Not Without Issue

TL;DR here's the kitchen I made.

In with the new, out with the old

The end of the last post provided no guarantee for a functioning kitchen. But it did mention a new four wheeler. Can confirm.

That picture is not without its own sadness.

Within 20 miles of procuring a new ATV, my truck broke. Somewhere in Indiana. I am fortunate to have amazing people in my life. Amazing people that come to rescue me and say "Oh, I know you'd do the same for me". That is true. I sure would. But I have yet to come across a person that says that, that would ever be in the predicaments I find myself in.

Luckily, Jack had a man's truck at the time. He drove two hours to come save me and Dave. The Ford's fate was sealed that day.

Goodbye Cool Trucks

I sold the Old Dodge.
I sold the Ford.

I don't miss the ford really. I bought Ryan's old truck. It's a little rough but it carries me and my wheeler around without much complaint. 

Just look at the places it takes us.

In spirit of cool things before family things. I took out the backseat so I could fit more subwoofer. 

But then I did the thing. 

I bought the cabinets.

SHEW. I finally pulled the trigger and did the thing I've been debating over for literal years. It's done.

I had a grand scheme of buying them from menards a few at a time but then they decided to discontinue them. WITH DISCOUNT. So I bought all they had and drove 100 miles away to get the rest. Overall the cost was pretty low and the quality is acceptable for the house I have.

Flooring: the chronicles

You see those piles of mortar? The stack of tiles with mortar still attached? The frothpak spray foam kit? That other box that used to carry a 5000w electric heater in it?

All those things can fuck right off. This really kicked me in the shins man. 

-start with a clean new floor

-mix up mortar

-lay tile

-wait 24 hours

-none of the tile stuck

-take it all back up

-scrape all the mortar from everything

-insulate crawl space with frothpak

-buy more mortar

-buy 5000w heater to put in crawl space

-try again

Removing all the 24 hour old tile

Insulate the perimeter

At last. Kitchen tile laid for the final time.

GROUT. This step is: a)pain in the ass. b)requires skill I don't have.

300 hours on my knees with a sponge and a bucket.

YO I FUCKING DID IT.

Christmas as a Russell.

That's me. I'm a Russell.

I had been housing the cabinets in my garage. A future garage project includes a french drain to keep the water out, but currently the floor gets wet if it rains too much. The thought of a trucks worth of cabinets getting soggy from some rain had me panicked. 

I don't do Christmas. Not that I won't ever. I just currently don't. But I did get to spend the day with my sister. And she helped me carry in every single cabinet and get them unboxed. The world needs more sisters like mine. 

I have replaced the foundation, dug out the crawl space, installed new floor joists, laid every piece of subfloor, every bucket of mortar, cut every tile. I installed those windows. There is not a part of this picture that I haven't made.

Finish work :(

I have been simultaneously dreading and dreaming of this period. The finish work. The part that looks good. The steps where every cut and detail counts. This is both my strong suit and my weakness.

Sometimes progress looks like a mess.

The next step is installing cabinets. I debated the layout of these for YEARS and continued to change plans until the screws started going in.

As much as I can continue to tell myself building a house is just a bunch of layers and steps, it's really a grand plan. The things I did five years ago are both helping me and hurting me. But currently, it's about the details. Hanging 20 feet of cabinets in multiple directions and making sure they coordinate with the less-than-square walls, floors, and ceiling. What you see above is a whole days work. 

And here is why the planning matters. See that vent? It's in the wrong place. I had a lapse in planning. I measured out for the 12" cabinets but I forgot about the crown molding. The crown is important. So I'll either have to move that vent or get a cover that will shim up above trim. 

Countertops 

I wanted stone. Well, kind of stone. Quartz. Everyone want's quartz. I could not justify that. So I went with Menards laminate in the from of special order. I bought two runs with adjoining 45* angles. There was still plenty of trimming and fitting to do. But here you can see the trim work start to come together.

If you're installing the counters, always order more than you need.

Here we are. A weirdly unsatisfying part. A lot of work. A big step. Meh results. 

This should be a huge relief. But somehow isn't. It looks...average. It feels average. 

It's all in the details, it turns out

I chose an interesting dark/light situation. Which means the light parts are the important ones and backsplash changes the whole space. As usual, I'm too quick to judge even my own work before it's finished. 

So backsplash and lights it is. I have dreamt of having a backsplash that I was proud of. I made that. Thanks Lowe's.

I found a guy at Lowe's with a red tag that said "IN TRAINING" and did a situation like I do in the paint department. No less that 20 minutes later we decided on this one. 

Lowe's trainee did real good.

I laid all the tiles out before I started. I bought premixed mortar because cleaning that off of a bathtub sucks(that's my functional water source). This is about 30min of frantic but happy work. I LOVE IT.

oh i added a sink too

Finish work sucks

Backsplash goes up so fast. But then theres the grout work. Caulking. Trim. So much trim. 

I had to move my light switch a few inches around the corner and added a second switch for can lighting. The backsplash grout was a little sad at first. It really took away a lot of the natural stone character but that turned out to be just right. 

The fridge pantry is a standard 94" tall. Which means the adjoining cabinet will be at 94". My ceiling, if you recall from the last post, varies in height and happens to be about 100" tall there. Mostly theres a gap between the cabinets and the ceiling that sucks.

I decided to run the under-cabinet lighting to the top of those cabinets, put up the same crown a few inches down from the ceiling and let the lights shine against the ceiling. That turned out nice. 

Theres ceiling trim, floor trim, window trim, toe kick trim, window sills, caulking, low voltage wiring, somehow more trim, and a bit of 120/220 wiring.  

Here's what all of that looks like:

Not quite done

Theres a good possibility I continue to walk through my kitchen and never actually use it this year. It's nearly four wheelin weather. 

The next steps include revisiting the crawl space and spending more money on appliances than I have ever spent on a vehicle so I don't mind ignoring that for a while. There's still the transfer switch to install, power feed upgrade, finish up some painting and trim in the bedroom, a laundry room that doesn't have finished drywall or even flooring. Of course the bathroom. I haven't even started on the bathroom yet. 

k,bye thanks for reading about my life