The floors are up! The new window is in!

The five layers of tiles are off the floors! Pictures of Chad in his moon suit are coming soon. It was quite an ordeal to block off all the kitchen, get the respirator, the plastic suiting, etc. We never were quite sure if the floor tile was asbestos, we just assumed it was. The good news is, underneath, we discovered beautiful hardwood floors, in great condition, just in need of refinishing. Ok, looking at these photos, they still look rough, but the good news is, no water damage, very little nail holes, and they will be completely restorable.

Also, the new window is in. This took 12 hours of framing with a large hole in the wall, while it was 0 degrees outside. The window is now the most level thing in the whole house.


Close up of the new window. When we opened up the wall, I was shocked at the age of our 1920s house from the inside. We got the window from Building Materials Outlet (formerly Cannon Recovery) off of 55 in Eagon. It's a place that sells left over and returned materials for the construction industry. It's a top of the line Pella Architectural casement window that was $300. I think this was a considerable savings, that the full price would have been twice that. We got really lucky because it was the only window there that was the size we needed.

Another view of the floor. We were figuring that the floor would be trashed in front of the sink with water damage, but it's not. The plan now is to refinish ALL the floors in the house, rather than putting slate floors in the kitchen. We also discovered that the floors in the rest of the house had never been refinished, because they are the same height as the floors in the kitchen. That means, when we redo the floors, they will be gorgeous. It will most likely be less expensive as well, and the wood floors provide a nice line of sight between the kitchen and the living room.

Both of these projects took the majority of two weekends of time. Chad works like a maniac. Our friend Zak helped with the window installation, and I tried to help as well but I wasn't very useful. :)

Kitchen Before Photos

Demolition is underway. The floors are up, and a new window is in. Blog reporting is a little behind due to the lack of a digital camera -- I'd like to post photos along with posts. We'll correct that soon enough. With all the work that Chad does for his landscaping company, I'm always checking to make sure that he has before photos of his projects. I think it's the HGTV effect. I love a good before and after. So, we made sure to get some decent before pictures of the kitchen.




The view you see when walking into the kitchen. The cabinets are home-made, and must be from the 1950s. All of the bottom cabinets are drawers, and do not have any sliders -- they are very difficult to use!



The door to the basement and the backyard. The fridge sticks out and makes this entrance tight. There is no good place for our trashcan, so it sits to the right of the counter.


The fridge and stove. Notice the space inbetween, where we keep our recycling. There is no counter space by the stove, making it very difficult to cook here.



The sink and the stove. The stove sticks out in front of the counter.

The doorway out to the great room.

The window.

Close up of the worn, parkay floors.

Close up of the cabinets above the stove and fridge, which do not close.

The view coming into the kitchen. Notice that the parkay floors are about an inch higher than the wood floors.

Digital drawings of the new cabinet configuration

I finally managed to scan the new designs of the kitchen. But first, this is the old, current layout of the kitchen. The kitchen is pretty big (11 X 11, roughly) for such an old (1920s) and small (825 sq feet) house. However, the layout is not that functional. There is a lot of wasted space in the middle of the layout. For orientation: There is a door that goes to the living room to the left of the sink and counter, and a door that goes to the basement behind the fridge. The window on the left looks out to the side of the yard.

Here is the new layout. We have to move a doorway to make this possible, and also move the window on the left up. But i think the space will be much more usable. It took us about 8 months to determine this layout. We went through every possible configuration before landing on this one. I am very happy with this set-up, I think it will be great!

Here is a more 3D view of the layout -- which does not include any upper cabinets.

View from the inside of the kitchen. The wall above the cabinet to the left of the door will be cut out to face the living room.

View of fridge and built in pantry.

View that you would see walking into the kitchen:

Alternate view of sink and cabinets:

Here is a view of the wall cut out from the living room.

This is a generic picture of the cabinet style that we are ordering. More on that later...

House Exterior Photos: After

Dec 11 here in Minnesota, with the kitchen remodel underway.. snow outside.. I thought it would be nice to post a little reminder of warm days. I found the after pictures of our front yard! We completed this project in July / August 2005, with the help of Chad's company, Diggit Landscaping.


The project included new front steps tiled with Slate tile, a new cobblestone concrete walkway, stone front steps, and all new, low maintenance, japanese style plants, and boulders and burms surrounding the plants. We also put in a new screen door and added accent painting around the windows.

Detail of the stone steps. These are so pretty -- they also weighed a ton, we could barely move them. That walkway behind it is a tumbled concrete paver -- it looks like stone but was much less expensive. I also love the curve of the walk, it's a playful touch to the symmetry of our house.


The path on the right is flagstone, set in trapstone that matches the large boulders, all held together with steel edging. The steel edging will age over time and get a rusty patina. The path on the right is much less formal and sturdy than the concrete paver path. That path goes to the backyard and to the neighbors house, and is mostly for the mailman.

Detail of the entry way. The path on the right is for the mailman, and is trapstone with steel edging. The steps are poured concrete covered with slate tile and a sealer for weather. We made the steps wider than they were previously, to hold potted plants. We were also happy to discover that we no longer needed railings, since the height is below the minimum requirement. We debated for awhile about what material to use for the main path -- we wanted to make sure that the path up to the house was sturdy enough to shovel and had enough presence to lead up to the entry of the house. Since the pavers are made of concrete, they are very consistent and even, easy to shovel in the winter.

The plants that we installed included: hydrangea (I insisted), japanese painted fern, rhododendron, japanese red maple, nishaki willow, magnolia, korean maple, korean fir, japanese junipers, creeping jenny, azalea, sumac, globe spruces, pagoda dogwood, creeping cottoneasters, dianthus. The plants are little in these pictures, I can't wait to see how they grow next year and the year after. I am impatient to see it fill in!

Off to a great start with... Asbestos Tiles

The good news: we ordered the cabinets. $5000, non returnable, atleast without some fanagaling. We can no longer turn back on the kitchen project -- we have reached the point of no return.

And then, shortly thereafter, we reached some asbestos tiles. Two layers of them, to be exact.

We are not sure that the tiles are asbestos, but based on what i have read, most tiles manufactured from the 30s to the 70s were asbestos, so we are just assuming that they are. The floor is already one inch above the rest of the floors, so we need to get rid of the suckers.

I found this great factsheet on safe removal of asbestos tiles. Believe me, it is not for the faint of heart. This is scary shit. We may get the tiles tested -- or we may take all the necessary precautions and get rid of it. We would also need to find a place to take it.

Off to a running start...

F***ing Ikea Farm Sink

Well, we found a GREAT sink for a reasonable price that we love.

Sound too easy? Yes, yes it does. One hint: It's from Ikea.

Here are some pictures. It's a double-bowled farm sink, also called an apron sink, meaning that the front of the sink sits on top of the cabinet. It's a deeper sink that has an old fashioned, kind of country look -- which can quite successfully be combined into a more modern feeling design.















At $199, the price is extremely right. Comparible sinks at Home Depot are over $1000 -- can you believe that? And a quick search on ebay yielded nothing for under $500.

The problem? Ikea is out of stock. They are not even taking names for the wait list until February. It took me 30 minutes on the phone to confirm this piece of information. (For future reference, the direct dial number to speak to someone in the kitchen department of the Twin Cities store is 952-858-8088 x 1929.) Apparently this sink used to be hand poured. But they got tons of orders, and the sink was breaking while it was being shipped (sure sign of quality!). So they started a list of orders. Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and that's where this inferior hand pouring process was happening. So they had to relocate their manufacturing plant, and also conceive of a new manufacturing method. They are just getting up and running now -- and they have a list of people from 4 months ago that they are serving first. Which leads me to the whole not taking names until February. They expect the sink to be available starting April and March for us lowly masses.

But, the price is right, and the design is great, and so we have little choice but to wait.

This blog entry gave me a little solace -- Sunday reflection: The 10 stages of IKEA. I feel exactly the same way. I am never going back to IKEA. That is, until that sink comes in.

DOH!