the remaking of a kitchen

i remembered this one.......the floor surely is an improvement! :)

it felt great to be able to be back eating at the kitchen island for dinner tonight. you can see a pile of tomatoes on the counter, but there is also an entire large cookie sheet full of halved tomatoes that will by late evening, hopefully become oven dried treats.
the volunteer tomato plants are just loaded with tomatoes, so we may be making more of dried variety if this experiment works!

the dining room table has been in the garage for over 3 weeks while the floor was in process. they tried to bring it in thru the mudroom and then remembered that it had to come in the front door. so out of the garage and along the front walk. the extension boards that slide out and pop up when in use made things interesting, with some grunts and groans they got it in the door and it is sitting in front of the fireplace. at least for now.....we will see what we think.

A final check to make sure all is well before the refrigerator is permanently in place.

they are easing in into place now. just to check that it's ok.








the copper pipe needed to be connected to the wall for a couple of reasons. for one thing it wouldn't rattle against the wall when water to the sink was turned on and off. for another, it couldn't slip out of place and get caught under the frig and possibly cause a leak.

ok.....the splotchy wall will be forever hidden behind the refrigerator. the towels on the floor are "just in case" the connection to the water supply for ice and water decides to leak. surely not! don made a menards visit and had sealant and special white tape to insure a tight connection. he worked away, and VOILA! it was a success!

they are carefully pushing and pulling and getting ready to turn it sideways and ease it into place.

slowly and carefully the frig enters the kitchen. there wasn't room for hand on the sides as it came between the pantry and the opposing wall. the boards on the rugs really worked well.

this was quite a project! we had expected the floor team to arrive after 5, and they called and came at 9:30 this morning.





2 guys standing and thinking, coming up with the plan.
we had cardboard and rugs available, white cotton ones. as you
can see, they wanted thicker ones, so out came the iranian beauties.

the five windows are in the living room and the three are in the bumped out dining area. what a magnificent difference a little wood makes. i am absolutely delighted with this. we made the right decision.
we might even consider adding furniture at some point! :)

this is from the south wall of the dining room looking toward the kitchen. we still need to paint baseboards and the toe kick needs to be finished, but it's so possible now.

this is the short wall by the kitchen's breakfront looking toward the living room. we have wood floors and they are finished and we love them!

this is the hallway to the bedrooms.....sanded and stained. the guys thought it was spectacular and looked like a zebra. it is pretty amazing. today is the first application of polyurethane.

i thought this was a particularly beautiful section of the floor. we have been oohing and aaahing about the wood itself. nutso!

we have brought out the plastic and covered all the kitchen cabinets. it has the look of going backwards. i know it's not, but.....

we have made some progress, but first here's the refrigerator sitting on the tile in the entry. it's not exactly handy, but it's functional.

today was a big time sanding day. one of the guys had warned me about the noise.......a continuous high hum.....crazy making. there was also the DUST......lots and lots of dust. big particles and then smaller and smaller ones. it began around 9am and was still going when i left at 5:45. when i came home the floor was a dull tan, and that i found out is the filler which is applied all over the floor like dry wall mud and then will be sanded yet again in the morning. then the buffing and the application of stain. tra la tra la.
the refrigerator is sitting proudly on the tile in the entry......have to skooooosh it over to get to the hall closet, and you can still get out the front door, but only thru the living room. we are packing tonight so we can vacate to somewhere else if we feel the need.
we are having an adventure. sigh

with further discussion and a brief consult we seem to have decided to go with the clear stain or perhaps 4 or 5 parts clear to 1 part brown. the lighter color will go with the transitional style of the kitchen and also make the rooms appear lighter. we have had a long issue with dark rooms in this house. this may be a way to change that. (fingers crossed) the values of the stains may be similar but the grain difference between maple and oak are so graphic that it will be ok.
i really just want to get on with it and have it over with......i am already over it! :)

i should have a separate blog on all the things i have learned about during the project. these would also go under the topic of learning more than i ever wanted to know.....yadda yadda yadda.

did i mention that we made a decision on color yesterday??? well, not so fast my friends. we looked at further reductions in color today.
we had john here for about half the day and i continue to be impressed with the care this whole team gives to the placement of each board. they look at the way the boards look together and with impediments such as walls, tile, newel posts etc and make sure it's right. it takes a long time, but the results seem to be well worth it!
john says they have about an hour's work on monday morning and then the sanding begins. sounds good to get started, but i don't look forward to all that dust!

today everyone worked very hard to get all the wood in place so sanding (yuck) could begin in earnest on monday. alas, didn't quite get it all done, so john will be here in the morning to finish off the area around the stairway to the basement. did i mention that to our surprise the hallway to the bedrooms is already oaken?? the guys suggested today that the living room had probably been oak when the house was built, but wall-to-wall carpet was the big thing then, so the wood was probably removed to facilitate laying the carpet. times do change!
the hallway wood is layed directly on the diagonal sub-floor while the new floor is on plywood over the sub-floor. this means that the hallway is 3/4" lower than the new flooring so a transition board crosses the hall just past the bathroom door. i think it will all look quite lovely, and i wish it were all over. next week is the dreaded sanding, staining, polyurethaning experience. hmmmmm
the other accomplishment of the day was choosing the stain color.......we agreed! yea!

this has been a busy week. the guys arrived on monday and proceeded to put more boards in the living room and begin to go around the corner. they have continued with the project and hope to have all the floor finished, well not finished finished, but all the boards nailed down by the end of tomorrow. they might even begin sanding. the loosely proposed plan is to complete the sanding by the end of the day on tuesday, and then stain and put down the polyurethane on thursday and friday. it has been suggested that we vacate the premises on those latter days......he suggested we stay with a kid, but that's not going to happen. :) our kids got wings and used them and that's the good news as far as all of us are concerned. they chose lovely places to live, and for us to visit, but not close enough to pop over to spend the night.
today was an interesting experience. it was my day to deliver a meal to a neighbor with a newly repaired acl. i found myself hopping around the guy trying to lay flooring in front of the cooktop and between that and the island. we worked around eachother quite successfully. i was able to bake a pie and make a salad and a chicken - rice dish and heat the dinner rolls without tripping over him or having my toes nailed to the floor. he avoided having something spilled on his head and remained cheerful throughout altho i fear i was majorly in his space! don and i delivered the meal at 5:30 sharp.
gary from across the street delivered two pieces of auntie vi's peach praline pie to us.....i shared the recipe with him yesterday. we have a very nice neighborhood these days!

it's a gloomy, gray sort of weekend, BUT, we didn't paint, we didn't move furniture, we didn't remove tile, we didn't do much of anything. the right teams won in the right sports. lazy is a good thing.

slowly, slowly we are getting a wood floor. it's fun to study the boards and enjoy the diversity in the grain. it's amazing and probably a bit crazy, but we are enjoying it. we are also enjoying the fact that we won't have anyone in the house except for the 2 of us for a whole two days. wooohooo

this is just a hint of things to come. about 3 rows of wood strips are actually attached....those under the living room windows and another one adjacent to the tile in the entry. the rest is just laying in place....it looks pretty fabulous.....look at that sun shining in and imagine the wood with the soft glow of a finish.

this is the start of something here.......i think it's going to be wonderful. my fave burl is right inside the room close to the entry tile. :)

ok......this maybe over the top, but i think this piece of wood is just gorgeous....it's the burled oak. the background is the kitchen countertop....looks good together.

yesterday they delivered all the wood for the rooms and it is stacked between the dining and living rooms. it was fun to look at the various pieces.....they are #1 or riff and quartersawn with about 1/4 being the latter. i found a favorite piece of wood.....it's an oak burl and just yummy.

today was interesting. we watched the removal of the carpet and pad in the living room and learned that we weren't done with the tile in the entry. we were told that it was going to take us AT LEAST 2 days to remove the concrete or quikcrete or whatever as well as the metal lath that remained....it was what we found under the tile. for some reason don took this as a challenge and worked all afternoon and has nearly cleared the area. it was pretty amazing!

the other accomplishment today was the moving of most furniture to the basement, or the computer room or studio. we left the sofa, the dining room table and the big buffet for the guys to wrestle tomorrow. the sofa goes to the basement, the table to the garage and the buffet will live in the carpeted hallway during the installation of flooring. being a wimp i was amazed that i could actually help drag the stuff around, down the stairs and hallway. the pictures show the absence of furniture. :)

don finished his painting of the living room windows yesterday, and i finished the trim on the two new doors, and actually painted the door to the deck. this afternoon we removed the tile from the entry by the stairs and next to the bathroom door. we left tile in the area just inside the front door and hall closet. a messy dusty job for sure. we didn't take the sledge to the underlying concrete....leaving that to the guys in the morning. in the morning.....at last!
actually we don't have a sledge, but it sounds good!

on saturday morning i went downstairs to get my paint brush that i cleaned friday. i looked around in shock, dismay, and confusion....water dripping from clothes hanging to dry, and water all over the floor. i yelled for don and it took a while for us to figure out the source. there was a pin hole leak in the main pipe coming in from outside....just above the turn off valve. the water was shooting out in a very fine, but strong spray. we tied a towel around the pipe (after turning off the valve) and used clothes pins to keep in it place and to keep it over the sink for dripping. what a fine and untimely mess. used the wet vac and towels and cleaned it up and turned on the fan to dry further. then on to the painting. we couldn't get any ideas from neighbors for emergency plumbers, so started with the phone book. found a guy who told us we did the right thing and that we could turn on the water to do the stuff we needed.....dishes, toilets, showers, etc. he couldn't come till morning, and at that point we had things under control, and decided we could wait till tuesday and hope to get our regular guy, steve.

today was evenly divided between painting and football. red won, so that is a good thing. it was dry in the morning so i was able to paint the outer windows in the dining room.....good thing. it was raining all afternoon and still is. don worked on the living room windows and i think we are all done with the windows for now. i painted one coat on the mudroom door trim and primed the trim to the deck door. will try to complete that tomorrow. the kitchen window can be painted any time, as it is not directly over the floor. maybe i can at least prime it tomorrow. i also need to get started on the newel post, stair railing and balusters. some to paint, and some to stain. luckily we have a bunch of stain that matches the kitchen cabinets.

we are back at home, and have begun painting. chris the floor man was here today and did some critical measuring. we made the decision on where the wood floor would end, and for now we are keeping carpeting down the hallway to the bedrooms. there will still be tile in the area just inside the front door and entry closet, meaning we have to remove (CAREFULLY!!) some of the tile. we got precise instructions on that, so we will NOT damage the tile we want to remain as is. there will be crossed fingers on that part. scary!
they will move the heavy furniture, and we will have to decide where all the furniture will be stored in the house for a few weeks. should be interesting. the leather sofa will dwell permanently in the basement, so we will need a new smaller sofa or loveseat for the living room. it is exciting to think about how the rooms will change with the addition of a beautiful new floor. sigh.
the team arrives on tuesday and will rip out the carpet, move the heavy stuff and return on wednesday with the wood and get on with the project.