Our kitchen is done! The formerly honey-toned cupboards are now a creamy vanilla, with new pulls and hinges. I'm telling you - it looks good. We processed 19 pints of salsa yesterday in it, and it works as well. The stove fan is a revelation - clean, for one thing. Light is brighter; fan is quieter. Pictures to come.
Because memory fades, here is a list of what we did:
- Moved all the furniture from the downstairs room into the garage.
- Picked up the Pergo-like flooring, then flipped, gouged, pounded on the asphalt tile underneath.
- Took out the old, paltry, puny closet, complete with the pathetic folding door. Jeez, what an excuse for a door.
- Filled in cracks in the cement floor, then spread a product called Dry-Locks (or Dry Lox), which provides another barrier to water (hopefully).
- Talked about and then bought the tile at the local big box store. I'm sorry about that, but this year price was a bigger consideration.
- Laid the tile. What an innocent little phrase for such a big job. Ken did 75% of the work, but I did the other quarter and let me tell you, tile layers deserve the money they get.
- Grouted the tile and did the other stuff you have to do to make the floor look good. That includes more hands and knees work to scrub the grout residue off. More fun.
- Made a closet. Yes, fellow DYIers, that involves drywall and all the pleasant tasks that accompany.
- Made a stairway. Ken took out the existing, ratty-looking stairs and replaced them with a slightly more gentler slope. He had never created a stairway before and I'm here to tell you that it works. Involved staining and polyurethaning.
- Painted walls and ceiling.
- Hung art and a new hook set/coat rack, inspired by a similar set in Midge and Jay's house on Ashley in Ann Arbor. Put in new switch plates.
- Worked on two doors - moved the door from the upstairs bathroom to the new closet and installed a new door in the upstairs bathroom. That means our work touched all three floors of our little house. That also means more stain and polyurethane.
- Shampooed the rug, bought on rock bottom clearance from ABC Carpets several years ago in one of my most enjoyable shopping experiences in New York.
- Switched to the kitchen.
- Dissembled the kitchen - all stuff on every flat surface in the room. Rendered the kitchen basically inoperable for 3-4 days.
- Palm-sanded all the cupboard doors. Applied a product called Styx. Sanded. Palm-sanded all the cupboards themselves, in and out. Applied Styx.
- Painted.
- Sanded a little.
- Painted again.
- Remounted doors. New hinges. Again, two words but such a big difference. These 1959 cupboards were held together by copper, mottled external hinges that may have been attractive to some people at one time, but no more. The new hinges match the pulls we bought last year in a brushed nickel.
- Put stuff back in cupboards.
- Admired.
Last year, we had a 'staycation' and painted the upstairs rooms and the metal doors. This year, our projects were much more complex and demanding and instead of taking the front half of 4 pleasant days to complete, it took us many hours over a month. But now, both projects are 99.9% complete and we move on.
More salsa today and peaches to freeze.
