Partially Done

It is starting to come together! Another window, flooring, can lights, trim and paint left to do.

View from inside of bump out

New window

Coming Soon

A Kitchen Window!! I am so excited to go home today. Joseph and my uncle Jeff are installing our new cabinet height front window!! We will no longer have a piece of plywood on the front of our house! Maybe that will help the house across the street sell now :) I will post a picture when we have one....I just wanted you to endure the anticipation I am dealing with.

So happy to have the kitchen back

Last night Cheryl cranked up the new stove and made some pasta and some tea, it was so nice to not eat frozen meals anymore! I put some more silicone around the sink drain so we have a sink again too! It feels like a home again instead of a construction site... We still have along way to go but everything is manageable.

Our sink doesn't drain right because the new one is deeper than our last and the drain into the wall is higher than the outlet from the disposal. Water doesn't go up hill naturally at least. So when we flip on the disposal the standing water in it sprays up in our faces... yummy. But for now it works ok. I will have to tear the wall open and lower the drain and or remove the disposal to get a few more inches in drain height.

Sewer leak? What sewer leak? We thought we had one in our basement a few month ago. I had to re-route some vent pipes and I thought I had disconnected one wrong. The smell was bad downstairs and coincided with the plumbing work. After removing some drywall on the wall and ceiling in the down stairs bathroom I still couldn't find it. Argggggggg....

BUT! Turns out we didn't have one! The smell was coming from a roll of roofing tar paper I had downstairs, it stunk and was off gassing bad things. I moved it outside and a week later the smell was gone. Now the only smell we smell is upstairs from all the subfloor (liquid nails) glue and the granite glue... It still stinks.

Granite Countertops Installed

We removed the carpet in the living room yesterday, and put down some lovely OSB hardwood. Oh so urban chic! But seriously we are ready to lay foors!
In case you didn't know plaster dust is a renewable resource! This is a photo of our living room after removing and cleaning every item that was inside...down to tv cords and plant leaves. Our front yard was the cleaning area of choice, our neighbors love us :) This is before I was done putting it back together, but we actually have framed photos back up and a clean and tool free coffee table!! This is HUGE! Even the dog slept better last night.


New undermount sink! Single basin so that we can clean those large pots Joseph uses to brew beer. Wait until you see the sink faucet, it is beautiful!


Granite on the oven/breakfast bar. The granit has gold flecks, hard to see in this photo. What isnt hard to see? How awesome this is going to be when we are totally done!!


View of new countertops and our newly created "large" kitchen. The granite doubles as the window sill for the front window...which is coming soon.


Getting the sink ready with a router. This was included in the countertop install which we hired out, that felt great.



Before counters so you can see Joseph's handy work on the metal support for the granite under the breakfast bar.

Getting ready for Countertops

Another sunny weekend in Seattle and it was all about the kitchen again... We had to get ready for Chinese granite counter tops. But first I had to go to the Supercross at Quest field. I go every year and this year my buddy Andy had the hook up inside the Jones Soda Box. This is the view from it. I missed my other buddy Adam visiting from Idaho so we'll have to see him this summer.






Here's me screwing the 5/8 plywood to the cabinets. My dad and I only found "sanded" high quality plywood at the Depot. What a rip, it was $30 a sheet! The 1/2" normal plywood was $8!

To stregthen the half wall I added 6 studs and put them where the cabinets could be screwed into them and we added a 1/2" thick piece of plywood instead of drywall. This really stiffed things up. It will be covered by granite, cabs and the backsplash.

You can see the 20" angle brace in the photo, this time attached with 4 1/2 " lag screws into the floor. We then bolted the cab on the left to the floor and attached it to the wall. Much much stronger and i'm no longer worried that the wall will tip over with 140 lbs plus 2 people leaning on it. Could be a dangerous for that to land on our toes!


cabinet attached to floor


3/16" thick steel plaste screwed into the studs to support the granite without using corbels or angle brackets. To drill and countersink this it I went through all 3 of my drill batteries and had to switch to electric. This seems unbendable by my elbows, so I didn't bother putting plywood over it.



On Sunday we threw all the old cabinet pieces and other random junk and packaging onto the trailer and took it to the dump. I guessed it was 1200 lbs, Cheryl said 1000 lbs. It was 1160! But according to her Price as Right rules I lost. So much crap has come out of our kitchen it seems! This is the 3rd full dump run. Our total so far is 1140 + 830 + 1160 = 3130 lbs. Still got lots of carpet to throw out...

That puddle is from my neighbor washing his truck....