Kitchen Remodel: Getting Ready for Cabinet Delivery

Tomorrow is the day our new kitchen cabinets, counters, and island are to be delivered. But before they can take their rightful place, there was a bunch of work that needed to get done so the installation can go smoothly.

We had removed the upper cabinets some time ago and found various nooks and crannies to store what they contained. That left the largest cabinet run that contained various cooking implements, vinegars, canned goods, and, most importantly our sink.

So yesterday we tackled that. We moved the kitchen table to the other side of the room, and it became one of various surface areas to be temporary storage for stuff.

The tops of  a dresser and window sill were also put to use.

While I was emptying out the cabinet, David was busy installing the new plumbing and shut-off valves for the sink water lines outside.

With the valves in place, it meant we could move ahead and cut the pipes inside and behind the sink cabinet, but still have hot/cold water to the bathrooms. A handy thing to have, even if it meant we would be doing dishes in the bathtub.

Next step was to pull the cabinet away from the wall and brace ourselves for whatever creepy crawlies might be living underneath of it.

Because I'm a considerate kind of girl, I'll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that we both wiedled cans of bug spray and my hands-on experience of working at a pest control company many moons ago made me less squemish about stepping on bugs to kill them.

Once the bugs were dead or in their last throes, I armed myself with the Shop-Vac and cleaned out the tile void and surrounding area.

Then the fun continued as we needed to remove the sink from the counter.

We thought we had all the clips removed from the underside, but after hacking through the caulk, the blasted thing still wouldn't come out. Finally David discovered there was one clip that had been installed incorrectly that was causing the problem. A couple of good yanks released the sink. Between the two of us, we moved the cabinet into our spare room.

At that point, we decided to call it a day. This is what the area looked like at that point:

Nothing says "kitchen" like a wheelbarrow and Shop-Vac.

This morning, David started the cement pour. First he mixed the cement with some sand and added water to get it to the right consistency.

Using a screed that he built, he shoveled the cement into the void and smoothed everything out. In a matter of just an hour or so, the job was complete.

It probably goes without saying that we kept the beasties out on the porch until the cement dried enough. With all the other chaos going on, the last thing we needed was having to clean up cement paw prints from throughout the house.

So now, we're ready and hopefully our new cabinets will show up sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, there's a dishrack in our bathtub and I can't remember where I stored anything.

P.S. David woke up with a cold this morning. Makes it interesting trying to smooth cement between bouts of sneezing and blowing one's nose.

P.P.S. While all this has been going on, Fernando and his brother, Raphino, are building a structure in the back to shade our vegetable garden. More on that later.

P.P.S. Sam, one of the dogs we adopted when we bought the house, is convinced there is something hiding out in the under carriage of our car and has been quite the maniac trying to get it. We popped the hood, took the hose and sprayed everything, but nothing has made an appearance. I'll be using the car later this morning and just hope to God Sam is just imagining things and there isn't something like a snake that decides to appear while I'm driving. A gecko, fine. Same if there's a lizard. But NO SNAKES!

P.P.P.S. Don't you wish you could be having all this fun?

Kitchen Remodel: A Study in Coordination and Concrete

With the removal of tile backsplash and upper cabinet over the range…

…the next task is to remove the cement used to set the tiles. 

While some of the surface area in this section will be covered with our new cabinets and the range, there is still a decent amount of wall space that has to be smoothed out. 

The tools for this work are simple: a chisel and a hammer. And the actual work is straightforward: chip off as much cement as possible.

But here’s the thing – it isn’t the hand you use to hold the hammer that takes a beating. It’s the hand you use to hold the chisel.

In order to exert enough force to chip off the cement, you need to keep a death grip on the chisel, while whacking on it in a steady rhythm with the hammer. 

Results of a highly scientific study found that keeping a death grip on the chisel results in your hand locking into a claw, which requires the aid of your hammer hand to unclench the claw to release the chisel. 

Further studies found that the knuckle of your thumb on the hand that has become a claw turns an interesting color of blue and green when the hammer makes impact on repeated occasions. This seems to occur more for those individuals lacking hand/eye coordination. Fortunately, as this thumb is on the claw hand, which has become numb from keeping a death grip on the chisel, the pain of the bruise is temporarily suspended. It’s only after circulation is restored to said claw hand that an individual makes haste to locate the closest bottle of Advil.

And being the mathematical genius that I am, here is the proven equation illustrating the outcome of these studies: 

Home remodeling + cement structure x klutziness = owwies, Advil, and boo-boo strips 

However, the reward for incurring these types of maladies is that you end up with a smoother wall surface. Unfortunately, the surface still isn’t as smooth as we would like. In order to achieve the desired result, we will more than likely need to grind or sand the area. 

Tarps will need to be erected. Masks will need to be worn. The dulcet sounds of a power tool encountering concrete will echo hither and yon. And in spite of our best efforts, cement grit will continue to be found in nooks and crannies into the next millennium.