Mission Accomplished!

Just for the record, I do intend for today's post to be an ironic commentary, one that compares humorously the fact that there are two or three dozen tasks still to be accomplished in the kitchen remodel to the impetuousness of still-President Bush in declaring "mission accomplished" rather too early in the war in Iraq. I am not taunting Fate and hoping for a seemingly endless "kitchen quagmire."

So what's left? Today I did the toe kicks, the seal between the two pieces of countertop and painted behind the oven. I actually spent the morning doing my real job, and responding to most of those emails that I haven't responded to yet. Still on the horizon:

1. one baseboard to remove and replace
   
2. finish painting the ceiling edge
   
3. painting all the baseboards
   
4. dealing with the gap behind the countertop
   
5. tile
   
6. dealing with the actually straight but apparently crooked lamp over the sink
   
7. adjusting the slightly crooked dishwasher
   
8. fixing one cabinet to the countertop above it
   
9. painting the chair rail
   
10. painting the second window
    
11. painting all the door trim
    
12. removing the pantry door, thorough sanding, painting
    
13. hooking up the pot rack
    
14. adding the open shelving
    
15. adding magnetic strips for spices and knives
    

As you can see, it's not an insignificant list. Mission accomplished!

Major combat operations have ended

I don't have time for a long post, but I have been very busy for the last two days, foot notwithstanding. Cabinets are all in, drawers assembled and in, countertops re-cut to fit, countertops secured to cabinets, touch up paint applied and electrical plates back on. A host of snags have come up along the way—the main one being the fact that when the sink went in, the countertops shifted, and the nice butting joint I had worked out now generated an angled countertop with a gap. After a lot of belt sanding and a small quantity of wood putty, however, we're good to go. There are a fair number of outstanding issues (not the least of which is that those countertops are really jammed up against our extremely uneven walls), but we have a more or less functional kitchen that will start getting stuff moved back into it tomorrow.

Things get broken

Yes, that's my foot.

Today was supposed to be the ending of "the major phase of combat operations," but much like still-President Bush, I declared victory rather too early. I was hoping to announce a working sink by this evening's blogcast. I started the day by making a checklist of remaining things to do in order to get the kitchen operational again—and there weren't too many: hook up all the dishwasher connections, put the 15" cabinet up on its feet, and the big item of the day—get the countertops cut. Now, Ikea keeps costs low by relying on you to do the work. Hence, they don't cut your countertops, but instead sell you length of butcher block (or at least, that's what we decided we wanted). One 8 foot length of 1.5 inch thick maple (or birch, or beech—I can't remember), and one 6 foot length of the same. About two and half feet wide. They're solid wood, not plywood or particle board, so they're insanely heavy. The eight foot board weighs well over a hundred pounds, maybe closer to two hundred.

I don't have a table saw, so I figured I'd take it up to Home Depot and have them cut it. The 8 foot board won't fit in the Jetta, of course, so I planned to rent the Home Depot truck ($19.99 for the first 75 minutes, and no need to fill up on gas). But when I got to Home Depot, it turned out their truck was broken—and I wanted this done today. When I got back to the car, I realized both back seats in the Jetta folded down. If I brought the front passenger seat down, too, could I fit the whole board in? It looked possible.

So when I got home, and my friend Jim happened to stop by, it seemed like a nice opportunity. And sure enough, my crazy plan worked—an eight foot board will fit into the Jetta. Sort of. We also loaded in the six foot board on top, and my guess is one of two things happened: 1) when we loaded the six foot board, the eight foot board shifted position, and moved up against the rear view mirror, or 2) when the truck closed, it pushed the eight foot board forward an inch or two, into the rear view mirror.  Either way, it was too much pressure, and the windshield cracked. Add the replacement windshield to the costs of doing your kitchen by yourself, or just blame Home Depot: I tried to do it the right way, and couldn't.

But the damage was already done (or at least that damage was already done), so I took the boards to Home Depot, unloaded them and took them to the lumber section. They had been weird and unfriendly when I'd ask them earlier if they could cut the countertop (I made it clear I was expecting to pay, not get the cutting for free), and after I waited about 15 minutes and an even more unfriendly guy came to cut my boards. We did the small board, and then the large—when unloading the big guy, though, it slipped and landed directly on my toes from about two and half feet up. It didn't fall flat, either, but with the edge, so all the weight was concentrated in about an inch and half space. I broke all my guitar playing finger nails trying to stop the board from falling, and the board, of course, broke my toes. So, I'm standing there, white with the pain, toes visibly bleeding, and the Home Depot guy just stares at me. No, "are you okay?" or "That looked painful." He just waited until I helped him put the board on the saw. A customer who had been waiting the whole time also just watched. It's strange—every time I've been loading or unloading something heavy in the parking lot, people have offered to help. Once inside the store, though, forget it.

I got everything into the car, but by the time I drove home it was pretty agonizing to press the pedals. I had Lilya take me to the walk-in clinic near our house. Which is now closed, and relocated to a new, extremely distant and poorly designed location on the outskirts of town. And in Urbana-Champaign, that's really saying something. Carle Clinic has now moved all of their facilities as far as possible from where I live. The new facility was experiencing all the joys of its first day of being open—including no working x-ray machines. The x-ray machines were back at the old clinic, so we drove back there, got x-rayed, drove back to the new clinic, and got the news about three hours after I first arrived at the clinic—two toes broken, not the really bad fracture (compound), but not the kind they like, either. The phalanges (the smallest part) in at least one toe are in multiple pieces, so I'll see an orthopedist next week. I will say that I got unusually good care, both friendly and capable. The tetanus shot was easily the most pain-free shot I've ever had. I gave them back their crutches in favor of the post-op "big shoe" that you've no doubt seen people wearing.

Broken things: windshield, fingernails, toes, pride, spirit. At least I'm reasonably sure tomorrow will not go this badly. And always wear closed toed shoes when lifting heavy items—even when it's over 95 degrees and hellishly humid.

faux kitchen

Today started off slow, but picked up speed in the afternoon. By the end of the day, I was able (with my friend Michael's help, who assisted with the moving of large, heavy objects) to put together a kind of faux kitchen. All the main cabinets in place, and the dishwasher, too. I learned some important things.

• the 18" cabinet will not fit next to the dishwasher, but the 15" cabinet is pretty much perfect.
  
• while I remembered to cut holes for the old water pipe and the new faucet valves, I forgot to cut holes for the electrical for the garbage disposal and for the dishwasher waste tube
  

The big slowdown was the window—it needed to be cleaned, scraped, sanded, and painted. Plus the hardware that had fifteen coats of paint on it had to be chemically stripped (our old friend Jasco—this time I got some diluted Jasco on my hand, and got to experience an interesting burning sensation before I got it washed off. You can tell immediately, however, when it's on your skin), scraped and then sanded. It doesn't look new, of course, but it doesn't look like actual hardware.

Fiat lux

A very busy morning, followed by an afternoon in which I was forced to do catch-up work for my real job (answer emails, placed book orders, finished revisions to the copy-edited version of an article on muscleman movies of the 1950s and 60s). This morning I installed another cabinet (the big 36" guy next to the corner cabinet), installed our new halogen lighting fixture (thanks for the electricity guidance, Bill! turns out with Ac power it doesn't matter what's wired to what; very helpful when your house is so old the wires aren't labeled for positive and negative), and put together the stainless-steel cart to go under the window. There's still some odd painting to be done, some extra work on the electrical sockets (some are not fitting as well under their covers as I would like), and some other small things. I assembled our sink cabinet and we tested it out—looks good, and seems like it should work. As soon as the sink cabinet is in (tomorrow), then I bring back in the dishwasher and see if we can cram an 18" cabinet next to that. 

For kicks, I also set the small countertop up on the cabinets. Looks nice, but must remember to oil it!

Moving along

We're moving along, if not fast enough. Today I finished painting most of the walls, and set up the corner cabinet, just to get a sense of how much of a giant pain in the rear it will be to set up the Ikea cabinets. It turns out that the legs are the tricky part, but we have at least a temporary handle on them. The sink looks to pose all kinds of massive difficulties, not the least of which is that we have the wrong cabinet for it—we'll have to see if that can be managed. If not, I'm not sure what will happen other than another trip to Ikea.

The floors look darn good, though. Oh, and our air conditioning broke, since tomorrow the temperature is supposed to skyrocket to about 98.

Floors—stage 3

The first two coats of urethane—stinky, stinky stuff that it is—are down, and I hope to put one more on the floor before we leave for Chicago tomorrow. I have to say, it was a real pleasure to finish the floor, for two reasons:

1) I bought a respirator, as my brother instructed me. They are cheap, extremely comfortable, and I happily brushed me chemicals on the floor, thinking all the while: "This is great! This stuff has no smell at all! Why by the water-based if this guy is so easy and odorless?"  Then I took of my mask and nearly retched with the smell.

2) You put down the urethane. That takes maybe 10 minutes tops in a kitchen our size. And then you can't do any more work of any kind for at least four hours. Or seven hours if your humidity and temperature are like they are here today. You can't go near the kitchen, and in fact, because of the vapors, you kind of have to leave the house. I went outside today for the first time in weeks. And mowed the lawn, because it really, really needed doing.

By the way, it won't be that shiny—we're using a satin finish, which has some gloss, but is not ultra-glassy. That's just wet, which makes it look extra-shiny.

floors—stage 2

So, I abandoned the idea of continuing to use a belt sander to do the floor—my brother's mockery turned out to be all too true. In four hours, the kitchen floor was drum sanded, edged (the edger is an awesome tool), and in the next two hours, it was also stained. Tomorrow I break out the most heinous version of polyurethane I was able to find. They say it's the most durable, but it's clearly also the most vaporous and nasty. Fortunately, I bought a respirator.

In any case, here you see the floor in it's various stages: 1) small patch with belt sander; 2) larger patch with belt sander; 3) whole floor finished but not yet stained; and 4) and 5), stained. Tomorrow, it'll be urethaned, and then the next day we will go to Chicago Ikea to get our sink. And avoid the smell. And let it dry. (And yes, we'll wait until the finish is dry, move the stove, and then finish that part of the floor.) 

more on floors

The walls are almost finished now—the giant section of plaster should be completely dry tomorrow, and it'll be time for a final coating of wallboard compound (and tape), plus a little more sanding on the northeast corner of the room. Everything else is finished, I believe.

More importantly, the last of the linoleum is gone (and the hideous felt and adhesive, too), and tomorrow, the sanding, staining and varnishing begins. From the few sections of the floor that looked rather fresh, I think it's going to need a stain—as it stands, the floor would be almost white.

While pulling up nails and linoleum and other junk, I found a quarter that had fallen into one of the layers—from the date on the quarter (1971), it must have been from the final layer. So now I have the earliest possible date for the floor, the terminus post quem as the Medievalists say (back in Berkeley, Prof. Stefanini taught me terminus ad quem and terminus a quo, but it's all the same). Fashion and sense say that top layer were put down in the 1980s or even early 1990s, however—the whole house had a mid to late 80s feel when we moved in, and certainly that's an era in which you would have painted your old cabinets white.

More on walls

Nothing dramatic, image-wise, but the walls are almost finished. For a few more days, I'll be adding successive coverings of wallboard compound, and smoothing out the plaster that I've added, but pretty much all of the structural items are taken care of. The two holes in the soffit are almost invisible now, and after tomorrow's coating of compound, they should start looking pretty good. I mounted the concrete board (actually duraflex) for where the tiles will go. It was basically a full day of touch up, sanding, compounding and taping. Oh, and we have some Ann Sacks tiles (the mint green Savoy, but in the stacked tiles, not the offset) that match our original color green very nicely—perhaps too nicely not to use. And they fit nicely in the space, as well.

One discovery—as you may now, the walls of the kitchen (at least, underneath the chair rail that runs around the room) look like they have old tiles on them, painted over many times. But they don't—that's just a popular technique from the 1930s, in which plaster would be pressed with a tile pattern just before it dried. But when I went to work on some peeling paint, I discovered something interesting—the kitchen also used to be painted in the same pattern: black lines to divide the "tiles" and then tiles in alternating orange and brown? In other words, at one time, our kitchen was—no kidding—plaid. Is this the original paint job? On the wall where I uncovered it, it would appear to be so, but on other walls, the base coating looks peach/tan colored.

Finally, I adjusted the last of the sockets so that's it's actually even with the light switch that it's right next to. Boy, we overpaid for the electrical!

The drain of the real

As I mentioned near the close of the last post, the post you are currently reading is another example of the "endless circulation around the always missed piece," the Zizekian understanding of the real. So, what is the real of my kitchen, and why do I keep circling around it—by which I mean, of course, avoiding it?  

It is the sink. What is a sink? It is literally a nothing, a gape or an aperture that gives the consistency of a kitchen to the kitchen, the real that structures reality, if you will. It is a drain or a vortex to which we sacrifice the crumbs and remnants of our subjectivity, sweeping away these objets petits (a), and at the same time creating our "alienating armor of identity." Without a sink, there is no kitchen, no cooking is possible—one can still prepare food in a kitchen without an oven, a range (let alone without a toaster, a blender, and so on), but it is impossible to prepare food without producing an excess, the hard kernel of our consumption that cannot be eliminated (literally cannot be eliminated by our bodies): bones, scraps, peels, indigestible bits, refuse… How appropriate that out kitchen tiles turned out to be identical to our bathroom tiles.

Enough Lacan. Today I did more on the walls—all the drywall is up now except for my moisture resistant piece for the backsplash and one patch for a hole in the soffit. I got to use my patching plaster (of which I will need a whole lot more), and do more drywall taping, which is kind of pleasurable. I call the patching plaster "cancer paste," since the warnings on the back suggest that if you even look at it, it will give you cancer.

No updates tomorrow (Tuesday)—we'll be in Chicago looking at crazy shiny sculptures, but we'll look at tile while we're there (and do other art things, too). Mostly we'll probably eat. And no pics today, either—there was a lot of work done, but it's not very photogenic yet.

Walls and Wall•e

Tonight we're going to see Wall•e at the drive in theater (yes, evidently, we still have a drive-in nearby), which seems appropriate because today I started on the walls. First, I put in insulation wherever I could stuff it in the exterior walls. Second, I corrected the electrical boxes that were installed yesterday (they were all at the wrong depth for the walls I was planning on putting in. Third, got seriously down to business and started cutting, putting up, and screwing in the drywall. It's pretty much finished except for a one panel where I need some deeper wallboard screws. I did one corner and one seam, and they look like they should come out nice—a couple more for tomorrow, when I'll also get down to the more serious business of patching the plaster. No time to write more today, since we're leaving imminently, but tomorrow I will ponder the Lacanian question: what is the real of my kitchen? 

(the answer, of course, is the sink)

Wired

Our dubious electricians came by today. Or rather, electrician. Or rather, Bowie. A smallish person of about 19 years of age, in an ARMY shirt, with strangely buggy, strangely enormous, frighteningly pale blue eyes. Doesn't talk much, and when he does, it's in a nearly inaudible mumble. He asked for payment upfront, for "material expenses," asked for the check to be made out to him personally, and then got in his truck and left. Against all odds, he returned about 45 minutes later, apparently still sober, and proceeded to do the work he was supposed to do. I can't say he did it precisely well… Check out the misalignment between the socket and the light switch. And they were insanely expensive, but unlike other electricians in town, they (a) answered their phones, (b) called back, (c) had an opening before December, and (d) actually came to do the work (with one cancellation). 

Now we have:

• a proper outlet for the garbage disposal—thanks to previous electrical hanky-panky, we had been reduced to plugging the cord for the disposal into an extension cord every time we wanted to use it
• that outlet is controlled by a normal switch next to the sink
• a new light over the sink-to-be with a dedicated switch
• one outlet moved (from blow to above the countertop), three new outlets installed
• all kitchen outlets grounded (or so they say—how to test to see if they are actually grounded?)
• refrigerator outlet grounded, allowing fridge to be pushed back one more inch into its alcove

That's it—my hands and forearms hurt a lot today, kind of carpal-tunnelly, so I'm giving them a rest. Also, I only slept about 4 1/2 hours last night, with one of my inexplicable 5 am wakeups. Tomorrow either more floor or some wall work. Maybe wall work for a change.

Progress

Much more progress today than I expected. After yesterday's painful and slow hammering, I had finished maybe 1/5 of the floor. But that 1/5, it turns out, was enough to get a sufficient amount of open space to start using the long crowbar (thanks, Dara!), and oh what a difference it made. Now I was able to pry large sheets of plywood up and move much faster. It still takes about 4 applications of water (with or without vinegar) to get all the felt glue up—it turns into an oily greenish-brown sludge, and really looks like clay mud. Almost no hammering. The upshot is that 1/2 the floor is now done, and I expect the rest can be done in about two days.

But when I say "done," I of course mean that it will then be ready for sanding and staining (I give that another day), and then polyurethane. or whatever they put on floors. And how long does that take? I expect my brother has some expert advice, and so, here are my questions:

• what kind of wood or we looking at here? pine? the photos are making it more brown, and it's actually a bit more grey...
• best stain to use with wood this color? remember, dark blue cabinets!
• how to apply the varnish, finish or whatever the urethane is called? can it go on after the stain has dried overnight?
• how much sanding is required? I know that for hardwoods, you'd want a drum sander to make everything level, but we're going for a rustic look—can I get away with just a palm sander? a belt sander? keep in mind that the total area to be sanded, stained and finished is only about 80 square feet—maybe a little less!

Not to worry, by the way—we have lots of books to answer these questions, too. But I wanted to get some opinions. Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Tomorrow the electrician is (supposedly) coming, so I won't be able to work on the floor. Goals? Cut wallboard. Buy cement board. Get kneepads?

More on floor

So, yesterday we discussed our flooring options and were largely leaning toward the engineered hardwood rather than the bamboo. We went in to the kitchen and decided that we needed to remove the linoleum either way. I poked around a bit more and realized that the floor consisted of more layers than I had thought. The subfloor is the lowest layer, and keeps you separate from the basement. The next layer was a very thick (nearly an inch) layer of wood of some kind, and then the hardwood floor that's in the rest of the house, and then two layers of linoleum. There are also some felt layers in there. That's a lot of layers.

It looked like the hardwoods were resting on a layer of felt on top of the thick floor, so I pulled on that a little bit. There was some give. "Hey!" I thought, "maybe I can pull this up and we can put the new floors down on top of the thick floor!" I gave it a pull, and then—crack!—the sound of splintering plywood. They were not hardwood floors at all. The linoleum layers were on top of a sheet of plywood. Well, a fair bit of prying later, we had determined that the "thick floor" is wide planks of wood, cut tongue-in-groove and nailed to the subfloor. Unfortunately, they had a layer of felt glued to them before the plywood was nailed on—good for noise control, but bad for me. It's a bit of a pain to get up, although not nearly the pain of removing the plywood/felt/linoleum/felt/linoleum combination.

So, I've spent the last day prying with a long screwdriver as a chisel (the planks below are protected by that felt). Hammer, hammer, hammer. Puuuuuullllllllllllll! Crack! Hammer, hammer. Repeat endlessly, and then pull up a 1 ft square of plywood and linoleum. How to remove the felt? Scraping takes forever, but a helpful blogger recommended water mixed with vinegar, and it works, albeit with repeated applications. A full day of work got me about 1/5 of the floor. Not great, but doable. When I'm done, sand, stain, finish, and we should have "French farmhouse"-style floors for a rustic look. Hopefully, it will contrast interestingly with the modern high tech Ikea cabinets. But we're kind of committed now.  I am, at least—my wrists ache from constant hammering.

On color

So far, the colors are:

"Geranium leaf" which matches the green window sill exactly, maybe could be used on the chair rails?

"Grand" "Loft Living" "Calla Lily" all from Ralph and possible for the walls

and found in closet: "Pale Straw" and "Windham Cream" from Benjamin Moore (purchased in NYC oh so many years ago--MLA 2002, to be precise)

and "Butter/Beurre" and "Butter Cream/Creme au Beurre" from Restoration Hardware, also purchased circa 2002 (that's my best guess, anyway) for some purpose--living room? dinning room? hard to say at this point.

I've held them up against the green tile, the blue cabinets, the birch countertop--and feel strongly we need professional help (i.e. Yasemin)

Tiles and a mystery

Let's begin with the most important stuff. One really nice thing about this restoration for me has been that I spend most of my day facing this lovely example of Helvetica on the side of one of the only pieces of insulation in our walls. I know, I'm blogging in Arial, but that's because Blogger—thanks to this evil corporation—doesn't really give me a choice.

Another trip to Home Depot to get a masonry chisel—I had hoped to also get drywall, but their delivery truck was rented by someone else while I was waiting. Have you ever tried fit an 4 x 8 sheet of drywall into a VW Jetta? Lilya also picked up paint swatches, and we seem to be gravitating toward an off white, like "Calla Lily" (Ralph Lauren paint—look down the page about halfway).

Removing tiles without breaking adjacent pieces proves to be almost impossible, especially when all the tiles are mounted on a flexible chicken wire backing with no support whatsoever. There's no drywall behind most of it, and so the tiles all flex when they move. Not good for tile to flex because it doesn't. I was curious why I was supposed to use a "masonry chisel" on tile, and now I know. Tile is rock. It acts like rock (no flexing, no moving—until it snaps, chips or flakes), and it weighs like rock. So, two of the tiles I meant to preserve untouched are broken, but the remaining pieces were saved, so I think we'll grout and cement it all back together when we're done. I could try to remove the broken tiles as well, but that might break the tiles next to them, and then next to them, and so on.

I also wore shoes, goggles and ear protection. A few good whacks with a heavy hammer on a chisel and your ears are ringing big time. Fortunately, I have noise-cancelling headphones. Thanks, Mom!

So, can one put these broken pieces of tile back on when they still have half an inch of cement on the backs of them? Only time will tell.

It may not look like a lot, but I also cleaned up the raggedy holes in the drywall, and am pretty much ready to put up new walls—as soon as the electrician is here. It seems pretty stupid to put up walls before that. A plumber came by and told us that we appeared to fine without a vent, so we'll just put everything back the way we found it once the cabinets and sink are in.

One mystery. Again I found a hazelnut (flibert) shell in the walls. I've probably found a half dozen of them by now, and they have all had the top of the shell neatly sheared off, as of by a cutting tool. I believe that this man is responsible. Only possibly in squirrel form. Evidently he's done it to pumpkins before, so this wouldn't be too much of a stretch for him.