Third time’s a charm

I think last I spoke about this, it was March and I was hell bent on buying a stove.  Well I did buy a stove that weekend in March…but it took nearly 12 weeks and two botched delivery attempts before it actually appeared in my kitchen.  But now I can finally say, I have a completely working kitchen…just 15 months after I began my kitchen renovation. Slow and steady wins the race?

Basically this is what happened:
~ Sears sales person #1 = idiot and sends my order through a distribution center that does not deliver to Arlington.
~ Distribution center #1 = asshole and cancels said order from the system completely.
~ Sears system = jacked because the above move means there is now no record that I actually paid nearly $1,000 for a major kitchen appliance.
~ I spend 4 hours on the phone with Sears. Joy.
~ Sears sales person #2 = nice, but inappropriate. He asks me out. I don’t think I sound that cute on the phone. I question whether I should really be spending this kind of money with a group of idiots.
~ Sears sales person #2 knocks the price down over $200. I am no longer seething.
~ Must wait six more weeks for the next available delivery date.
~ Wait patiently. Finally get the delivery confirmation call the day before delivery.
~ Installer #1 shows up! Joy! Real joy this time!
~ But then I see he has brought the wrong stove.
~ Joy dissipates.
~ Installer #1 argues that this is the stove! His papers match for gosh sakes!
~ Politely (no, really) explain papers don’t mean jack and that he doesn’t have my stove so he should probably just be on his way.
~ Installer #1 leaves. Blames fault on Distribution Center #2. I tend to agree.
~ I place a phone call to Sears to tell them about the black stove that showed up instead of the stainless one. They try to tell me that stainless steel appliances are a mix of black and steel. I politely (not really) inform them I am not an idiot.
~ Sears promises to call me back.
~ They don’t.
~ I get mad.
~ Sears manager = jerk and I am forced to call back the store several times over the course of a week to get an answer.
~ They try to give me $50 to appease me.
~ This does not work.
~ Many phone calls later, they add another $90 off to their offer.
~ I accept it with the promise of a delivery within the next two weeks. It’s been 10 weeks now since my initial purchase.
~ Installer #2 calls to confirm installation. I confirm but an off-hand question about the delivery leads me to realize that they are not actually bringing the stove, but rather just coming to install one that has already been delivered.
~ This is a problem seeing as how I do not currently have a stove waiting to be installed. Installer #2 places a call to Distribution Center #3 to see if they can work something out.
~ Installer #2 = awesome and Sears is still sucking.
~ The next day, Installer #2 shows up with my stove and all the appropriate hoses and valves. I almost cannot believe it.
~ But thar she is…

My love

A christening

There are just over two weeks before the new stove is delivered.  Outside of the obvious questions…will it fit (pertinent because not even the old stove fits properly)?, will it work?, or will it even arrive?…there is the glaring one of what flour & sugar confection will be chosen to christen the new appliance?

~Cookies? And if cookies, do I make am old stand-by or something new and fancy?

~Cake?

~Tart or pie? And then,  fruit or cream-based?

~Cheesecake?

I see a stove in my future…maybe…

Looks like I might, probably buying a stove this weekend, maybe.  I add all the qualifiers since it’s been no less than five months since I began my search for one, much to the chagrin of those that like tasty oven-baked treats and my friends who are tired of hearing me say “but I don’t have an oven”.

Basically, I am ready to pull the trigger and baring any assholish salespeople, I should be able to schedule delivery/installation for later this month. Woo?

The kitchen renovation has basically been on hold since last September.  Many things happened to get to this, a now five-month pause in forward progress.  You can go back and see how crappy my Fall was if you are so inclined.  By the time December rolled around and I was ready to emerge with checkbook in hand, but I felt bad spending nearly a grand on a shiny stove while sticking to a strict budget on the Christmas presents.  So I pushed shopping back and then Mom ended up in the hospital. Then it was Boca and working on the weekends and well, now–now Mom’s home, feeling half-way decent and Boca is a thing of the past, so no more excuses.  Stove shopping will happen this weekend.

I am currently looking at two models.  These are by no means, top of the line, or even middle-class really.  But they aren’t bargain basement. I drew the line at self-cleaning.  Self-cleaning was my must-have feature, along with a storage drawer instead of a warming drawer.

The GE:

Bottom of the barrel GE range

The Frigidaire:

Lower middle-class Frigidaire

Question is, will I actually buy one?  Stay tuned…

The first casualty

Contrary to what may be popular belief I have not given up finishing the kitchen.  Also contrary to what some may think, it’s still not finished either.  I am kind of in a renovation limbo (more on that later).  Last I left you, we had ripped up the old floors. If you’ve forgotten, and I mean who could blame you it was August after all, you can refresh your memory here, under MKR: Project Grossness.

While nothing has budged on the kitchen since (well, we did finish the floors…sooo pretty! I love them and caress them everyday. Seriously.) I did have my first casualty recently.  Deaths are to be expected when one takes their once semi-soft linoleum floors and turns them into hard-ass floors of steel.  And when something as innocuous as a pan lid takes a header off the stove and makes a beeline for those tiled floors, someone’s going to get hurt. It could be the floors–tile, it cracks!  It could be me, wrenching my back to save the falling lid! Or it could be the lid, crashing spectacularly as it hits the floor–especially if said lid is made of glass.

I give you Exhibit A.

Crash

And Exhibit B.

Thats a hundred million peices, yo

I think it’s clear who the winner is.

Kitchen Floor: 1
Cookware: 0

(But hey, check out the pretty floor! So nice, so lovely, no?)

MKR: Project Grossness

If you are ever feeling a lack of disgustingness in your life, I suggest that you rip up your old kitchen floors.  And making sure that your kitchen is more than 60 years old will help you achieve maximum grossness.

Step one in replacing the kitchen floor = ripping up what was already there = absolutely nasty

Going in, we knew that the floors were linoleum. We also knew (or were 95% sure) there was at least one other floor underneath that linoleum. Bossman Mom and resident HGTV expert informed us that we could not lay tile over the existing floor because in order for things to be sound, you cannot have more than two floors laid down at a time. Apparently the previous owners did not have the same knowledge because we ripped up two layers of linoleum and one layer of peel-n-stick flooring.  I am guessing that one of those linoleom layers was the original floor…it was almost indistinguishable as a floor, but a hint of octagonal pattern peeked out at us once we pulled out the stove.  It took us (read: Dad) about an hour to rip out each layer using a combo of brut strength and a crowbar. He did find a wedding  band in the mess.  Makes me wonder about all the past owners of this place, what were they like? What did they do? Why did they install the front door’s chain lock on backwards?

Once all the big pieces were ripped up and thrown out on the lawn, we tried to chisel out the stubborn pieces so we could get to the nice (I am using the term loosely), even concrete base.  After thirty minutes work only cleared an area about the size of a piece of toast, we knew what we had to do.  We had to go find a ho(e). A professional that could blow through that mess quickly. Heh.

A field trip to the Ho(me) Depot, turned up several options. I didn’t like the look of the ho(es), plus they were expensive! But what I did spy was what looked like a garden version of an over sized ice scrapper, it looked perfect for scrapping hardened gunk off concrete and it was only $12!  Done.  Screw those $20 ho(es)…who needs ‘em?

Back home with my new weapon (I seriously think it will replace the hockey stick that currently resides next to my bed), three of us took turns scrapping crap off the floor.  Being that this was last week when it was 100 degrees outside and that I don’t have central air, just two wall units neither of which is in the kitchen, it was ridiculously sweaty work, scrapping up that floor.  It took most of the afternoon getting the floor into something we could use.

Next step was to lay down the subfloor, we used 1/2″ backer board to keep things level with the wood floor in the dining area and to help retard anything the decides it wants to grown under the tiles.  Dad and little bro D scored and snapped the pieces in place and then D and I slapped down the mortar to cement in the backer board.

Viola! A sub floor.

Next: Laying the tiles.

Read about my electrical woes and more kitchen renovation adventures by clicking here.

MKR: The Countertop Edition

Yes I am still renovating. Yes, it’s true that the kitchen is still not finished. After halting all work for June (too much travel) I am gearing back up again for a renovation session this weekend with the family.

I believe I left you with a big pile of granite tile in my living room. Well, those tiles are now permanently residing as my countertops and that shiny Kohler sink is officially installed. The glass shades for the overhead pendant light fixture were also finally purchased. So things are starting to take a turn for the pretty.

The installation for the counter and sink took three days–one and a half that I was present for. Mad props to the family, they are amazing.

DAY 1 – We started on a Saturday, ripping out the old Formica counters and cutting the substrate to fit. This was tough because it was pouring outside which meant dear old Dad wanted to make the plywood cuts indoors. Circular saw + plywood + my dining room was going to equal a mother load of sawdust. And I am still battling sawdust from refinishing the freaking cabinets, so needless to say I was getting a little worried. Plus, I had to leave the install to go attend Buggie’s Graduation BBQ and who knows what fantastical things they might have decided to do in my absence. Fortunately, there was a break in the weather, so they were able to make the plywood and backer board cuts outside. Phew.

While brother and I headed of for the party, Mom, Dad, bother-in-law and little sis all stayed and cut and fit the plywood and backer board in. So for the next day, we started with this (look how big the space for the sink is!):

DAY 2 — We started by marking the cuts on the tiles. We would turn them over and run a pencil along the cut line and then tape off the section of tile that need to be cut away. The countertop opposite of the one in the picture above is almost a perfect square without any cutouts so we started there. My Dad cut all the tile himself, save for the pieces my brother did towards the end of the day (not that we didn’t TRY to have Home Depot make two tricky cuts for us, but they were, shall we say, not helpful in that area).

After all the cuts were made we dry fit the tiles into place to make sure everything was kosher and all nice and even. Most of the cuts were right on, just a few needed some shaving either on the tile saw Dad was manning outside, or the hacksaw my brother was using for the slimmest of cuts. Once we determined that everything was going to fit, it was time to mix the granite mortar mix. A project little bro and Mom left me and Dad to take care of. Looked simple enough, the instructions were in the form of a pictogram (which I should have taken a picture of, but didn’t). The pictogram showed a measured amount of water to be poured in a bucket and then the mortar mix to be added to the water, and then constant and vigorous stirring for a specified amount of time–thusly creating a type of cement. We measured the water and poured it in the bucket. Check. Dad lifted the 50lb bag of mortar mix and started pouring it into the water-filled bucket while I stirred in a very witch-cauldron-stew kind of way. Check check. Before Dad got half of the bag of mix in the bucket it became obvious that if we were to continue, stirring would immediately have to stop, for there was clearly not enough water to keep things liquidy and the cement, she was getting harder by the minute. We added some unprescribed water and continued our quest, only to hit another cement wall, literally. Dad and I silently determined the pictogram was bogus and we were officially going to do this off the cuff. I added more water.

Dad (yelling): What’s this stuff supposed to look like?

Mom (referencing her bank of HGTV knowledge): It’s supposed to have the consistency of peanut butter.

Dad (looking into the bucket as I am stirring): Chunky or Smooth?

Mom:

Me: Giggle

It’s obvious that we are too loose for peanut butter, so we add a bit more mortar mix in, much to my chagrin because damn, this shit is hard to stir. And the prescribed stir time is something like twelve minutes so every time we tinker with the recipe we start the timer over.

I lift up the stir stick (we are using a broom handle) to test it’s consistency, and it’s a little drippy. Dad tells me to keep stirring while he adds a little more mix in and again restarts the timer.

Me (tiring fast and groaning): Dad, you stir. My abs hurt. (Seriously, you had to stir with your whole body)

Dad (taking the stick): Wuss

After a minute and a half Dad is sweating. He tests the consistency, it’s definitely thicker, but it’s still a little drippy. Dad wonders aloud if peanut butter would drip off the end of a knife. He then determines, aloud, the no, peanut butter should not drip.

Me: Not true! My natural peanut butter is very drippy.

Dad (yelling): Is it supposed to be like natural peanut butter or the regular kind?

Mom (yelling): What? How the hell should I know!

Me: Giggle

Dad’s stirring is slowing so I take over. It’s getting thicker. We start taking two-minute shifts. I try to entice my freakishly strong brother to come stir, he takes two turns around the bucket and hands us back the stick. This shit is hard. I mean have you ever mixed cement by hand? Heysoos. Here is the bane of our existence that day:

So we finally get to peanut butter stage. Now it’s sloppy time. Using a 1/4″ x 3/8″ x 1/4″ trowel we slap that stuff on the counters and start laying tile. That apparently is a large grooved trowel, good for getting a good grip on the tile, but hard to make adjustments once you’ve laid it down. So we spent the next hour pushing and wiggling to get our lines and corners straight.  Mortaring is oddly like frosting a cake. I like it. I take pride in making nice trowel lines.  Can you guess which picture shows my mortar job?

Oh my gosh, once we straightened everything out, it looked amazing! After all the tile was laid down we taped down the areas that might decide to move on their own…just so we didn’t run into any surprises as the cement dried overnight.

Day 3 — Now it’s Monday and I am at work, but the family is over at my house finishing the install. The tiles need to be grouted and the sink now needs to be installed. The grouting goes fine according to my mom’s play-by-play text messages. It’s the sink that causes a bit of a hullabaloo between the bro and the dad. Apparently it’s not the easiest thing in the world to go from a shallow-depth, single basin sink to a two basin version that is double the depth. Seems that new and confusing plumbing fixtures are needed. And as I was informed via screaming in the background when my mother called to confess their difficulties “[THEY] ARE NOT PLUMBERS!” Who knew?

Well they might not be plumbers, but they are geniuses and of course they figured it out and when I came home that Monday night, oh my god. It was amazing.

Here is a side by side of the before and after:

Next: This weekend that linoleum floor gets ripped up! More demolition, woo!

You can read up on My Kitchen Renovation (MKR) that has been slowly eking along by clicking here.

MKR: The waiting game

Am still working on that pesky kitchen!

So last weekend I was in Boston for this girl’s graduation from Boston University. Way to go Bugger!  (She has been (cum) lauded here by JessT.) Not being deterred by my non-presence, the family came over and worked their free labor magic by installing some über cool custom cabinet organizers in the lower cabinets, re-hinging some of the doors and adding the new cabinet hardware as well.

They also delivered the new sink, the faucet and went to pick up my oh-so-gorgeous granite tiles – all of which is now sitting in my living room practically burning a hole through the floor because it’s all just so damned pretty and I can’t stand it anymore! Can a sink be pretty? Mine is! Here is the photo off the Kohler website. However, my sink will be paired with the faucet pictured below from Pegasus.

The sink is freaking HUGE! HUGE! It’s going to be so amazing once it’s installed. Has anyone ever called a sink “amazing” before? Well this one is. I special ordered a wire drying basket for the sink basin on the left, it’s formed to fit the funky, curvy shape. I also bought a mini cutting board that fits over the bottom portion of the sink. Am trying to save counter space which is at a high premium in my small, galley kitchen…so even though my new sink is WAY bigger than the old one, it will allow me to take the dish rack off the counter top next to the sink, giving me an entirely new space to utilize and make dirty! Woo!

Went shopping with the ‘rents this weekend at Lowes to pick up the makings for the substrate (that is backerboard and plywood), the mortar mix, the grout, new plumbing accouterments needed to accommodate a double sink and a water filter that installs under the sink and gives you filtered water right out of the unadorned faucet. Which means…

…counter tops and sink go in this weekend!

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Cannot express how happy I am. I lost my camera recently, but will try to get the family to bring one so I can take lots of pictures of the install.

Read all previous My Kitchen Renovation (MKR) posts here.

MKR: Decisions

If you are so inclined, you can read full up on MKR (My Kitchen Renovation) here.

So no, I have not given up the kitchen project after poking the beast a few weeks ago. If you remember, when I left you I had no light in the kitchen. Well, God is good and thar she blows and well, the electrician came back and wow, light is a glorious thing. GLORIOUS! I have an overhead fixture in my kitchen for the first time in years! It’s practically life changing. It’s been at least two full weeks with it installed and working and I am still not in the habit of turning it on when I am in there…I find myself halfway through chopping a green pepper when the realization dawns that I do not have to do this task in the dark. Hallelujah is all I can say.

I have been stalled for a couple of weeks searching for a granite tile reseller. My Mom tracked down a manufacturer called Benissimo who makes granite tiles that mimic the look of custom-cut granite slab countertops. (This is the option I chose as tiling the counter means I can get free labor, where ordering a slab means I would get the 50-60% upcharge for professional installation. ) So after a failed visit to Woodbridge, several “no we don’t sell that anymore”’s, and at least one circular conversation I found a reseller in Fredrick, MD. The same Fredrick, MD that is a zillion miles away. But they were sweet as pie on the phone and what with having no luck with anything remotely nearby, I hopped in the car last Saturday and drove up there. Stroup Floor Center is super, they have tons of stuff, and they were more than willing to show me the Benissimo tiles I came for (I’d had trouble with this because it is geared towards DIYers and the flooring places don’t like it and keep trying to sell you on their installed products instead). Done, easy peasy, right?

No. Of course when I got there and saw the tiles in person, my mind changed and unchanged and well, I had no idea which color tile to go with. On the web, I had thought it would be an easy choice between the Giallo Amalfi and possibly the Platinum Quartz. But no, when I got there neither of those were in serious contention and I was heavily conflicted between Verde Natural, Grigio Classico and possibly the Giallo Amalfi. The salesperson told me I had to take them home, it was imprudent to decide in the store and practically shoved me out to my car with three large tiles to fret over. He assured me that the choice would be obvious almost immediately.

Uh, not so much.

I am totally conflicted between the Verde Natural and the Grigio Classico (now called “brown” and “gray” respectively). The brown is tinged with green which is what is holding me back from this one. The gray is surprisingly gorgeous, although I am unsure it fits with the “modern Tuscan touch” I am looking for in there.

I called my mother, she said “gray?!?” on the phone. I sent her pictures. Now she is of the same mindset as me. Conflicted.

This is what I am dealing with:

Brown

Gray

The photo behind the tiles is my inspiration for my backsplash. So I think I am leaning towards the brown, a little bit. Anyone have any opinions?

MKR: a.k.a. Poking the Beast

I would say I am now officially in the middle of this endeavor. The walls, they are all yellow.

Glorious yellow. Well, Wildflower Honey to be exact.

Sunny beautiful yellow. As of last Sunday, I am totally starting to feel the “modern Tuscan touch” I have been going for. Wheee! All it took was some paint on the walls (and my hair). I always wanted blonde highlights?

Why I can’t remember to put on a baseball cap when I paint is beyond me. Clearly I enjoy picking paint out of my hair for weeks on end. Anyway, after my Mom, sister and I got done with the two coats of paint, brother-in-law and DaddyBanana (shown below) were on hand to install new, up-to-code electrical outlets and my new overhead lighting fixture because 1.) I have (the) power and 2.) the ceiling has been painted. It this installation process that led us to the determination that my tiny kitchen is on three separate electrical circuits. We kind of found out by accident when brother-in-law was mildly electrocuted when he happened to strip some *live* wires we thought we had turned off. Oops! Sorry bro!

Now, it’s been so long w/o light in the kitchen I could barely wait for this moment. So when the fixture was attached and the specialized light bulbs were screwed in, we made a ceremonial task of flipping the switch.

Nothing.

(Note: Ceremonial task is not shown above, basically because tears and tantrums don’t convey well in photographs.)

No light. Gah! Connections were checked and re-checked. The handy-dandy electrical meters were brought out again (for the 1,000th time it seemed like) and it was determined that the switch for the overhead light was pulling an almost-too-large-to-count 1.2 volts of power. Understand that this is exactly 7.8 volts LESS than your standard 9-volt battery. Oy vey!

Sigh. We poked the beast.

So a note was made to call the friggin electrician again and we went about the task of cleaning up the paintbrushes and paint trays. As I sat on the floor finishing some of the edging, I happened to notice yellow-tinged water from the sink pouring into the cabinet below. Why-oh-why is water leaking from my sink?

Upon close inspection, my dad cannot determine why it is leaking, but does determine that the water is in fact leaking over all of the wonderfully live electrical attachments to the garbage disposal.

Sigh. We poked the beast.

Using my new fuse box, we turned off power to that portion of the kitchen so now I have no lights and no garbage disposal until we can replace the sink–my dad is hoping it’s just a fluke that it started leaking and that the planned replacement of the sink and faucet will remedy the situation. Of course I now MUST replace the disposal because apparently .5HP is not a powerful enough unit. Dear ol’ Dad tells me that I should be able to crush bones and small animals with my disposal and I will need at least a 1.5HP unit.

Okay Dad, whatever you say.

Next up:
~Calling the electrician (again)
~Adding a 2nd coat of primer to the outside of the cabinets
~Shopping for the countertop materials (backerboard, caulk, grout, the granite tiles)
~Shopping for a new sink, faucet and garbage disposal
~Shopping for the glass pane insets for the top cabinets
~Think about replacing the stove (aka BananaBakes HQ)

You can read previous posts about My Kitchen Renovation (MKR) here.

MKR: The beginning comes to a close

I left you all with a photo of my brand-spanking new and freshly patched fuse box last week. That was installed on Good Friday, and with the power turned back on, what a Good Friday it was. A few days later the parents and my brother D came over to finish out the priming and sanding.

Walls and ceiling were primed with latex Kilz primer (so much nicer than the oil-based stuff needed for the cabinets) and holes were sanded, smoothed and touched-up as necessary.

Mom and I also finished painting the interior space of the cabinetry – the color is a uber creamy off-white called Magnolia Blossom. She’s been busy at her house painting all the cabinet doors and drawers the same color.

I am going to paint the inside back wall of the cabinets a sage or a light celery to match a yet to be purchased green tile I will use on the the back splashes. That’s why the backs of the top cabinets still show the whitewashed primer look.

I don’t have any lights in the kitchen yet, the brother in law will come over next time to install the overhead fixture and reassess my wants for accent and task lighting. Now that we know I have full on cinder blocks hiding in my walls, he may not be able to do what he thought he could as far as drilling to hide electrical wires and installing new switches.

But, woo hoo, a drama-free MKR day!

Next stop: paint on the walls! And lights! Gah and I need to start shopping for granite tiles for the counter tops…

You can read previous My Kitchen Renovation (MKR) posts here.