It's taking shape...sort of.

The last two days have been tough, the weather has been so nice that it's hard to get motivated to work inside. The good news at least for me being productive is that the weather is supposed to be ugly for the next 3 or 4 days.

Tuesday I started to frame in the rough opening for the new French doors. The plan will be to drywall up to the edge of the door for now. In another week or two we will start the demo of the cold room and that is when I will install the new door. Once again I put in a header to deal with transferring the weight from the wall above. On both of the exterior walls I also screwed the existing exterior sheeting into the studs. This has helped ensure a much stronger and more rigid structure....my walls no longer flex. I also now know why our windows don't lock well, they have been bent by the weight of the house and are now curved so the locks no longer align...exactly the reason why the header is so important.

Wednesday I built a bulkhead around the plumbing that is exposed in the ceiling of the kitchen, this plumbing is for the bathroom up stairs. The bulkhead will also house the electrical for both the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom.

I now have to deal with a plumbing vent that runs the length of the kitchen ceiling. This pipe tied into the plumbing vent for the kitchen sink. I am hoping that Derl, my plumber can get redo the vent. There are also a couple of other pipes that need to be moved.

I haven't gotten around to insulating the walls yet, maybe tomorrow. I will also need to frame around the chimney and add some 2 x 6 supports for the cabinetry.

On another note, I have just found out I have to approve the comments for them to be posted. I will keep an eye on them so feel free to post.

Baby steps

Mel and I got a good start tonight and managed to get a lot done. Hopefully if we get a few more productive evenings like this one, we might be drywalling the kitchen on the weekend.

Mel spent the evening putting in the sound and fire barrier. We are noticing a bit of difference in the amount of sound the barrier absorbs. The plan will be to hang plastic as well to help prevent the kitchen smells from next door getting into our space.

I spent the evening framing in our new window. Although it isn't here yet I framed out the rough opening so that I can just pull out the old and insert the new one. The plan is to do the same for the door as well. The new window will be much bigger, in fact it is 52" wide and 44" high. It will be at the same height as the current one but will go all the way up to the header.

Thank goodness I installed a header and framed in a proper window opening, our exterior wall was flexing in and out almost 3 inches. Now the wall is very solid and the weight of the upstairs wall and the roof is now distributed along the header.

I also managed to finish off the electrical. I installed 3 GFI outlets that will run along the countertop. That's pretty much it for the electrical all that will remain is wiring the pot lights and installing Mel's cool Erco Starpoint lights. Our pot lights are from Eureka Lighting (they are the ones with the red inset). Both of the lines are available through our buddy Dan's company Flux Lighting. Now it's up to Mel to do a lighting plan for the kitchen.

Tomorrow we frame in the door and insulate the exterior walls. If there is time I will also add some extra supports for the kitchen cabinets.

Slowly but surely

The kitchen is slowly but surely getting there. Mel and I spent the weekend finishing the demo and cleaning the place up.

We had some issues with the floor, first layer was linoleum, under that was vinyl tiles on top of very well nailed down plywood. The guys who did the work sure didn't take any short cuts. They made sure the plywood was down and not moving, they had about 3 inch spacing between the 2 inch long nails. The problem was that below the plywood was an old oak floor. Really too bad as it would have been nice to sand and reuse the flooring but since this was the only place in the house it was used and we have already gone with bamboo, we had to rip it out. So unfortunately the ripping out of the floor took longer than expected.

After that I managed to get most of the electrical in the kitchen done. I will add some GFI outlets to the backsplash area tomorrow and that will do it for the wiring.

On Thursday I got our old fuse box removed and replaced with a new breaker panel. With the new breaker panel I can easily add new circuits myself. If anyone is looking for a good electrician, let me know and I will get you in contact with mine.

This week I am hoping that I can get the rest of the framing done, I have to add two headers (window and door) and frame out the new openings as well. The windows are ordered and should be here soon. I will also try and frame the new bulk head for the plumbing. Then it will be time to insulate and put on the vapour barrier. Once all that is done then I can start the drywalling.

Kitchen, part deux

Sorry that I don't have any photos to share, hopefully tomorrow or the next day. The last few days have seen me demo the kitchen. Still a good piece left to do.

I am gutting all 3 walls right down to the studs, the good thing is that there is no lathe and plaster just old planks on top of planks with drywall on top of it all. This has made things relatively easy and clean. There has also been a lot of cardboard, this is what they used a long time ago for soundproofing....I guess, makes sense to me. We did find a newspaper in the wall, it was an old Ottawa Citizen from September 14, 1933. If I get a chance I will scan a section of it and post it. It has some great headlines in it.

It was also nice to get rid of the horribly disgusting cabinets. You have never seen anything so gross, well actually, what was under them was far more disgusting. The end wall is also pretty flimsy and the window that is installed was done poorly. Its looking like I will have to come up with a way of strengthening the wall by redoing a lot of the framing. We have also ordered a new much bigger window, that along with the new double doors will really give the kitchen an airy feel. All the sunlight will also serve to open the kitchen up as well.

One good thing was that the water pipes to the kitchen sink have shut off valves in the basement. This let me demo the sink and the counter top by cutting away the pipes. It also means I won't have to call in a plumber until all the drywall and the new Ikea cabinets are installed.

I have been mentioning that I am building concrete countertops, for those who don't know what they look like or who want to learn more check out this gallery.www.concreteexchange.com This guy makes the nicest stuff around. He has even written a couple of how-to books, of which I now own one and highly recommend it. For his regular site see the side bar links. If all goes well here I might start making custom countertops on the side.

Before I go, I should also mention that we no longer have a functional kitchen. The fridge is in the dining area. The sink is gone and if we dirty dishes we now have to wash them in the bathtub...anyone want to do a dinner party this weekend?

PS. If anyone is interested in a stove, we have one for sale. The stove is a few years old and could use a little work on the enamel and one burner needs replacing, other that that it is nearly new. So if you are looking for a cheap working stove give us a shout...seriously.

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.