Crawling

A built-in wine rack and stemware holders are nestled in the recessed shelves.

Summer activities have slowed our progress to a crawl, but we are not stopped all together. Don finished the built-in shelves that go in the peninsula alcove yesterday and Sami has begun to move cookbooks and other things into the space.

Milestone

We passed a milestone on Tuesday. The city inspector visited, and signed off on all of the final inspections. Plus, Corey, our contractor and friend, completed his final task; fitting the oak side on the cabinets below the peninsula and the accompanying quarter-round trim.

His exit means the rest is completely up to us - scary!

After everything else is done, the wood floor will be refinished.

We have had a busy couple of weeks apart from the remodel, so our work has slowed down considerably. But, we are still making progress. Don is building the shelves that go behind the peninsula alcove. The vertical pieces will be a finished oak and the horizontal pieces will be painted black. It is turning out to be a major undertaking.

Don built and fitted all of the pieces together completely. Then, he completely deconstructed the unit and is putting on finishes, one side of one piece at a time. It will probably be another two weeks before they are complete and installed.

After all of the appliances were hooked up Sami was unable to go back down to the basement and cook on the hot plate. Using the new kitchen is such a joy. However, the BIG move-in won't happen until all of the plaster work on the main floor is finished and the dust cleaned up.

The kitchen was done just in time to deal with all of the fruit and vegetables the garden is producing.

Kitchen Launch

The plumber returned on Monday and hooked up the refrigerator, range, dishwasher, and sink. Now we have a fully functioning kitchen! Sami tried everything out by preparing last night's dinner in the beautiful space, using all of the new appliances. It feels like a real luxury to have burners, water, and cold ingredients all within a few steps of each other.

Water leaks around the faucet, chipped Formica, holes worn through the floor... just a distant memory.

We have moved from an all electric range to one with gas burners and a convection oven, even a griddle/grill, plus a computer-operated control system.

Most fun was making a rhubarb pie that was evenly cooked and browned.

We will not actually move into the kitchen and start using it regularly until we are done with the plaster work on the main floor, which will be extensive and a big mess, because we will insulate the living room walls. But it was fun to give everything in the kitchen a test drive. Sami has some learning to do, especially regarding the new range, but the lessons will be fun. Can't wait!

Another PDX Floor

ALL DONE!

The old PDX Airport carpet got a lot of press, but our kitchen floor deserves at least one headline. We had to wait for a week to get the grout color we wanted. Then, yesterday, Don spent all day on his hands and knees "grouting." Now it is finally compete and we really love it.

Final Touches

We thought we should post photos of a few other things on which we have put final touches.Grout has been added to the kitchen back splash tile, and we have purchased a new cast iron bed and ceiling fan for the guest bedroom.

Mural behind the range

Elsewhere on the back splash. Eeeeeeek!

 

Voila!

Laying the Kitchen Floor

For the last three days Don has laid the tile on the kitchen floor, about 130 pieces. About half of them were a custom-made size and shape. It seemed like the smaller the piece, the more time and effort it took to create and fit it into the pattern.

Our Reports

Sami's Report - THE DIG

For several days I worked on staining the deck, but then it rained hard, so I needed to do an inside project. So, I tackled the job of removing the flooring in the kitchen entryway. It was this floor (also in the kitchen) that was the primary cause of the whole remodel. The light beige linoleum had worn through in many places. It was a real eyesore.

I researched on the Web how to remove linoleum. I assembled pry bars, scrapers and hammers, plus a few power tools and went to work. First, up came the beige linoleum that we have lived with for the last 26 years. Guess what? Another layer of linoleum was underneath; brown and gold. More prying. More digging. Surprise! another layer of linoleum was underneath. This time a pink speckled pattern with sparkles. There were two layers of metal strips along the door jams. Below all of that was a layer of Masonite held down with long, thin staples. It was like an archeological dig, going down in time to see various plastics, papers, glues, colors and designs. I encountered dirt and pet hair lodged in place by years of occupants.  

In the end, because the bottom layer was held in place with staples, and not glue, I didn't have to use a heat gun or solvents to get the glue up. That was a blessing.

Don's Report -  THE TILE "PG" 

‘PG’ is not a movie rating or a condition of pregnancy. In this context it means "pre-grout."

Early on a key vision for the kitchen was to have a ceramic tile counter back-splash, with a mural behind the range as a highlight. Originally the plan was to purchase a mural complete, but that became problematic when the chosen artist fell ill and couldn’t produce it. Alternatives were explored, and we decided to create our own mural using beautiful Pratt and Larson bas-relief tiles of vegetables and animals, with matching field tile along the rest of the counter. Sami created the design and I created the mechanical layout on the computer. Then, in December, an expensive purchase was made from Pratt and Larson.

For several months we focused on other rooms, then worked our way back to the kitchen. It was therefore a momentous occasion to finally be able to utilize the lovely tile we had purchased last year.

First, I laid out all the tile on the wall in pencil, to verify the design worked. I had to do some fine tuning to optimize grout lines with switches, outlets, and edges. I laid the tile on the sink side first, as it was simpler, and a good way to get back up to speed doing tile work. Then I moved to the range side, starting with the mosaic. The picture tiles especially were somewhat irregular, so I worked from the center, bottom of the mosaic and adjusted for irregularities as I progressed outward. The mural worked out without any problems.

The last piece (the ‘golden spike’) shows how small some of the detail tile pieces had to be.

By the way, I think I have gotten my money’s worth out of the little Ryobi tile saw because, prior to this project, I used it in the upstairs bathroom and the brick walkway around the front of the house.

Once the tile was all installed, all the electrical switches and outlets had to be shimmed out to compensate for the tile thickness. The electrical boxes were supposed to be installed with the tile in mind, but it didn’t happen. There are handy shims that snap together like Lego’s that make it easy to fix.

I chose a snail and Sami chose a mouse, to be creatures which have escaped from the mural.

The next step is to grout the tile, but first I must seal the tile itself, as it has a ‘crackle’ glaze and, if not sealed, will allow discoloration when the grout is applied. So my next job is to experiment with sealer and grout on a test sample.