The backsplash tile setting is complete

Well, we finished the small cuts and here are some pictures without the brown rosin paper.








Next steps:
- Seal the tile, because the face is crackled
- Grout
- Seal the grout and tile

Backsplash Day 3 - Almost Finished

After the weekend, we worked to finish the backsplash on the wall of the kitchen sink and window. It took quite a while with many cuts.

Here are the pictures after the day's work:


You can see we used the tops from other cuts to fill the gap under the window.


After this - we had three very small pieces to do: on both sides of the window sill and a very small sliver piece beside a receptacle outlet.

Backsplash Sneak Peak

Well our project returns to something that we get to do - the tile backsplash. We are not done, but we spent the past weekend getting 85% done.

I will post some pictures to see how it is coming together, with some updates later when all the tiles get up.

Here are the pictures from Day 1








Pictures from Day 2










This is a finishing piece that will go on this end and also horizontally on either side of the kitchen sink window.




Under the window sill is an interesting problem where it is too much room to just grout. I think we will be using the tops we had to cut from the pieces that run under the cabinets and range hood.

Updated Pictures

A picture = 1000 words

OK, I have fallen way off the mark on my updates. I will cut the bull and post some pictures.

Installed granite - India[n] Gold


Microwave opening (note new lower shelf for built-in speed cooker).


Counter overhang for bar / eating area.


Franke Orca sink, Danze Parma faucet.


Kitchen-Aid 3/4 hp disposer.


Frigidaire duel-fuel range, Vent-a-Hood 36" 600 CFM hood.


Kitchen-Aid dishwasher (4 yrs old).


Range (close up)


Kenmore Elite stainless fridge (no longer available) with pantry and built-in look. My biggest "win" of the remodel! Notice the breaker move to the right, that made it all possible.


Side view of fridge and cabinetry, to see the amount that it sticks out into the walkway.

Day 43 - Cabinet Installation Day 1

Today was the big day that where we turned the corner and are starting to see the finished product. The cabinets were delivered over the weekend and the installer came today and made great progress.

I will post a lot of pictures right here for your instant gratification.

Main counter with the spots for the range and vent hood.


Sink view and open spot is for the dishwasher


Peninsula with the microwave cabinet for the built-in speed cook microwave oven.


Peninsula and view back into the kitchen


Seating area and transition to the 12" deep cabinets


You can really see the change in depth to the other cabinets in the addition side.


The pantry (12") and the over-fridge cabinets were not installed. These will be spaced to give a more built-in look because our fridge is around 35-36" deep and the cabinets are 24".

Been a long time

It is amazing that when we had to do our share of work, I made no blog updates. I have a low-tech blog on a spiral notebook to keep up to date.

We have done tons of stuff: picked up appliances, bought kitchen pendant light, tiled, put up shelving in the laundry room, picked out undercabinet lighting, and lots of stuff that I have forgotten!

I have taken pictures daily and made notes.

Day 28 - Paint Prep and Buying Supplies

We went to Home Depot after dinner to prepare for the upcoming painting. We bought some roller pads, brushes, and primer.

Good grief, I have never been able to buy one of those 5 gallon containers of paint, but we brought home a 5 gallon bucket of primer. We were liberally calculating 4 gallons required for 2 wall coats and 1 ceiling coat, and 4 gallons is about the same as a 5 gallon container.

If the drywall is sanded and completed Wednesday, our next steps are:
- Wipe down the ceiling and walls to de-dust it
- Do any taping / masking, which probably will not be much!
- Prime everything in sight
- Buy wall and ceiling paint (Saturday)
- Paint wall and ceiling

Thinking about tile - Action Required

Well, it is funny how the mind works. We are working toward Thursday, Sep 28 for the tilers to start. We ran into a neighbor this weekend who asked about our progress, and we gave him the updates (blah / blah / blah). He asked if our floor was strong enough for the tile, and we said yeah (we think so).

Tuesday (Day 28) - I was reading about tile and floor stability requirements. Apparently, there is a standard of deflection for various types of floor coverings. The inputs to this calculation are joist size, span, spacing, and material. Well, our data puts our floor just out of the range of suitability for ceramic / porcelain.

Here is the calculator:
http://johnbridge.com/vbulletin/deflecto.pl

Immediately, this puts my mind racing for other floor alternatives, that we lost $1200 on the tile that we bought, etc.

I talked to the contractor, and he will add a beam mid-span that will be supported from below in the crawlspace. He assured us that it would be able to be completed before the tilers. This will make our span 5-6 feet instead of 11 or so.

Day 27 and 28 - More Drywall Mudding

Nothing really exciting here. The pictures all look the same, except the mud is getting wider and wider.

I will post the new can light patches soon. Really boring updates from a blog perspective.

Day 25 - Drywall Mud #2 and Can Patches

Day 25 was a Saturday. We left town to watch Tennessee fold and lose another one to the Gators. A good effort from the Vols, but in the end - the inability to run the ball was the end. Well, this is a kitchen blog - back to business.

The drywall guys came and did a wider application of the drywall mud.

Our contractor also patched some of the holes from the initial recessed lighting. The addition side is all patched, because that side had the drywall ceilings. The original side the old-school gypsum board (drywall) and plaster top coat.

More to come.

Check out the current look of the kitchen here:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 25 - Drywall Day 2 - Can Patch/

Blog Update - Pictures

I will make the effort to put some teaser pictures in the blog posts in a few days.

Each day's post has the link to the photo album for the day on photobucket.

Thanks for the patience.

Day 24 - Recessed Light MOVED

Well, today the drywall compound was too wet to put on another layer of mud and finishing.

But, our electrician did come back and move the cans to the locations specified in the lighting plan and our blue tape on the floor.

Check out the new locations here:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 24 - Recess Light Move/

Blog Spam - Who Me?

Well, I was completely shut out of posting any updates since last Friday, 9/8.

I got a notice from the fine folks at Blogger that my blog had been identified as a possible "spam blog." I had to submit a request for it to be reviewed by a human and it could be cleared.

It took a week for the folks to take a look and unlock the blog.

The pictures are a week late, but the posts should be accurate.

My goal is to get the pictures up tonight (Friday). If not, by Sunday for sure.

Day 23 - Drywall Hung

Today our kitchen is starting to look more like a real room. The drywall was hung today with rough mudding only. I am no drywall expert, but it looks really good and clean.

In addition to the kitchen, they also patched some other places such as the office where the heater in the wall used to be and the HVAC opening in the dining room that was reclaimed for the new location of the electrical service.

Now the mess begins! The kitchen already looks like someone dumped powdered sugar down all over the floor, and they have not even started the sanding and finishing process.

New Walls - check out the entire day's pictures:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 23 - Drywall Hang/

Day 22 - Drywall Rained Out

It was a rainy day in Atlanta, and we were scheduled to have our drywall hung today. The drywall could not be delivered in a truck and kept dry, so that did not happen.

Our contractor was over to work on some minor things such as evening out the subfloor edges in some spots and work on the new HVAC opening into the dining room. The existing HVAC opening was used for the new circuit panel feed.

Day 21 - Drywall Prep and No Electrical Work

Today our electrician performed no work.

The electrician was to look at moving our cans, but he had some truck trouble - or something along those lines.

Our contractor did some final finishing prep touches for the drywall installation.

Tomorrow (Wed) the drywall will be hung and after that, the electrician will get back in there and move around our can layouts.

All Day 21 Pictures:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 21 - Drywall Prep/

Drywall delayed

The orginal schedule called for electrical work to finish Mon 9/11 and drywall to run Tue - Friday. This would leave us the weekend to pain the ceiling and walls. The week after was to be floor tile and cabinet delivery.

Well, our electrical changes to the lighting layout will push this. Our drywall is tenatively pushed back a day to Wednesday. Even if it is Thursday, that puts painting as middle of next week. Realistically, that means we have the week to prep and start, with the weekend to finish everything. We are detailed painters, so we will be able to tape what we need and use primer as we like. We are also slow painters!

Last Friday was our last day to delay the cabinet delivery, and we missed it. We called and we now have to pay $150 for them to hold it. Not bad in my mind, since we did not want to have the wall drywall done and the ceiling wait. We wanted them both done, so that we could paint from the top down.

Day 20 - Contractor Work

Today the contractor put in wall insulation on the exterior walls. Now the space looks dark again!

He also put in the duct work for the office HVAC outlet. This office had no HVAC and could not count toward our home's square footage. We had a ceiling fan which helped in the summer, but it was not the best ventilated room in the house. This change will do wonders to the look and value of the home. It turned out great.

He also prepped the new dryer outlet in the laundry room.

Day 20's Complete Pictures:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 20 - Wall Elec Rough - Insulation/

Day 20 - 3rd Faucet In

And the finish is exactly the same, so I think that is just the way that they are.

We like the form and function of the faucet so we are keeping it.

Day 20 - Electrical Rough-In Complete and Can Talk

Today our electrican completed the wall receptacle rough in. He also took out the remaining overhead light fixtures in the ceiling. To light his work, he put bulbs in the recessed lights, so that is what we saw when we got home.

He is a good guy and he apologized for not following the plan and not telling us he may have to go a different way. He also said, that if we wanted to move them, that he would be happy to do so. It will mean more ceiling patching!

Tomorrow, he will be back to look at what we can move where and what that means for the layout.

Day 20's Complete Pictures:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 20 - Wall Elec Rough - Insulation/

Day 19 - Lighting Revelation

Sunday, our designer came by with our invoice for the cabinet and light rails that were left out of the initial order. While she was there, she looked over the progress so far.

She gave some feedback on the lighting placement. Basically, it was wrong as per the lighting plan. The electrician did not follow the layout and did not communicate that he had issues before doing something else. We also did not go over the placement compared to the plan as he went either.

The lights are currently centered directly over the edge of the counters. The plan called for them to be 18" from all counters / lower cabinets. Her logic was to light the space and not the countertop, and use under-cabinet lights for the work spaces. The electrician was trying to eliminate shadows. His approach would have made the center of the room shadowy and put a high shine in the upper cabinets.

She said that we could make it work if we needed to, but we got a little worked up. We also thought this is our chance to get it right while we still can. We called the electrician on a Sunday and told him. In the meanwhile, we put down some blue tape on the floor where the lights are in the plan to get a feel for it.

Monday, he is planning to finish the wall electrical rough-in in preparation of the drywall. After that, he will take a look at our options on the can placement. If he needs an extra day or two, that will put our drywall completion into the next week, which also pushes our painting.

Check out the light markings with the day's full photos:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 17 - Recess Light Rough Part 2/

Day 18 - Remaining Appliances Purchased

Today we went to buy the remainder of our appliances from Howard Payne, in Atlanta. Nice guys and great prices.

We bought our built-in microwave / speed-cook oven, garbage disaposal, and range hood. The total, including $20 deliery was approx $2700.

Day 17 - Recessed Lights Rough-In contd

Today our electrician finished drilling holes in our ceiling for the recessed lights on the addition side.

Not much else going on today.

Day 16 - Recessed Light Rough-In

Today the electrician came back to work on laying our our lighting. We have the recessed can light holes drilled on the original side of the kitchen. We also have a new wire pulled for the sink pendant.

The old nasty range vent in the ceiling was removed. In that same general area is where our lighting over the peninsula will be located.

We also had some bad arc-fault breakers in our panel that were flipping when they shouldn't be. He replaced those, and they have not tripped at all.

Check out the day's full photos:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 16 - Recess Light Rough In/

Day 15 - Electrical Panel Moved

Today was a really good day for the renovation. Our electrician relocated our circuit breaker box to make room for our pantry cabinet. It is really amazing that you leave for work in the morning and come back with the panel moved AND the power turned back on.

Our electrician is great. He was recommended to us by our realtor, who had used him as her personal electrician. Before we moved in, he changed our fusebox to a circuit breaker AND buried the utilities from the street. It gives a clean look outside the house and safer during storms.

Here are some neat before and after pictures:

BEFORE

AFTER


Check out the full day's pictures:
http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l144/ranchkitchen/Day 15 - Electrical Panel Move/

In addition, our contractor nailed down the subfloor where needed and began to screw down the subfloor.

Actuals updated to $26,541

The new payment was for the weekly progress invoice for the contractor in the amount of approx $1,860.

Day 14 - Plumbing Work

Small bit of work today to demo the water supply lines that were found in the wall. Turns out that they were still "live". How do you like that!


The kitchen sink drain and supply were cut and capped in advance of the cabinet installation.