Kitchen War... Dust Bowl

Thursday evening, we finished up mudding the drywall in the kitchen. I set up the fan to speed up the drying with the intent on sanding on Friday.

Friday, Robyn and I were up fairly early.  She's off on most Fridays and I took a day of vacation as it was her birthday, plus we were taking her Sportage in to get an alarm system installed.  We ran errands during the day and then celebrated her birthday at Forepaugh's in St. Paul.

I didn't any sanding done Friday, but more than made up for it on Saturday.  We blocked off the kitchen but still there was a thin film of dust throughout the entire house.
 

There was a bit more than a "film of dust" in the kitchen.  Gonna be quite a chore to get everything cleaned up throughout the house.

It took about 4 hours to sand everything down in the kitchen.  Once that was done, I went back and filled in few low spots.  While that was drying, I worked to finish connecting up the electrical.

The new outlet for the microwave.

Junction box extended to new outlet from where range fan was.

Dimmer switch for new kitchen light.

Once the electric was hooked up (all but the new light), I sanded down the little bit of patchwork that I'd done.

Then it was time for me to get cleaned up.

Kitchen War... Slinging Mud and Patching Up

Another active week in our household...

We spent Friday afternoon at the auto dealership.  Robyn's vehicle had reached the age and point at which the upcoming repairs and maintenance were going to cost more than the car was worth.  Plus, with my single cab truck and her convertible, we had absolutely no room when we went out with another couple.Trips were a challenge as well: Do we take the truck and its 15 mpg highway and plenty of luggage room in the back in the weather or stuff everything in a small convertible?

So finally, after what Robyn calls two years of my looking, we settled on a Kia Sportage.

Robyn said she's going to miss her convertible terribly... 11 years old it had served her well.

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This week we started patching up the walls where the electric wire was run:

The spackling is a bit rough and had to go on in multiple thick coats.  It's taking a while to dry and when it does, we'll have to sand it down.

First thing we had to do this weekend was finish screwing the drywall.  We started marking how far from the wall the future support for the shelves is and every 6 inches for the location of the drywall screw.

My cheat stick

Robyn and I then took turns screwing.

It is amazing how tired your upper arms get.

I'm trying something a bit different this time on the kitchen drywall:

A self-adhesive tape for the joints

The how-to articles I read said that traditional paper tape finishes better but so far the mesh tape is working fairly well.  It's not as messy and goes up easier.

And of course I run out of mud before I get the first coat up entirely (I was using what was left over from another room).  Well off to Home depot for the  gallon bucket of mud.

Kitchen War... Boxing Match

March 23 was the one year anniversary of our home purchase.  We've made a tremendous amount of progress but are probably starting our most difficult project, except for maybe the bathroom.  We spent just about the entire weekend working on the kitchen.

Sunday afternoon we took a break for the weekend to go pick up our stained glass mosaic from the place we took our class a couple of weeks ago.

Here's Robyn's:

That's a copy of the sun tattoo on her wrist.

...and here is mine, a copy of a stained glass mosaic that I found on-line.

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This weekend we got started boxing in the ductwork that is exposed in the kitchen.  If you remember, the last time we did this, I conked Robyn on the head with a 2x4.  So I tried a different approach this time, building the box on the floor in sections out of 2x2's.  This made it lighter and easier to handle.

Here are the pieces as they were built and assembled.

Top part of the first section

The top and bottom pieces for the first section assembled.

Robyn's help was needed to hold up the box sections and to assist a bit more, 

 I screwed some 3 1/2 inch screws into the wall just below where the box section will ultimately be attached.  That actually worked fairly well...

Cause that bubble was pretty much in the middle.  Here's what that first section looks like from across the room.

Things went fairly quickly and it wasn't much longer before we had the next section built...

And hanging up...

We're planning on putting suspended shelving along this wall.  I haven't made up my mind exactly how they will be attached so each section was attached with six 4 inch long lag screws in addition to the 3 1/2 inch wood screws we first used to attach the box sections to the wall and ceiling.

Ratcheting in the lag screws was quite the workout.

Here's Robyn cranking away.

About the worse problem we had was this one lag screw...

Which pulled the plaster away from the wall before it finally dug into the underlying stud.  I forgot to take a picture but we did splice the two sections together.

Next day it was time to hang some sheetrock.  

First piece up. 

Here you can see the box where the track light will go.

Pieces two and three up with the wire for the track lighting run through the box.

And finally, the last piece up and the remaining hole in the ceiling patched.

Now it was time to run the wire for the microwave.  But first I had to fix the slats which were loosened when I cut the hole for the box.

To do that...

I re-purposed the spacers I had ripped when we were putting in the laminate flooring.  Here's one of the other holes which had to be patched as well.

If you look closely, you can see the repair in the background.

In addition to the wiring which I was threading between the slats through a hole I drilled in each stud with a spade bit. Running the wire was extremely difficult.  Like Robyn says, I knocked the "bark off" just about every knuckle.

This went so well, I decided to change the route for the wiring for the track lighting.

So well, that I busted up a good portion of the plaster on that section of the wall.  Fortunately, it will be behind the new pantry.  But it will still get patched and painted.

The kitchen war continues... Eagles Nest and Evening Battles

One of the great things about where we live is the proximity to downtown St. Paul (less than 2 miles) and the diversity of our community... not just the people but also the wildlife.

This morning on my way to work I saw a couple of turkey hens casually foraging alongside Pacific Avenue just down the street from our house.

Robyn was driving a bit behind me and didn't even see them... She was probably so focused on why I had pulled to the side of the road.

And it's not just turkeys in the neighborhood.  Back on New Year's Eve, the St. Paul police should a black bear only a couple of hundred yards further from our house than these turkeys were.

The most recent news has been the return of the nesting pair of bald eagles to the Indian Mounds Park and a story was featured on the local Fox News station.  I also found a video of the eagles on youtube from 2011 which was posted by laurierose28 from Callaway Photography.  The video includes photos of an eaglet.

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We have a long road to finish up the kitchen so it's fairly important that a get a bit done whenever I have a bit of time I need to get some work down... even if it is only for an hour or so.

Yesterday, I covered up the main distribution trunk from the HVAC system.

You can see the sheetrock on the right side of this picture (I forgot to take one of just that portion.)

I also hate that we only have one working light switch for the kitchen... right in the middle of this room.  I decided it would be nice to put some track or recessed lighting in the soffit box I'm building for the kitchen ductwork.

The above junction box isn't currently in use and will ultimately be behind the pantry that is currently on the other side of the room.  Using a spade bit, I made a channel to run electric wire to a light switch...

Which will be around the corner.  It was a bit of a challenge because there was a stud about two inches further in after I drilled through the wall.  Even with a long spade bit, I couldn't make it through and I had to widen the hole so part of the body of my drill would fit in the hole

Too bad that it was only later that the stud was cut off only about 3/4 of an inch above where I was drilling.

Let the kitchen war begin...

March 23 will be one year we closed on the house.  We feel pretty good about the progress we made but everytime we're in the kitchen we can't help but be reminded that just a year ago this was a foreclosed, former rental house that had the ocassional homeless squatter in it.

That morning we closed on the house and then that afternoon, we did walk-throughs for HVAC contractors since the old gravity fed system had been eviserated... literally.  The weather was much, much colder a year ago and we were fortunate to get a great contractor who was able to get a working HVAC system in place in about a week.

But I still have yet to box in the kitchen ductwork...

There was a very small built in pantry in the kitchen.

It serves as a great channel for the main distribution duct for the HVAC ductwork.

Our plans for this side of the kitchen are to box the exposed ductwork, replace the cabinets, and move the stove and refrigerator.

First item of business was to move the stove to its permanent location.  This should give a more open feel to the kitchen compared to the original arrangement.

While the cabinets on the sink side of the kitchen are original to the house, the cabinets on the stove side of the kitchen are not... And the person who installed them did a less than stellar installation job.  Apparently they didn't read that note which said "Attach using hanging strip not back panel," and they're pulling away from the wall.

That black stripe on the middle cabinet is duct tape holding the cabinet door closed.  Even so, we were able to use the cabinets to store a few light items.  Which meant we needed someplace to store them as cabinet space in the ktichen is at a premium.

So a quick trip to Home Depot to purchase a 24" wide by 84" tall pantry.

I had to put a piece of scrap laminate under the front edge to get it level enough to stand... Guess there is a bit of a slant to the floor.  Probably to be expected for a house that is 110 years old.

To say it was nasty behind the cabinets would be an understatement.

With the wall pocked marked with screw holes from unsuccessful attempts to stabilize the cabinets and apparently never painted.

But Robyn did a clean sweep while I was outside "deconstructing" the cabinets with a hammer.

Suspended Animation - The Hallway & Stairway

One of the most difficult areas to re-do in the house was the entrance foyer, stairway and upstairs hallway.  With the 1 3/4 style of our house, it seemed like all of the angles came together in the stairway, plus there is an incredible amount of trim and built-ins, not to mention the how high everything was.

...and the walls were horribly grubby, even after scrubbing.  Because we were using such deep, rich colors throughout the house (and we needed to cover stains, etc.), we used a gray primer in most of the areas.

The downstairs entrance foyer was fairly straight forward and was painted and the floor in before we moved into the house.

The wall between the front door and living room is decorated with a vintage mirror I picked up via Craigslist when we were back in Ohio.

With other accroutrements beneath it and on the wall between the stair and kitchen doorway picked up a various thrift stores.  (Here you can catch a glimpse of the next major project... the kitchen.)

As I mentioned, the height and angles provided a big challenge in this area, not only reaching everywhere but also doing it neatly.  These photos should give an idea about what we faced:

Ended up, I had to put the roller pan on the landing that was about 2/3's up, stand up at the top of the stairs, dip the roller or pad in the paint from the end of a long extension pole and then try to accurately paint the wall and ceiling.  Whew!!!



And inevitably, I missed a spot.  Guess I overlooked it because it was down next to my feet and not 15 or 20 feet high up.

Robyn and I decided that this area would be where we would hang the melange of photos from our two families.

In the upstairs hallway between the middle bedroom doorway and the built-in cabinets, we put the wedding photos that Kyle and Alyssa gave us for Christmas... just enough room with about 1/2 inch on either side of the frame.

...with the remainder going on the stairway wall.