscle on the left side of my chest during my fall. Right now just getting out of a chair or putting my shoes on is a challenge. Hopefully by early next week, I will be healed enough to start on flooring because I really want to see this done.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 14, 2019, 01:44:40 PM
Today was the big day for our appliances to be installed. Because we purchased enough of them, we got a free installation plus a free dishwasher. The guys showed up and got the oven and the convection oven/microwave installed in short order. They got the dishwasher slid into place. I couldn't be permanently hooked up yet since the plumber hasn't been by yet to plumb in the sink and garbage disposal. I already knew that we wouldn't be able to do the hood vent since the backsplash tile just arrived and hasn't been installed but it is a fairly simple install and can be done at a later date. The final appliance was the gas cooktop. As soon as we set it in place, there was something obviously wrong. It sat above the countertop by three inches. Turns out the cabinet person has typed in the numbers wrong so she will have to reorder the cabinet three inches smaller. It will take another 10 to 14 days for us to get it. Not the end of the world since our old cooktop is still plumbed in down in our basement as it has been during this entire process. In her defense, she had a stroke between our initial meeting and the final design and admitted that it was her fault. On the positive side, it looks like I will now have a second cabinet for our pantry that I can re-purpose. While waiting on that, we can go ahead and do the backsplash, hang the hood vent and start on the flooring so the overall completion date is delayed by much.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Roots&Wings on October 15, 2019, 06:10:32 AM
You must be thrilled to have a working kitchen again, really looks nice. Hope the pulled muscle is feeling better soon, that's quite a flooring project ahead.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 15, 2019, 06:48:51 AM
Well not yet working but it is getting closer. With the reordered cabinet it will be another two weeks minimum but at least we have working ovens. With the microwave on the table in the dining room and the old cooktop in the basement, we can cook anything we wish once more.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 15, 2019, 10:48:08 PM
While prepping the floor for flooring, the electrician showed up to complete his part of this project. All he had to do was install one undercabinet light that had been no good out of the box and put the can light trim kits with LEDs in place. We were standing there chatting when he had finished and he was checking out my newly installed appliances when he asked me if the dishwasher was plugged in. I told him that they had plugged it into the outlet behind it. He said that outlet was for the garbage disposal and tied to a switch. We flipped on the switch and sure enough, the dishwasher lights came on. I'm not sure why I never really noticed that when I was looking at it the other day after the appliance installers had done their thing and I don't really understand how they left without checking it out to see if it functioned either.

So the electrician went out to his truck and about thirty minutes later, we had the outlet behind the dishwasher moved to underneath the sink so that we could plug the garbage disposal into it without having to pull the dishwasher out. The cord on the dishwasher was long enough to reach to the other side of the sink where the non-switched outlet for it was located. I'm not sure why it was there other than the electrician read the plans wrong and thought our dishwasher was on the left side of the sink instead of the right.

Yet again I amazed at the things that would have happened had I not been there to set things right. Even then I still missed things like the dishwasher being wired for the wrong side of the sink and the cooktop cabinet being the wrong height. For everyone I missed, I caught ten others and had then corrected before we got this far along.

I didn't grab a picture today because the backsplash tile is going in and we didn't quite finish so everything is everywhere until tomorrow morning when we can finish it up. I also heard that the plumber might make his presence known tomorrow so I may have a functional sink and dishwasher to go with the functional oven. I can ditch the paper plates we've been eating on all summer and go back to the real deal again. That makes me very happy.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 17, 2019, 03:52:13 PM
Backsplash is complete except for one partial row up against the cooktop which we can't put in until the reordered cabinet gets here sometime next week. Hopefully we can start putting in the range hood after a trip to get all the necessary fittings for exhausting it through the roof.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 21, 2019, 07:04:51 AM
After a week of not really healing from my "pulled" muscle, I went to the doctor and found out I had three busted ribs. That explains things and I hope it explains the lack of progress on my kitchen project. Still waiting on the plumber and HVAC guy, the latter one at least stopped in Friday and said he would be back out today to finish up. I can't wait for the plumber because then we will have a sink and a dishwasher, two things we haven't used since June 10th.

We had an issue on the backsplash and once again I'm kicking myself for contracting that out when I could have done it myself. Our first choice tile turned out to be out of what was budgeted by the contractor so we went with the second choice which included a lot of natural stone tiles. The person installing it didn't know that you are supposed to seal natural stone tile before grouting so all the white stone tiles in the field are now a dirty gray after the application of the dark colored grout, something I didn't notice in my aching rib induced pain. They came back Friday and tried to clean it and didn't do any good. I assume today I'm going to be talking about what happens next with the contractor. I'm not looking forward to that conversation. If he doesn't want to fix his mistake, I think I'm going to just shoot for getting our money back from that part of the project and just doing it myself.

Hopefully our reordered cabinet will arrive this week so we can get our cooktop installed which with a sink and a dishwasher would mean we have a fully functioning kitchen but just no floor and possibly a but ugly backsplash.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 23, 2019, 04:13:05 PM
After six days of hearing nothing, I called the contractor and he came out again to look at the tile. He was very nice and professional and agreed that if it was definitely not going to be fixed short of removal so if my wife didn't like it, he would redo it. The crew he had do it the first time was a sub contracted crew and he said he hasn't been able to find them all week. Having heard the crew talk about how they didn't like this kind of work and would rather not work for the contractor, I suspect they have quit and the owner just doesn't notice yet but he said he would track them down and have them redo it. Rather than risk having them in to do it a second time badly, I cut a deal with the contractor. He is going to remove the tiles and restore the backsplash surface to a smooth surface ready for backsplash tiling. He will also deduct the cost of tile from what I owe him. I will then purchase the tile that my wife wanted to start with and just do it myself. I've done it twice in the past and should have left it out of the contract this time around but tried putting it in the contract in hopes of speeding up the timeline for the project by having a "professional" do it. Live and learn. I have attached a photo of a section of the original tile leaning up against the grout stained tile to see how much different they are. 

In other news, I started laying the initial row of flooring but had to quit after a few hours due to aching ribs. The first row is the hardest since I'm having to get down on my hands and knees multiple times to drill and hand nail the first row. When I get to the second row, the flooring cleat nailer I bought can do the nailing from a standing position and won't hurt my ribs so much. I will try to grab a picture when I get the second row started.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on October 26, 2019, 11:18:51 AM
Ooh, what tile did the dear wife want that you didn't go with? Hate to think there might be some kind of karmic blowback for not going with her pick /jk
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 28, 2019, 07:22:18 AM
Slowly, slowly on the mend with my ribs. With my oldest kid's help, I was able to get a couple hours done this weekend on the flooring. Because it involved a lot of doorways and other things to cut around, it took a fair amount of time. While I'm waiting on a resolution for the rest of the kitchen, now that I have the flooring to the hallway leading to the front door, I'm going to work that way with the flooring and save the main kitchen floor for last.

My reordered cabinet that was supposed to be here last week isn't going to be here for another eight days. The excuse was the entire factory switched inventory systems and it didn't get on the truck for this week. Since the cabinet lady we used in this design had a stroke this summer that effected her in many visible ways, I'm guessing she just forgot to order it again until I called her asking where it was. She freely admits that the mistakes causing this cabinet and the other one to be misordered were probably because of her stroke.

To the person who asked above, the tile my wife originally wanted was a more elongated hex tile that had more glass than stone than what she ultimately picked out due to the budget. Had the contractor not forced the issue and just bought that tile without trying to milk us for more money, he probably would have come out ahead over where he is now. We had a verbal agreement that he would remove the damaged tile and credit me the cost of the replacement tile so I could just do it myself as I should have done in the beginning. But his secretary sent me an email a day later saying he couldn't credit me for the tile because it had already been installed. I emailed back repeating that the credit for for new tile to make this whole problem right and that if he didn't want to credit me than by all means he could by new tile, grout, sealer plus spend the labor to reinstall it correctly this time. I haven't heard anything back and its been five days.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: sammybiker on October 28, 2019, 01:20:19 PM
@lthenderson   Hell of a thread, thanks for posting.  Looking great so far.

I'm sorry if I missed it but did you post any cost details?  Real curious what kind of equity you're building, especially acting essentially as a GC and doing a good part of the work yourself.

The floors look awesome - any product link/curious as to what those run?

Keep it up, good luck as you enter the final phase.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 29, 2019, 07:31:57 AM
@lthenderson   Hell of a thread, thanks for posting.  Looking great so far.

I'm sorry if I missed it but did you post any cost details?  Real curious what kind of equity you're building, especially acting essentially as a GC and doing a good part of the work yourself.

The floors look awesome - any product link/curious as to what those run?

Keep it up, good luck as you enter the final phase.

I did post the cost details in a post on page one but didn't want to put it front and center for a variety of reasons. One is because we live in a very rural place where cost of living is very cheap but as a counterbalance, we asked for around 8 quotes from every contractor in about a 100 mile radius and after two years of repeated calls, only got one serious returned quote. So in essence, we had no choice. I'm also doing a fair amount of the work. Also, technically our project is redoing the entire common areas of our house but the contracted portion is only for the addition and kitchen. So with all that in mind, we contracted out the addition and a fair portion of the kitchen with higher end finishings for $90k and we have a budget of $120k for the entire project. With the additional expenses occurred along the way, we are looking close to about $130k total which is less than 10% overrun which I don't think is too bad compared to other projects I have read about. We are paying cash for the entire project.

In our area (very rural, very poor) building equity is pretty much non-existent. Houses sell pretty much for the county assessed value for tax purposes if well maintained. If not, for much less. I'm guessing our assessed value will go up maybe $50k or $60k. (I haven't seen a new assessment yet.) So if we were to sell right away, we would probably be lucky to get half our money back from this project. But we didn't do this project with dreams of making money or even getting all of it back. Both my spouse and I love to cook and were tired of a kitchen that was small for one person and had no space for all our cooking paraphernalia. I'm hoping that this money is essentially buying us happiness for the next decade or two that we might continue to live here.

The flooring is CaliBamboo solid tongue and groove nail down flooring. We got it from a local distributor and off the top of my head it was about $4500 for 900 sqft.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on October 29, 2019, 01:56:51 PM
Broken ribs are healing nicely and the pain is slowly subsiding. I was able to finish installing the flooring down the entry hallway and install a door sweep. Due to an impending snowstorm, I spent the rest of the afternoon rearranging the garage to get the snowblower out and ready and took the time to clean up accumulated "stuff" and debris one tends to get when working on an extended project. Since I have the perimeter areas floored, I may pause to paint and install baseboard trim so that we can start moving some furniture around and my spouse can start decorating the area.  All that I have left to floor right now is the main work area between the island and the cabinets and in the pantry. The remainder of the flooring goes in the dining and living rooms and will probably wait until late winter after I have removed a wall, scraped the ceiling of popcorn and done a few other minor things.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 04, 2019, 07:17:03 AM
Things have been kind of on simmer for awhile while we wait for the reordered cabinet which is supposedly going to be delivered tomorrow. I'm not sure whether that means to the warehouse in the urban jungle or to our house. But I'm hoping we see it this week and put this project to bed, at least as far as the contracted part goes.

For my part, I did a lot of trim painting and installing baseboard. We then spent the weekend doing the furniture shuffle to get stuff back to the kitchen area, the hardest being a huge china hutch. I was able to unscrew the top half and slide it over onto sawhorses and then using rugs, were able to slide the lower half into place on our new wood floor. (Keep in mine I am only halfway through the 6 to 8 week healing time for my three broken ribs.) We stall out on the top half. I was able to lift my side using my good arm opposite the broken ribs but my wife wasn't able to lift her side. I tried calling a few people with strong backs but everyone wasn't answering. So in the end, I used a car jack, a cut to size 2x4 and some Egyptian engineering and we got it in place. 

I have also been working on repairing my office which is directly below the kitchen and got pretty beat up during the install of all the various mechanicals. Fortunately I have a ceiling system that looks like a false ceiling but actually snaps up to the bottom of the floor joists so you don't loose any headroom. So other than a couple damaged pieces I have to replace (and I still have extra panels from when I installed it), it is like putting a giant all white puzzle back together again. I've got about half of it back up and will work on the other half today.

The backsplash tile.

We met our contractor for a sit down to hash it out. In the end, he agreed to keep our original verbal agreement to tear out the incorrectly installed tile, smooth over the surface and credit us for the cost of purchasing the tile over again. I will then use that money and some more to purchase my spouses first choice of tile and install it myself later this winter.  He said he would do that at the same time the reordered cabinet gets delivered and promised us that he would be gone within two days of the delivery.

It's been a painful experience living without a kitchen for five months and at the mercy of someone else and if there ever is a next time, I will do more of it myself. The only reason I contracted part of it out is because I thought it would be faster and less of a headache to not have to deal with certain aspects I really don't enjoy doing anyway. Live and learn. Once the contractor leaves for good, I plan to install the rest of the flooring and trim first, then work on building cabinets and finishing the pantry area. Then I plan to turn a narrow filler lower cabinet into a pull out spice rack and build a wine rack and a few other minor pieces for the kitchen. After all that is done, it is back to the dining and living rooms to scrape down the popcorn ceilings and redo them, maybe tear out a wall, and continue the hardwood flooring throughout. That will necessitate redoing the stair railing to our basement as well. Hopefully a lot of that can be done before spring when I need to landscape our new addition and finish painting everything that I didn't quite get done due to untimely broken ribs. Despite the list being long, I'll be doing it myself free of contractors and for that I'm excited.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: J Dough on November 04, 2019, 08:01:22 AM
I'm enjoying your description of your project, and I'm excited for you to be so close to having it done. Thanks for taking the time to post through the process.

I have a beat-up drop ceiling in my basement that I've been thinking about replacing for a long time, and I'm curious about the false ceiling you have. If it's easily available, can you point me to a link of what you used? I love the idea of reclaiming those few inches of headroom.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 04, 2019, 09:44:03 AM
If it's easily available, can you point me to a link of what you used? I love the idea of reclaiming those few inches of headroom.

I have used CeilingMax grid systems sold by Menards. I would put up a link but I couldn't find a general link, only a link to the various individual parts of the system. But they had a worksheet in the store back by the physical parts that has the formulas for determining which parts you need and how many. But there are videos of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tzu7q79V7E

Basically you have a track that gets screwed to the bottom of your ceiling joists every two feet on center. Then using a system of cross bars and a T-cap, you just snap them in place. I like it because in my case where I needed to access the space between the floor joist for this project, I can unsnap the plastic decorative pieces and pull the panels down as needed. I just got done putting it back up and had to redo a couple pieces destroyed by trades people mishandling them.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 05, 2019, 12:17:56 PM
The stained tile has been removed and a skim coat put on to flatten out things again. I ordered the tile I will be putting on and the original tile we wanted to start with in this project until we got hit with a $2000 change order on top of the supposed $1200 the contractor said he budgeted for it. So with the $1000 credit he is giving us to fix this problem, the new more expensive backsplash will only cost me $500.

Our cabinet will be delivered Thursday morning so hopefully by this weekend, we will be using a fully functional kitchen, the first time in five months, albeit without a backsplash or all the flooring installed. But I should be able to get the rest of the flooring done before the backsplash tile arrives so that I can focus on that when it gets here.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on November 05, 2019, 08:12:35 PM
How did I not notice that your new kitchen has a pot filler? So jealous! In CA, the GPM limit on faucets is crazy low, so a pot filler is a dream solution. Alas, my backsplash is crazy custom expen$ive, so I'm not tearing it out. There are counter mounted ones, but the water is on the other side of the kitchen, which kind of defeats the purpose.

You're getting there, even if it doesn't feel like it. In the end, the angst will have been worth it.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 06, 2019, 07:07:34 AM
Yeah the pot filler was one of those decisions we made since we were gutting and moving the wall that it would mount to anyway.  I do a lot of canning in the summer months and have always dreamed about not having to lug the big canners and pots over to the sink. It will also be nice for the occasional shrimp boil too. But we need a cooktop first to try it out. Perhaps by the end of this week. The replacement cabinet for the cooktop is supposed to arrive tomorrow.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 07, 2019, 09:50:18 AM
While waiting for the replacement lower cabinet to arrive before noon today, I've been taking a break from flooring to design the pantry upper cabinets so that I can start building them perhaps this weekend. I am making three identical units that will fill up the entire wall of the pantry and they will all be constructed identically. I made my office cabinets the same way so it should go pretty smoothly.

I make mine out of 3/4" cabinet plywood which will probably be white oak since that is usually the cheapest. I cut the pieces out by laying the plywood across a couple sawhorses on some sacrificial two-by material and using my skilsaw and a homemade sled made out of leftover 1/4" plywood scraps.  I will join the carcass together using Kreg pocket screws and glue. I will make the face frame out of 3/4" popular and paint it to match the cabinets in the kitchen.

We are leaving these without doors to start with but I looked up the door hardware for the ones in the kitchen and left enough room so if we change our minds in the future, I can make some inset doors to match. I haven't started the lower cabinet design yet since I hope to make use of the two cabinets that were incorrectly ordered and left behind. It will take a bit more figuring to figure you how best to use them and then fill in the gap with one that I custom make and a countertop. But that will be down the road a bit yet.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 11, 2019, 07:14:33 AM
I picked up the plywood and face frame supplies but due to a busy weekend, didn't get started on the upper pantry cabinets. Since I had a half sheet extra of plywood, I did build a feed table for my hybrid table saw. It is permanently attached to the table saw, folds up and travels with it where ever I push it. I found a video on Youtube of one that is similar and just winged it. It turned out nice and I can't wait to give it a try. It should make building cabinets easier and safer. I'm waiting for my garage to heat up enough to make working in there bearable. 23 degrees and snowing right now.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: J Dough on November 11, 2019, 08:35:34 AM
If it's easily available, can you point me to a link of what you used? I love the idea of reclaiming those few inches of headroom.

I have used CeilingMax grid systems sold by Menards. I would put up a link but I couldn't find a general link, only a link to the various individual parts of the system. But they had a worksheet in the store back by the physical parts that has the formulas for determining which parts you need and how many. But there are videos of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tzu7q79V7E

Basically you have a track that gets screwed to the bottom of your ceiling joists every two feet on center. Then using a system of cross bars and a T-cap, you just snap them in place. I like it because in my case where I needed to access the space between the floor joist for this project, I can unsnap the plastic decorative pieces and pull the panels down as needed. I just got done putting it back up and had to redo a couple pieces destroyed by trades people mishandling them.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 13, 2019, 07:33:26 AM
Before I could start pantry cabinets, the contractor showed up and installed the replacement cabinet, cooktop and hoodvent seen in the photo. Other than a could trim plates owed to me by their subcontracted plumber, they are officially done on site and out of my hair. Nothing has made me more excited in a long time as being rid of them. So I switched gears and am working on installing the rest of the flooring in the kitchen before my backsplash tile arrives next week and I can start on that. Once I get those two things done, I will jump back on pantry cabinets and get them cranked out.

(Note, the hood vent is just roughly attached and doesn't have all the upper trim pieces on it. I'm going to be removing it to install backsplash tile in a week so just told them to leave it off. I can install it myself permanently later.)
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on November 13, 2019, 08:31:13 AM
What a relief! I like the way you trimmed out the cabinets. It drives me nuts to see fancy crown molding installed on Shaker-style cabinets. Excellent choice.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 15, 2019, 07:39:02 AM
Yeah, we wanted something simple yet sophisticated which is why we went with the shaker style cabinets with inset doors versus overlay and the square molding versus crown.

Heard back from the tile place that there isn't enough tile in the U.S. to fill our order so they will have to make some more at their factory overseas and we likely won't be seeing it until mid-February. Frankly I'm happy about that because it will allow me to focus on other things for the time being.

Although not mentioned in this post, my mom passed away almost a year ago after a two year fight with brain cancer and my dad no longer wants to farm. After meeting with lawyers and such to settle my mom's estate, my dad has decided he is done farming and wants to sell all the farm equipment soon rather than later. So for the next couple weeks, I will probably not be able to work on my kitchen and will instead be down on the farm helping to get everything ready for the auction. But I still plan to update this thread when I get back and start crossing things off MY list instead of dealing with contractors.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on November 15, 2019, 07:41:26 AM
Yeah, we wanted something simple yet sophisticated which is why we went with the shaker style cabinets with inset doors versus overlay and the square molding versus crown.

Heard back from the tile place that there isn't enough tile in the U.S. to fill our order so they will have to make some more at their factory overseas and we likely won't be seeing it until mid-February. Frankly I'm happy about that because it will allow me to focus on other things for the time being.

Although not mentioned in this post, my mom passed away almost a year ago after a two year fight with brain cancer and my dad no longer wants to farm. After meeting with lawyers and such to settle my mom's estate, my dad has decided he is done farming and wants to sell all the farm equipment soon rather than later. So for the next couple weeks, I will probably not be able to work on my kitchen and will instead be down on the farm helping to get everything ready for the auction. But I still plan to update this thread when I get back and start crossing things off MY list instead of dealing with contractors.
Sorry for the loss of your mom and your family's way of life.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 22, 2019, 06:47:13 AM
After a week down on the farm, I was able to get back to the kitchen project yesterday. I painted all the shoe molding that will cover up the floor expansion gap left between the cabinets and the flooring. In between coats of paint, I was installing flooring in the pantry which is also the storage place for the miss ordered cabinets that we have been allowed to retain. It was a pain shuffling them around and nailing down flooring in such a tiny space but I eventually made it work out. I have one more flooring board to install and then that project is done until sometime after the holidays, most likely into spring. I still have more cabinets and other woodworking projects left to do for the kitchen before flooring the dining and living rooms. Today I'm going to be installing the rest of the trim and shoe molding. I'll try to grab some pictures for the next post.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on November 26, 2019, 12:18:40 PM
Well not much to show since the last post. We had plans all weekend that didn't involve working on our house. Monday I spent a very nice day hanging up Christmas lights on our new addition. Since it was the first time, it took most of a day but should take less than an hour in upcoming years now that all the hardware is in place. On Tuesday, I spent the day getting ready for an upcoming trip to the family cabin in the Ozark mountains which meant cooking a turkey and pies. But I snapped a few photographs to share showing the pantry in the background that I'm currently working on.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 03, 2019, 02:25:41 PM
Back from the holidays, I got to work on building my pantry cabinets to match the purchased ones for the kitchen. I ended up finding some birch plywood at the big box store with one cabinet grade finish side for a little over $40 per sheet. I used my circular saw jig to cut up the sheets into final sized parts shown in the second photo. It makes that process easy and very accurate. The only problem I had was that I noticed about three-fourths of the way done that the catch on my tape measure was bent and everything was 1/16" shorter than I planned. Due to the way I designed the carcass, everything still works but the cabinets will be 1/16" of an inch shorter and 3/16" of an inch narrower when all three cabinets are attached together. I planned for 1/8" of a gap so I will just have to deal with a slightly bigger gap when the time comes.

I used to make cabinets old school with dadoes, routers, lots of fiddling to get things fitting right and then lots of time clamping and waiting for glue to dry. Since I started using pocket hole screws, it has made things quick and easy. I could have had the cabinets completely assembled if I hadn't ran out of glue. I also have a shelf pin hole jig which makes adjustable shelving really easy to do too.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 03, 2019, 02:30:52 PM
The method I use for making carcasses is to place the cabinet back panel, good side up on my table and screw the top and bottom panels to it using pocket screws. I then flip it up on it's side and screw in one side panel, flip it over and do the other. All told, it took me about four hours from starting with full sheets of plywood to getting all three carcasses glued and screwed together. I used poplar, a miter saw and my tablesaw to cut out the pieces for the face frame. I used pocket holes and glue to assemble them in much the same way as the carcass. It took me another hour to get three of those made. I would have attached them to the carcass but this is where I ran out of glue. Tomorrow I will get some more glue and get them attached and then I can hang the cabinets. Eventually I will paint the face frame the same color as our upper kitchen cabinets so they blend in. Since this is a pantry, the upper shelving is going to be all open with no doors though I left space on the face frames so I could add doors in the future if we change our mind.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 04, 2019, 02:29:09 PM
After obtaining some more glue, I was able to glue and screw the face frames onto the carcasses, sand them and carry them inside and install them. I can't say how much I love pocket screw technology when it comes to making cabinets. I hadn't planned around shelving but looking at the scrap birch plywood and poplar, I had enough to build seven shelves. I used glue and pocket screws to attach an 1-1/2" strip of poplar to the front edge of each shelf to cover up the raw plywood edge and give a bit more strength. Since I ended up with an uneven number of shelves, I just put the extra one in the middle to make it look symmetrical for now. I'm not going to go buy another sheet of plywood just to make two more shelves. I will probably end up with some more leftover when I turn my attention to the bottom cabinets. Thanks to a misordered cabinets with three drawers next to the dishwasher and a too tall base cabinet underneath the cooktop, I have two cabinets I can use to fill this space. The three drawer cabinet is nice and I will definitely use but since the other cabinet is less than standard height, I'm not sure if I will use that or not. I may try making a drawer on top of it or underneath it to make up some of the height. It doesn't have any slideout drawers anymore since they were put in the reordered one so I will have to remake them if I go that route. I'm going to finish trimming out the upper cabinets and painting the face frame first and mull it over before making any decisions.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Vertical Mode on December 04, 2019, 03:29:21 PM
We have a kitchen remodel in our future. Posting to bookmark this and re-read later on because there's a lot of good info here. Thanks for sharing your project!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 05, 2019, 02:19:13 PM
Turning my attention to the lower pantry cabinets, you can see the two misordered cabinets that got replaced by the manufacturer. They were kind enough to let me keep them but they didn't make new drawers for the shorter one holding the cooktop and so I had to swap out the interior drawers. I decided to make a plug to bring the old one up to the bottom of the countertop height and make another lower cabinet to fit in the remaining gap. It will be just pullout drawers but left open so you can see what is inside. I can make doors for it at a later date if I change my mind.

The second photo is of the completed lower cabinet I made to fill in the gap. I just used pocket hole screws and glue to hold it together. The manufacturer sent me a bunch of 3/4" by 6" solid boards already painted the same color as our lowers. They were supposed to be baseboard trim around our island but it looked so klunky that we never put them on. So I have been shuffling them around the garage for the last six months wondering what to do with them. I took one of them and cut it up to create the face frame for the lower cabinet and the plug that I built for the old cooktop cabinet so I didn't have to worry about matching paint. I think it turned out nice.

The last photograph shows the new cabinet installed along with the plug on the short cooktop cabinet. I also primed and put a coat of paint on the face frame of the upper cabinets. One more coat of paint and we can start loading them up with things still sitting in boxes around the house. Because the cabinet with the plug no longer has pull out drawers and the replacement cabinet I build doesn't have pullout drawers, those are next on my list to do. I'm going to build them all in one go so I only have to set up my dovetail jig once. I am going to make the drawer sides and back out of poplar and the bottom out of birch plywood. For the drawer fronts on the filler cabinet, I think I have enough of the trim boards that I can repurpose them as drawer fronts.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 08, 2019, 11:03:02 AM
The dovetail jig I got probably a decade ago was certainly a luxury purchase for me back then but I have never regretted spending the money. If one follows the step by step instructions in the manual for setting up and fine tuning the joint, it is fairly easy to turn out a lot of dovetailed drawers in short order. I did these four drawers in about three hours. I still have to sand them and install them but that shouldn't take too long.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on December 08, 2019, 11:13:55 AM
Is this pantry where the laundry used to be?
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 09, 2019, 06:55:53 AM
No. Our laundry is downstairs. But when doing this addition/renovation, I had the pantry plumbed for a laundry area someday in the future when we no longer want or can go down to the basement to wash our clothes. But for the present day, it will strictly be a pantry and is all new construction.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 09, 2019, 11:47:01 AM
Drawers are done and installed and as you can see, we've already begun moving into our pantry. My next step was to build a butcher block countertop for the lower cabinets but I found a pre-made one for way less than it would cost me to do it plus it would save me almost a week of time not having to make it. So I bought it and just need to stain and install it. Unfortunately, it comes in only 96" lengths and the room is 97-1/2" long so I will have to fill in a gap somehow but that should be easy enough. It will after all be in a pantry that will mostly be closed off and not readily viewable.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on December 09, 2019, 11:53:47 PM
No. Our laundry is downstairs. But when doing this addition/renovation, I had the pantry plumbed for a laundry area someday in the future when we no longer want or can go down to the basement to wash our clothes. But for the present day, it will strictly be a pantry and is all new construction.
I must have missed that info. Yeah, I was confused by the hookups. That is a really smart plan!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 10, 2019, 02:00:11 PM
The prefab solid butcher block countertop was certainly the way to go. Instead of several days of glue-ups, planing and staining, I got there in just one afternoon. That even included the time cleaning silicone caulking and resanding the top because I put the good face down the first time. Oops. I will probably add a couple coats of polyurethane to make it more or less waterproof and easy to clean and then other than painting some trim, this room will be done and I can move onto the next project.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 12, 2019, 07:02:17 AM
I love polyurethane but it certainly is a pain to work with. I bought the quick drying stuff that sets in 3 to 4 hours and it still took closer to 8 hours so it still has taken me two days just to put three coats down. I just laid this coat down this morning so tonight I can pull the tape, prep and tomorrow I can get the final coats of paint on the trim and backsplash, the countertop edge caulked, and put this project to bed.

Of the overall kitchen addition/remodel project, I still have to put up the window treatments which are on order and the backsplash tile which is back ordered until February. So until that time, I will probably fill it up with other projects. I want to make some sort of wine rack or display. There is also one cabinet that is functionally useless for much of anything, (the door opening is about three inches wide) that I plan to modify to turn it into a pull out spice rack.  I also want to make a hanging hallway table for our new wider hallway where some decorative things can be placed and also some sort of coat/hat hanging place. Then of course, I still have the rest of my hardwood flooring stashed at the foot of my bed and under the dining room table that should be enough to do the dining and living rooms. Lots of things to keep me busy until spring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 17, 2019, 07:50:58 AM
Well the painting, caulking, etc are done in the pantry and I'm moving onto my next little project. Due to the layout of the kitchen, with a corner lazy suzan unit and keeping the sink unit centered in the window, left us with a small sliver of space to fill. With full overlay doors, they often fill this cabinet with a pullout spice rack but they didn't offer a pullout spice rack for inset doors like what we had because the door hinge just eats up too much of the opening. After looking at spice racks in units with overlay doors in the showroom, I thought I could probably make something that would work for us so we had them fill the space with an approximately six inch wide cabinet with nothing in it for now.

I'm going to take the door off and remove the hinges so I will have around 3-1/4" inches of opening to work with. I will just make the door attached to the front of the spice rack so when you pull, the entire spice rack with door attached to the front pulls out on drawer slides. I'm not sure how stable this will be with the drawer slides mounted at the bottom and all that weight above so I may have to make some guides to keep everything stable. I have some scraps of wood and plan on getting started on it today.

Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on December 17, 2019, 08:05:44 AM
That's what we did on our last flip. Worked great. IIRC, there is special hardware that the sliding part locks into for stability.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 17, 2019, 12:19:32 PM
That's what we did on our last flip. Worked great. IIRC, there is special hardware that the sliding part locks into for stability.

Thanks for that tip. I'll have to check that out.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 19, 2019, 06:55:18 AM
Been down on the farm making the final push to get ready for the equipment auction on Monday so I haven't accomplished much on this project but I did get the rack itself roughed out. I am going to attach the rails to the block being glued and clamped onto the bottom of the rack. The other side of the rail will attach to spacer blocks which I hope to disassemble and screw into the bottom of the cabinet opening in such a small space. The cabinet door has been removed from the hinges and hinges removed. I plan on screwing it to the face of the spice rack once I get it in place and tracking nicely through the opening.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on December 27, 2019, 11:26:54 AM
Finally back into the swing of things and problems abound. I tried installing my spice rack into the cabinet but ran into problems. I screwed one half of the drawer slides into the blocks that get screwed onto the bottom of the cabinet and the other half to the bottom of the spice rack. But when I start sliding the spice rack into the drawer slides in the cupboard, everything jams up. I tried measuring, shimming, shaving off parts and still no dice. So after a couple hours, I just left it in the garage over Christmas. This morning I took the drawer slides out from the bottom of the cabinet and attached them to the spice rack half of the slides and everything slides freely and easily. I'm thinking that the blocks that the rails attach to inside the cupboard are twisting and binding things up. So I notched the bottom of those support blocks and am gluing in strips of wood to keep things at a set distance. I hope to just set that in place on the inside of the cupboard and that will allow me to get the spice rack slid into place more easily.

Perhaps a bigger problem is that my contractor is coming  back to haunt me. I got an email from the cabinet supplier saying he hasn't paid them for the cabinet hardware and that we need to pay this bill. I responded that I have paid the contractor for them already so I will not be paying for them. I carbon copied the contractor on that email. He responded to the cabinet supplier and myself that we have slandered him for the length of the project and haven't paid him for the gutters that were installed so he wasn't paying anything more on the project. We reviewed the initial contract and requested leaf guard gutters be added to it before signing. He put gutters on the contract and raised the price accordingly. Then before installing the gutters he said he would be giving us a change order. I told him that it was in our contract and that I have a recording of that conversation where he said he only installs leaf guard products. At that time he acquiesced and the next day installed leaf guard gutters. No written change order was ever given to us or signed though we did get two prior change orders and had to sign them before he began work on those items. When I paid the final bill, he again tried to tack on a line item for the gutters and I paid everything but that line item, told him that we have had this conversation twice before and went my way. I hadn't heard anything about it for two months so thought it was behind us. As for the slander, I don't know. I haven't written any reviews online or mentioned him by company name anywhere. A few neighbors have asked how he was by company name simply because his truck was parked in our lawn all summer with his company's name written on it. We told them the truth, it took him twice as long as his longest estimate to complete. We also added that with the exception of the ruined backsplash tile, all the work was well done. Restitution was made for the backsplash so honestly, I had no ill will towards the contractor despite the extended timeline... until now anyway.

So I'm not sure what comes next. Perhaps the cabinet supplier will go after both of us in a lawsuit. Since the contractor called and verbally threatened the cabinet supplier over the miss ordered cabinets back during the installation phase, I'm guessing they aren't really friendly to each other. We on the other hand had a really great relationship with the cabinet supplier up until now. Since I never signed a change order for the gutters and have the contractor recorded saying he always installs leaf guard product and gutters and cabinet hardware are written in our signed contract, I don't think anyone has a legal leg up on us should it go to court.  I guess my worry is if a lien is placed upon our title. Right now I haven't heard a peep from either parties for several days so I'm inclined to just wait and see.

I repeat, will never hire a contractor again. I will be my own contractor from now on.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 06, 2020, 07:15:47 AM
Kiddos are finally back in school so work can progress again. I finally got the spice rack built and installed but am not entirely happy with it. It works but the drawer slides are very sensitive to binding that close together. I tried attaching one half to blocks and screwing them down in the cabinet but couldn't get the tight alignment needed so I removed them and screwed them to blocks I glued down to another board using a jig to get the alignment. Even then I still had to spend awhile tweaking things to get it to work without binding up completely. I have it to where it works but it is tight enough the self closing feature doesn't have enough power to suck it back. I'm going to call it good for the time being and move onto other things and perhaps come back to it on a later date and try different drawer slides.

Next up I'm building a shallow shelf for the pantry wall to store stuff that we can ourselves during the summer. Soon our window treatments will finally arrive so I can install them. We are hosting a big event on Feb 1 so I'm waiting until that is over to tear up the dining and living rooms. I want to scrape the popcorn off the ceilings and re-texture them before installing the rest of the hardwood flooring that sits around our house in strategic places right now.  Still waiting on the backsplash tile which is supposed to come in sometime around mid-February. More than enough work to keep me busy into spring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 07, 2020, 10:51:32 AM
Here is the progress on the home canned goods shelf I am making for our new pantry. It will screw into the studs in the wall behind it which put a limit on the width but will still hold a fair amount of jars on the shelves. We have more shelf storage for canned goods in our basement storage room but I'm hoping to keep a fair supply up in the pantry where it is handy.

I decided on using a sliding dovetail joint for attaching the shelves to the sides to pretty it up a little bit and because I hadn't used my router in awhile and wanted to do something with it for a change. I still need to put some railing on the shelves to prevent the jars from accidentally sliding off and then it will be ready for staining and hanging.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on January 07, 2020, 09:32:57 PM
Pretty and oh, so practical.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 09, 2020, 07:07:52 AM
Attached the rails to keep all the canning jars in place, finish sanding everything and then went ahead and stained even though it was colder than it should have been. That is one of the drawbacks of trying to do projects like this in an essentially unheated garage during the middle of winter. This morning is was still slightly tacky so I carried it inside and I'm hoping it will go ahead and cure the rest of the way so I can attach it to the wall.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 10, 2020, 07:35:17 AM
There it is screwed to the wall and ready for canning jars. Not sure if I will start another project right away or wait for my window treatments to arrive so I can work on installing those. Otherwise, next on my list is some sort of wine rack to attach to the wall right next to the canning shelf.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Frugal Lizard on January 10, 2020, 07:40:04 AM
OOOOHHH sweet.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 13, 2020, 10:47:36 AM
After looking around for low profile wine racks that store the bottle on the side or in this case, tipped down that will fit in the space I have in my pantry for it, I finally settled on the design seen below. Although it looks like a stair step in the picture, it will be mounted on the wall so the two ends are vertical from each other and zig zag in-between. This should store every bottle at a 45 degree tilt from vertical with the cork end being down and will hold twelve bottles. The first picture is a test fit of the dovetail joints and making sure of the orientation before I started gluing things together. I broke the glue up into two pieces due to the complicated clamping to get everything snug and square. Due to the cold nature of my garage this time of year, I have to let things cure inside before I can glue the two halves together.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 14, 2020, 12:12:13 PM
The shutter manufacturer sent me an email a week and a half ago saying the shutters would ship out at the end of last week and they would send me a tracking number so I could follow the progress until they arrive at the end of this week. I never got a tracking number but found a pile of boxes leaned up against my garage when I got home yesterday evening. So I spent today installing shutters on the windows in the new addition. They went in amazingly easy and look really nice. I'm looking forward to doing dishes at night without having to be on display to anyone who drives by.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on January 15, 2020, 09:22:18 AM
Ooh, I loves me some plantation shutters! Did you find a reasonably priced source?
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: partgypsy on January 15, 2020, 10:46:33 AM
Thanks for updating us. So far it is looking really good. I'm impressed you can woodwork your own drawers!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 15, 2020, 10:53:41 AM
Ooh, I loves me some plantation shutters! Did you find a reasonably priced source?

We got ours through www.theshutterstore.com during a 65% off sale awhile back.  I think they have these sorts of sales fairly regularly.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 15, 2020, 10:55:29 AM
Thanks for updating us. So far it is looking really good. I'm impressed you can woodwork your own drawers!

Thank you. Drawers are pretty easy to do once one understands the basics. As I grew more comfortable with the basics, then I branched out into dovetails and other ways to dress them up a bit. Now building cabinets and drawers is almost second nature.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: former player on January 15, 2020, 12:33:16 PM
Posting to say I'm impressed with your skills and loving the ideas you are putting in to personalise it while making it so practical.  Always good to see another post on this thread.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on January 15, 2020, 10:41:38 PM
Ooh, I loves me some plantation shutters! Did you find a reasonably priced source?

We got ours through www.theshutterstore.com during a 65% off sale awhile back.  I think they have these sorts of sales fairly regularly.
I see they have a 40% off with an additional 25% off sale ending today. Do they have sales where they actually discount their prices a full 65%? I think I'm going to need to do some planning ahead!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 16, 2020, 06:43:22 AM
Ooh, I loves me some plantation shutters! Did you find a reasonably priced source?

We got ours through www.theshutterstore.com during a 65% off sale awhile back.  I think they have these sorts of sales fairly regularly.
I see they have a 40% off with an additional 25% off sale ending today. Do they have sales where they actually discount their prices a full 65%? I think I'm going to need to do some planning ahead!

Not that I've seen but this is just like the sale when we bought our shutters leading me to believe they are like Menards 11% off sales and have them quite often.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 16, 2020, 01:07:29 PM
Too cold for shop work now but I did get the wine rack glued together and rough sanded before it got cold. I need to do some finish work with a block plane, make some mounting holes and finish sanding before I stain it and hang it.  But I thought I would toss a picture of it on here in the correct orientation to give you a sense of how it will work when it is completed.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on January 20, 2020, 09:18:50 AM
I was able to get the wine rack finished and installed this weekend. So for now, that completes the pantry part of our addition/remodel project. I am going to start flooring throughout the rest of the first floor here in about two weeks after an event we are hosting so I don't think I will start anything before then. But I will post more pictures and updates when that gets underway.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 03, 2020, 02:35:18 PM
Back at it again now that our obligation to host a party is over with. As you can see with the three pictures, I stretched up plastic in the doorways using my zip poles that I bought at an auction maybe a half dozen years ago on a whim. They helped control the dust as I scraped down the popcorn ceiling. Unlike other areas in my house where I have done this, it didn't scrape down to the paper on the drywall. I'm not sure why this was or what was done differently. Other parts of my house have two layers of drywall and I think perhaps this only has one layer so perhaps that is the answer. Whatever the case, it really doesn't matter. I plan to put a skim coat of mud over it to smooth it out and then skip trowel over that. But I'm doing both the dining room (pictured) and the living room at the same time and shuffling furniture between the rooms so it may be a couple weeks before I get to that point. I pulled up the carpet exposing the sub floor which will get another layer of plywood followed by hardwood flooring in the future. Next up though I am going to remove the popcorn ceiling and carpet in the living rooms half a room at a time before I get onto the next steps.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: shadesofgreen on February 04, 2020, 12:24:23 PM
Looking good!
I enjoy watching the transformation.
Really enjoy the change on the ceilings.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 06, 2020, 07:21:16 AM
No pictures today but I spent the last couple days removing the carpet from the living room, piece at a time and removing a bajillion staples that someone used to insure the carpet padding would survive a category 5 hurricane intact. I would love to have simply pounded them in with a hammer but each staple had a wad of padding under it and wouldn't lay flat so it was easier to just pull them. All this was done while shuffling the furniture from one side to another since with our small house, there really isn't anywhere else we can put the furniture while I'm working on it. Because the addition was slightly higher than our original house and we want the flooring to flow between all the rooms, I will be adding another layer of subflooring on top of the original plywood subfloor. Although technically it was probably a miss measurement on the part of the contractor, I'm glad it worked out that way because the floors definitely feel really solid with two layers of subfloor underneath the hardwood floor compared to the addition part with only one layer of subfloor and flooring. A lot of that is just because the 50 year old plywood subfloor isn't as stout anymore as the day it was installed.

Today is an off day to haul all the carpet, padding, and removed trim to the dump/recycling places and load up on some more plywood and mudding supplies while there is a sale going on at the big box store. I can only get about six sheets of 3/4" plywood at a time before the curve of the rear door and the curve of the center pillar between the front seats narrow to a point where I can no longer get the door to shut. I already picked up six sheets a couple days ago and will get another six sheets today which should about be enough to do the project. I still plan to do the mudding and painting on the ceiling first before laying down the subfloor and the flooring so that I can have a very clean surface to work on when it comes time to do the flooring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 11, 2020, 06:57:02 AM
Well that took much longer than I thought it would. It took me a full three days to remove all the popcorn from the living room ceiling and all the carpet and padding from the floors. Some of that was because I had to do the furniture shuffle with quite a bit of big bulky furniture. Much of it was because it would take me two hours to rig the plastic in the cleared section so that all the dust and contamination would be contained and then a good hour afterwards to clean up all the mess and tear down the rigged plastic. Finally, the last little bit of ceiling is over our stairway down into our finished basement and it took a bit of head scratching to figure out how to reach that section and yet still contain the mess. But at last I got all that popcorn off. I'm hoping to try my hand at skim coating over the ceilings today. I hate drywall work and trying to get a smooth finish to paint but since the end result is to retexture the ceiling using skip troweling, it doesn't have to be as smooth so perhaps it will be less frustrating to do.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 11, 2020, 01:47:30 PM
If you have read this thread from the beginning, you will know that despite this being a DIY thread, I contracted a big chunk of this project out, namely the building and drying in of the addition and the installation of the cabinets. All other finish work in the kitchen would be my responsibility as well as all finish work in the other parts of the addition as well as all the work in the dining and living rooms. This was done in an attempt to get the heavy part of the work done since it would be hard to do as just one person and also to get a functioning kitchen in as short of time as possible. So we saved up our pennies and hired a contractor willing to work with us on who was responsible for what part of the project.

Although the contractor took 7 months to complete a project he said would take "2 months to 3 months tops", we were pleased with the quality of work. He was nice to work with and everything went smoothly. When I went to pay our bill, he had tacked on a line item for gutters which were included in our contract. Every thing not in our contract up until that point had first been issued in a change order which had to be signed and paid for before the change happened and the gutters never received a change order. I told his secretary who gave me the invoice that I would pay everything but the gutter line item since it was in our contract, I had an audio recording of him saying he would include it in our contract and we had never been issued a change order saying otherwise. She recalculated the bill and I paid it.

The months pass and out of the blue I get an email from the cabinet place saying the contractor hadn't paid the last bill and asking me to pay it. I wrote back carbon copying the contractor declining to pay it since I had already paid the contractor in full for the items in question. (Cabinet hardware which were also a line item in our contract as being provided by the contractor.) The contractor wrote back to both of us saying since we libeled him and hadn't paid for the gutters, he wasn't paying for anything else. I never responded back to either party. As I think I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, since his truck was parked in our yard for nearly 7 months with his name on it, lots of people we know saw it and asked us about him. We always said the same thing during the process that he did great work but it was taking a lot longer than promised. Period. I never wrote any online reviews of his business and still haven't to this day. I'm pretty confident that I hadn't libeled him and that he was just trying to scare us into paying for the gutters.

After that incident, a month passed and then the contractor and I got another email from someone higher up at the cabinet place saying that we had until the end of January to pay the bill or they would assess a late fee. Since he was listed on the bill as the billable person, I just ignored the bill and didn't respond. Today, I got another invoice from the cabinet place in an email addressed to both of us that showed that the bill had been paid but evidently not before the end of the month so the late fee was still due. In other words, my contractor blinked first and realized he didn't have much of a case and paid the majority of the bill. Since he is still listed as the billable person on the invoice, I hope he will pay off the late fee and we all can be done with this whole deal.

The stupid part about this entire thing is that the amount of money in question for both the gutters and the cabinet hardware is less than 1% of the total initial contract. Just assuming that three or four of the people who asked for our recommendation of the contractor decide not to go with him, he has lost 50 to 100 times that amount of money in lost sales if not a lot more. Being known as someone who stops paying bills after being paid is not good for business.

So I learned my lesson. I have always been a DIY person but made an exception for this particular project and had to go through all this as a result. I won't make that mistake again. If I ever have something this large again and beyond my skill set, I will be my own contractor.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 12, 2020, 07:31:11 AM
Well I managed to get the dining room skim coated with joint compound. I hate drywall. It isn't something that the perfectionist in me gets along with, especially the application of joint compound. So I wasn't looking forward to this job but I had watched the subcontractor this summer who did the drywall mudding and felt I had picked up some tips. It started off back like I remembered where I was struggling to get things smooth without leaving horrible ridges everywhere. Then I started applying it and scraping as much off as I could and the result ended up a lot smoother which is what I was going for. After that, things went a lot better and faster and I think the surface, while it would look rough if I just painted it, will be smooth enough for me to apply skip trowel coat.

The subcontractor applied the knockdown using a pneumatic gun that sprayed globs of joint compound on the ceiling in our bathroom, in our bedroom and amazingly even down into the basement. We spent hours cleaning up the mess and even weeks later were finding dried blobs of joint compound here and there that we had to scrape off. So I turned to the internet to find a different way and found a couple videos of people putting coarse sand in the joint compound and applying a skip trowel coat that looks very similar. Best of all, since it is applied by hand and taping knife, it isn't nearly as messy. So I am going to give it a try. But first I am going to continue on and apply a skim coat to the living room ceiling over the next day or two while doing the dreaded furniture shuffle and covering the furniture up with plastic. A hassle for sure but I don't think I will end up with joint compound on the basement floor again... I hope.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on February 16, 2020, 07:27:23 AM
He was nice to work with and everything went smoothly.

Maybe I misread your thread from the beginning? There were the cabinet mistakes, the pocket door, and the backsplash incident. Then this. I am surprised to read you thought it went smoothly before this because you constantly mentioned how you hated working with a contractor the whole time and wish you could do it yourself. Glad to hear you won playing chicken with the GC on that bill.

Based on my own experience last year with a bathroom remodel and window replacements, and combined with your situation, it is clear to me that a strong contract laying out all these details with a contractor is absolutely critical. I know you want to forget and leave that interaction to the past, but what would you have done differently with this contractor to avoid these issues (if anything)?

Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 17, 2020, 07:08:31 AM
He was nice to work with and everything went smoothly.

Maybe I misread your thread from the beginning? There were the cabinet mistakes, the pocket door, and the backsplash incident. Then this. I am surprised to read you thought it went smoothly before this because you constantly mentioned how you hated working with a contractor the whole time and wish you could do it yourself. Glad to hear you won playing chicken with the GC on that bill.

Based on my own experience last year with a bathroom remodel and window replacements, and combined with your situation, it is clear to me that a strong contract laying out all these details with a contractor is absolutely critical. I know you want to forget and leave that interaction to the past, but what would you have done differently with this contractor to avoid these issues (if anything)?

You bring up some great points. The cabinets were not the mistake of the contractor but of the cabinet place which did the measuring and designing. The pocket door was a lead time thing which I had forgotten about and definitely was the responsibility of the contractor. The backsplash is definitely more nuanced. Because the contractor was going to charge us a lot extra for the tile we wanted (after the fact) we went for a second choice which wasn't what we wanted. The contractor messed it up and so we ended up agreeing that he would remove the damaged tile and refund us the money spent for tile which incidentally covered the cost of purchasing our original choice of tile. But I have to install it when it arrives hopefully any day now. So I guess I have looked at it as a win but yeah, I can see how it might not seem that way to someone else. I also admit, that working with a contractor is probably a lot like childbirth. It is painful during the throws of it but looking back when all is said and done, you only think about your child/kitchen.  I should also add that 95% of the work was done by a subcontractor who did excellent work (other than messing up the tile), was easy to work with and whom I would hire again in a heartbeat. The contractor's own crew only did the concrete work of the addition. A large part of the timeline issues were probably due to this arrangement since the contractor was rarely on site to see what was needed and get it ordered.

What would I do differently with a contractor?

Excellent question and one that I have though a lot upon. First off, I would never assume anything. Even the most mundane details needs to be written down in the contract. Since we had been trying to find any contractor willing to quote this project for almost two years and we didn't want to scare the one who responded off, so we gave him a lot of leeway and trusted him too much and that was a big mistake. The biggest thing we should have nailed down is the dollar limits for things that we were to pick out. In several cases, always on the higher dollar items when it was listed in the contract that we were to pick out our choice of XYZ, he would come back after the fact and say that was more than he had budgeted and hit us with a change order. I quickly wizened up to that fact and either asked for the budget ahead of picking or negotiated afterwards. Another big thing we didn't do but should have was put on a timeline with penalties. We didn't and that bit us in the rear. Finally, I've have since learned there is some sort of mechanism that we should have insisted upon and signed when giving him our final payment that prevented him from hitting us with a lien or threatening us for more money after the fact. I had never heard of such a thing until now but it would have prevented the whole mess I find myself in now. Luckily thus far it seems as if he is finally paid all of the bills except for one minor late fee and no liens have been filed against us... yet.

I've definitely learned a lot from my first experience (and possibly only) with contracting out a part of this project. I'm hoping in some part that by writing about it here and telling others will help them not make the mistakes I obviously made.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 17, 2020, 07:18:14 AM
Well the skip troweling using sanded drywall mud was a flop. I tried a half dozen times on the ceiling of our dining room and every time looked horrendous. I'm not sure why but I suspect it has to do with the sand. In the videos on Youtube, the mix sand with the drywall mud but never specify the type or if they so, say some generic term that has no meaning. I thought it would be fairly easy to buy sand but it wasn't. Since I only needed a quart or so by volume for the entire project, I first ordered some online but it turned out to be a fine powder that I didn't think would work. So I hunted around town and could only find sand in the form of a 70 lb tube meant for the back of a vehicle in winter. It was so coarse that it just left gouges everywhere in the mud. In the end I scraped it all off and threw it out. Fortunately this experiment only cost me $10 total for the 70 lbs of sand and half a bucket of drywall mud.

Plan B is to buy a air powered hopper sprayer and a knockdown knife for $60 and give it a go. They should arrive in a couple days. I didn't want to go this route because it creates a huge mess but I guess I will just stock up on plastic and do a lot of masking. I thought about renting a hopper but it was $15 a day and I figured I needed three or four days which is the cost of buying the gun outright. If it fails, I hope to sell it and recoup some of the money. If it turns out great, I might just keep it and someday de-popcorn the rest of the house. I will post an update to let you know how Plan B went. I'm hoping better than Plan A went.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on February 17, 2020, 09:37:37 AM
DH says he uses masonry sand, and a little goes a long way.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on February 17, 2020, 12:18:07 PM
I'm hoping in some part that by writing about it here and telling others will help them not make the mistakes I obviously made.

Or triggers PTSD from my own bad first contractor experience! :)  I think your "mistakes" with the situation are quite common. I think these experiences are largely a function of the contractor and homeowner relationship, and connecting with a contractor out of a bit of desperation is probably not the greatest way to start any relationship. In your case it sounds like "we'll take anyone with a pulse" and in my case it was "we don't have any working bathrooms in our house who is available now".  A friend of mine built a house with his cousin as the builder - he loved the process and had complete trust. I think it takes quite a bit of that to make these projects go smoothly.

I also think DIY savy clients could be the absolute worst clients for a contractor. My contractor relationship broke down when I found something his foreman was going to do to be not up to code. It seemed obvious to me, but I was told it was fine. It concerned me so I found the proper section of code that I sent him. After being protective and defensive he eventually conceded. Right then, the trust broke. Something you said a while back that you were "the general contractor to the general contractor" pretty much sums it up. When you have to be that person, the worth of a general contractor quickly diminishes.

Also, everything I have read is that contractors are crazy busy right now. This may all change in a few years when they are looking for work. That's what I am hoping for when it comes to my room addition plans.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on February 17, 2020, 12:21:17 PM
Well the skip troweling using sanded drywall mud was a flop.

I've always read hiring drywall mudding out is quite effective over things like carpentry. The latter is a DIY skill I would like to have, but have never aspired to be a good mudder.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Sibley on February 17, 2020, 01:04:46 PM
Also, everything I have read is that contractors are crazy busy right now. This may all change in a few years when they are looking for work. That's what I am hoping for when it comes to my room addition plans.

In my area, good contractors are picking and choosing jobs, the bad ones have mushroomed in quantity, and the in-between are leaning towards bad. That more than anything is making me delay various projects, or DIY them myself. I will wait until the crash when the bad have gone out of business, the good are merely reasonably busy, and the inbetween are desperate enough to approach good. Then I'll re-do my kitchen and bathroom.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on February 17, 2020, 06:33:27 PM
I should have said "good contractors are crazy busy right now". I wonder what it takes to convince a good contractor to work a job right now? It can't just be paying more. Though, when I was dealing with an electrician last year he was quite busy installing new upgrade services for several people who have bought Teslas, and some more than just one Tesla. This kind of work is definitely not DIY if one needs the proper permits.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: chemistk on February 18, 2020, 06:18:11 AM
I should have said "good contractors are crazy busy right now". I wonder what it takes to convince a good contractor to work a job right now? It can't just be paying more. Though, when I was dealing with an electrician last year he was quite busy installing new upgrade services for several people who have bought Teslas, and some more than just one Tesla. This kind of work is definitely not DIY if one needs the proper permits.

I think the minimum for getting a 'good' contractor right now is having a project that's relatively straightforward to complete, willingness to give them room to work, and having the $$.

My parents have been kicking around plans for adding onto their house for the last couple years. They live in an area where a stupidly large number of people are doing major renovations and/or tearing down houses to build new ones 2-3x of the original size. I'm not kidding when I say that across the street from them, a couple (of doctors) bought and tore down the house next door to them so they could build a bigger garage and have a large backyard.

My parents live in a fairly simple 1,400 sq. ft. house on a decent size property (for the neighborhood), and they want to build out an expanded kitchen, new dining room, new bedroom, expand main bathroom, and add a new ensuite to their room upstairs. It's a fairly involved project that would require a lot of specialized work (moving trees, a/c system, relocate utility connections, etc.) but something they've known to be doable. Problem is, my dad wants the contractor to do what Mr. Henderson has done - rough out the rooms, basically stopping just after sheetrock and mudding, and he would finish the rest.


Because of how hot the renovation business is in the area, one of the contractors just didn't even get back to them with a quote, and the other two quoted them at at least twice what it would have cost 6 or 7 years prior. Too many people into the area are coming in with deep pockets and no concern for hidden costs, so the good guys are taking the lower hanging fruit.

Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 18, 2020, 06:58:01 AM
DH says he uses masonry sand, and a little goes a long way.

Thanks for the tip. Perhaps that can be plan C if my plan B with the hopper gun doesn't work out.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 18, 2020, 07:04:37 AM
Part of what makes my situation unique I think is that I live in a very rural area. The seven contractors I initially contacted to quote the job were all the contractors in a 100 mile radius that I could find. Only one person gave me a quote and it was ridiculously high and was only one line item on the quote. So we actually gave up until I happened to run into one of the other contractors about a year later and he asked me about the addition. I told him his quoter had called me back and told me they no longer were doing residential bids. The contractor apologized and said that was one of the reasons the quoter had been fired and he asked for a second chance to quote the bid. So it wasn't like we were begging him and throughout the initial process, he seemed very competent and was very amenable to us changing his initial quote to better ensure it was specific enough to protect us. As it turned out it wasn't but it was way better than the initial one. Lots of lessons learned probably for him and for us.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on February 18, 2020, 08:23:51 AM
Very interesting story @lthenderson on how you hired your contractor. But I think your situation is way more common than you think it is unique. The response you received from the fired employee is exactly what is happening everywhere.  The guy you hired asked for a second chance. What changed? Did he lose other projects or was fired from his previous job? 

I would agree with @chemistk that a good contactor wants latitude and a straight forward project. For many of us here in the DIY forum, that's hard because we want to do so much of it ourselves and be in control, and because I think most of us here are 'creative' and can see these additions and modifications to a house as doable.

By the way, @lthenderson , your kitchen and addition are nice. Don't forget to enjoy it. 😁
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 18, 2020, 02:38:19 PM
We are definitely enjoying it! It's been bliss these last couple months to have a functioning kitchen while I tear apart other parts of the house. Along those lines, I got a call that our backsplash has made it to our shores and is custom. Should be here in a couple weeks. Once I get that up, I can permanently attach/install the cooktop exhaust hood and officially call the addition/remodel to our kitchen complete. Then it becomes just a matter of finishing the rest of the house.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 19, 2020, 10:38:05 AM
Plan B was a definite success though I still need to improve my technique. The hardest part thus far has been dialing in the air pressure and mud consistency to get the desired blob pattern. When I started, my mud was fairly thick and air pressure too low. Then I went too far with mud that was maybe thin enough but the air pressure too high. Eventually I got it about right and even went back over some of the areas that didn't look as good as others. I still need to work on my knocking off technique or perhaps timing. I occasionally will get ripples or ridges here or there. The ridges I can probably knock down easy enough but the ripples I'm not sure what to do other than wait for them to dry and touch up. I found that keeping the plastic knockdown tool clean between every pass helped a lot.

The drawbacks is it is as huge a mess as I remembered. I put plastic edging around the top edge of the room that hung down a foot and it caught much of the splatter when doing the perimeter. I did put a plastic sheet up in the room opening where I've already put wood flooring and I'm glad I did. I wasn't counting on the blogs that go up but don't quite hit the ceiling and come back down. Judging from the splatter that made it on my couch in the neighboring room without plastic sheeting, it went upwards of five feet or more. But the couch is leather so I can clean it off and no harm done. But I'm going to have to get some more plastic to cover things when I move onto the living room with all the furniture shoved to one side. Also, it was 19 degrees F when I sprayed the dining room so to clean up, I had to drag out a garden hose, spray everything clean and then drain and put back the garden hose so it doesn't freeze every single time I clean up. Added steps but I'm not doing this for a living.

All in all, I'm fairly sure I can touch up my technique to get a better finish and overall, it requires less technique/skills than the sand/skip trowel technique I tried for Plan A. This is a much more DIY friendly thing to do but 90% of the work is prepping and cleaning up.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 21, 2020, 09:47:26 AM
I wanted to add to my post above about touching up knockdown texture. I ended up getting a natural sponge which had the largest pore openings I could find and I dipped that into my thinned down drywall mud and dabbed it over the places where I wanted to touch it up. I went around and did this over half the room letting the earliest set for a few minutes and then I took the lexan trowel and knocked it down again. I am happy with the results and after it dried, you can't tell that I touched it up. The touch up process is so easy that I'm not going to even fuss over imperfections when I do the initial knockdown in the living room. I'll just touch them up later. It is important to clean the lexan trowel between passes. I used a putty knife every time and every four or five I dipped it in a bucket of water and rubbed it with my fingers to get anything that had set on it.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on February 24, 2020, 01:49:54 PM
I haven't had time to work on the ceilings for a few days but finally got back into the swing of things. After getting the dining room ceiling done, I did an easy corner in the living room and my technique had improved enough where I only had one small spot to touch up where I applied too much mud in one place and it left a diner plate sized smooth spot. That can be easily fixed. With my technique down, I put my efforts onto the small section above our basement stairs. The drywall in that area was a bit wavy and I tried to smooth it out with a skim coat. But even with my long wing span and leaning out over the railing to get into the far parts of the ceiling, I just couldn't get the pressure down to where the skim coat looked smooth enough I could texture over it plus it wasn't a very comfortable feeling leaning so far over a big drop. So after some head scratching, I build a scaffold platform seen below out of a few 2 x 4's and a piece of subfloor that I will be using later. It created a nice stable platform for me to get up there and sand out my crappy skim coat job and do a second much better skim coat job. I think I will be able to texture over that with no problems. The only drawback are a half dozen holes in the wall that I now have to patch up but those are small and easy to do so not much of a drawback. Definitely cheaper and easier than trying to buy some sort of system to do the same thing.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 02, 2020, 07:20:35 AM
No pictures today but after a push this weekend, I have completed texturing of the the ceiling and walls. Not sure if I mentioned this but my spouse liked my texture job of the ceilings so well that she requested me to do all the walls too so that everything now matches. I was hoping for some time off to pursue other things but darn if Sherwin Williams isn't haven't a 30% off all paints and stains sale so I went there yesterday to load up on 8 gallons worth of primer and paints. But I'm kind of looking forward to the painting because it isn't that hard to do and the clean up is much much easier than after texturing. Once the paint is all up, then I can lay down the additional layer of subfloor to get everything even with the addition and start in on laying the rest of the hardwood flooring. I should be done with that just in time to move outside to finish up painting some of the trim I didn't get to last fall and start in on landscaping.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on March 02, 2020, 10:24:23 AM
Ah, yes, the fun never ends, does it?
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 10, 2020, 07:02:29 AM
Almost all the walls are painted. Where the stairway from the first floor to the basement goes down, that wall is essentially two stories and I have the top story textured and painted but don't have the lower part. Before I do that, I wanted to remove the stair railings so that I can shoot it easier with the texture hopper gun and before I did that, I wanted to figure out what I am going to do with the railings. They are old, broken and very out of style so I want to rebuild them from scratch. But I don't want to leave the stairway open for very long. So once I have the new railings figured out, I will remove the old, shoot the remaining wall with texture, paint, put up the new railing and then start flooring.

I am attaching a couple pictures. The first is of our new chandelier that I got hung up in the dining room so we can eat to something other than a bare bulb. The second is of the second layer of subfloor going in. The first layer original to the house, was nailed without adhesive and squeaks and curled up around the corners making it uneven to walk on. The second layer which I am screwing down to the joists through the first layer takes care of all those problems. It is now installed so once I figure out what I am going to do with the stair railings, I can lay the rest of the tongue and groove hardwood flooring.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on March 10, 2020, 07:47:04 AM
I have read that screwing the second layer of subfloor directly to the joists is not the best approach. Though, I think it is more important for tile than hardwood floor or carpet, as the first layer acts as joist movement isolation to keep tile cracking to a minimum.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 10, 2020, 09:36:38 AM
That is a good point. If I were laying tile I would definitely want to isolate the layer that the tile adheres too from the joists. Shouldn't be a problem for the hardwood flooring though.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dogastrophe on March 10, 2020, 01:44:21 PM
Almost all the walls are painted. Where the stairway from the first floor to the basement goes down, that wall is essentially two stories and I have the top story textured and painted but don't have the lower part. Before I do that, I wanted to remove the stair railings so that I can shoot it easier with the texture hopper gun and before I did that, I wanted to figure out what I am going to do with the railings. They are old, broken and very out of style so I want to rebuild them from scratch. But I don't want to leave the stairway open for very long. So once I have the new railings figured out, I will remove the old, shoot the remaining wall with texture, paint, put up the new railing and then start flooring.

I am attaching a couple pictures. The first is of our new chandelier that I got hung up in the dining room so we can eat to something other than a bare bulb. The second is of the second layer of subfloor going in. The first layer original to the house, was nailed without adhesive and squeaks and curled up around the corners making it uneven to walk on. The second layer which I am screwing down to the joists through the first layer takes care of all those problems. It is now installed so once I figure out what I am going to do with the stair railings, I can lay the rest of the tongue and groove hardwood flooring.

Big fan of the print!  We have a funky/abstract one in our dining room as well.

Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 11, 2020, 06:49:14 AM
Big fan of the print!  We have a funky/abstract one in our dining room as well.

My spouse painted it a number of years ago. When we moved from our previous house to this one, we made the decision that only original artwork is going to adorn our walls. So for my spouse, it means her paintings and for me, it means photographs that I have blown up and printed on canvas.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dogastrophe on March 11, 2020, 07:10:07 AM
Big fan of the print!  We have a funky/abstract one in our dining room as well.

My spouse painted it a number of years ago. When we moved from our previous house to this one, we made the decision that only original artwork is going to adorn our walls. So for my spouse, it means her paintings and for me, it means photographs that I have blown up and printed on canvas.

That is awesome.  I envy those with artistic talent.

Our only piece of art is a print that we bought 10+ years ago (no idea why this won't attach is correct orientation - fixed).  Although we are visiting a studio this weekend to find a piece for over our couch (very un-mustachian purchase but one we've been budgeting for for a couple of years)
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 12, 2020, 10:12:44 AM
Our fancy smancy backsplash tile all the way from Australia arrived yesterday. So with the Corona virus upon us and nothing really planned for the next week, I picked up supplies and think I will spend it in our kitchen knocking out the back splash. If you recall, our previous Plan B tile and now our back to Plan A tile are mosaic glass and stone tiles. Plan A tile was going to cause our contractor to charge us a hefty change order so we went with Plan B tiles. They installed it with dark thinset behind which darkened the glass tiles a shade and didn't seal the stone tiles before grouting so they went from white to a dark gray. This time with myself doing it and back to Plan A tiles, I am going with white thinset and bought a jug of sealer for the stone tiles before grouting. My spouse now wants white grout just to be sure but I'm hoping to test out a dark grout on leftover sealed tiles to see if that will change her mind since I think it will make the tiles pop more than white grout with mostly white tiles.  After years of using my $70 benchtop tile wetsaw that I have to fill the water reservoir every single cut and need a raincoat to work around so I don't end up soaked, I splurged and bought a slightly bigger tile wet saw with a table four times larger, a much larger reservoir and a slide for the tile sheets using rebates I have been saving up from previous purchases on this project. Although I enjoy tiling, I'm hoping this will make the experience even more pleasant. I'll post some pictures of it and the tile when I get started and get the saw out of the box.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on March 13, 2020, 12:15:26 PM
When we were doing the flip house, DH bought a bunch of high-quality equipment from contractor who was closing up shop. A much higher quality tile saw was part of the package. DH says the deal was worth it for the tile saw alone. Fun side note: A friend has a flooring business and his worker's van was broken into and all the tools were stolen. DH was able to sell him some of the duplicates from that deal. DH gave him such a good price that friend insisted on paying him almost double and still came out ahead.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 13, 2020, 05:00:37 PM
Just thought I would throw up a rough design of what I'm planning for our living room railing and stairway to the basement. Not shown are the rails that will parallel the stairs heading down. Also, the posts on the stairs will look more like the ones supporting the railing in our living room on the main floor when all is said in done. But I'm still new to using sketchup after a career of working on $50,000 design software, and didn't want to try and figure out how to make everything look perfect. I just want to get the idea in my head so I have a plan when I go to start making things. I should mention, not shown will be a handrail above the top most pipe.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 13, 2020, 05:07:15 PM
I forgot to take a picture of my new tile saw but after using it for 2/3's of today, I really like it. My only complain was that I had assume it was corded when in fact it was battery operated and only came with one battery which was a different brand than all my other battery operated tools. So one charge didn't quite last me the whole day. Fortunately I started late and was willing to quit just after I made my last cut which killed the battery. I have ordered another battery and that should be here in a couple days and then I should be good to go.

My spouse and kids were off shopping for supplies in case we need to spend a few weeks at home so I took the opportunity of doing the tiling above the gas fired stove while nobody was here to use it. I got it done except for a few small pieces to fill in gaps right next to the stove trim. I'm hoping with the extra battery, I can knock out the rest below the upper cabinets in one more day and then seal everything so I don't end up with a repeat of the disaster that our contractor had, before grouting and then sealing again. But the sealing and grouting steps don't take all that long so it shouldn't be as disruptive as spending the day setting tile. Then I can rehang our exhaust hood, this time permanently, and put on all the trim which thus far is taking up wall space in our bedroom.

It was too late in the evening to get a good picture of the tile but I'll try grabbing a better one during the next day of tiling.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on March 14, 2020, 07:18:03 AM
Ahhhh, the backsplash tile looks so much better than the darker stuff before!
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 14, 2020, 04:08:00 PM
NaN - Absolutely it does which is why it was Plan A in the beginning. We are very happy with it. Now if I can just seal, grout and seal it without destroying it.

I did three more batches of thinset and tile setting this morning and got on both sides of the stove and around the corner to the sink. All that is left is under the window behind the sink and an area to the right of the sink about the same size as the area to the left of the sink. It went pretty easy. I also took a picture of my new tile saw that I mentioned and have been using for this project. My old one I had to fill the blade cooling reservoir between every cut and then wear a rain jacket or get wet with the spray. This one controls the splashing so well and has a much larger reservoir so that I haven't had to fill up the reservoir at all until the next morning when I start again. This morning when it was cold and snowing outside, I just ran it in the garage which I would never have done with the old one. It felt kind of luxurious.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 18, 2020, 08:06:55 AM
Day 3 of (many) in statewide lock down, I did get all the tile grouted yesterday. Today I'm letting it fully cure and then tomorrow I hope to seal it and put the vent hood back up, do some caulking and wrap up the kitchen project. I think I will do some flooring today just to kill time and since I have everything I need already. Not sure what I will be doing when that is all done and everything is still closed. I may have to get creative building things out of scrap wood in the shop.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 19, 2020, 06:42:20 AM
The flooring I did yesterday while killing time waiting for grout to cure. I have been fretting about this particular part of merging the kitchen flooring on the backside of the wall with the hallway flooring in the background and the dining room flooring in the foreground and getting it all to wrap around the stairway in the living room. It actually went pretty easy. Now it is easy sailing as I just have long runs of flooring with nothing to go around until I finish the living and dining rooms. But that is going to wait while I seal the grout today and start putting the finishing touches on the kitchen.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 20, 2020, 09:24:36 AM
Finished! More or less anyway. I still have some touchup painting to do at a future date when I get more done on the rest of the house and I can touch up multiple spots at once before having to clean out the brush. I was able to get a couple coats of sealer on the backsplash and get it caulked yesterday. I then hung up the hood vent for the final time and put all the guards on it from their spots this past winter in out bedroom. I am SO glad to be done with this project. I still have some flooring to do yet and have to redo the stair railings so I may post some of those pictures in here when completed later on but I think I may take a few days break and just relax for awhile. Relaxing time seems to be in plentiful supply these days.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: former player on March 20, 2020, 12:42:31 PM
That is a lovely kitchen: both practical and pretty.  Congratulations on such an excellent result for all your hard work, and I hope you and yours are able to enjoy it for many years.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on March 20, 2020, 01:57:19 PM
I now have serious pot filler envy. You sure got a lot of bang for your buck! It looks awesome! Congratulations!

Erm, do you have any backsplash left?
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 22, 2020, 11:03:38 AM
Erm, do you have any backsplash left?

I ended up with one extra box. I'm not sure what I will do with it. Perhaps I will use it as accent pieces somewhere.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Dicey on March 22, 2020, 01:15:17 PM
Erm, do you have any backsplash left?

I ended up with one extra box. I'm not sure what I will do with it. Perhaps I will use it as accent pieces somewhere.
PM sent.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: NaN on March 22, 2020, 05:45:36 PM
Awesome kitchen! Definitely relax and enjoy it. It is quite impressive. Congratulations on finishing.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Roots&Wings on March 23, 2020, 06:34:29 AM
Stunning! Glad everything turned out so well in the end.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Frugal Lizard on March 23, 2020, 09:13:13 AM
Beautiful
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: coffeefueled on March 24, 2020, 06:49:11 AM
Looks great. I'm still working on mine in bits and pieces, but I'm down to toekicks and other molding and eventually adding floating wood shelves. It's inspiring to see yours complete.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on March 24, 2020, 07:59:33 AM
Looks great. I'm still working on mine in bits and pieces, but I'm down to toekicks and other molding and eventually adding floating wood shelves. It's inspiring to see yours complete.

I'm hoping to see some pictures of yours when completed.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: lthenderson on June 02, 2020, 01:29:57 PM
This doesn't really have to do with the kitchen project other than part of the kitchen project was to redo all our floors with hardwood which then meant doing something about the stairway railing which we decided to redo to get a more modern look. Since I posted a few pictures of my plan earlier in this thread, I thought I would update it one last time with what I ended up with. I finished it several weeks ago but have been busy doing other projects before the summer heat sets in.

I ended up just buying 1/2" ID steel gas pipe and cutting the lengths to size with an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. I sanded all the surface rust spots that they inevitably have, cleaned all the oils from them, primed and painted using enamel stove paint. All the posts were just made from poplar which was the cheapest. They are hollow. I bought some steel posts with a square metal flange welded on one end at the big box store meant for deck railings with cables. I screwed these down into the floor structure and then slid my hollow wooden posts over the top and screwed through them into the metal posts. I covered up those fasteners with the trim. The hardest part was figuring out how to drill the pipe holes for the posts going down the stairs. A hole saw worked best but wasn't nearly long enough to work with a jig to get the correct angle. So I ended up using a forstner bit in the jig to get the holes most of the way drilled. The forstner bit tended to drop off on the inside of the hole when most of the bit head had punched through so the tail end of the hole wasn't true. But a few seconds with a coarse circle wood rasp was all I needed to get the hole trued up so that the pipe could slip in. Since I have a handrail and the pipes were merely for decoration, I epoxied only one end of the pipe into the post. I tried pulling one back out and couldn't so hopefully that will stand the test of time, or at least the time I have left in this house.

Never done a railing like this so it was a great learning experience. It was a lot of work getting all the angles and measurements to work out so it looked right. I'm glad I did it but hope I don't have to repeat this project anytime soon.
Title: Re: Kitchen Addition/Remodel
Post by: Frugal Lizard on June 02, 2020, 02:46:07 PM
looks very sharp!