More on that fine house
Howdy all,
Another exciting entry. Jam packed adventure. We will sell you the whole seat but you will only need the edge. Edge. Edge.
This weekend, Andy, Nikki and I worked on the kitchen. On Saturday, we did a 14 hour push to get as much done as possible. Which included rehanging 5 wall mounted cabinets and installing the replacement cabinets that were damaged.
Since last I wrote you, my intrepid adventurer's, our house was in a state of disrepair. Since then, we have done quite a bit of work.
We fixed the back external wall of the house where the kitchen is. Put in pressure treated lumber to replace the dry rotted jousts and studs that were there previously. Rebuilt the wall. Mud and taped. Tore it down again to fix the kitchen sewer pipe and put it the wall back on again. Nikki and I learnwd how to apply Stucco so as to seamlessly have our windows and cleanout for above mentioned pipe, to match our house. Stucco is a lot of fun actually. So is mudding.
Anyway, let's see. We tore out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Opened them into a fine combined room. We then cleaned and mudded the walls. Retextured the ceiling.
Then came some electrical work. Now, I have this friend Ramsey. He has learned a trade skill recently. He came over to help me out with his new swank skill. I was a little nervous but he settled my nerves by taking his time and ploting out what to do. This is counter to how I normally see him handle projects. He is usually a handle it as he goes kinda guy. So we updated the kitchen electrical, ripped out the old flourescent lights, moved the ceiling fan and installed can lights. It took us about 12 hours to redo all the electric. I then had the home inspected and the inspector gave high marks to the electrical work.
I have nothing against my friends work but right now, I have everything inspected. So it was a relief to know that it passed muster. I am sure some of my LJ buddies will laugh but wait until you see the kitchen.
Moving on, we stripped the floor down to cement and then hired some very nice people to lay the tile. They did a fantastic job. Even put in a conduit for power to the island. We are going to hire them to do the living room. Why did I have another person lay tile rather than save some money and do it myself? I read a tile book and then watched a fifteen minute tile it yourself video. It made me realize that I didn't want to have an okay job, I wanted a great job and just do it once.
It costs about $10 a square foot to lay tile. Expensive but it was so worth it.
Anyway... walls check, ceiling check, electrical check and floor check. Then we move on to cabinets. Well, it so happens that my sister in law's sister owns a kitchen remodeling store in Kansas. She was doing my sister in law's kitchen and offered to do the design for mine for free. So we went with it. She designed us a very nice kitchen and got a good deal on cabinets.
We ordered them after much debate and some input from Bev (sister in law sister). Virginia (the sister in law) gets her cabinets the same week we do. All of hers are in perfect order with no damage. 6 out of 22 are fucked up in my order and there is a missing panel. Weeks go by and we get replacements or fix them little by little. One of our replacement cabinets look like it got nibbled on by rodents. I have pictures. We got a second replacement.
Then to installation. My wife has a friend Roman who says he will install them for $2000. If I help him. I take time off from work to help him in critical periods of the work. Over a week, he puts in all the base and the island. They look good and we have to redo some of them a few times. (I learn later that is unusual.) We then do the uppers. It goes poorly. They look like shit with a huge gap at the top and some of them an inch and an eigth shimmed from the wall. He explains it to me and it seems reasonable, his explanation. He takes off having been paid about half of what he is owed and having done about 75% of the work.
The replacements come in and Roman can't come finish the installation. Then I start noticing problems. Roman put trim in front of the dishwasher base. You now can't open the dishwasher. There are holes in my new tile floor from where he put screws to snap chalk lines. There are dozens of holes in the wall where he was using a drill to find the studs in the wall. Cabinet frames are cracked where he over drove a screw into the wood. More and more shit wrong. Dozens of problems are found and they need to be fixed.
So this last week and especially this weekend, Andy (chainboy) and I fixed it. We did a marathon Saturday and did trim and rehung the wall cabinets. We also installed the replacements. I even got started on hardware. I have more to do but I can see the finish line.
I made mistakes. I fixed most of them. The one I haven't fixed is the most embarrasing. I moved the ceiling fan towards the cabinets a bit. I made sure the arc of the fan blade would not connect to the wall cabinet door. Then I authorized Bev to have a special display case that sticks out of the wall further with glass doors, right in line with the fan blade.... Guess what? You can't have the fan going if you open the cabinet doors. But my other fuckups have been recoverable.
Things I learned while remodeling:
1. Never hire a contractor without seeing some of his work.
2. Never take the opinion of a contractor without knowing what you want
3. Always have pressure treated wood when it is in contact with the ground, concrete and stucco.
4. Concrete sweats. It also takes about 100 years to fully cure.
5. Call contractors on their bullshit. They sell you some of that as well.
6. Don't overdrive a screw into a countersunk hole. It acts like a wedge and splits wood.
7. Don't let your contractor drill a screw into your grouted floor to snap a chalk line.
8. Do not put trim in front of appliance as you will want to remove the appliance someday.
9. Never let your contractor cut up your trim to use as shims.
10. Don't let your contractor measure just once. Make him go back a second time. Especially when it is a critical dimension.
11. Don't let your contractor walk on your glass cook stove. It was not meant to bear his weight.
12. Don't let your contractor freehand cut the stile off of a cabinet.
13. Don't let your contractor use square cuts to join trim at a corner. Make the bitch miter it.
I have before and after photos. I will send those up soon. Just so you can see the before and the after.
I have a bit more trim work to do but I think I will finish soon.
-Daniel
Another exciting entry. Jam packed adventure. We will sell you the whole seat but you will only need the edge. Edge. Edge.
This weekend, Andy, Nikki and I worked on the kitchen. On Saturday, we did a 14 hour push to get as much done as possible. Which included rehanging 5 wall mounted cabinets and installing the replacement cabinets that were damaged.
Since last I wrote you, my intrepid adventurer's, our house was in a state of disrepair. Since then, we have done quite a bit of work.
We fixed the back external wall of the house where the kitchen is. Put in pressure treated lumber to replace the dry rotted jousts and studs that were there previously. Rebuilt the wall. Mud and taped. Tore it down again to fix the kitchen sewer pipe and put it the wall back on again. Nikki and I learnwd how to apply Stucco so as to seamlessly have our windows and cleanout for above mentioned pipe, to match our house. Stucco is a lot of fun actually. So is mudding.
Anyway, let's see. We tore out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Opened them into a fine combined room. We then cleaned and mudded the walls. Retextured the ceiling.
Then came some electrical work. Now, I have this friend Ramsey. He has learned a trade skill recently. He came over to help me out with his new swank skill. I was a little nervous but he settled my nerves by taking his time and ploting out what to do. This is counter to how I normally see him handle projects. He is usually a handle it as he goes kinda guy. So we updated the kitchen electrical, ripped out the old flourescent lights, moved the ceiling fan and installed can lights. It took us about 12 hours to redo all the electric. I then had the home inspected and the inspector gave high marks to the electrical work.
I have nothing against my friends work but right now, I have everything inspected. So it was a relief to know that it passed muster. I am sure some of my LJ buddies will laugh but wait until you see the kitchen.
Moving on, we stripped the floor down to cement and then hired some very nice people to lay the tile. They did a fantastic job. Even put in a conduit for power to the island. We are going to hire them to do the living room. Why did I have another person lay tile rather than save some money and do it myself? I read a tile book and then watched a fifteen minute tile it yourself video. It made me realize that I didn't want to have an okay job, I wanted a great job and just do it once.
It costs about $10 a square foot to lay tile. Expensive but it was so worth it.
Anyway... walls check, ceiling check, electrical check and floor check. Then we move on to cabinets. Well, it so happens that my sister in law's sister owns a kitchen remodeling store in Kansas. She was doing my sister in law's kitchen and offered to do the design for mine for free. So we went with it. She designed us a very nice kitchen and got a good deal on cabinets.
We ordered them after much debate and some input from Bev (sister in law sister). Virginia (the sister in law) gets her cabinets the same week we do. All of hers are in perfect order with no damage. 6 out of 22 are fucked up in my order and there is a missing panel. Weeks go by and we get replacements or fix them little by little. One of our replacement cabinets look like it got nibbled on by rodents. I have pictures. We got a second replacement.
Then to installation. My wife has a friend Roman who says he will install them for $2000. If I help him. I take time off from work to help him in critical periods of the work. Over a week, he puts in all the base and the island. They look good and we have to redo some of them a few times. (I learn later that is unusual.) We then do the uppers. It goes poorly. They look like shit with a huge gap at the top and some of them an inch and an eigth shimmed from the wall. He explains it to me and it seems reasonable, his explanation. He takes off having been paid about half of what he is owed and having done about 75% of the work.
The replacements come in and Roman can't come finish the installation. Then I start noticing problems. Roman put trim in front of the dishwasher base. You now can't open the dishwasher. There are holes in my new tile floor from where he put screws to snap chalk lines. There are dozens of holes in the wall where he was using a drill to find the studs in the wall. Cabinet frames are cracked where he over drove a screw into the wood. More and more shit wrong. Dozens of problems are found and they need to be fixed.
So this last week and especially this weekend, Andy (chainboy) and I fixed it. We did a marathon Saturday and did trim and rehung the wall cabinets. We also installed the replacements. I even got started on hardware. I have more to do but I can see the finish line.
I made mistakes. I fixed most of them. The one I haven't fixed is the most embarrasing. I moved the ceiling fan towards the cabinets a bit. I made sure the arc of the fan blade would not connect to the wall cabinet door. Then I authorized Bev to have a special display case that sticks out of the wall further with glass doors, right in line with the fan blade.... Guess what? You can't have the fan going if you open the cabinet doors. But my other fuckups have been recoverable.
Things I learned while remodeling:
1. Never hire a contractor without seeing some of his work.
2. Never take the opinion of a contractor without knowing what you want
3. Always have pressure treated wood when it is in contact with the ground, concrete and stucco.
4. Concrete sweats. It also takes about 100 years to fully cure.
5. Call contractors on their bullshit. They sell you some of that as well.
6. Don't overdrive a screw into a countersunk hole. It acts like a wedge and splits wood.
7. Don't let your contractor drill a screw into your grouted floor to snap a chalk line.
8. Do not put trim in front of appliance as you will want to remove the appliance someday.
9. Never let your contractor cut up your trim to use as shims.
10. Don't let your contractor measure just once. Make him go back a second time. Especially when it is a critical dimension.
11. Don't let your contractor walk on your glass cook stove. It was not meant to bear his weight.
12. Don't let your contractor freehand cut the stile off of a cabinet.
13. Don't let your contractor use square cuts to join trim at a corner. Make the bitch miter it.
I have before and after photos. I will send those up soon. Just so you can see the before and the after.
I have a bit more trim work to do but I think I will finish soon.
-Daniel