Kitchen

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I took some time off from the renovation. Last week we were in Texas for Jane and Louie's wedding and well this week I just didn't really feel like doing much.

Texas was great, nice people and great weather. Our first day there the thermometer hit 99 degrees. Mel and I had a great time hanging out with Jane and Louie. They definitely do things big there, we ended up eating so much food. We also got to do some sightseeing we went into Dallas one day and hit Fort Worth the next. Fort Worth is quite interesting, here is a town that embraces its' cowboy heritage yet has one of the best art galleries in North America, the Kimball Art Museum. The Kimball was designed by Louis Kahn and its made completely out of concrete. It is perhaps his best piece of work, I think. If you get a chance check out more on Louis Kahn or watch the documentary 'My Architect'. The art it housed was also amazing, who'd have thought that there'd be Picassos, Rodins, Monets, Mondrians and Gaugains in Texas!

Now that I have the master mostly done I am a little more relaxed and don't feel the urgency to get something done. Today (Sunday) I started gutting the kitchen. I managed to put a good dent in and got a lot more done than I thought I could. Based on what we did today, the change is amazing the kitchen is now a whole foot wider than before and a foot taller as well. I am hoping that by the end of the week I will have it completely gutted. Once that is done I'll be working on:

- the electrical... lots of wiring to do
- insulating and soundproofing
- installing new double exterior french door.
- drywall and mudding

Once all that is done we'll start building and installing the new Ikea kitchen cabinets. After that I get to start my next fun project...building concrete countertops.

Well, keep checking back as I am once again motivated and will try to post regularly again.

More photos

A good picture showing the new floor with the new bed

Dan's work....wow

The finished post (2nd floor)...next step powder coating

Done - one master bedroom

Wow, I just realized that it has been a week since I last posted. Well there is lots to share and talk about and Ieven managed to get the Master bedroom finished.

Thursday (April 13):

I finished the 3rd coat of mud and did some sanding and some touch ups. The room is now ready for painting. I also spent the better part of the evening vacuuming up all the dust in the room. There was almost 2 inches in parts. I highly recommend keeping the room sealed off when dealing with sanding the drywall joints.

Friday (April 14):

Thanks goodness it was a holiday...well at least a day that I don't have to work at my paying job not really much of a rest. The plan of attack is to get the master primed and ready for painting.

In between waiting for the layers of paint to dry, Mel and I cleaned up our front yard and moved all the wood to the backyard.

By 9 PM we managed to get the room primed with 2 coats and the first coat of colour done as well. This meant we only had 1 more coat to add and then the room would be ready for the flooring to be installed.

Saturday (April 15):

We woke up early to finish the painting and before heading off to see Dan and the work he has done on our super cool new banister and railing. Stay tuned for the latest photos of Dan's work, you are guaranteed to be impressed. After finishing up at Dan's it was off to Home Depot to rent the flooring nailer. One word of advice, stay away from Home Depot on Saturday especially on a spring holiday weekend. Luckily for us we were there to only get a few supplies.

Once we got back home it was time to rip up the old vinyl tile floor. Thank goodness they had put in on 4x4 sheets of 1/4 plywood so everything came up in large chunks.

Later in the afternoon I got to start the installation of the bamboo flooring. The set up takes a fair bit of time as you need to make sure your first row is straight and square with the rest of the room. You also have to ensure that the first row is installed securely so that as you hammer the floor nailer it does not move the first row. You do this by installing wedges and hand nailing the areas of the flooring that will eventually be hidden by the trim. By quitting time I had 3 or 4 rows in.

Sunday (April 16):

I woke up early again so that I could get a good start on the flooring, thank goodness I did as it took me nearly the whole day to finish the floor. However it was definitely worth while as the floor looks incredible, I highly recommend going with Bamboo floors not just because of the environmental positives but also because of the aesthetics.

After the floor was done it was time to build our new king size bed. The bed took me a good three hours to put together but based on the end result it was well worth it. The photo to the right doesn't really do the room justice, remember the wall is 13' long.

Well as you can see a lot has changed since my last post, we now have a room that is our little oasis amidst the chaos of our reno. I still have some little finishing details to do but nothing major

- hang closet doors
- install closet organizer
- finish baseboard and window trim
- build bookcase for space next to the closet and outdoor wall
- install bedroom door
- reverse (flip) door to balcony

The last point will be interesting. As the door stands now it opens the wrong way not to mention it looks like complete crap, its style does not fit what we are trying to accomplish. The plan will be to take it out and flip it over so that it opens to the shared wall.

While at home depot we shopped for new doors (front door, bedroom and kitchen). With each of them coming in around $600 each we decided to look for a work around. The bedroom and the front doors will have their middles cut out and replace with sealed low-e glass panes and then trimmed up. This work around will save us over a $1000. The kitchen door will need to be a new one as we are adding a double door (a la french style). Amazingly they are the same price as a single door.

Well that's it for now.

Mud everywhere

Well we are almost there....at least the master is nearly ready. I spent the weekend mudding the master bedroom and managed to get the second and third coats done. Because of my lack of proficiency in regards to mudding its looking like Tuesday will be spent sanding and touching up the deficiencies in the drywall.

We are targeting Wednesday as the day we start painting. I have already ordered some super heavy duty primer/sealer. I want a paint that is forgivable especially because of my mudding skills. We also want to make sure its a good sealent as we don't want to deal with mould later. We have no vapour barrier or even isulation so we want a good seal on our interior walls.

Our buddy Dan Emond has been kind enough to volunteer his time, he is building our stair banister and railing. He is custom fabricating it and welding all the pieces together. Here are some cool photos of his work and the process involved.

The left shows Dan's set up. You would not believe the set up he has in his garage...quite something.







The photo to the right shows Dan making sure each of the pieces is square...maybe I should have done the same for our closet.





The pieces clamped in place and ready for welding.







Seven pieces down, only seven left to go...nice work Dan








This photo gives you an idea of what the pillars will look like. We will be installing lights in the bottom of these, they will be pointed to the ceiling and will light the interior of the pillars up for a nice effect.



We really want to thank Dan for the work he is doing, it will be quite an amazing piece when it's done. For those who are interested Dan is starting up a small custom light and metal fabrication shop called FLUXWORX. The idea is to create custom metal projects with light incorporated into the mix. So stay tuned to this page for a link to his site, probably not soon as he is a little busy on this project right now.

A few moments of anxiety

Well not really much to post. The taping and the first coat of mud for the master are done now. I am hoping to finish the next two coats over the weekend. I din't get as much work done this week as I would have like but I was stuck at a large defence contractors tradeshow Wednesday and Thursday and got home both nights completley exhausted.

Last night (thursday) was a little nerve wracking, for those that remember what happened to me in 2000 will find this funny. I was driving home around 5 pm, as I approached the intersection of Bayswater and Scott there was a Police barricade preventing me from going farther down Scott to get home. This definitely go my interest peaked, what heck was going on? I managed to get on some of the side streets and was qucikly driving down Ladouceur (which is the cross street near our place). Well as I am getting closer to our place I see another police barricade which looks like it is blocking off my street, not to mention a few fire trucks. Now I am really starting to sweat, police and fire trucks blocking off my street mixed with my history and the fact that I did the wiring in our place....oh crap what is going on. Luckily as I got closer the barricade was the next street over....phew.

As it turns out a Hydro transfer station caught fire which in turn left our area powerless until around 6 am this morning. The outing according to the media reports left 2000 people in Westboro without power, so I guess the good news is that I am no longer am in Hintonburg but actually in the more desireable neighbourhood of Westboro...that's great news for our property value.

For those who are not familiar with my history, particularily 2000 "this is the rest of the story" (imagine my best Paul Harvey voice). In Feburary of that year I had an apartment fire that destroyed everything that I owed and completely destroyed the old row house apartement I was living in. Luckily I had insurance so I ended up ok. So you can imagine the anxiety I feel when I see firetrucks near my house.

Time to mud

Mel and I got a great weekend of work in. We spent the enitre weekend drywalling the master bedroom. We are very happy to say that the drywall is now done. This week we will concentrate on taping and mudding the room, hopefully that will be done by the end of the week and we can start painting next weekend. Once that is done its time to install our sweet bamboo flooring and a few little touch ups and details that will make it one sweet bedroom. Here are three different views of the master.

The main floor is waiting for me to build out a pillar that will hold the electrical, heating and plumbing. The pipe that is holding everything back should get moved this week. Hopefully soon enough we will get power back to the bathroom and one of the guest bedrooms.

We also ordered a kitchen last week from Ikea, which we have been told will arrive in a week or two. So very shortly I will be tearing apart the kitchen as well.

I have decided that with nice weather finally arriving that it's time to demo the little cold room the old owners built off the kitchen and put in a nice deck. So it looks like we will need to get a garbage bin in so we can get rid of all the crap we have laying around.