Kitchen remodeling

26. Tying Up Loose Ends

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There are a lot of loose ends lying around this blog and this post aims to tie some of them up into bows.
Back in July I posted eight kitschy items of Clara’s for readers to pick their favorites. The results are in, and except for the orange telephone, which was the clear favorite with eight votes, the rest of the results are inconclusive.  (There were  two suggestions to put it in the bathroom by the toilet!)

I don’t know…the bathroom was going to be the most elegant room in the cottage…

Does anyone know of a way to retrofit an old phone to be a cell phone? Wouldn’t it be cool if we could actually get it to work?
Five items tied with six votes each: The wooden butterflies, the owl switch plate, the orange metal shelf, the pantry sign, and the old California license plate.  I don’t see any recourse but to keep them all (which is what sister Diane told me to do anyway.)


The only item that no one liked — correction: it did get one vote — was the plaque with the dorky poem.
I hate to admit this because I know it is stupidly banal, but I like it. I didn’t at first. When I was taking down all the junk by the front door, it was supposed to be the first thing to go. But I couldn’t take it down; I like its sentiment and its sentimentality. Maybe it could go by the toilet too.

For six weeks now the cat, Henry, has been traveling back and forth with us. He has adapted to life in the city as a house cat fairly well. He has discovered the joys of playing with the bedspread fringe; tearing through the hall and sliding on the wood floor; canned cat food (he only gets this as a treat in Pittsburgh); and sitting on the stool looking out the window.
He has not adapted to the drive back and forth. He has now ridden up and back with us six times, which actually totals twelve different rides. Each time we think, ‘This is the time he’s going to remember’ and each time we are wrong.
He does seem to do better on the rides back to Pittsburgh, and tonight’s ride was the best yet. He actually curled up in my lap for ten minutes. Maybe he’s figured it out!
Yes, Charlotte was gone when we came back the next weekend. We both miss watching her and then feel a bit silly —
How can you miss a spider?
We are actually hoping we get to see all Charlotte’s children fly off in their parachutes this spring.
The Smell is Gone
Every time we opened the doors to the kitchen for the first time after the house had been closed up for a few days there was an unpleasant smell. Mustiness? Mildew? Cat pee? (Not Henry!) Mouse droppings? We couldn’t be sure. Oh, people were nice about it. Sisters said, “I don’t smell anything.” But we could smell something rotten in that kitchen… There were varying theories. Michael said it was the carpet. Carol said it was the cabinets. Michael said it was the floor. Carol said it was the walls. Etc.
Remember a few posts ago when I told you about taking down the wall cabinet and how delighted we were because it lightened up the kitchen so much?  Well we are doubly delighted because it has eliminated the smell!  No one is sure how or why, but we aren’t going to analyze it too much. We are just happy to stop using the Febreze!
Of course, part of the reason the smell may be disappearing is:
In addition to adding several new finish coats of paint, Michael also put up two lights. So, of course, there have to be some new pictures.

New painted ceiling and two of the four schoolhouse light fixtures. Notice the one by the door has a pull chain! Cool, huh? And very 40s!

Another reason the smell might be lessening is because I have been scrubbing the kitchen walls. They were covered with dried wallpaper paste (and who knows what else?) so in preparation for repairing them, I’ve been doing serious scrubbing. It is very much like work. But the color of the walls is kind of a nice mint green… I haven’t ruled out that color yet; I think it is very 40s too. Any thoughts?

I titled this photo “Lovely kitchen to be…”

If one squints the eyes, one can almost imagine that this corner of the kitchen is finished. Yes, this is the “after photo burnt into my brain.” The paint sample on the door is the current favorite — Benjamin Moore Lime Twist. And you can also see in this photo how nicely the old wooden top fits on the built-in cupboard. It looks like it was always there.

Kitchen Cabinet Hardware

The cabinet hardware was expensive and not easily put on. The holes didn’t match, so I had to drill new holes. Then once the new holes were drilled, the nuts weren’t long enough to go through the thick doors. It’s always something… I don’t have them all on yet, because, as Michael pointed out, we will have to take the doors back off to install the cabinets anyway, so…here’s the picture of a cabinet with finishings.

This is the cabinet that will go above the stove and have a fan installed underneath.

It is officially fall; the light is fading and there is less and less time to work. We’ve got some outside painting that has to get done to protect the wood, so kitchen work will stop for a couple of weeks, while we tend to the outside. Even though the light is fading, it is beautiful light. I read once that photographers like the light in spring and autumn the best, because the sun hits the earth at an angle and makes shadows. Here is proof: this picture was taken on the first official day of fall. These shadows lasted for about a minute and a half and I just happened to be on the porch.


Happy fall!

25. The ceiling is up and divorce is narrowly averted…

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There were only two of us who showed up to work this weekend, and the grunt laborer should have called in sick. The pay isn’t good enough to work through sneezing, coughing, nose running, head aching, sore throat type of days. But this is no union job, as Mr. Homeworks Contracting reminded her several times.

There were four days to get the job finished. It was already a week behind schedule (lumber shortages), so when the truck pulled in with thirty 14 foot pine boards strapped to the roof, everyone was ecstatic.
Fourteen foot boards are long. Very long. Picture the old Three Stooges episode with Curly carrying a board, turning around, and hitting Moe in the head… Each of these thirty 14-foot boards got moved at least nine times during this project. When the laborer complained that we were moving the boards a lot, Mr. Homeworks Contracting got huffy. Mr. HC got huffy at least nine times during this project; the laborer complained — whined even — at least ninety-times-nine times during this project…

So, the laborer thinks, The wood is delivered, let’s get this stuff up and call it a day and have a beautiful new ceiling.

Hah, that’s why the laborer doesn’t get paid the big bucks!

First, Mr. HC goes over the boards with a fine tooth micro-lens to detect knots, holes, and the tiniest indentations. Each spot is circled and wood putty is put on the small problems, bondo for the bigger holes. The repairs have to dry and then be sanded. The entire boards are then sanded with fine grit sandpaper.


Then the boards are moved to a new spot and primed. Then the boards are moved to a new spot and sanded again. Then the boards are moved to a new spot and…wait, am I repeating myself? There are thirty boards. It’s a small house. We covered the front yard,the back porch,

and the living room.

It took three days of prep time before we could even think of putting them up onto the ceiling. Here are boards painted with the first finish coat of Sherwin Williams Steamed Milk semi-gloss latex. Of course, they had to be moved again — outside to the saw — and cut to the correct length.

So far you have only heard the board story; the ceiling story is bad too. Of course, it isn’t level. It’s an old house and the kitchen is not exactly on a foundation — more like attached to the foundation. Shims take a long time to put up. Luckily the laborer was busy painting and whining while the supervisor was quietly putting up shims and trying to not fire the laborer.

Anguish for Mr. HC who has to have everything straight within 1/16 of an inch.

Monday morning dawned early. It was a beautiful sunrise and the work crew was ready.

By this point, all expectations of finishing the job were gone; but here’s the point of this entire post: Prep work takes patience (I think I’ve mentioned before that I might be somewhat lacking in the patience department…) but if it’s done correctly, then the finish work goes quickly! Mr. HC has enough contractor experience to know this; the laborer is still learning.

We worked well as a team on Monday (finally). Of course, the team effort had Mr. HC cutting the boards, as well as air nailing them in place. It was also his bright idea to wax the boards so the tongue would slide easily into the groove. All the laborer did was hold up her 7-foot part of the board and pound it in place. Mr. HC also invented a nifty little gadget to help hold the boards up in the middle. This gizmo went all the way to the floor and had foam attached to the top so it will hold the board in place without scratching the finish.

At 4:30 we were having celebratory glasses of wine while looking at our new ceiling, all complaining, whining, nitpicking, and disagreements behind us.

Just in case you forgot what the old ceiling looked like:

Before:

Before

And the fabulous new ceiling:

new wood ceiling

Ceiling boards, $350 from Wayne Lumber

 

Critics often accuse blogs of painting pictures of life that are too rosy, too upbeat, and too unrealistic. Not this post; this one is warts and all. It wasn’t an easy weekend, and there wasn’t much laughter. So what did we learn?

  1. Expectations ruin everything — and this includes all of life: work, play, marriage, relationships, friendships, sickness, health, future plans, you name it. Get rid of ’em.
  2. Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue…
  3. Silence is a virtue too. Don’t whine. Don’t get huffy. Put in earphones.
  4. Call in sick when necessary.
  5. Love each other and forgive. A glass of wine helps; if you don’t drink wine, practice hugs.
  6. Celebrate together. Hurray, we have a new, gorgeous ceiling!

(My husband’s name is Mr. Homeworks Contracting and he approved this message.)

2. The Sanding Queen

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Fast forward to April/May of this year. A lot of stuff happened in between, and we’ll get to that in later posts, but for now, we are working on the kitchen. As in taking out walls–that’s a later post too–but for the past few weekends, I’ve been sanding. Not just smoothing rough edges, but taking off 4 coats of paint and the original varnish of kitchen cabinets. Oh did we dither about kitchen cabinets! They are so expensive, and I want white. The white cabinets that one can purchase at the BB stores are not wood; laminate, thermofoil, melamine, lacquer, acrylic–they have all sorts of fancy names and initials for what is really just junkboard. I’m a purist; I like real; I like old; I like authentic. So I wanted wood cabinets. The unfinished cabinets at Home Depot and Lowe’s were oak. It seemed a shame to buy oak cabinets and paint them white… So we haunted the Habitat for Humanity Restores in Washington and Edgewood and Construction Junction in Point Breeze. It took several visits in all places–and we found some other cool stuff in the meantime–but one day we came upon Really Ugly Cabinets. They were so ugly, we almost passed them right by.

Looks like a square robot from The Flintstones to me…

But when we stopped and figured it out, they were almost a perfect fit for the sizes of cabinets that we needed. Straight out of the early fifties–made from sandable birch plywood all through. They weren’t quite the doors I wanted, but for $225 they will work. Since we saved so much money on cabinets, the plan now is to buy really expensive countertops!

So now I am the sanding queen. You know the song. Unfortunately the only words I know are the sanding queen, da da da da da, she’s the sanding queen, da da da da da da the sanding queen. I didn’t even know it was an Abba song until I saw Mamma Mia! with Meryl Streep. But in my defense, it probably came out in the late seventies, early eighties when I was busy with babies.

I made the mistake of putting stripper on the first one. Oh, it worked okay, but it was very messy. Turns out, the coats of paint were put on right over the varnish, (NO PRIMER!) and they just peel right off with a scraper, which is much easier!!! 4 different colors–grey, red, lavender, green, and then the varnish. Any takers for those porcelain eyeballs?

We set up my cabinet shop on the side of the back porch until this past weekend when the temperatures soared into the nineties. I moved into the air conditioned comfort of the living room and Michael hooked up the sanders to a vac. It’s a complicated system of hoses and extension cords and duct tape. He’s done it for me twice now, and the last time I was supposed to be paying attention so I could do it myself next time. I think I’ve got it. The biggest problem is that the two main sanders I use have different sizes of exhaust holes and I have to figure out which one goes where with what vacuum hose and they all get entangled with the extension cords. But Michael was the original Mr. Tool Guy–and he can always rescue me. The best part about the vacuum is that I can take off my breather mask! Always wear your safety glasses (AWYSG).

Just for variety, I’m also sanding the four doors to the built-in kitchen cupboard in the corner.

These doors have antiquing from the seventies, bright orange paint, and then two layers of green. On both sides!

Here’s a better picture–you can really appreciate the color.

I have also learned about grit. The lower the number on sandpaper the rougher it is. For instance, if one is taking off 4 layers of paint, one wants to choose 80 grit or below. Once the piece is down to bare wood, 180 or 220 is for finishing and making the wood really smooth. I’ve been liking the little “Mouse” sander that has a point and gets into corners. (Michael just returned from HD this evening as I am writing this with a new sander for me. A square “finish” sander. He said it was for me, but the second sentence out of his mouth was “I’ve never ever had a finish sander.”)

BEFORE

Michael must have been jealous of all the fun I was having sanding, because he got into the act also. Last fall we bought a big table at the Restore for $35.00 — a great deal. It’s been sitting in the living room with a table cloth over it (protecting the beautiful finish!) I was planning on staining or painting the top dark, dark green and calling it an old reclaimed table. But just see what Michael the carpenter can do–(even without a finish sander).

AFTER

Now my old reclaimed table idea has to be rethunk! I’m not sure what to do with it now. Michael likes natural finishes, but I sort of wanted it to be dark. I went to look at all the stains, but just couldn’t decide yet. That’s for another day when inspiration hits.

Sanding is boring. The arm gets tired. The sander is loud. The vacuum is louder. The back starts to hurt. The mind wanders. There’s plenty of time for thinking, for praying, for counting blessings, for wondering, for comparing sanding to real life. Cleaning off layers of grime, old paint, and junk to expose the beautiful wood beneath. That’s what trying to live a holy life is like, isn’t it? Always we’re scraping off the gunk that the world leaves on us. Some of it’s been there for years–applied incorrectly, but still it sticks until we really try to scrape it off. And, oh boy, is it hard to get out of the corners! I’m thinking of the book I read last year called Somewhere More Holy by Tony Woodlief. It is some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read; he talks about home being where the sacred and the mundane meet when we search for God in the small everyday things–like sanding, like cleaning, like taking something ugly and reclaiming it. Next weekend I’m going to be sanding again. And the week after. And the week after. I’m sure I’ll tire of it. I just have to keep remembering what the finished product will be. Beautiful. Free of gunk. As good as I can make it. And I’ll post some pictures.