(on Friday, Oct. 21, 2011)
This is a RED letter day – they started to install the tile on the floor. Now it is really starting to looking like our kitchen is getting put back together.
Pedro working on getting exact marks where the side tile needs to be trimmed.
Maurice helping where needed.
This guy LOVES having his picture taken!
I can really start to imagine how cool our kitchen is going to be!
Thank YOU Pedro, Stephen and Maurice!!!!!!!
(on Thursday – Oct, 20, 2011)
Sorry for the delay in posting – I could not get pictures to upload because WordPress and my computer have not been getting along and for me a picture is worth a 1,000 words. It is so frustrating when things do not work like they did the day before, but I have a new system in place and it is working (for right now)!
On Wednesday night we removed the screen door. When it gets dark early you have to take matters into your own hands for needed light.
Chris does not have a screen door on his new house so he said our old one was better than nothing at all – so here it is ready for its new home.
Here is another interesting pieces of history of this house – here is evidence that it probably had blue trim at some point in time.
They continued putting down more of the cement board.
The heat vent is now rerouted and coming out up higher.
I know you were just wanting to see a close-up of the heat vent – so here it is.
It’s so fun when visiting with Pedro about some sort of detail and he will use the wall to illustrate what he is talking about – kind of reminds me of Dad and being on the construction site with him. (I will have to make sure he does not do that after I have the walls painted though.)
Here the wood trim is removed below the large window in the office area. Now the desk top should be able to fit better.
(on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011)
Pedro and Stephen are working on moving the gas line. When I asked if it was okay if I took the picture with them in it Stephen looked up and said a big “CHEESE”. I love his smile. He is the one that has been working here day after day. He is a very hard worker and I appreciate all that he is doing.
The gas pipe is moved – the relocation of the stove is now a done deal – no going back now!
Checking for leaks (another big cheese for the camera). It’s great that I like this guy because he is spending alot of time in my house.
With the move of the stove came other things that needed to be changed – ie heat/ac vent.
This has been challenging. After discussing a few options and the pros and cons it was decided that the vent would be reposition to the right, coming out under the lazy susan. When they started to make preparations for this they realized that there was a support stud(beam) for the upstairs that they needed to go through. Probably not a good idea. So, more options had to be discussed.
One option was to have it go up (to a height that would be above the duct work for the living room vent) and over to the left and down. It would just barely come out into the corner under the cabints. Pedro was not really excited about this option. He didn’t feel I would get that much heat in the room if it was coming out in the corner like that (or maybe there was another reason and he just was not saying it). What he really wanted to do was close the vent off and cover it up. For me, this was not an option. I was not too worried about the heat – I can always turn the oven on. But in the Summer, the cool (A/C) is the problem. With having closed that corner off I am really worried how hot the kitchen would get especially now since the cool air from the basement will not make it into the kitchen.
We discussed different options. The one we finally settled on was having the cabinet that is going to be above the microwave (which will be over the stove) 6″ shorter. That 6 inch space will be used for the duct work/vent. Above is our fine drawing of how the arrangement will look.
Stephen has opened up the wall and it is ready for the duct work to be installed.
The cement board was also installed in part of the area to be covered with tile. Pedro thinks they will install the tile on Firday (we’ll see). I also spent some time to make the decision about the color to paint the walls. You can see in the above picture to the right where I have a cabinet door, tile, drapery fabric and paint chip arranged trying to helping in the final decision. Picking these colors is much harder than choosing fabric for a quilt – that come really easy.
I think Stephen really enjoys doing mud work – he always seems to find some time to spread a little mud here and there.
(on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011)
The electrical and drywall work continues.
The ceiling between the outside door and Half-bath was always cracking and peeling. To fix this they put a new piece of sheetrock up on that part of the ceiling.
The nails from some of the floor boards were removed.
Tomorrow they are suppose to move the gas line. (If you look really close – you can see where I have added a red line that shows roughly where the new gas line for the stove will go.
This was the first major change I dreamed up for our kitchen and it took awhile for Tom is get onboard for this change. But, when he is on board he is there completely! I am really excited about this change. I think by not having the refigerator in the middle of my counter top space it will really make my little kitchen feel alot larger.
Pedro said that he would take me to Home Depot to pick-up the door. But he always seems so busy, so Tom and I borrowed a friend’s car and went and picked up our new door.
Fun times in the Ciccotelli household!
(on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011)
The work day begun with holes being cut where the outlets are to be positioned.
When the wires could not be strung inside the wall, channels were created for the wire to go from one outlet to another. This wall has the new outlets that will be in our office area.
These outlets had to be repositioned because the original outlets will be covered with the new cabinets.
With the addition of the new cabinets in the corner the doorbell has to be moved. Here is the channel for the doorbell wire to be buried in the wall to above the door.
In our old kitchen the refigerator was in front of the heat/ac vent. Since we are swapping the location of the refigerator and stove that means the vent would be in back of the stove. Also, with the corner being filled with cabinets the heat/ac would have no where to do and would not get into the room. Therefore, we are moving the vent to have it come out in the toekick of one of the cabinets beside the stove. Here they have are chipped away the wall to start this process. I think this will acually get more heat/ac into the kitchen area.
Last night Tom worked on getting the cable wire inside the wall.
We also had to determine how much extra wire was needed to allow the TV to move around on the full-motion wall mount. The blue tape marks the exact spot!
Here is a before shot (minus the refigerator – which is now in our dining room) of the pass-through corner.
After
I had forgotten that I had an outlet in my pantry. Can you imagine – I have never used it the 13 years that I have lived here.
On Sunday evening………..
Tom decided that we should figure out if we needed all the wires that were running through our office area. As it turns out, this old telephone box was there just for looks (or eyesore). Tom removed the box and extra wires. It is really fun to remove this kind of stuff and see some of the history of a house. Do you like that green paint? Can you imagine the whole room painted that color?
We also spent some time marking exactly where we want the outlets and…………..
deciding where we wanted to mount the TV on the wall and placement of the outlet for the TV.
Here is an example how this project has taken over more than just the kitchen/office area.
This is the couch and coffee table that my father made for me when we moved into our new home in Highlands Ranch, Colorado in 1988. My father and other family members had student housing at Ricks College (now BYU-I) in Rexburg, Idaho. My father got really fustrated and tired of always having to repair the furniture each year that was broken by those crazy college kids. He designed this furniture and built it to LAST! I did replaced the foam and made new covers for this furniture just shortly after moving to New York 13+ years ago. Needless to say – I have been using this furniture a long time and it has served us well.
As I as thinking forward about finishing touches in the kitchen I didn’t really want to put the same window coverings up. This then lead me to start thinking about the the adjoining dining/living room and I did wanted to coordinate with what was in there. Well, then my thought process went to the cushions on the couch and chairs and how they were starting to show come wear. We decided that maybe it was time for a change. I then set out to find new furniture for the living room. More on that when it is actually put into service.
Tom emailed a couple of leaders in our church and asked if they knew anyone that was in need of some living room furniture. One man responded that there was a family that had just moved and they had no furniture. So, arrangements were made for someone to come and pick-up the furniture for this family.
It was starting to rain so they are covering everything with plastic.
We also gave the family this recliner. I had purchased this when I moved into my townhouse in Laytonsville, Maryland (1993).
Everything is loaded and on it’s way to its new home.
Thanks Dad for making me this furniture so many years ago. I am sure you are happy knowing that it is going to a family that really needed furniture.
on Thursday, October 13, 2011
No pictures today because they would be almost like yesterdays except they started to work on the walls in the pantry.
I still think this is a funny order to do things in. Oh well, at least I am not having to do the work.
on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011
It kinds of seems to me that they are doing things in not right order. In my mind I thought they would build the new part of the wall and then work on the walls, therefore being able to do all the wall work at the same time. But – I guess not.
Today they removed the chair railing and starting to working on patching the wall.
This is actually starting to make our kitchen look better. Maybe there is hope after all.
They also removed the old pantry.
on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011
The workers were no show on Friday and Monday. Needless to say, I was somewhat discouraged this morning when it was 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30 and not workers. I could start to see us living in what is cramped like a New York City apartment for the rest of our lives. Then just prior to leaving for the Village Squares Quilters Guild meeting Pedro called and said they would be here to work in about 30 minutes.
When I returned home the hardwood floor was being removed in the office area.
Here is the hardwood floor in the trash bag – kind of sad. They did save some of the best pieces to use in the the little hallway that will adjoin to the living room.