Month: February 2010

Our cabinet guy arrived about 9:30 this morning and we bombarded him with problems right off the bat.

I mentioned that the tile guy, erhm, sort of tiled our floor crooked, right? Well, the cabinet guy will now have to compensate for that when he puts the cabinets in so that they line up with the grout line.

I don’t think he was too happy about that.

Then he told us that the pipes that Kevin shortened (Kevin chopped the shut-off valves off because they were leaking and it would be easier on the cabinet guy to have them off so he wouldn’t have to knock a huge hole out of the back to make room for the plumbing) were too short – he needed to add another length of pipe to it. So Kevin had an unexpected project that he needed to get done right away and he wasn’t too happy about that because he needed to get back to work, but you know, it is what it is.

Then, the cabinet guy called me in to tell me that the floor was sloped on the opposite wall (naturally) and that that would affect how we put in the back splash. (He just wanted to tell me so we didn’t blame him later).

And in the middle of all of this, Kevin had to shut off the water so he could fix the pipes (I was doing dishes – fun) and I ended up fielding two phone calls at the same time – one from our new appliance guy and one from the charity that we’ve asked to come by and get our old appliances.

I have felt like a juggler living in a fun house today – juggling all sorts of things at the same time and dealing with a crooked house that is giving us nothing but issues, issues, ISSUES!

*SIGH*

I’m so glad this project is nearly finished – I’m sure you’ll be glad, too. 😀

However, I peeked at the work done so far and OMG, I have to tell you, I am LOVING THE CABINETS!!! And I am totally digging the doors. I can’t wait to show you guys. (I’ll take before and after pictures soon.)

Kevin’s dad came over to take a look at our floor last night. We had gone out for some Chinese food and when we returned, he was busy studying our new floor. He’s actually built some houses before so he knows what he’s talking about and is pretty experienced in fixing problems. (Not that that implies he caused problems when he built houses, only that he has experience … oh never mind).

He told us the tile issue wasn’t the worst he’s ever seen (he was probably being nice), but he gave Kevin some ideas on how “they” (I think it made Kevin feel better that his dad was willing to help him out) could fix it. I’m so grateful that J came over because he seemed to calm Kevin down quite a bit.

Kevin doesn’t get upset very often, but when he does, it’s not pretty.

As the tweet above says, we’re pretty sure that whoever built this house was drunk at the time because wow, our kitchen is OFF. It’s off by two inches on one wall and the floor slopes downward on the other wall. So either this old house has done some serious settling or someone had one too many “refreshments” when they were measuring.

Either way, it’s been frustrating to try and work around. All I know is, I don’t know what I would have done without Kevin and his dad – if it had just been me dealing with this issue (HA! Yeah right, I would have moved than deal with a remodeling project like this on my own), I don’t think I could have handled it.

That makes me sound weak, let me rephrase that – I COULD have handled it, but I’d most likely be 10 pounds lighter from the stress if I had.

On second thought, maybe I should take the initiative and take control of this project – I could stand to lose ten pounds.

Anyway, between manipulating the cabinets and fudging the trim a bit, I think we can make this work. No one will be the wiser – well, except for the entire Internet, but you know what I mean.

The big stuff on this project is nearly over. Our new appliances will be delivered tomorrow and once we have our old appliances hauled off, Kevin will be able to use his side of the garage again.

I’m REALLY ready to have my house back. I’m getting pretty tired of having all of these strange men running around. Oh wait, we still have the counter top guys coming in to measure their template – I forgot about them. We’ll be using our old counter top (Kevin made them so we were able to salvage them) in the meantime.

But after THAT, things should slowly start getting back to normal. We plan on painting and doing the back splash last and I can’t wait to “tweak” things a bit and make them look pretty. I’m planning on throwing out a lot of junk and cleaning things up a bit so everything that goes into our new cabinets will be stuff that we actually need and use.

After being in this house for almost 18 years – we have a LOT of crap to get rid of.

And ladies and gentlemen, we have FLOOR!

The tile guys, (it was a father / son combo – how cute, right??) came over on Monday. They finished up late last night. I can’t believe how fast they got it done! They did our kitchen, utility room and the pantry. Kevin cut a hole in our pantry floor so he would have indoor access to our crawl space (clever, right??), and the guy was able to tile that door and make it look uniform with the rest of the floor.

He really did a beautiful job.

Our tile is called “nutmeg” and it looks like the spice – it’s brown with dark swirls. Kevin is not crazy about the swirls, and they’re growing on me, but I think they give it character and I’m okay with it. (The sample we saw didn’t have the swirls. Here’s a tip to anyone shopping for tile – look at more than one square). It also has a “distressed” feel to it and yes, we’re doing our kitchen in “earthy” tones.

Overall, we’re pretty happy with our floor.

There’s only one problem.

It’s not straight.

Apparently, our room is crooked. There is one wall that actually slopes inward and there’s a whole inch difference. Only, the tile guy didn’t realize this until it was too late (he shouldn’t have assumed the room would be all one size – older houses are often crooked due to settling, etc. However, lesson learned on his part). So the tile along that one wall (the left wall in the picture – I cut it off because it’s so embarrassing) are not straight. In fact, they gradually shrink to a sliver by the end of the wall.

To say Kevin was NOT happy would be putting it mildly. See, he’s done tiling – lots of tiling, so he KNOWS how it’s done and he can’t understand why the guy didn’t begin in the middle of the room and work outward as opposed to starting on one wall. It has really bugged and upset him. So today, he called the company we bought the tile from and he, and our tile guy, came over at lunch today to “discuss” it.

Though Kevin had a valid complaint and the guy really needed to see what he did wrong and why it’s unacceptable, I felt sorry for the dude. Here he is, his boss on one side, his customer on the other side and he’s having to juggle both defending himself and admitting he shouldn’t have assumed the room was an even rectangle.

I just awkwardly stood to one side and wished the new floor would suddenly crack and swallow me whole.

At any rate, we’re going to talk to the cabinet guy tomorrow and see if he can’t fudge one side of the cabinets about an inch to make it line up with the floor. And between the cabinets and the fridge, most of that side of the floor will be covered. However, there is one area that will be noticeable and the tile guy said to call him when our cabinets were in and he would come back over and manipulate some trim so that he can hide that one small part that is visible.

I’m honestly okay with this. It’s not the guy’s problem that our room is crooked and even though he might have done things differently, he honestly thought it would look better this way and as I said, the rest of the room just looks fantastic. (Now if this had been an issue along the right wall, then I would have had a BIG problem with it because that side? Will be nearly all open and very visible). And we can cover this – no one will be the wiser. But Kevin is still pretty upset about all of this. THIS is the biggest reason why he does things himself – because he knows it will get done right and will be done to his expectations.

At any rate, we’ll fix this. I’m confident our cabinet guy will get us taken care of (we can’t be the only house that has crooked walls) and it’s going to look fantastic.

I’m expecting the cabinet guy to be here for about three days. We’re going to call our appliance guys so they can deliver our new appliances on Friday.

We found a charitable organization that might take all of our old appliances off our hands, I hope.

In the meantime, we no longer have to walk outside and around the house to get to our fridge, which is in the garage – we can walk on our new kitchen floor and THAT is really satisfying.

I think our kitchen is now fully gutted.

The tile is gone.

The backer boards are up (thank GOD. What a process).

Kevin sawed our faucets off, capped them, and then replaced the flooring yesterday. He capped the pipes because:

1. The hardware was rusted and the shut-off valves were leaking.

2. To avoid having to punch a huge hole in our new cabinets to make room for the new hardware. Now, all the cabinet guy has to do is make two small holes and fit the cabinet down over the pipes. Then Kevin can take the caps off and put our new hardware on.

Isn’t he smart?!

(Actually, that wasn’t his idea – that was the plumber’s idea. Shh).

And speaking of the plumber:

The guy came over on Friday to give us an estimate on the plumbing work – i.e. running a line to our fridge for the ice maker.

Even though Kevin can do this, he really doesn’t have the time, nor the energy, quite frankly, to fool with it. So, we’re going to hire the plumber to do it. And even though the plumber offered to do the rest of our plumbing jobs for us (i.e. hook the garbage disposer back up), Kevin is going to do that to save us some money.

Because as usual, they wanted to charge too much.

Kevin also crawled under the house to brace the floor. After he did it, he wasn’t sure it was necessary, but now our floor is doubly reinforced.

While under the house, he noticed we had mold. He’s been struggling with trying to keep the underside of our house dry for years (putting in a sump pump, which helped, but still doesn’t quite do what he wants it to do) as our house is sort of on a slope and when it rains heavily, it’s like a river under our house.

Now we’ll have to research how to get rid of mold so we’re not breathing toxic fumes.

It’s always something, isn’t it?

I vacuumed down the walls yesterday. They were coated with dust and I won’t even tell you how many cobwebs we had – it’s quite embarrassing. But suffice it to say, I think they are clean enough to put primer on – which is what we have planned for today.

Kevin wants to paint the ceiling and I’m going to paint the underside of the soffits because they’re black and quite nasty.

I want to get those painted before the cabinets go in. I think, with the boys’ help, we can get all of that done fairly quickly.

We’re also moving the rest of our crap out today – the fridge, the range, the table with all the junk on it, and the washer and dryer.

Our utility room sits right off our kitchen and leads out to the garage. We’re going to have that room, as well as the pantry, tiled tomorrow.

That’s really all we have planned for today. I think we’ve gotten to the point where we are sick to death of this project, but we’re on the downhill slope now. The kitchen has been gutted, now it’s time to put it back together again.

We will be without a range and a washer and dryer for several days. This means we’ll be forced to eat out, though I’ll probably cook something in the crockpot one day and Kevin might grill something so we can save some money, but quite frankly, I’m now behind in my work, Kevin still has a job to go to and honestly? Eating out is easier and less messy so it’s a viable option right now.

We’re going to plug our fridge up in the garage so we’ll have a way to keep our food from spoiling while we wait for our new fridge to be delivered and hooked up. We plan on getting rid of the range, the washer / dryer and the fridge this week sometime. I’m going to call some charities (I think Kevin mentioned that the Boys’ Club was interested) so that they can take those items off our hands.

Kevin’s parents have graciously offered us Nanny’s (Kevin’s grandmother who passed away several months ago) washer and dryer, which are virtually brand new, so that will save us some money having to purchase new ones.

All of our appliances are fifteen years old and older and on the verge of conking out. In fact, we couldn’t have timed this renovation better because honestly, it was time for an overhaul (our dishwasher died the last time I used it).

Tile guys are scheduled to be here first thing in the morning. We’re really looking forward to getting that done and we’re praying we picked out something that will look good and we can live with for many, many, MANY years because trust me when I say, we will NEVER do another kitchen renovation again, at least, in our lifetime.

This has been a major pain in the butt and it’s not over yet. BUT, I think our hardest part is nearly over and we can sit back and allow others to put it back together for us.