Whirlwind Working Weekend

Oh my, the dust hasn't settled one bit around here.  The whole weekend was devoted to working on our kitchen.   We started out first with the kitchen flooring....  how exciting~!

First we unrolled the whole sheet to acclimate it to the house temperature.  It had been stored in the cold garage so we let it rest for a few hours before starting the cuts around the corners.

I really like having the random pattern to the flooring rather than a square repeating pattern with grids or lines.  Being an old house, walls are never straight, so not having lines or patterns is a real plus.  I like the dark color too.  Our last home had WHITE ceramic tiles.  WHAT was I thinking????  For 15 years I had to keep that floor clean in spite of teens and dogs and country dirt.   This will be a piece of cake.

The flooring is a thick cushy vinyl product made of PVC and fiberglass, but it was very easy to cut with a scissors around the door jambs.  It was a lot of "on the knees" work, but we got it done before lunch.

Once we had it all in place, we opened the door up to let the doggers come in and check it out.  Yes, they approved!  They kinda match too.

Now the next part was going to be a bit trickier.  Our cabinets!   Here is the link to my blog about restoring them:

Old Oak Cabinets from Start to Finished !!!

The bottom base part of the cabinets is in one long piece, but we decided to cut off the two tilt out bins on the far right side so we can slide over the cabinets to the right.   That way the sink will hang down into a cabinet space, and not into the drawers as originally configured.  Otherwise, we would lose the use of the drawers. We would have to cut the boxes off the drawers and make all the fronts "fake" if we left it intact.  That is why we decided to cut the base cabinet apart and move the bins to the left end.

Soooo after measuring three times, we CUT! 

(See those cabinets in the background?  Those are the Upper Cabinets that go on top of this base) 

We carried the cabinet base into the house, and then measured for the fifth time inside.  We realized that keeping both tilt out bins was going to be a tight squeeze and make installing our stove and overhead microwave more difficult into the corner on the left.  Instead we decided to omit one bin, and shorten up the cabinetry. Here is the cabinetry changed to the better length on the left side, and we finished up the cabinet reinforcement.

In the narrower space left from removing one tilt out bin, we will put a pull-out trash bin. I will make a panel for the front of it from some of the other wood we have on hand.  Here is a pic, on the left, of the hardware we will get and add a panel to the end of it.  We had a pull out trash can in our last house and it worked great, especially keeping the dogs outta the garbage!

  

Enough work... we called it a day and went to bed! 

On Sunday morning, we had forcasted snow and sleet and freezing rain scheduled all day.  That didn't matter to us, because we had indoor projects to do!

We carried in the 12 ft counter-top after cutting off the backsplash.  I made a template of my copper sink, and we measured again three times before cutting.  Just to "be sure" !  Steve carefully cut out the sink hole with the jig saw and we got it right the first time!  Whew!  Now you can see why we changed the order the base cabinets.  The sink extends down into the open cabinet instead of the section with the drawers.

I know the back wall looks "messy" but there really wasn't any need to finish that or paint it.  It will soon be covered with two upper cabinets.  They are very tall, resting on the counter-top and extend all the way up to the ceiling.  The upper cabinets are only 12 inches deep, while the lowers are pulled out to be 25 inches deep.  That will leave about a foot of counter space in front of the uppers.  Also there will be a 3'x5' center work island with the dishwasher installed underneath it. 

After we cut the sink hole, we also drilled in the faucet holes through the counter-top   We were excited as we tried dry-fitting the sink into place and set the faucets on top. Perfect!!!!  Then we cut the hole through the inner shelf to allow access for the garbage disposal under the sink.

From there, Steve went into the basement and drilled upwards with a long bit to make room for the water lines.  I think we are going with the Pex tubing for the water leads, and we will get those and shut-off valves and the rest of the plumbing pieces tomorrow.  This was enough for today!

(note: the countertop is not yet sealed down nor the kickplate fastened tight)

Poor Steve needs to go to work tomorrow, 

in order to take a break!