Archive for the 'Home Maintenance' Category
Our Kitchen Remodel – A Progress Update
Our kitchen remodel has been underway for two weeks now. Well, really three if you count the week we spent dismantling our previous kitchen.
We seem to be right on schedule, which is nice. The electrical and plumbing were laid out in their new locations and we passed our City permit inspections. Drywalling started shortly thereafter. That should be finished early this week. From there, we’ll paint the walls and ceilings.
Sadly the hardwood floors we discovered and were so excited about were not able to be salvaged. Years of wear and previous refinishing made them marginal for another refinishing. Given the information that they would not be able to be refinished any additional times, we made the long range decision to go with new floors. Some of the boards were salvageable though and our contractor will use them as patch pieces for future jobs he has that need them.
Our temporary kitchen is working out okay. By okay I mean that we are getting take out or eating cereal for dinner. Work has also been extremely busy lately, so cooking is near the bottom of our priority list. It actually seems like we planned the timing perfectly for the remodel. No time to cook now, so we might as well destroy the kitchen. We look forward to spending lots of time using it this summer during the slow real estate season.
Here are the previous posts about our adventure:
Remodeling Our Kitchen
Budgeting for a Kitchen Remodel
Designing a Kitchen
Our Before Kitchen
Our Temporary Kitchen
A Remodeling Surprise
Recycling Building Materials
The first step of a renovation project is to get rid of all the junk that you don’t want anymore. Maybe it’s a bathroom vanity and toilet, or some windows and doors. For us it was cabinets, counters and appliances. Our old kitchen wasn’t actually junk, since it was in good condition, it just did not fit into our plans for the new space. Although some homeowners make the effort to sell their stuff via CraigsList or through other channels, most times it ends up in a dumpster.
The team at The ReCONNstruction Center is a third option for unwanted building materials. They are in the salvage business and help your stuff find a new home through their New Britain store. As a non-profit, they accept donations of building materials in “good reusable condition” in exchange for tax deductions.
Our interaction with The ReCONNstruction Center went very smoothly. Amy found the organization through the Habitat for Humanity website and scheduled a time for them to collect our old kitchen. On the morning of our pickup, Tony was able to fit most of our cabinets in a single pickup truck bed. It didn’t all quite fit, so he came back later in the day to get the rest. When he returned that afternoon, he said that most of the first load had already sold.
We had some time over the weekend, so we stopped in to the store to see the place for ourselves. They have just about everything imaginable. In addition to cabinets, we saw porcelain sinks, doors of all sizes, windows, light fixtures, and hardware, among other things. There was even one of those mechanical chair lifts that are mounted on staircases. Basically, they carry anything and everything that could be used in construction projects.
The ReCONNstruction Center store is open to the public and prices are very reasonable, though keep in mind everything is used and its condition varies greatly. Visit their website for more information on the organization and their hours of operation. They offer a terrific opportunity both to prevent construction materials from entering the waste stream and to help the community. Keep them in mind the next time you consider upgrading your home – maybe you’ll have something to donate, or maybe you’ll find the perfect piece in their store for your new space.
The Home Depot Run
Every project that I do requires a Home Depot run. From people I talk with about their DIY efforts, it seems as though I am not the only one consistently caught without the right tool, or missing a piece for a project. I guess that’s why the pros are the pros, and I’m just me.
Taking apart the cabinetry in our kitchen was pretty straightforward. There were lots of screws to take out in order to remove the countertops, and then more screws to remove to take the cabinets off the walls. Once we figured out how everything was attached, we were very efficient in this part of the effort. Taking out screws does not require sophisticated tools or special expertise, though there may have been an incident or two along the way. Nothing we couldn’t handle.
The challenging aspects of the project were removing the lights and appliances that were connected into the electrical, plumbing, and gas systems of the house.
The undercabinet lights were a mystery at first. But I finally figured out how to access the wiring, and from there it was easy. Next was the hood over the cooktop – surprisingly simple. Then the garbage disposal and the sink, which were also smooth sailing. I had installed the dishwasher shortly after we moved in, so taking it out wasn’t any more difficult. The stove was more of a mystery, but once we removed the surrounding cabinets it came out without much of a fight.
I left the gas cooktop for last because it was the most scary – pumping gas into the house would be bad. Fortunately the shut-off valve turned smoothly, and extensive testing assured me that the cooktop was no longer receiving gas. Despite that win, I was most concerned about actually disconnecting the piping. After gathering my wrenches, and checking out the setup, it quickly became clear that my wrenches were not beefy enough to take on the connections. I gave it the old college try, but no luck.
Off to Home Depot for a pipe wrench! And, as everyone knows, when you go to Home Depot you can’t just get one thing and leave. You have to walk around and check out other stuff too – it’s the First Rule of Home Depot. So I found my wrench and started wandering. My next stop was over at the plumbing section to find the connection I was trying to undo. They had one that looked similar in stock, so I looked it over carefully to understand how it worked. Normally I would just buy one, but they cost over $10 and I had to draw the line somewhere. But I did take it off the shelf and seek out a plumbing dude to make sure I had selected the right wrench. He was in high demand, but after waiting my turn he assured me that a pipe wrench would do the job. By this time I felt I had satisfied the First Rule and headed home.
In my haste to disconnect the gas before it was too late to be able to call for emergency help, I forgot to follow the Second Rule of Home Depot. The Second Rule of Home Depot is that you should always buy everything you think you might need, so that you don’t have to return to Home Depot again in the middle of the project. Anything that you don’t end up using can be returned at your convenience. For me, the Second Rule meant that I should have bought two wrenches and probably the example connection as well.
The pipe wrench on its own wasn’t enough. I thought my older wrenches would be sufficient to hold the other smaller piece in place. They weren’t, of course. Back to Home Depot – and this time I followed both rules.