Kitchen progress

I can't believe it's in. that's all I have to say.

Tile update

Rick has been working on this all month. We've considered hiring someone to come in and finish but I think Rick would like to do it himself. We want to have this one finished up this week. It looks great, I can't wait to see it all done.

Subway tile

When I pulled the tile out of the bathtub enclosure termites were crawling all over the studs and the drain pipes were all broken and destroyed. I thought replacing a tub would be cake, its just a drain after all. How wrong I was and I had to call in a pro. Note to people renovating bathrooms, have a plumber install your tub, its painful. But anyway had a framer sister up some new wood to the old termite infested balsa wood they left behind and had the plumber hang waterproof paper stuff and cement board...I felt lazy but didn't have any bloody knuckles afterward...

Then my friend Buck and I started tiling the bathtub enclosure last week. Thanks to youtube videos and reading many a webpage we didn't have any trouble other than me not being able to do math (Buck can add, its amazing to see in person as it seems to be a skill both MArie and I do not have...sigh). Anyway Buck and I didn't get much done because we were either laughing or playing pool on the beat up old pool table the previous owners left in the garage (I will restore it sometime in the future)but here is a pic anyway. Note to self: Buck and I don't get anything done when we're together, we mostly act like 14 year olds. At this point I think we'll hire a tile guy to finish it up as I have a pretty busy next couple of weeks working. I'd like to do it all myself but it doesn't seem likely...sigh again.

Dear Soffits, Its not us, its you...

Here are two pics of the house after we removed the soffits from the kitchen and entry. The entry was really low and felt like you were entering a hobbit hole. The dropped ceiling wrapped all the way around to the kitchen and was strange to say the least. I thought we'd open it to find wires, ducts, and maybe a body or two but it was just empty space framed with huge 2"x 8" and 2" x 10" beams...none of which were load bearing...weird. I suppose trees didn't matter much back in the 60s. Anyway these pics are after the ceiling has been reframed and drywalled. Also widened a doorway into the kitchen ans learned that the 2" x 4" on the floor were not even attached to the foundation. Nice job original builders.

Kitchen progress

My sister Carolyn took down the first cabinet weeks ago. Now it's all cleared out.

I thought it would be hard to see something you spend so much money on torn apart, but it feels good. I'm so excited to make it better.
This is a rough sketch from Ikea of what it will look like. It's a similar layout to the old kitchen but the cooktop moved to the left and became a range. We didn't have to move plumbing or gas lines.

We think it will be another week before we can install the cabinets. First is drywall and paint.

This is a kitchen that we have always liked. Unfortunately it's a little bit cost prohibitive. We will be getting white cabinets but we hope to warm up the space with flooring and paint.

Hall cabinets

The house has these cabinets in the hall, main bath, and laundry room. They are all stinky and I'm concerned about the hallway ones especially because there will be linens in there. I have to clean it, prime it, then paint it. And hope that it smells good. Any thoughts on how to keep a linen closet smelling fresh?

I think the walls in the hall will be kept white and the cabinet I'd like to pop. I'm thinking orange or a celery color, light blue maybe?

Main bath coming along

The gray tub had to go. We bought a new cast iron tub Friday night and Rick met the plumber Saturday morning to install it. We also had to decide what type of shower system we were going to use. The old tub had the hot and cold knobs with a third knob in the middle to turn on the shower. These days it seems most common for people to use the single knob that turns the water on full pressure and then you can adjust the temperature. This is a lot easier for kids to use.

I thought it was odd that you have no control over volume. The house we are in now is like this, and it feels like pin pricks. Out of 20-30 showers at home depot there was only one that had a secondary dial for volume, but it was in that oil rubbed bronze stuff. We had to special order one in chrome.

It's odd to me that in California where we are constantly asked to conserve water...why are there no choices to do so in your shower? Am I missing an option here? Can you have one handle in the middle and then buy a shower head that controls volume? If you know, please leave me a comment.