The Remodel: Week Two

We've made it through the first two weeks, and hopefully those were the worst two weeks. I say 'worst' because it was so very noisy, and the dust from demolition, and new drywall is horrendous even with precautions taken by putting up plastic over the doorway. The odor from the mud and taping of the drywall as well as the dust has irritated my throat terribly, Nick's too! The sound of the jack-hammer removing the tile for a couple days was pretty intense, the upstairs floors were even vibrating - our poor kitties were in a rough spot and having a tough time.

Here are the photos from the past week:

concrete slab - it has a thin, known crack which isn't obvious here but runs along the wall; we learned of it when we had the previous tile placed

Our new 5' sliding door. It never made sense to me that there was no exit from the kitchen to the patio where the grill and table are; instead, one would have to carry supplies and foods from the kitchen, down the hallway, through the 'library' to the sliding door there to access the patio - I often had to wipe up unobserved spills from whomever was carrying food out. This is where there was an 8' wide window.  At first I thought the 5' was too narrow and wished I'd gone for a 6' but I'm now thinking this is perfect.

Some rewiring needed to be done to fix some circuit issues as well as put in place for the new range, range hood and add new plugs for above the counter...some additional costs were involved.

Ruh, roh. We spied a small leak in the copper pipe that had been installed in a whole-house repipe about 22 years ago. The pipe was also too close to the wall board so it was cut, moved and repaired...at additional cost of course.

Some of the wiring, gas lines, old water lines, old hood vent...and NO insulation. The entire house has NO insulation anywhere (except the bathroom walls that were remodeled seven years ago, and now this wall has some that the contractor added.).

New drywall added and the new outlet for the microwave. Why so high? The cabinet will now have to have holes made through the bottom, the shelf, and the back. When I asked the contractor, it has something to do with code/legal positioning of plugs. Go figure. It would probably help if I explain that there will be a 2-shelf cabinet with door here, with a built-in shelf below it for the microwave rather than the microwave sitting directly on the counter.

Drywall patching in place. For the cost of this process all of the old should have come down and all new gone up!

This side did get a little more all new.

A thin strip of drywall was removed in order to fish the new electrical through for the outlets for the cabinetry and counter going in along this wall. Nope, no insulation there, and none going in. I should have had that included in my original plan - remove all drywall and install insulation! That solid wall is a west wall, and it takes the full brunt of afternoon southern California summer sun; hoping that the cabinetry will act as a little bit of insulation. The dining room/kitchen does have the best A/C-furnace vent in the house! Intentionally!

Mudded and taped, looking nice.

This is that end wall where the copper pipe leak was, it separated the kitchen from a bathroom and is where the old built-in oven was before the bathroom remodel seven years ago. When the worker left on Friday, he said to me that he didn't realize until he was ready to leave that there is no cabinetry going there, so he will have to do some re-work on the wall to make it look uniform and 'pretty'.

A wider view of that area. At left, behind the door, can be seen the second pantry area, and the gas line that feeds the furnace up on our roof.

And here's our Escher-style conundrum. I suppose in a house that was built in 1966, between land settling and going through two major earthquakes (Sylmar & Northridge quakes), and that it's a tract home where attention to detail was less of a concern than deadlines, some oddity is to be expected. Looking at the soffit area that needs to remain because a heating duct runs through it down the hall ceiling to the bathroom and the library, it's easy to see that the left side is deeper and the right is shallower. However, if you look at the pantry doorway, it's pretty close - with measuring it's only about 1/4" difference at the door - over an inch at the edge. Moving along to the next photo...

Looking head on from this direction, it's squared up pretty well above the hall doorway. So the question is, what is out of alignment? The doors? The ceiling? The floor? And an even bigger question, how on earth to fix it so it isn't so obvious? The contractor hasn't yet seen this for himself, but has heard about it. And the frustrating part, the duct really only takes up about a one-foot square in the back left side of this soffit - so, tear out the soffit completely except that one-foot square? That would look rather odd. Take it back to just a foot in front of the door? I'm sure we'll be charged more for that too! As we would if making it diagonal from the left edge of the pantry door to the right wall of the hall door.

Looking into that new pantry space. It will have 'matching' shelves to the existing pantry, while working around the gas line, that I'd hoped they'd be able to 'enclose' in some manner. An opening needs to remain though for the shut-off valve at the bottom near the bend. That'll probably add more cost too, as it would have to have had them relocate it. Sometimes it feels like "nickel and dime" with adding several zeros behind the 5's and 10's.

 Now to try to look at things a little more positively rather than the seemingly constant of added costs:

These beautiful daffodils are giving a good showing this year. And with that new sliding door, it's so much easier to see them and get out to them. I really need to hone in on my gardening, it's been seriously lacking in recent years. These bulbs came from my Mom a very long time ago, before her passing in 2014. The squirrels devoured the tulip bulbs, but there is a hyacinth mixed in there but it's only just showing it's head above the soil level at this point. I hope it's the yellow one, but I truly do not know or remember.

These arrived today: the new refrigerator, dishwasher, range, range hood, and respective attachment lines for the three main items.

This goes back to our getting ready, we had to make a path for the workers to get through the garage. There was a path there, just not wide enough to accommodate a wheel barrow which they use to haul all the debris out. The mish-mash of boxes include everything I packed up from the kitchen seven years ago as well as currently, some boxes of stuff to determine what to do with - whether to store, donate, sell - and some stuff clearly headed to charity.

The contractor's 'dumpster'...good-bye old, crummy dishwasher :)

With all of this going on, some very chilly and wet weather for SoCal, our furnace decided to go on the fritz, AGAIN! We just put $1400 into it in November. I called the furnace guy first thing this morning, and he's 'hoping' he can get someone out this afternoon. In the meantime, I'm sequestered in my Creation Station with a space heater, and one of the two cats who is currently curled up in a box after being a real pesky pain all morning. All three of us were in our respective separate room areas yesterday with individual space heaters running and managed to trip the breakers...not good! So now I have a question in to our contractor and his wiring guy as to why it would also have taken down the breakers for the downstairs which he "re-circuited" in order for us to not have to worry about running the microwave and toaster oven at the same time which would previously throw the breaker too. Indoors outside of these rooms it's been dropping to about 55º when it's mid-30s out.  I am thankful I'm not living in a colder climate.

Until next week, praying for a smoother week, and for a furnace fix that doesn't cost another small fortune!

The Remodel: The First Week

Well, here it is Saturday and I haven't posted any of the promised photos. The demolition started as planned, on Monday 2/11. By Thursday late afternoon, the demolition, rewiring, some plumbing stuff was pretty much a done deal. Friday was inspection day which went along without a hitch and the contractor (who grumbles about 'wasting time' waiting for inspectors), was pleasantly surprised to not have to wait as the inspector was on time, and had signed off on this portion within only a few minutes! On to the pictures with brief comments on them.

Before: original 1966 kitchen cabinets and brown range hood.

Before: front shot of same cabinets. I did like the flat top and front of the range hood; it gave me a place to set salt & pepper and to use magnets to hold a recipe while I cooked. The fan no longer worked without fear of catching fire - too many decades of grease drifting into it.

Before: lower cabinetry; face plate has been gone for a long time. The little drawer was stolen from another, lesser used area when the original one fell apart. Bread/cutting board has also been gone for a long time. We discovered the counter top (almond colored formica) was probably new ca. 1991 - about the time Marty bought the house. We had the tile put in about 21 years ago after a water leak flooded the entire kitchen/dining room but I learned to hate the edges & the grout which could only be cleaned with a brush on your hands & knees...grout was not originally 'brown' but a light cream...what WAS I thinking?

Before: upper cupboard at right of sink and above where coffee pot was; very worn.

Before: the sink was not centered under the window, off by about 2"; that will be changed. 15+ year old dishwasher, you can see all the rusted (some missing) prongs. The camera actually makes the cabinets look better than they were. A chip is showing just to the right of the dishwasher on that faceplate.

Before: A narrow area at the right of the refrigerator. These drawers were probably in the best shape of anything in the kitchen. The board on the right is where the wall oven was SEVEN years ago when we did the two bathrooms (upper/lower) which we had to remove because we added a shower into the lower bathroom which previously had only a toilet and sink/vanity.

Before: a closer look at how beat up the little drawer is...ugh, and how dirty the top of the pieces look even though I would wipe them frequently. And knobs, ugh, I have never cared for these. Things get caught on knobs. The drawers got caught on the knobs at this right angle if they weren't close, and they never closed nicely. A galley kitchen will not have this issue.

Before: the fluorescent lighting; this, a light over the sink and the over the range hood light was it in the kitchen. I had a great dislike of these fluorescent bulbs, as did Marty. Their brightness usually failed quickly and continued to fail. At times, there was barely enough light in here to see before I could get Marty to replace them, then it was sunshine bright for about a month before dimming (or getting used to it) to a fairly constant level that eventually dimmed again. And we all know what those tubes do when start to go bad, flicker, hum, even smell!

Before: This was the vent for the old swamp cooler that was changed to A/C over a decade ago with different ducting, but was never removed. It is now gone along with a segment of the tube above it; a segment remains which runs through an area within my closet in the master bedroom - maybe someday it'll be gone too if we ever get the master bath done and reconfigure some closet space.

Before: This is my pantry. All that's changed here is Marty removed the popcorn ceiling, and the floor tile was removed. It will get repainted, but I like it as it is. To the right, behind the slatted door is the space where the furnace was. When we had the A/C installed, we chose a rooftop combo unit, so that space has remained an ugly hole ever since after the removal of the old equipment. To save on cost, rather than open up the wall between the pantry and that space, the space will have it's own door and will have similar shelving, ceiling treatment and floor tile installed. It will house those small appliances and some larger pantry items that have been stored elsewhere. At the left of the pantry door, you can barely see the knob/lock for the door going into the garage.

During: this is the ceiling of the pantry after Marty wet and scraped the gunk off, disposing of appropriately as it had 3% asbestos - something we learned at the time of the water leak when we had the dining room ceiling repaired. At the time, our budget only allowed for encapsulating rather than professional asbestos removal. Personally, I think the asbestos laws are far too stringent and overreaching/overkill for the reality of the carcinogenic results. I recognize the issues with asbestos, but also that the common consumer was generally not affected. Those in the manufacturing process...different story.

During: some of the hard materials removed :)

During: after all the cabinetry and floor tiles removed and areas opened up for electrical and plumbing access. The brown stains on the walls? That's the back of the inside of the cabinets - guess that was a pretty standard method in the 1960s...don't have a back, just paint or stain to match. What's funny, is the end cabinet, it was only stained on the upper shelf level and not the two lower ones on the one side. There's that board where the oven used to be...g'bye!

During: before the tile was removed showing where the peninsula was, which is where the burners were on the counter.

During: that cupboard painted  stained wall, funny, no?

During: the leftover hole from the swamp cooler vent removal. The old (no longer used) galvanized water pipes that ran through the ceiling. Above that is the second floor floorboard. A different opening showed me why our upper floor creaks so much. The nails holding the flooring plywood to the joists/stringers/2x4s (?), barely caught the boards at all. They went in at an angle and caught a very small portion of the top of the wood before coming out the side.

Since Friday was only an inspection day, it was quiet, as are today and tomorrow before work resumes on Monday. Our kitties are rather stressed with this and remain upstairs, often hiding under the bed. There is no good place to get completely away from all the noises (nor the dust for that matter). The door from the kitchen area to the hallway is closed but it's slatted so dust still creeps through even with the crew taping plastic over it. We're letting them use our restroom so they still need to come through the door which also tracks dust and dirt through; all to be expected. 

I'll be spending some time today trying to clean up some of the dust from everywhere before it attacks again. It's also been quite cold in the house while the crew has the garage door open and the door from the dining room into the garage as well. Because of that we only have the downstairs heat zone set to around 65. We've also removed an 8' window and replaced it with a 5' sliding door, so that opened things up and cooled the house down too. No insulation in our walls...at all!! That really wasn't a surprise though knowing how cold indoors that it gets in the winter and how hot in the summer, and that's why we had A/C installed...those hot southern California summers.

We Have a Start Date

While I've been absent from the keyboard, things have been progressing nicely towards the kitchen remodel. Start date is Monday, 11 February for demolition! Oh my, that got here quickly. I was beginning to think we would not be ready, but all the pieces are beginning to come together. The biggest hitch at this point though is with the kitchen sink. We ordered it on 18 January, and more than a week later were advised it has a 90 business-day delivery + transit time on it. That puts the sink arriving not until sometime in April {gasp}. The Kohler sink manufacturer had a fire last year, and while I was told/or read that back-orders were caught up, it doesn't appear new orders are getting out very quickly...yep, frustrated!

However, all the rest is in good status. The floor tiles are in our garage. The wall/backsplash & decorative tiles should arrive for pick-up within the next week. All appliances are scheduled for delivery on 25 February and will reside in the garage until ready to be installed approximately two or three weeks later. The faucet should be arriving at the vendor's sometime today. 

I have yet to purchase the garbage disposal and disposal button (newer thing replaces having a wall switch) but given the sink delay...no hurry and they're pretty much stocked items.

Paint samples are awaiting to be painted onto the wall now that the dining room is emptied of China cabinet and table; it's narrowed down to two or three even though I purchased six samples. 

And I need to make some hardware choices and get those ordered or picked up depending on where I decide to purchase from.

And lastly, today and tomorrow will be the final packing up of what remains in the kitchen cupboards and pantry. It's been a small challenge to figure out what implements and foods to keep out for my attempts to still feed the family during this process that don't require much more than the toaster oven or microwave. I need to get a hot plate for cooking, but don't relish the idea of that much given that our only clean-up area is the bathroom sink which will require using a dish pan set on the counter to wash and rinse anything - in this case, less is definitely more!! Paper/plastic is the order of the day along with anything else disposable that can be utilized for the next two to three months. I'm sure we'll also be quite tired of take-out meals! I'll still have a working fridge and freezer so TV dinners will also work.

Back to packing it all up....