Kitchen reno progress: Cabinets are installed!

March 19, 2020 Uncategorized , ,

Our kitchen installers, Umair and Khazir, worked really hard for four very long days, and wrapped up their work today.  Their work was superb, with lots of attention to detail, and I’m really happy with the result.

Our cabinets (and appliances) were purchased from IKEA.  Think of this as the IKEA assembly from hell, producing enough waste cardboard to completely fill our RAV to the ceiling twice.  Here is the end result:

Here’s a little video, panning the kitchen:

IMG_1150

What’s still TODO:

  • Electrical box and outlet in the cupboard above the microwave+range hood.
  • Countertop selection and installation.
  • Plumbing (sink and dishwasher connections.)
  • Electrical connection for the dishwasher.
  • Take the wrapping off the appliances, plug in and test.
  • Clean the (drywall) dust off the fridge and stove.
  • Backsplash.
  • New casing for the window.

For the countertop selection, take a look at this view of the floor tile:

and compare that to the following possible stone:

That stone is pricey, and we have about 34 square feet of counter to put in, so the cost will add up if that’s what we choose, but it would look really classy.

Of all the stones I saw today in my quick trip to the decimated Markham Home Depot, it was obviously and immediately clear that the one above was the best match.  It happens to also be the stone that we used for our master bathroom counter too, so I can simply bring some left over kitchen tile up to the bathroom next time I’m at the house to see how they look together.

Inka brand “coffee”: a silly nostalgic find

March 10, 2020 Incoherent ramblings , , , , ,

Dad was never functional before his morning coffee.  He usually headed down to the “Goof” for his fix.  He’d complain bitterly that it was horrible coffee, but that didn’t stop him from drinking it daily.  When he didn’t go to the goof for his fix, he’d stand beside the percolator like a zombie waiting long enough that he could interrupt it and pour his first cup of the day.

Dad, who survived on coffee and cigarettes while seated long hours at the glass blowing torch must have known you could have too much of a good thing.  So, when he’d finished mainlining coffee for the day, he switch to Inka brand “coffee”, a roasted grain beverage.  I didn’t know the brand was still in business, but blundered upon it today at the local grocery store:

I was looking to buy such a roasted grain “coffee” mix today anyways, as I’m now old enough that coffee after 7:30 pm equates to a high probability of a night of insomnia.  Finding dad’s old brand triggered a surprising number of memories, and provided the perfect way to cross off that shopping list item!

patching plaster and lathe: no strapping required!

February 29, 2020 Home renos , ,

I’d never had to patch holes in plaster and lathe before, and proceeded in the normal fashion, trying to slip strapping into the hole like you would with drywall.  That was really difficult (at least in the small holes I was trying to patch.)

I got smarter on my second hole, and used the lathe itself as the strapping.  All I had to do was cut the hole a bit bigger than my hole, like so:

then I was able to anchor my filler piece of drywall nicely using the lathe

my first coat in the closet side is a bit messy since that side it just plaster and lathe and very uneven

but on the outside side of this wall, where we have drywall on plaster on lathe, the patch will be nice and smooth:


This is a new switch for the wall sconce light outlet that we presume was a wall sconce that had its own switch initially.

I had some trouble using my new trick on one of my four holes, since the plaster and lathe in that section was thinner than my drywall.  In that section, I tried trimming my filler drywall edgewise, which didn’t work too well, since it cracked once screwed in, but it was good enough to hold the mud in place, so it all worked out in the end.

Kitchen progress, we have a floor!

February 24, 2020 Home renos , , ,

Our contractor installed the new kitchen tiles this weekend, and I think it’s looking pretty good, even without the grout:

There’s still some finicky work with the thresholds to do, but we should be able to get the cabinet installers in to do their work soon.

We spent some time at the house too. Sofia got tons of the remaining chaos under control, and I putzed away, patching up the giant holes in Connor’s old room’s closet, which we ripped the plumbing and electrical out of (there was improperly installed plumbing and electrical in there for a 2nd floor laundry.)

The holes in the floor are because the old owner didn’t properly replace the subfloor that he massacred to run his plumbing and electical (on one side he didn’t have anything at all, and just covered it up the hole with some click-together hardwood). I have some nice solid plywood that I’ll put in here to replace the missing OSB, but I couldn’t do that this weekend (at least easily) without my table saw, which was at the new-house. I’ll also screw in a parallel section of 2×6 on the right hand side of the closet to strengthen the joist, which was also massacred a bit — that’s probably overkill, but I may as well while the floor is open.

Building a cantilever TV stand

February 17, 2020 Home renos , ,

The basement den in the new house has a really nice built in TV cabinet.

The problem is that gargantuan TVs are too cheap these days, and the one we bought a couple years ago doesn’t fit.  We’ve had the TV propped up in front of the built in cabinet on a temporary stand (the one we used at the old house.)  Our plan was to build a cantilever shelf that just fits into the built in cabinet, which would support the TV, and is non-destructive.  Should we get rid of the current behemoth for a smaller TV, we could just take out the cantilever unit, and things would basically be back to the original state.

I wanted to match character with the original unit, which appears to be built from 3/4″ MDF, and has tasteful lips around all the basic boxes like so

These edges are all 1.5″ thick, 2x the width of the stock used for the box portions of the unit.  Here’s what I built (still not sanded, nor painted)

This is a big shelf, “weighing in” at 51″ wide.  Since I had a left over wide shelf reinforcing bar, I’ve used that underneath

My joinery isn’t perfect, and looked pretty bad before sanding, especially with the glue smears, showing.

After a hand-sand this looked much better.  Only the portion at the very front really needs to be sanded, since the rest will be hidden.  I’ve got to pick up my sander from the old house, and give things a good once over before priming and painting.

Because the shelf and the TV are both big and awkward, I’ve installed it temporarily, even though it’s not sanded and painted yet.  This will keep the TV out of the way for now: