We bought a dishwasher

I realized yesterday that it has been almost 10 years since I have had a dishwasher. I am so excited to finally have someone else wash the dishes! We found a great deal on a Bosch dishwasher at Appliance Smart in St. Paul. They sell discontinued and scratch and dent appliances. I believe the one we got is an older model, since it was in packaging and was a little difficult to find online. It's stainless steel, though the picture below is white, and supposed to be very quiet. Have a look for yourself
Consumer Reports rates Bosch at the top of their brand list of dishwashers, especially when it comes to quietness. Some of their models are so quiet they even have a beam of light that shines down on the floor to let you know that the dishwasher is running. That's amazing, and maybe partly a marketing scheme, but it got me.

The other interesting thing I read in consumer reports is that the average cycle time on a dishwasher is 2 hours. I haven't had one for so long, I forget how long it takes. Having a quiet dishwasher in a small house for two hours will be very nice. Consumer Reports basically said that in low-mid range models, your dishes will be clean, but in top end models, they will be cleaned quietly. We did spend a little more than we were planning originally, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Chad won the stainless steel debate -- I was pushing for white appliances since we weren't planning to upgrade all our appliances. But I totally caved. Score one for Chad.

Other cool features on this dishwasher include:

• SENSOTRONIC™ An advanced scanning eye examines the level of soil in the wash water and automatically deletes a secondary fresh-water fill if not needed
• Stainless Steel TALLTUB™ Top and bottom racks can be adjusted for improved clearance, and if you remove the top rack altogether, you’re left with an incredible 22" of usable space.
  
  

Workin on the floors

We moved the doorway to the kitchen, so the wood floors between the kitchen and the living room are cut out. That means that Chad has to patch them so they look seamless between the two rooms.


Markings on the floor show what to keep and what to cut. The old stuff comes up, along with some of the underflooring:

The view looking into the living room:

One very long day in pictures

The new wall

First, Chad had to build temporary walls to support the weight of the wall while the new beam was put in. Shown below is the new beam, along with both of the temporary walls.



The temporary walls came down, and the framing for the new opening went in. It's starting to really take shape!

Backsplash Slate Tile

We decided on a backsplash. We are thinking 2x2inch Slate tiles, similiar to this:


Anyone know of a good place to buy tile? We've been to Kate-Lo.. but that's all so far.

Soapstone Countertops

We've been debating on the countertops for awhile. First, we thought a dark, dark gray laminate would do the trick -- inexpensive and modern looking. Then I started to veer towards stone tile, because it would be inexpensive and a higher quality than the laminate. But now, after doing some research, we are leaning towards Soapstone. There is a great blog entry about it here.

Here is a picture of the material:





Advantages include 1) It's heat resistant 2) it's a continuous surface (unlike tiles) 3) Does not absorb any acids or foods 4) scratches can be buffed out with sandpaper if necessary 5) can be installed by the do it yourselfer, since it weighs less than granite or marble, and can be cut with woodworking tools and 6) costs less than granite or stone 7) it looks awesome!

We're super excited. Now we just need to find a retailer in the Twin Cities. Know of any?

Our temporary kitchen.. and the Terrible State of our Old Plumbing

This was the plumbing from the main to the kitchen sink:

EWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How did anything get through there? YUCK.

Here is our new, temporary kitchen, located in the basement.

Our old microwave, sturdily placed on some empty boxes (atleast it works):

Laundry and.... dishes!

The cabinets are ready for pickup!

Ready for pick up..

















But where are we going to put them, until the floors are done? The basement is the likely target. Menards recommends opening the cabinets and inspecting for damage right when you get them, so that any defects can resent my the manufacturer (which probably also takes 3-5 weeks to get any replacement parts).

Wall deconstruction

Wall, before demo:



After demo:


The splotches in the air in the photos? That's dust.

Let the chaos begin

Today's updates will be in short, easy to follow bullet point format:

• We have returned from vacation, and back to work on the kitchen.
• We have a new digital camera, the Canon Powershot SD400 Digital Elph, which rocks!!
• Sink is now officially out of commission. No washing dishes for you!!
• New plumbing and new vent stack for the new sink location are just about done, thanks to our contractor neighbor, a few nights of plumbing, and lots and lots of soder.
• In order to move the sink, chad had to CUT out a portion of our basement foundation, causing concrete dust to land everywhere in the house, including within closed drawers. The house is covered with dust, but no reason to clean it now.
• We discovered hardwood floors under the porch . Current plan is to refinish the floors in the ENTIRE house. The big problem with this will be getting all of our stuff out of the house, in the middle of the winter, YUK. We are thinking about renting a Pod -- one of those plastic boxes that you can keep in your front yard.

The plumbing in pictures:

A miracle has occured

Chad got the IKEA sink! See my post below. It's unbelievable. Here is what transpired.

It was a cold and lonely day just after Christmas. We were lamenting the fact that our sink would be likely to arrive in stock by MAY. Chad had to run out to IKEA to return a faucet he had gotten for his mom. He happened to check in on the kitchen department.

Chad: Excuse me miss, do you know anything about that Farm sink? Are any available?

IKEA girl: Oh! I just got an e-mail this morning saying there are two available in stock. Would you like one of them?

Chad: Yes, please, that would be great!

End of story. He got the sink and brought it home. It's now sitting in our basement, ready to be installed.

Unbelievable. Chad has the best luck.

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...