Kitchen Work Continues

I think it's been a while since you got an update, but I assure you we have been working.

Troy got the oil stove installed in the kitchen and what a difference it has made. In a case of perfect timing, we got our first snow the day after he got it in! It is still a very foreign feeling to walk into the kitchen and have it be warm; and for a day or two, actually too hot! Big change.

It's very gratifying to feel the effect of the insulation already. Even though the oil stove made a big different last year, the kitchen was never actually warm. Just not freezing. I can't wait to move the table and chairs into the room (or even better, to install a booth) because it is by far the most comfortable room and right now we can't really sit in it!

We've continued the mudding and sanding of the drywall in the kitchen. I made a rookie mistake and did some final sanding this morning without changing the sand paper. So...I did more mudding today to fix the mistake.

I also capped and mudded the last of the insulation holes:

If I hadn't had to mud this morning, I may have been able to paint. Paint!! I can barely believe we're that far. I need to put one coat on the all the drywall before we put in the cabinets. And Troy is really pushing, so I may yet do the areas behind the cabinets tonight. We'll see...

And speaking of cabinets, they have been patiently waiting in the shop.

But they haven't just been sitting there. I had to move them again today. Troy has been dying to order a lathe for the last while. (He can tell you exactly how long...) He finally saved enough to do it and was told that it would be a couple months before the company was able to ship it, so he went ahead and "pulled the trigger" about two weeks ago. Imagine his surprise when he got an email on Wednesday that his lathe has shipped!

What does this have to do with cabinets? Well, Troy needs the tractor to unload the beast. The tractor is parked in the shop. In the shop behind 19 cabinets. I spent the first part of my afternoon moving them over to the other side of the shop. They like to get around. The base cabinets have been moved into the kitchen and then back into the shop. The uppers have been set up in the shop and then stacked back up. And now they all have jumped over about 20 feet to the south. Except the corner base cabinet. (The one we had to remove the front door to get into the house.) It has moved to the kitchen and stayed put. Must be a little lazy.

Another thing that Troy has been working on is the "bump out" that he needs to build to support the cabinet above the fridge. I don't think you can see it, but this corner is covered in his scribbles and plans for exactly how it needs to be done.

The fridge will fit into this nook but the cabinet needs to be further out than where the back wall is currently. So he basically has to build a hollow box that is the exact size of the cabinet. Sounds simple, but there's always more to it than you think.

No update tomorrow. I will be wrapping up the haunting season with the annual pizza party. (More work than fun, unfortunately.) But I'm starting to believe I will survive this season. Three more work days and things should get back to what counts as normal.

Taking Stock

In August I presented the following list of what we had to do in the kitchen:

Before winter sets in, we would like to:
1. rough in plumbing for sink, tap over stove, and island sink
2. put in propane line for stove
3. remove pipes from old boiler heat [about 75% done; Troy takes them out now as they get in his way]
4. level floor
5. put in subfloor
6. rough in wiring, including power for island
7. install or at least rough in stove vent
8. put up vapour barrier
9. put up drywall
10. blow insulation into walls [still may need to do one more time but Troy's pretty sure we're not and he's calling the shots. Why would I argue against that?]
11. put foam insulation on ceiling
12. drywall on ceiling
13. install tile on floor where the oil stove will go
14. install oil stove and new oil storage tank

After that we can (listed in no particular order):
15. final measure and order cabinets
16. install cabinets
17. install cabinet lights
18. remove paneling from wall
19. install counters (including island)
20. install broom closet behind fridge
21. build bench for booth
22. tile back splash
23. install wood flooring
24. install ceiling lights
25. trim window [plywood box is done; we're tiling around the window and not adding wood trim]
26. run telephone wire

Wow! I crossed more off that list than I thought I would. The reason that I was thinking of this list again is that we made another list today. More detailed and including things we want to get done very soon.

• one more coat of mud on drywall that will be painted
• seal joint between walls and ceiling
• close upper insulation holes
• prime drywall
• finish electric hookups
• buy plywood for shims and counters
• shims below cabinets
• install base cabinets
• install oven including converting it to propane and connecting the propane
• install dishwasher
• install plywood for countertop
• tile back splash
• apply laminate to countertop
• install sink
• inventory insulation and purchase more as necessary
• install ceiling joists and insulation on west half
• build partial wall for cabinet above fridge
• install upper cabinets
• install oil stove (which involves many steps I didn't get from Troy; more on that below)

Does that make you as tired as me? Probably not. It's all pretty exciting stuff though--counters! sinks! heat! an oven! I promise once the oven is in you may invite yourself over for dinner anytime and I will gladly make you lasagne or a casserole or shepherd's pie or meatloaf or any other oven dish with pie for dessert!

Besides making the list, what were we up to today? Troy is working on the oil stove. He is not going to just re-install it the way it was. (Those who were here in the last few years may remember the five gallon gas can set up in the kitchen. Very classy.) First, he is going to replace the five gallon can with a 55 gallon drum. He is tired of having to refill the can every two days and/or having the heat run out in the middle of the day. The 55 gallon drum will let the oil stove run a lot longer (obviously) and will even give us heat in the house when we leave for a few days.

The drum is not, however, going to sit in the kitchen. Troy is building a closet to hold it in a corner of the foyer. A pipeline will run from there to the stove and he promises it will be very slick.

While he was working on that, I first cleaned said oil stove as it still had cement splattered all over it from when we poured the floor and a lot of dust. Next up was mudding drywall in a learn-by-doing session. (It was my first time.) I did screws, insulation holes, a couple outside corners and an inside corner. Troy had already done one layer on everything. Troy evaluated my work as very good, but I think he just wants me to take over the job for from him. A lot of this drywall will not be visible (under cabinets or tile) or behind the fridge, but I tried not to let that affect the quality of my work.

Also today, we bought tile to go under the oil stove and up the chimney behind it. Tile was on sale at Menards and since I knew what I wanted, we went ahead and bought it. (I tried to add a picture to Pinterest, but it's not working right (again). You can check if I've gotten the picture up yet by the time you're reading this.)

The tile was one that is available with a new (?) "Snapgrid" system so that all your tiles snap together with perfect spacing. Troy, however, does not trust this system because it floats the tiles above the floor and doesn't stick them down. When I asked if they had something similar but without the Snapgrid, they said, "Oh yeah, you can order the same tile without it." When he looked up the price, it was less than half! Gotta love it when you get a product you prefer and get to pay less for it!

We're not sure yet if we'll install it before we put in the oil stove, but since we'll have it we may just go ahead. (I stopped worrying about the timing of it when Troy told me that he can take the oil stove out in less than 15 minutes. That told me I could do the tiling any time--next summer if I had to!) We won't have the wood flooring done anyway and the chimney isn't at all ready for tiling.

All for tonight. Take care!