Paint Up, Travertine Tile Down

The plan for today was to paint the kitchen walls and get the tile down that would be below the appliances and lower cabinets. The paint was as uneventful as painting can be, so I'll just post the obligatory picture and be done with it. I didn't paint everywhere, as the cabinets would hide a lot of the wall, so why bother?




To keep the grout lines straight and in-line with the lines already done in the kitchen I could have used a chalk-line, but I'm not a fan of tracking the chalk dust around the kitchen. My method was to use my Ryobi laser level. I lined one end up with the current grout lines and the other end of the laser line with a mark on the far end of the kitchen.




Mounted on a tripod it was easy to keep it in place throughout the tiling.



About 2/3 of the tile I'm putting down today will be hidden under the appliances and lower cabinets. For those tiles in the first two rows I picked the ugliest and plainest tiles I had. Better looking tiles are reserved for areas that will be visible.




Here is the finished work for the day. The third row was done with the good looking tiles.




How'd the laser line work? Everything lined up pretty damn well, so I'll keep repeating this method as I continue with the floor in the future. Putting a mark at the far end of the floor I'm able to make sure that the width of the lines are consistent across the full length. The tile-spacers make nice little targets for the laser.



In a few days I'll grout the floor and will then be able to install the appliances. As of now we're without a stove until I finish this up and run the gas line. Oh, and speaking of the gas line, I guess I should have drilled the hole for it before putting down the cement board and tile..... Oh well.

Prepping the Floor for Tile

The goal for the weekend is to get a substantial amount of "heavy" work done in the kitchen. Demo is done, and the third cost of plaster has been applied to the walls.

I'm thrilled with how the Dust Control joint compound has worked. All of the dust from the sanding fell within 2' of the wall. Nothing floating around the house, much less the rest of the kitchen.

While the final skim coat of mud is drying, I prepped the floor for the cement board. Normally I would prefer to remove the old layer(s) of linoleum, but considering they're both stuck very well to the floor and especially since there's a good chance that the bottom layer has asbestos, I'm leaving them in place.

I removed the lose edges and the base molding, and filled the low spots where there is no linoleum (the areas covered by the previous lower cabinets).




2-1/2 sheets of 4'x4' cement board and 150 screws later and the floor is ready for tile. I'm only applying tile to this small area of the floor for now, and when I do the other half of the kitchen I'll do the rest.

While I was screwing down the cement board, I took the opportunity to run some 3-1/2" deck screws through the cement board, linoleum, and sub-floor into the floor joists to get rid of a little squeeking where the old stove location was. It might have gone away on it's own after the tile is installed, but considering it reflects where the sub-floor is moving I figured it was best to get rid of the problem now so I don't have to worry about the grout cracking later on.




Once the floor was done, the drywall was ready for it's final sanding, followed by a coat of primer & sand texture.

Tomorrow morning I'll pick up some paint to give the walls a coat before doing the flooring and hanging the cabinets. Once the walls are painted I can start installing the floor tile. I figure I'll be installing about 35 square feet of tile.

Test Fitting the Ikea Cabinets

Today's goal was to get the drywall mostly done so that over the weekend I can hang the cabinets and start tiling the floor.

The first step was to get another layer of drywall mud on the joints so that it would have time to dry overnight. On it went, no big deal. I followed up with a sponge sanding. As it looks right now I'll have to give it a light sanding tomorrow morning before giving it the final skim coat.

After the mud had dried long enough to not be messy I put up the track for the upper cabinets. I started with the track about two inches higher than recommended by the Ikea instructions. Why? Because I knew I would have about 1/2" of floor build-up from the floor tiles and because I wanted a little more room above the counter tops. Everybody in my family is above average height, so it's not like we won't be able to reach the shelves. However, if midgets move in here after us, they're fvcked.




With the track up I could hang the cabinets. With the mounting track placed where it was, I had between 1-1/4" and 1-1/2" of gap between the ceiling and the top of the cabinet. Normally, when hanging the track at the recommended height you would only have the wall studs to screw into. By raising the track like I did I get to use the wall header giving me a lot more strength.




In the opening that will house the microwave I marked the stud locations. This will make it easier and quicker to screw the mounting plate to the wall. I had also marked the stud locations on the wall behind the cabinet before I knew where I was going to mount the cabinet rail.




The sides and bottom trim will provide a nice place to hide the under-cabinet lighting. The lights will throw a lot of light but not be visible to anybody but kids. Or midgets. The bottom trim will sit out farther forward, but I couldn't temporarily clamp it into place where it will finally sit.



Jumping back to the space above the cabinets, I had considered filling that gap with a small filler piece, but then changed my mind and decided to raise the cabinets to put them really close to the ceiling. I raised the track by 1". The cabinet mounting hardware allows me to move the cabinets up by 1/2", so in theory I should be able to put the cabinets right up against the ceiling.




"In theory" compared to "reality". The top and bottom of the cabinet extend back beyond the back wall of the cabinet so the cabinet sits flat against the wall, even though there is a mounting rail behind it. The drywall mud in the corner keeps me from pushing the cabinet up the full 1/2" I mentioned previously, so my plan is to cut off that top edge. Once it's cut off I should be able to get the gap down to about 1/8", a small enough gap to fill with caulking. The final result should be a nice clean install.




Tomorrow I'll pull the cabinets down and do the final mud work. By the end of the day or on Sunday I can paint & texture the wall and then hang them back up, possibly for the last time.

Slinging Mud

Time to start slinging mud. I need to have the kitchen ready for cabinet and flooring install this weekend, and time during the week will be short. In the past I have always used standard drywall joint compound.

This time around I'm using the compound with dust control. I wanted to buy one gallon, but the local Menards only sells it in the 3-1/2 gallon containers. I'm hoping it keeps until I get to the other side of the kitchen. Worst case scenario is that I'm out $12.00.

I've read from a couple of people that this dust control version is well worth the extra few bucks. I'll find out for myself.




It's been a couple of years since I've done any drywall work, so I got back into the swing of it by doing the easy sections first - the areas I cut out to run the cable through the studs.

It went on easily, and I gave it a going-over with a sponge after it set up a bit. If I'm lucky (and careful) I should have very little to sand.




Only about 1/3 of the joints will be visible once the cabinets are in place, which I'm really happy about. That means that I can do a semi-half-ass job on about 2/3 of the joints.

Even though most of them won't be visible I still hit 'em with the sponge, but I won't bother final sanding them. Only the visible parts will get the extra effort.

Now that the first layer of mud is on, I'll let it sit until Friday, which should be the next time I get time to work on it. There will be some shrinkage to deal with and I'll need to feather the edges a bit.

Overall I'm happy with how it's looking so far.

Wiring and Patching Drywall for the Kitchen Remodel

The demo on one-half of the kitchen was done yesterday. Today the plan was to get the wiring installed and the holes patched with drywall.

I had five outlet boxes to install - one for a switch to control the under-cabinet lighting and four for outlets (including the one mounted high on the wall for the over-the-stove microwave. There are a number of ways people go about getting the wiring to each of the new outlets.

I wanted a reasonably straight-forward way of getting the wiring from stud-bay to stud-bay that didn't include running wire all the way up into the attic or down through the basement. What I did was to make the cut-outs for the outlets and then cut out the drywall between them.

I could then drill holes through the studs for the wiring. All the wiring could then go through a single hole in the floor plate.

If I were just adding wiring for the outlets I might have just run the wiring through the floor, but I needed to add a switched outlet for the under-cabinet lighting and tie it into what used to be the power line for the range vent hood. Lots of back and forth, so it was easiest to make an opening to get the wiring through the walls.




Here's a tip which will save a bit of work when it comes time to finish the wiring at the panel. Mark the end of the wiring with a description that makes sense to you. The one shown here is pretty obvious. If you're running a bunch of lines at the same time this will really help when it comes to labeling the new breakers.




Fast forward a couple of hours and the drywall is all in place. I need to clean up the edges a little and then I can start mudding. The patching in where the soffit used to be will be somewhat easier than it looks, as only about 1/3 of the seams will be visible once the new cabinets are in place. The ones which will remain hidden will be taped & mudded, but I won't waste much time getting them perfect.



Jumping back to the "before" picture, removing the soffit does open up the kitchen a bit. This wasn't my big goal though. My goal was gaining storage. Consider that the entire area covered with the soffit (plus more) is now storage. The cost to tear out and patch the soffit was about $20 in material.

Removing Cabinets with Extreme Prejudice

It took about half an hour, but the upper cabinets were removed without too much of a fight. I wanted to remove them without damaging the wall, because that will save me time later on if I don't have to fix it. I didn't care too much about the soffits, as those aren't staying.

I found that the easiest way to remove the cabinets was to simply cut the nails (LOTS of nails...) with a reciprocating saw. I worked a pry-bar between the wall and cabinet enough to loosen the cabinets enough to get the saw blade in and then down they came.

I still haven't figured out if the blue paint seen here was primer or if the room was actually painted this color. I really really hope it was just primer. Over the blue is painted a coat of olive green - not a real improvement in my opinion... You can easily see the outline of where the cabinets were, even after cleaning the walls with de-greaser.

The black spot in the middle is the vent for the range hood.




Tearing the soffits out wasn't too big of a project. I found that the best results were achieved by using the reciprocating saw to cut the inside corners by the ceiling and wall so that the drywall would break away easily as the inside structure was pulled apart. This kept the drywall from tearing.

The structure of the soffit was just 2x4 construction. I was concerned with hidden wiring, and actually got out with minimal wiring to deal with - just the one cable in the corner. I need to look at the structure of the wall to see if I can just notch the 2x4 to make room for it.

This corner also has some water damage from the previously leaking chimney flashing.




With the soffit removed, the kitchen does feel larger. I used some painter's tape to mark where the cabinets are going to be placed so I could make marks on the wall showing future outlet locations. The only outlet on that wall was used by the fridge and microwave, leaving nothing to power small appliances. When I finish this wall, the fridge and microwave will be on their own circuits and there will be a GFCI protected circuit for each counter top. The stove also has it's own circuit. Good thing I've got plenty of space open in the new electrical panel!




I started the electrical work by moving the plug which used to be for the fridge down low on the wall for the stove. I'm switching from an electric stove to a gas stove, so I can also remove the current 22ov outlet. Once the final location for the new stove is determined I can run the gas line for it. I got lucky in that the plug I moved was between the right studs and was just long enough to allow me to use it for the stove.

Now that the electrical line is run and tested for this outlet, I can patch the old outlet hole as well as the hole I made which was too low. Oops... Oh well, nobody will ever see it after the stove is in place and it'll be an easy patch.

Actual Real Kitchen Progress!

Since the water systems are now upgraded I can FINALLY turn my attention to the rest of the kitchen. I didn't want to start this work earlier, because I didn't want to install a dish washer that would just get messed up with rusty water.

That excuse is now gone, and our water is still blissfully clear.

The kitchen work will take place in two stages: South wall followed by North wall. South first because it'll be easier and will allow me to work out the bugs before I do the harder North wall.

First step was to empty out the cabinets and remove the doors. I plan to keep the cabinets in one-piece as much as possible to give them away. While I really hope that nobody would use them in their kitchen, I think they'd make good garage cabinets.




As I'm taking everything apart I find out how "old school" cabinet installers did their work here - by using multiple large nails per stud. Yay. Installing cabinets with screws makes cabinets much easier to install and remove. You can also see here how there are no "backs" to the cabinets. The back wall is actually the textured drywall. For some reason, I find this kind of disgusting. Probably because the walls in the kitchen have decades of gunk built up on 'em.




Uppers are cleaned out and the work has started on the base cabinets. The cabinet to the left of the stove came out easily Only one screw was holding it into the drywall. Not into the stud, but only into the drywall. Nice and secure. This cabinet wasn't original to the house.

The cabinet to the right of the stove was original and was installed very securely. So securely that it got destroyed in the process of removing it. I wanted to save the drywall more than the cabinet, because the new fridge will be installed there and I don't want to patch drywall if I don't have to.




One thing that was bugging me about the cabinets in the house is how the uppers and lowers didn't line up. I figured it was because the cabinet to the left of the stove was replaced at some point with a wider base or because there was originally a very narrow stove. From the paint that was covered by the lower cabinet for the last 50+ years and based on the sub-flooring, I was right. The lower and upper cabinets used to line up properly.



My original plan was to have the whole wall cleared of cabinets and appliances tonight, but we're dog sitting a friend's puppy and I'm stuck watching the dog instead of working. By end-of-day tomorrow I want to have the entire wall demo'd, including soffits, range vent, and flooring. If all goes well I'd like to have the drywall patching started for the soffets and maybe even some of the electrical changes laid out.