That's one small step for man, one giant leap for kitchenhood

So this happened today ....

We finally have our soapstone counter tops. It might not seem huge, but it is. All of the next steps hinged on having a them installed.

Counter tops (and sink) starts the trajectory of projects...

• Stove can be hooked up.
• Backsplash can be installed.
• When the backsplash is installed, we can have the electricians come up to finish up the switches and the rest of the lighting.
• Now that we have a sink, we can install the faucet and dishwasher.
• Once the dishwasher is installed, we can add the bottom kick-plate molding and finish other moldings. We will also be able to add the front panel to the dishwasher (actually being held up by me being scared of putting the order in for the cabinet hardware).

As you can see, we picked soapstone as your choice for the counter tops as well as a farm-house sink. Why soapstone? I wanted something that had a nod to the old, was pretty sturdy, and had a bit of warmth since I generally lean toward cool finishes. And it's purdy.

It's almost laughable that I thought we might be done by Halloween. Perhaps, New Years? Should we start taking bets?

Just in case you forgot what we started out with... I leave you with this beauty.

Floors and Walls

We've been at a slow pace with the kitchen due to the crazy amount of inspections our town requires (like an insulation inspection!) and scheduling some of the subcontractors.

I know on many renovation blogs, some people have mixed emotions about hiring some of the work out. After working on a few rooms in our house, I learned that I won't touch electrical and professional drywallers are magic. When we opened the walls of the kitchen, we found knob and tube, some interesting 1980s electrical fixes, and singe marks from some old lighting fixers on some of the upper beams. Deciding not to burn our house down by doing the electrical ourselves was an easy decision. We found a local company that are known to work with knob and tube and so far we've been really happy with their work.

On Sunday, we tackled a project that we knew how to do well. Refinishing the kitchen floors!

As you can see, we've replaced the old window, the electrical is roughed-in, and insulation has been added. So, back to the floors. They weren't bad but there was an old slightly sticky layer of dark glue that was probably put down on the floor when the house was built. When we did the demo of the room, we were lucky and only had to remove a layer of luon and peel and stick tile. I'm assuming that when the room was last renovated in the 1980s, that they removed the original linoleum but left the glue remnants.

A little glue wasn't going to scare us (although in the end the glue kept sticking to the sandpaper). This was our third go at using the drum sander in our house. Remember when we refinished the floors upstairs?

Under the window, hidden beneath the cabinets, was a nice hole. Perhaps they cut it out for a vent...who knows?! Finding 2 1/2 inch width heart pine became a bit of a task. After calling around to a few salvage places in the Philly area, we were blessed with finding stock at Provenance Architecturals. Seriously the dreamiest place in the world. Not only do they have cool salvaged items but they also have a nice stock of live edge slabs that are exquisite. We gathered some floor boards from the store (and tried not to purchase anything else) and feathered them into the space where we had no floor.

So, why am I not sharing beautiful refinished floor pictures? Because they aren't done yet. On Sunday night, we added the first layer of poly onto our freshly sanded floors and then found out the next day that the drywallers wanted to come on Tuesday (they were originally scheduled to come on Thursday). We let that first layer of poly dry and today we covered the floors up with paper. But today, today we will have walls!

Tutorial: Wood Wall

As promised, but a bit late, here's how we installed the wood wall in the bathroom.

First, we got a sick amount of neatly organized lath from Eva's gut job house in the country. Seriously, she handed over the neatest piles of wood organized by size.

The dude put up some luon on the wall and then we started the assembly-line process.The wood pieces were then installed with a finish nailer and some wood glue. We tried to vary the lengths and colors ... trying to be random we found to be hard at times.

We could only work on the bottom half of the wall since we had to wait to have the electrician come back to hook up the rest of the wiring.After the electrician came and did his magic, we added the top piece a luon. I was going to write a message on the wall before the luon went up, but I forgot. The message would be something like: What? You don't like this wood wall. You are a poopy head. I still have a chance to roll up a little note before the floor molding goes in.We mitered the end pieces and kept checking for square before we installed the side section of the wall. This part of the wall wasn't really square to begin with and adding the wood allowed us to fudge square.
After the wall was complete, the dude sanded the wall and added some of our hardwood floor poly on it. By sanding it, the white parts of the wood were removed to reveal a light color wood. Secretly, I like the wall better before the sanding but now I won't have a chance to get a major splinter if (when) I walk into the wall.

I have to give mega props of inspiration to the jersey ice cream co. Their wood wall is super awesome and inspired my project.

If you live in Philadelphia, they will even come to your place and install your very own lath wall.

Zoom in - Zoom out

What's that you ask? Oh, it's our finished wood wall!

Also, we finally got around to picking a grout color, getting it up on the tub wall, and installing the fixtures.

We went with the color "Alabaster" to match the same color as the floor tile grout (and to hide any mortar mistakes). It really makes the white glass tiles look brighter.



Tomorrow I'll share how we installed the wall o'wood!

Yep, a post about grout

After much debate and concern, I picked out a grout color.

The color had to be light enough for the tiles to blend together but dark enough so a lack of cleaning (this is the man bathroom) will not be noticed.

This picture hit my inbox yesterday:



The floor still had the "just been grouted" haze in this picture.

Oh, and the threshold got installed too (after equal amounts of debate and concern)! Maybe this weekend I'll get some paint on these walls and the tub tile grouted too (I'll also throw in a toilet install on the list of things to do).

We got floored!

Yep, that title is pretty lame but that's how we roll.

Over the past two weekends, we have been working on the upstairs bathroom floor. It wasn't the most enjoyable diy project and included much cursing and a learning while we go attitude. I'm sure the professionals are laughing at our lack of skill. In the end, we are super happy with the results.

First, we started out by laying the floor warming mats and encapsulating it in mortar. (sorry Dude for the butt picture but we will have heated floors! yippie!)

After that layer of mortar was dry, we installed the Ditra substrate.

Next, a whole day was dedicated to cutting a bizillion 12" x 12" travertine tiles in half. In that process, I learned that wearing coveralls really helped stay a little less messy while using the wet saw.

Over the span of three days, we were able to lay all of the tile.

The other night we put a few layers of sealer on the tile.

I'm hoping soon we will be able to grout and install a toilet. We are so close yet so far to finishing this project before my October 1st deadline.

Tile Tetris

Yesterday we got most of the glass tile up in the bath tub area. We worked until we used up all of the thin-set that we mixed and until the brink of major crankiness.

The Dude is worried that the tile looks "busy." I told him not to shower while drunk and he should be fine (btw, he picked out the tile).

Next step for the tile: cut the smaller tiles and finish the one wall, clean out any mortar between the tile and pick out a grout color.

I'm hoping this dude bathroom will be done soon and before Hans and Emilie's bathroom is complete.

(sorry for the poor quality of pictures...it is quite gloomy here today)

Game on

We are making (slow) progress on the upstairs bathroom. But the game is changing with a challenge from my bro, Hans, and his girlfriend, Emilie. They have also been remodeling their ONLY bathroom since February.

You can check out their progress here. We are basically tied for what is left to do but they have ACTUAL TILE ON THE WALLS. We don't.

Hans and Em's tiled bath tub surround. I'm jeals.

Our wager: The first couple to finish their bathroom wins with the other couple having to help them on their next big project.

This week, the dude (bless his heart) finished spackle/sanding and priming the walls. Our next step is to install the electric heated floors. Eeek, wish us luck!

Right now the room looks like a Design Star white box challenge:

Oh my! The drywall dust!!

Sorry I don't have more interesting pictures. Just some smooth drywall.

Bathroom: In the works

We are at the "fun" stage in the rebuilding the bathroom process ... drywall. Enough said, right?!

So, moving on to some of the bling-bling that will be in the bathroom:

West Elm's Flat Stock Single Sconce




West Elm's Short Industrial Bath Cabinet




Overstock's Kraus Rectangular Ceramic Sink and Ramus Faucet




Lowes' Laticrete Floor Warming System
Ditra at Home Depot


Has anyone used Ditra for their underlayment (with heated floors)?

I see lots and lots of reading in my future to feel confident in installing the Ditra as well as the heat floors.

Waiting

We are now waiting for the electrician to come (in the middle of June to assess) and do some rewiring (at the end of June). The dry wall can't move forward until the electrician does the work and we can't tile the floor until the dry wall is up on the walls.

On Tuesday of this week, we adjusted the shower plumbing by making the shower head location a bit higher and converting the tub fixtures from a two-handle to a one-handle system. We also put in some of the insulation and worked on the floor (self leveler and luon).

We are also on an unexpected holding pattern with our floor tile. The tile (12x12 travertine) that was gifted from a relative will not be enough to complete our floor. So, we are trying to track down more tile (that may be sitting at the dude's father's house) and might try to mix in a similar travertine if we do not have enough. Fun times!

While waiting for the electrician to do his magic, we can put the cement board down on the floor and maybe tile the bath surround. Is there anything else we can do for busy work that I'm missing? I don't want to loose the momentum and have the project stall. I also would like the dude's bathroom to get done so he will not have to use my bathroom for much longer!

Chicken or the egg?

We may not have walls in the bathroom, but we do have the tile for the bathtub surround.

from Lowe's

A bathroom demo long weekend

We both wear inappropriate foot wear for demo.

Back from crazy town

Sorry I've been missing.

I wish I could say I went on a fabulous month long vacation but work has been crazy. The last of three complicated events have been planned and executed and now my brain has some space to start posting again and to catch up on some reading (ugh, my GoogleReader was about to explode).


Here are some of the fun details from one of events that took place on a very windy hill in the country:

The events also included some craft projects too (chalkboard picture frames and sewn together feed sacks for table cloths):