More Walls and Lil joins the team

Today was more about the walls.  Leonard mudded nearly all day.

In the afternoon we went shopping for appliances.  2 stores and we didn't buy anything until Alex returned to Lowes for the vent fan.  Do you love or hate your fridge/dishwasher/range?  If so, please leave a comment.  We want to buy today for delivery Friday.

After we came home from the fruitless marathon trip, Lil wanted to help.  We let her use a scraper and play with the "sticky stuff" aka drywall mud.  She had a blast!

Today: paint?  I said that yesterday, so I won't believe it until the paint can is actually open.  I did buy these green supplies yesterday: a biodegradable paint tray and a green harvested wooden handled painted brush.

Walls and Spaces in Walls

Today, the walls went up! First, all the electric and plumbing had to be finalized.  Then we added insulation (itchy stuff I tell ya) between studs. Then drywall was hung.

insulation in the walls

When we were at Cory and Steve's for dinner (thanks guys!) Len broke through the dining room wall for our pass through!  I hadn't exactly told him my lighting plans so now we have to undo some of the work, but the pass through is now here!

Len is mudding right now and I'm about to go help.  By tomorrow night we may have paint on the walls.  Alex and I hastily picked out 'Homestead Resort Tea Room Yellow', which hopefully looks as good on the walls tomorrow as it did on the little tiny paper this afternoon.

Dust and Plumbing Continue

Here I am working today on the stove alcove.  I took down all the studs for the old divider walls and cut out nails in prep to repair the drywall tomorrow.

Notice Hawise in the corner of the picture?  She loves to monitor our work and steal pieces of drywall to chew on in her crate.  We try to stop her, of course, because who knows what ingesting gypsum will do to a silly dog.

Our friend Steve (at right) came over today to help.  We put him to work tearing our the pass through and preparing the walls for drywall installation.  Leonard and Alex were still fixing the brown water return plumbing pictured below.  By the end of the day, plumbing fixes were complete, most of the wiring is in place, ceiling drywall is hung, and walls are prepped for drywall hanging tomorrow.

Anyone want to guess how many times we were at Lowes?  Hint - two more than any project should require in a single day.

Clearing the dust

This morning we met the dumpster dude and loaded the debris into the dumpster. The empty kitchen looks much better and hopefully less dust will be tracked around now.

Demolition Day 1

Day 1 of demolition is ongoing, but I am released from duty to report to y'all. Wall cabinets were, as I suspected, built in to the space.  Some even had mortise and tennon joints!  Not many were recoverable, but those that are will be reused by Leonard or donated to our local Habitat for Humanity store.

We found plaster and lathe behind the large wall of cabinets.  Some of the lathe was damp.  We pulled it off to reveal a leaking length of brown water return lead pipe from the upstairs toilet.  Ick.  This length of pipe (not long, but requiring removal of toilet) will have to be replaced.

We determined the best course of action for the entire wall would be to remove all the plaster and lathe work on the wall so we could install insulation and drywall.  I called a dumpster service because the waste was piling up.  Dumpster arrives at 8 AM tomorrow.

In removing more plaster, we found a green copper pipe.  Indoor plumbing pipes should never be green.  We ripped out up to the ceiling where we found the leaky joint.  We could fix the joint, but to avoid future issues, the best course of action would be to replace all the copper with PVC.

So, now 9 PM, Alex and Leonard are removing copper pipe and replacing it.  The waste water pipe will have to wait for another time because removal and replacement of the toilet will be too much for tonight.  I'm hoping these side jobs will not cost us too much time or money.

Tomorrow we will load waste into the dumpster, then go to the Tayse family Christmas in Springfield OH.  In the evening we will finish plumbing and/or loading.

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Help Us with Kitchen Wall Color

Demolition starts on the kitchen tomorrow.  The general plan (I hope) is that we tear out and repair walls tomorrow, mud and sand the next day, then paint on the 28th before laying cork floor. The problem is that I don't know what color to paint.

The floors are amber hued cork.  Cabinets are light stained oak.  Countertops can be any virutally any color we want because the concrete and inclusions have limitless possibilities.  We were generally thinking terrazzo style light beige with amber or green or purple glass inclusions.  Appliances will be stainless steel.

So, what color walls make sense?  Initially I thought warm yellow orange.  I picked up some paint chips.  Putting them up to the cork, I just don't like any now.  I'm not opposed to bold - I LOVE color and think that with everything being warmish brown tones the kitchen will not be colorful enough.

Of course, walls can always be repainted.  I'm just hoping to get it right on the first try because before the floor and cabinets go in the paint job will be much easier than cutting in around everything after.

Any suggestions?

Flooring and Cabinets in the house

Well, sorta. The cork floor is stacked in the dining room and the flat packed cabinets are in the garage.

Unfortunately the old cabinets and floor are still firmly installed in the kitchen.  We have to host two dinners and get through Christmas day before demolition starts.  6 days and counting!

Flooring is Cork!

On Monday night, we received our quote for purchasing sheet linoleum and installation.  It was 50% higher than we expected and plans wound up with seams running in front of both the sink and the stove.  :( After stewing about what to do for a few days, we visited Greenovate, a local green building materials company.  They had a variety of flooring on display, including cork.  Alex fell in love with this pattern:

We went back to Greenovate today after doing some more research.  This cork is engineered with a click and lock system that would be very easy to install ourselves.  It is durable, soft, anti-static, and that lovely merle pattern will hide dirt and scuffs well.  At a little over $8/sq foot it is equally expensive as the linoleum flooring would be.  Ultimately we decided that cork flooring was more interesting and beautiful than linoleum, and self-install allows us more flexibility when we actually begin to do the work of renovating the kitchen.  So, we placed an order!

In short, the new kitchen is coming very soon!  Cabinets will arrive this Tuesday or Wednesday, and the cork flooring is expected to be in late next week.

We celebrated by eating ice cream at the best local (and national, in my opinion) creamery, Jeni's.