House reno' update... and life in general too.
OK, so once I'de "done" the floors, it was time to put the kitchen back together...
Well you see, Id removed a section of one kitchen wall before I did the floors so as to open out the space a little more... Obviously, it would have been silly to do the floors first and then remove the wall and try to patch the floor... and as a result, one side of the kitchen was something of a disaster...
And if I was going to rebuild one half of the kitchen then I may as well rebuild the other half as well of course... You know how these things go!... Actually, I consider myself lucky that I managed to "contain" the "chain reaction of destruction" just to the kitchen... It could have just kept going until I was left with nothing but a bare plot of land with no house at all :))
So the first task was to refinish the wall in some basic form and get the stove and fridge back to being useable... Drywall work; which is not hard but is always very dusty!
Then I hung a new extractor hood on the wall hooked up to the duct and power where the old one had been, and wheeled the fridge and stove back to their original places.
That was easy enough, and to fill the gaps between the appliances I installed a couple of reasonable quality premade cabinets with some solid wood "butchers block" counter tops (I like wood and its a cheap solution for the benches on this "low use" side of the kitchen).
The next challenge though was the other side of the kitchen...
It was all old "built-in" cabinets and very ugly and over used counter tops... Id already chisled off the matching (and equaly ugly) back-splash tiles when I jackhammered out the old tile floor.
... Oh well, nothing for it but to "get started"...
I was hoping to just have to replace the cabinet doors and drawers with new ones and leave the cabinet boxes as-is (built-ins are nasty to try to replace), so I was just going to replace the old stainless steel sink with a nice new pocelain one... I used that most imprecise of modern power tools - The reciprocating saw!
And I got the sink in, but it was larger than the old one and it didnt really fit the cabinets that well... and by the time Id finished "hacking" away at the old cabinets to make it fit, there was not that much of the old cabinets left ... And after due consideration, I decided to remove that section entirely and replace them with some more of the new pre-made ones that Id used on the other side... So, it was back to work with the demolition tools! :)
And so, I removed the old cabinets, rebuilt the sub-floor, refitted the telephone line (that ran through the old cabinets), and put in the new section of cabinets... And they fit quite well... and the sink fit in nicely too :)
So, then I bought a bunch more doors and drawers for the remaining old cabinets and set about sanding and repainting the old boxes (very dusty job but I guess Im used to it after all the drywall work Id just done), followed by installing the doors etc. (actually quite a bit of work because the cabinet openings all had to be "resized" to fit the standard sized doors and drawers... But it looked good on the lower cabinets when it was done, so I continued with the upper ones too.
... And then it was time for counter tops and back-splash.
I spent quite a while looking at counter options and what I found was that there are about three or four basic choices... In order of my preferences...
Concrete (DIY is only real option, expensive, difficult to do well, looks great)
Stone/quartz/corean (very expensive, low maint', looks great),
Wood (few options - DIY if you want more, high maintenance, cheap, looks great)
Laminex (lots of style options, lowest maint', cheap, looks average)
After looking at it all I came to the depressing conclusion that it was going to cost lots more than I wanted (of course)!... It seems that although there are a huge number of laminex options out there, that look nice and although it is tough and low maintenance and easy to install and cheap... Its just not "done" any more... It seems that kitchens in Vancouver are done in "stone" these days... Laminex is considered the cheap and low quality solution... Which if I ever want to sell my house (to go off and live in a tropical paradise?) will matter...
The wood counters option was a real possibility, not least because I could build them myself out of any wood that I want... And so I'm sure I could make them look good... But they are the least durable and require the most maintennance... Again, Im sure I could live with those aspects and I actually enjoy the "character" aspect that the petina of wear and tear gives them.... But, again if I want to sell or even rent out my house (while I go traveling again) then I think its a really bad idea... So wood is out too.
The concreate counters option is really expensive to have done professionally and is a great deal of effort to do myself (not to mention that I dont know exatly how to do it)... Its also got a high probability of being a bit of a disaster if I do it myself!...
And that leaves me with Stone... It can look great and as I said, is effectively du riguer' in kitchens around here these days... But its pretty expensive (fortunately the popularity has meant that the prices have been reducing :)
Anyway, I looked at assorted options and dident see anything that I really liked for a long time. Eventually I settled on a quartz (which is a "manufactured" material with lots of "sand" in it) and ponied up the cash to have the counters made... And about two weeks after that a couple of guys showed up and installed the counters while I was at work (I started another contract to try to earn enough money to pay for all the spending Im doing on the house!). In the mean time I went and selected some tiles for the back-splash.
And so, about a week after the counters were installed, I had tiled and grouted and seald, and then a couple more days to install the light switches and the under cabinet lighting, and all of a sudden, the kitchen was basically done!
I have to admit that Im not completely happy with the overall apearance (it just ended up a bit "dull" if you know what I mean) and I probably should have gone with a darker/bolder tile colour choice, but its done now and its not bad enough for me to want to rip it out and do it again! :))
So this is the new and now finished (well for a few years at least) Kitchen...
And so I find that I have at last got my house back in order and I can finaly relax a little more... Ive pretty much spent the last eight months working all my available time either on contract to earn some money, or renovating the house. Ive not spent more a half dozen days when I was not working on the house and as a result it seems that Ive more or less "missed" the summer!
Although, Id have to say it wasnt a very good summer season here in Vancouver anyway... We had more rain and grey days than I can ever remember having before. I honestly think there were not more than three fine days in a row all the way in to late July... And, its only late August now, but already I can feel the evening and morning air has that cold edge to it and its getting dark before 9pm again... Summer is "on the run".
But I guess I dont really mind :)
Ive had a great time working away on the house... learning new skills and feeling good about working with my hands to make something that I enjoy using. I admit though that I am now feeling rather "tired" of all the renovating and Im ready to spend my time doing something else for a while.
There are still plenty of jobs to do on the house, but none of them are urgent and I can take my time getting around to them :) Im going to spend the next week or so clearing up all the construction mess of tools and materials that have accumulated, and then I can start working some more on the "big lump of wood" table project.
Other than that, Im faced with the usual problem of trying to figure out what that "something" that I should be doing is?
For the time being, I think Ill potter away at smaller things and just see what "life" brings into my path :)...
