Second Base

In preparation for the installation of the corner base cabinet, we installed shims to level our sloping floor.  We have found that masking tape helps to hold the shims in place.





























The corner base cabinet barely fit through the front door, but we removed the cabinet front panels and got it inside.  After tweaking the wall and floor shims, we screwed it to the wall.

Next in line was the sink cabinet, which had to align in three dimensions with the corner cabinet.  The two cabinets were then clamped and screwed together, as illustrated below.

Frames clamped

Pilot holes drilled

Countersink for screw head

Square drive bit and frame screw

Driving in the frame screw

Sink cabinet installation complete

Hey!  What about the spacer?

Spacer? What spacer?

This spacer!

Doh!

So, I uninstalled the cabinet, screwed in the 3" spacer board and reinstalled the cabinet and doors.  Here's the state of things at the end of the day, with the first two base cabinets permanently installed - including the spacer!

Cornered

We started unboxing cabinets today and got the first three installed on the corner wall.  The first one went in easier than expected.  Then we remembered that we had forgotten the shims to bring it to a perfect vertical against our perfectly unvertical wall!  So, we backed out the screws, inserted a shim and tightened things back up.

The second cabinet gave us fits, since we had to drill the mounting screws at an angle, which pulled the cabinet out of alignment when tightened.  We finally got it in to our satisfaction, again with a shim between the wall and the back of the cabinet.

By dinner time, we had the third cabinet installed with the doors back on.

We'll install the pull bars later, after more cabinets have been installed.  We did an inventory and appear to be missing some items, such as the panel above the top of the window.  The microwave shelf alignment depends on this panel, so we are holding off on that part of the installation until the missing piece arrives.  Meanwhile, we plan to start installing the lazy susan base cabinet in the corner on Thursday.

Refer Madness

In the Navy, we referred to refrigerators as refers.  Seems logical, and it's one of the more benign phrases I learned in the Navy.  In any event, Sears was scheduled to deliver the new fridge between noon and 2pm.  Just before 11am, I got a call from the delivery truck and was informed that they were running "a little ahead of schedule," and would be at our house in 5 minutes!  While Amanda unloaded the refrigerator into our ice chests, I cleared a path through our garage for the delivery crew.  As it turned out, they had to remove our front door and the doors on the new fridge to comfortably maneuver the heavy beast inside.  Amanda was in charge of loading up the new fridge and, as you can see, knew what her #1 priority was.

At first, the refrigerator section would not cool down below the initial 80-degree mark.  Something was wrong.  I was so desperate that I even read the manual.  It appears that the refrigerator went into some sort of safe mode because of the extended time that I had the doors open while removing all the plastic protective sheeting and tape.  A 10-minute power down reset the fridge to normal operation and it finally started to cool down.  Amanda transferred our food from the ice chests and a bunch of microwave meals from the basement freezer to substantially load the thing up.

This evening, I ran a new water line from the basement and through the wall behind the refrigerator for the chilled water dispenser and rolled the refrigerator into its designated position.



























Earlier in the day, I finished drilling and nailing the floor boards along the east wall of the kitchen and out into the hallway by the family room.  Tomorrow, we start installing cabinets in the kitchen!

Drilling the tongue of floorboards near the wall

Cabinet Delivery

Our kitchen cabinets arrived this morning and have taken up temporary residence in our garage, family room and kitchen.  

 

By 10pm, Amanda and I had nailed in all but the last row of boards in the refrigerator area, in preparation for the new fridge arrival on Tuesday afternoon.

We are at the point where we are too close to the wall to use the nail gun and have been drilling pilot holes and hammering in nails to secure the floor boards.  A rather time-consuming process for sure!  We also installed the basement stairway bullnose board, which served as the starting point for the floor boards in this area.

We trim the end boards in our "garage woodshop,"  which has become rather crowded with all the cabinets taking up half of the garage.

Here's the current state of the kitchen floor, now about 90% complete, including the area leading into the hallway/family room.  

More Floor

Amanda added a new skill today - floor nailing.  I was glad to have a break from the back-breaking work of slamming nails into floorboards, and took over the task of trimming the end pieces, while Sharron did the board layout.

We stopped work around 4pm, when we had covered about 2/3 of the kitchen area.  Here's how it looks at the moment.

Wood is Good

Hey - watch my toes!

Today we started nailing down our Bruce hardwood flooring.  The first three rows were drilled and face nailed to provide clearance for the pneumatic nail gun to operate.  But before we could start laying floor boards, we spent some time establishing our reference lines with respect to the longest walls in the kitchen.  We snapped chalk guidelines along both walls, rolled out some #15 felt and began the nailing process.

The first boards to be installed established the interface between the existing dining room flooring and the new kitchen flooring. 











The kitchen sub-floor is anything by flat, with more like a wavy surface.  Sharron pressed down on the board as I hammered in the nails for the start of row 1.

Amanda became quite adept at operating the circular saw to trim the last board for each row. 

We had a great team going, with Sharron and Amanda selecting the boards to be placed in proper sequence, Amanda trimming the boards and me nailing them in.  It was all I could do to keep up with the girls.























Here row 4 is being installed using the nail gun, which shoots nails from a magazine at a 45-degree angle just above the tongue on the front edge of the board.  A firm hammer tap shoots a nail out with a bang.  This is much easier to operate than the spring loaded mechanical nailer that we used for our previous floor installation work.  I had a 3-month case of tennis elbow from that exercise!

Tap - BANG!!!

We finished work early today to leave for a social commitment, but expect we will finish the kitchen floor tomorrow. 

 Happy crew members enjoying their new floor

You Know the Painting is Done When You See The Wallplates

We finished sanding the ceiling and walls this morning and I rolled paint on the ceiling and Amanda did all the walls, including the spots that will soon be covered by the cabinets, which are scheduled to arrive on Monday.  After the walls dried, I re-installed the switch plates and the vertical blinds for the door.  Here's how the kitchen looked at the end of the day.
 

Sharron and I started installing the baseboard and trimmed the bottom of the basement door and associated frame in preparation for the flooring, which we will start installing on Saturday.  The contractor who restored our house after last year's storm damage left us an oak bullnose (surplus from the stairway installation) that we cut to size for the top of the basement stairs.  We installed a spacer board for support at the same height as the kitchen sub-floor.  Here's how it will look when we install the Bruce flooring.

After we finish the baseboard installation, we will finally get to start nailing the Bruce flooring down.  Not a minute too soon, since the new refrigerator and dishwasher will arrive on Tuesday.

Crew at Work

By tomorrow we should be finished with the painting and beginning to install the new hardwood floor. While we're waiting for the last of the spackle to dry, Amanda is edging the stove and cabinet walls. She kindly agreed to paint the pipes under the sink, even though we're the only ones who will probably ever know they were painted. But after all, we're after perfection here.

John is trimming the door frame to make space for the new floor. He's smilin', but it was quite a job sawing off about a half an inch at the bottom all around the door opening, especially when the first saw kept losing its handle. Clearly, we need to stop by Home Depot again to pick up some more tools!

Dusty!

We will all be glad when we can finally stop sanding the drywall.  Even though we cover the cabinets, table, etc, the dust finds its way everywhere, probably with the help of our air conditioning ventilation.  In any event, I believe we only have one more course of spackling to apply to the ceiling and wall where we removed the dividing wall.  The wall extension needs at least one more coating before we can paint. 

The photo on the right was taken just after I applied this evening's coat of spackling.  It should be ready for sanding in the morning. 

Our plan is to finish painting the ceiling and walls on Friday, and start nailing floorboards on Friday or Saturday.













Since the new floor is 3/4" thick, I had to saw the bottom of our door trim with the miter saw.  The original oak threshold will be re-installed and was sanded today and sprayed with several coats of polyurethane.







I connected and tested our new compressor and floor nailer this evening.  The compressor came with a bunch of 1/4" fittings, but the nailer requires a 3/8" male NPT fitting.  I spent the better part of an hour combing Home Depot for the fitting, and finally found an adapter that works perfectly.  I loaded the nail magazine and fired off a few test shots into an old piece of flooring that we had from the last time we installed Bruce flooring (15 years ago, as I recall).

Wall Expansion Day

Before we could expand the wall for the new refrigerator location, we had to create a straight transition between the existing dining room flooring and the new kitchen flooring.  With a chalk line on the floor for reference, I screwed our trusty ledger board to the floor, using the level to ensure there were no curves - no board is perfectly straight, after all!  This established my guide for the router.

 The router was connected to an edge guide, which slid along the ledger board to achieve a clean, straight edge on all of the floor boards - except for the last three, that is.  The router bit cannot get closer than about 5" from the side wall, so I used our miter saw to finish the job.

 I put a piece of flooring against the routed boards to check the transition, which appears to be quite good.  The router makes an incredible amount of sawdust, most of which I was able to capture with our shop vacuum as the chips flew.

Next up was the framing for the wall extension.

The dining room wallboard was installed first.

Next came the kitchen wallboard

And then the end piece.

Plastic corner strips were then screwed through the wallboard and into the framing.  Ready for spackling tomorrow!

Our jigsaw does a wonderful job of cutting drywall with very clean edges.  I only recently tried this as an alternative to using our utility knives and/or wallboard saw.