Kitchen – Anything Boys Can Do…

March 30, 2015

Fondue Fun

Well hey there! Thanks for dropping by. You’re probably thinking that I have abandoned the blog, but no, I have just been out there living life and haven’t had a whole lot of time to write about it!

So, a couple of updates from last time. I FINALLY got around to changing the locks on the entry doors to the house, and adding dead bolts. I hate to say this so publicly, but the door and lock situations to this point have been pretty sad. The locks were not much better than something you would put on your bedroom door. Ok, maybe not, because they were actually keyed locks, but the upper and lower had different keys, I never did figure out which key was for the lower one, and they had no dead bolts. Bad news, right? I’d purchased new Weiser Smart Key lock sets way back in December – like, Cristmas week. I also purchased a template/guide tool and drill set that helps you know exactly were to put the holes in the doors. Honestly, the worst part was figuring out exactly where to drill the hole in the door frame for the deadbolt to bolt into. It took several tries. I also had a defective dead bolt for the floor downstairs. I tried and tried, and the screws would not screw it together. Finally I took it back to Rona and the guy figured out that the threads that the screws have to screw into, to hold it together, were damaged. Picked up a replacement and, voila, new locks, and the smart key system allowed me to rekey the new deadbolt for downstairs to the same key as upstairs. Easy!

The next and greatest update is on the progress of the kitchen. Jimmy brought help and he and his buddy Stu got my wall taken down, beam installed, etc. last week. I the got Rich, the electrician, to come back in Friday and he finished wiring up the kitchen, appliances, etc. and changed out the electrical panel. By 9pm Friday evening everything was working… and I had a disaster of a house to ready for a dinner party!!

I was up and working by about 8:30 Saturday morning, and by 5:30 when the first of my friends arrived, it felt like a home in here, for really the first time since I moved in. Here are a couple of photos.

March 2, 2015

Floor to Ceiling

Ok, so we’re making some good progress on the kitchen! On Friday, I took the day off work to help Jim out with the drywall. Turned out, he also borrowed a drywall hoist from a friend, and it was magic. Seriously, made life so much easier… just place the sheet of drywall on it, crank the wheel, and it held it to the ceiling while you screwed the thing to the rafters.

On Saturday, I grouted the tiles in the kitchen. Here’s the in progress shot:

The colour of the grout was a tough choice… Jim was with me when I picked it out and we discussed a grey grout, and the one that I ended up choosing was called Bahama Beige… as you can see, it was really dark, like chocolate frosting, when it was wet, but when finished, it is a great colour match.

Today, Jim did the drywall on the walls. Yay! It is finally starting to look like a proper room again!

I can’t wait to have a kitchen again!!

February 24, 2015February 24, 2015

Let’s Do Laundry!

Who knew that one day I would actually look forward to doing laundry! I never would have thought it was possible, but let me tell you… after going 2 months without having a dryer installed, the fact that I now have one working may not quite be reason to celebrate, but it is definitely exciting enough to want to do laundry! On Friday, Rich finished drilling the hole through the cinder block wall, and installing the plug, so that I could finally use my new dryer. I don’t know if I mentioned it previously, but the day after I moved in I had my new Samsung laundry pair delivered. They are High Efficiency, Super Capacity machines and this time, instead of buying the front load machines, I got the top load washer. so far, so good! Seriously though, I can not fathom a family spending all of their lives without proper laundry machines. It is so incredibly convenient to have a dryer, and to know that you can quickly get your clothes, bedding, etc. clean and dry without having them hanging all over the basement.

Anyway, aside from that, I have some progress to report on the kitchen… the tile is pretty much all in place, except where the wall will be coming down, and I think that Jim is coming tomorrow (possibly with a mutual friend, Mark, to help) to do the drywall. So exciting! Here is an in progress photo of the tiles.

By next week, the cabinets should be in place so that I can order up the counter top, seeing as they’re going to take a few weeks to come in. In the meantime, Jim can finish up the other bits – like taking out the wall and putting in the beam.

Oh… my super fun purchase this weekend was these bar stools, which will sit at the island!

I think that’s it for now!

February 17, 2015February 24, 2015

Island Life

Hi guys,

Tuesday night after a long weekend, Leafs game is on – they just traded Franson and Santorelli today – and instead of giving it my attention I figured it’s time to post an update on what’s happening with the renovations.

With this past weekend being a long weekend, I was able to make some progress on a few things. On Friday night, my electrician, Rich, was still here when I got home from work, so we spent a bit of time talking about the renovation to the kitchen, the island configuration, etc. Unfortunately, the way the ceiling and rafters are configured, when I have the wall removed between the kitchen and living room, there will be a need to add 3 posts. Between the posts, I’ll position the island, but openings between the posts need to be about 36 inches to be to current building code. That pretty much dictates that the island is going to have to sit up against the two posts on the fridge side. I think that’ll be okay. Lowe’s was advertising 20% off this week, for the cabinets that I’d picked out for the island, so I ordered them. I also ordered a new exterior door for the ground (lower) floor. The door that is there now is not an entry door – it has no insulation value and really isn’t safe – so I took advantage of the $75 off sale for that, too. Those were delivered on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning was Valentine’s Day. Since I don’t officially have a Valentine, I swapped a few texts with some friends (and my crush) and then set about smashing down the wall between the kitchen and living room. Well, more specifically, opening up the wall. It was all cement/plaster over gypsum board, so lots of layers of mess and filth. I grabbed Stanley and started smashing away – including smashing one of my fingers and actuallly breaking the skin. I then had to bag up the mess and take it out to the garage. I’m really excited about how it’ll all look once it is taken down, because as of now it is already much brighter and sunnier…

I am not excited, however, by how much garbage is in my garage right now!

On Sunday morning, Rich showed up to finish up some loose ends. He also insulated the exterior wall of the kitchen – a very welcome task seeing as the temperature dropped to -40 that day with the wind chill. It was crazy cold. I actually headed over to the US (Buffalo) with my good friends Theresa and Rob for the day. Rich is going to come back another day and finish up installing a GFL plug for the washer, a new plug for my dryer (there wasn’t one) and also drilling a hole through the back of the house for the dryer vent. I can’t WAIT to have a dryer. It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve been able to do anything except hang dry my clothes! Then, he’ll have to come up for the final stage – switching over to the all new electrical panel.

Next step, hopefully tomorrow, Jim will have to put up the vapour barrier on the exterior wall and then start installing the new tile on the floors. I’m really thrilled with the tile choice… you never know for 100% sure how it’ll look when you’re just standing in a hardware store trying to imagine it with all of your other choices, but this one has lots of colour variations that will go great with my slate appliances and with the hardwood floors. It’s going to look great.

After the tile, Jim will do the drywall and then it’ll be time to actually start installing the cabinets, at which time I can take final measurements and order the countertop. Jimmy has a contact for that, so I might go to a little guy, instead of going through Home Depot. Oh, speaking of the Depot… I ordered my light for over the island and it was delivered today.

I’m planning to paint a red accent wall in the dining room, so this will coordinate well.

Ok, that’s about it for now. Leafs are already down 3-1 in the 2nd and it doesn’t look like they’re going to recover. Terrible! Time to go an fold some laundry. More in a few days!

February 9, 2015February 17, 2015

Little Things

Hi guys,

I know you are probably anxiously awaiting updates on the kitchen. Well… here is one photo of how it looks pretty gutted.

That’s my cute little fur ball, Pippa, doing an inspection of the demo. Notice that all of the bulkhead is gone. The floor was still in place there though. The next one is after Jimmy (and Stanley) smashed their way through the floors.

What a filthy, dusty mess that left. Like a giant litter box for the cat (thank God she didn’t see it that way!)

Tomorrow, my electrician will be here to start running the new lines for lighting, for the dishwasher, etc. Afterwards, Jim will have to insulate that wall and drywall it. I can’t wait to have a beautiful kitchen. I have been using Lowe’s virtual kitchen planner to plan the layout, so I know exactly what it will look like!

Besides the kitchen, I have been working on a few little things…

I went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore on Saturday, up in Brampton, and picked up a couple drying racks. These are made to screw into your ceiling and you can raise or lower them as needed. I bought two and installed one over the dryer and one over the laundry tub. I may not have as much need of them once the dryer is running, but for only $15 each, they were totally worth it!

Yesterday, I decided to take on a task that I’d been wanting to do for a while… install a programmable thermostat. I was fortunate, a year or so ago, to pick one up for almost nothing (under $2) when Rona was going out of business near me and had 90% off the lowest price… I just needed to install it. I googled instructions, and it was easy:

1) Turn off the power at the furnace. I just flipped the switch, so I didn’t need to pull the fuse from the electrical panel.

2) Remove the face plate from the old thermostat… it even had mercury unit!

3) Remove the screws holding the thermostat into its base.

4) Remove the screws holding the wires in place, while being careful to note which wire was attached to which terminal… W, Y, RH, etc.

5) Fully remove the mounting plate from the wall and replace it with the new one. I was lucky there… I could use the same screws and holes (plugged).

6) Once the new plate was mounted, insert the wires into the new terminals and tighten the tiny screws.

7) Install the batteries.

8) Program the temperature settings.

9) Turn the furnace power back on.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

Now, I think it is time to sign off. More on the kitchen next time!

December 23, 2014December 31, 2014

Moving In

Hi! It’s December 23rd, and I’m sitting in my new home, in my new living room, on my couch. Yesterday was moving day and I’d hired a moving company and 3 men. The company was called Mig29 Movers. Mike and his crew, Mike and Brandon, were awesome – we even enjoyed a shot together at the end of the move (mmm… Polar Bears)! On previous moves, I’ve gotten family and a U-Haul, and I’ll never do that again. The only negative about the day is that the truck was packed up and ready to roll and I was will anxiously waiting the key to the new house. They had to wait for about an hour and a half (which I was paying for, of course) before the deal was closed and the key was ready. Once we got here, to the new house, it only took them about 2 hours to offload.

Today was a jam-packed day of deliveries. First, the new washer and dryer were delivered. I bought Samsung top-load High Efficiency machines this time. The guys who delivered them arrived just after 8am, but they didn’t connect the appliances – the old washing machine was still connected so they wouldn’t touch it. I said to just leave them, I’d look after it, but so I haven’t been able to get the hot water turned off – the tap is really stuck – so I might need to actually find my pipe wrench and see what I can do.

Next, after the appliance guy, the Bell guy came to install my 15 mbps Internet. He worked at it for probably almost 2 hours because there were issues – not at my house, but at the source – but all is well now, and he was really nice.

While that was still underway, my beautiful new GE Slate Kitchen Appliances were delivered. I swear… I would have been afraid to even try the range that came with the house. It was an Eaton Viking. I believe that Eaton’s went out of business in 2002 in Canada. According to what I can find online, this line of appliances was likely manufactured in the 80s. The fridge was from before the Energuide days. My home inspector said it would likely cost about 200 a year to run. The new one is estimated at $18 a year. Anyway… these appliances look great. The dishwasher and over the range microwave will be installed after the kitchen reno, but the Fridge and Stove are here. BUT… yes, you knew there had to be a BUT… the plug for the stove is a problem. See in the photo on the right – that’s the outlet that the ancient stove was plugged into. It sits only about 1″ off the ground (and that’s some really nice grout work around it, isn’t it?? On the left is the plug from the new stove, which needs probably 3 inches of clearance below the outlet in order to be installed properly. By all accounts, I can rotate the outlet… that’s the first project, tomorrow.

Next, the custom vanity that I ordered was delivered. I’ll save that for a post about the bathroom… it is quite lovely!

Finally, the fool from Rogers arrived. I currently pay $118 a month for Rogers TV and Home Phone. They arrived to install the cable, and the current cable hook-up is on the wall opposite to where I’ve placed my Television. When I spoke with the Rogers rep on the phone, he recommended that I get them to install 4 outlets while they’re here and I agreed. Well, this man arrives and after discussing the relocation in the living room, and checking out the basement where he’d have to add service, etc. he decided that he couldn’t do the job upstairs without having the cable fished through the walls, so he couldn’t/wouldn’t do ANYTHING. I’d have to call Rogers and have the service rebooked. I told him to leave. Are you kidding me? You can’t get some of it done so that I can actually use the services in some places? Nope, apparently it is all or nothing. Bell has a thing where you can do the “whole home” PVR and use other receivers wirelessly in the house. I’m seriously considering just cancelling my Rogers account.

Ok… that’s it for now. Tomorrow (Christmas Eve) is going to be a busy day with a few projects and my Mom, my Brother, and his Girlfriend are coming for dinner. I’m going to try again to get the washing machine connected now. Will let you know how that goes!