We fought the plumbing, and we won!

As you might have noticed from our last thanksgiving post, we had a little mishap with the sink. Mostly involving me discovering a leak just as we were cleaning up all the tools... and I wish the leak had only involved water. I'll spare you the pictures; food sludge is not pretty. We haven't been able to use the left side of the sink since Tuesday and tonight we decided to take matters into our own hands. We decided to make this mess look better:

 

This, of course, necessitated a trip to Home depot. Matt, James and I spent about 20 minutes in the PVC aisle staring at different iterations of contorted white plastic piping before surrendering and asking for help. The employee was quick to disclaim that she couldn't give plumbing advice, but she did point us to an aisle that had a bunch of pieces that looked waaaaaaay more like what was currently under the sink. Of course, we still spent quite a bit of time examining those parts too:

 When we got home, we took pretty much everything apart

But we quickly realized, we had forgotten a couple parts. So I ran back to home depot and grabbed the extra parts. Leroy made sure we have everything in order:

So we measured and cut and put together washers and nuts and got everything exactly right

and then, the moment of truth, we turned on the water. But, it was a no go, we still had a leak. Right at the back, where the metal pipe is connected to the plastic, the one piece we didn't replace because we couldn't get it off. So we spent a lot of time thinking and puzzling and looking at the parts we had lying around and finally, inspiration struck and Matt figured it out:

We all took turns and it was James that finally got the offending pipe piece off, but eventually, we ended up with this:

And it worked!!! No leaks, no problems, rock solid. Pretty awesome. Of course we were left with a bunch of bits and scraps:

But any good project requires you crack a few eggs, errr, pipes... :)

taking back the kitchen

The construction is over, for now, but the aftermath remains. There are tools everywhere and a fine patina of concrete dust (basement) or drywall dust (kitchen) on all our surfaces. And... the dishwasher was full. So when I got home tonight, I went to work and took back the kitchen. You have to look kinda close, but instead of tools on the counter, we now have our kitchen stuff back

 which is good, because before it was in the laundry room:

which is cleaner now:

I also made a wreath. Well, ok, not made. I bought a wreath for 3 bucks at an estate sale and just spruced it up a bit (with Leroy's help, of course):

Before:

After:

and outside:

Befores and Afters

Well, after a long week of really hard work, I thought we could sit back and take stock of all the things we accomplished. So, here's some pictures and numbers:

Number concrete footers: 9

Number of new posts: 9 (of course, one for every pad, silly)

New beams: 3

Number of concrete bags: 56 (x 80lbs is 2.24 tons!)

Number of kitty litter boxes used for purposes for which they were not intended: 2

Number of outlets that go moved in the kitchen/bathroom: 7

Number of new counter tops: 1!!!!

And, of course, a series of befores and afters:

The front room:

The killing room:

And the crawlspace:

The bathroom:

And, the kitchen:

A big thanks to Wayne and Gina, we couldn't have done it without you! And, if you like the work, check out Wayne's Home Improvements

Last day

Well, today was the last day Wayne and Gina will be here, and I'm happy to say, we accomplished pretty much everything we wanted to do. We definitely could not have done it without them.

Matt spent the morning working on adding sister joists to one of the beams in the basement:

 Then, he started putting back the electrical wires that we had to take down when we put the beam up:

While this was happening, he hit a snag, well, actually, a spark when trying to put the giant light in the front room back up:

Luckily, it tripped the breaker before any harm was done, but it did throw an hour hitch in the plans as the offending wire had to be removed and rewired. On the up side, our basement is a little bit safer than it was this morning because they had a 15 amp outlet with a 14 gauge wire on a 20 amp breaker, which is not to code. Now its a 20 amp outlet with 12 gauge wire, much better. He also pinned up all the wires in the killing room, and replaced the light (which was pretty ambivalent about turn or staying on, and its scary back there in the dark! so it had to go).

While he was doing that, Wayne and Gina kept going on the kitchen

Gina removed all the tiles from the other side of the sink and then Wayne fixed up the electric in the bathroom and they put up all new drywall. So now our bathroom has two shiny new matching GFI outlets at the same height:

And, Gina detached the mirror from that silly little cabinet thingy that was under it, which i always hated and which is now in the trash. Of course, this means that the wall paper remnants will remain visible for some time, but somehow, I find them less visually offensive.

AND, the main event, which I've been waiting for all weekend. The installation of the butcher block!! Since the dishwasher is also in the island, we wanted to make sure that the heat and steam wouldn't warp the block. So, Wanye came up with the great idea of using aluminum to insulate and keep out the moisture.

Then, it was time. Here's Wayne installing the butcher block

 

And here is what it looked like while I was conditioning it with mineral oil. You can really see how it deepens the color. It'll take a couple more passes with the oil before its ready for use, but it looks so pretty, I'd probably be content just to stare at it and never actually use it.

I can't wait to get the backsplash up and refinish the rest of the counter top.

Oh, and we did find a nice surprise at the end of the day. Turns out our under sink plumbing has been slowly working its way loose. Nothing like thinking you are done for the day and then finding a leaking sink. But we managed to patch it enough that we can still use the right side.

Matt and I will take a closer look tomorrow.

The beams are done!

Today was a big day, we finished up the beam in the crawlspace and continued work on the kitchen.

I finally got the handles on the cabinets, actually, it was the last thing I did before the cold I've been fighting all weekend caught up to me and I had to sit out most of the rest of the day (aside from pictures, of course).

So nice not to have to claw at the cabinets to get them open.

Anyway, as I said above, the last beam went in. Matt and James (the self named "Beam Team") put it together

 First step was to take the old beam out, problem is, when we took out the supports, we found out that it was nailed to the floor. So instead of falling, it just hung there:

So we had to get creative with the Sawzall and cut through the nails to get it down:

But eventually, it gave way, and we were able to put it to the side (for now, we're just going to leave it in the basement)

Then we had to get the new beam in and supported enough to measure how tall the new posts needed to be:

Matt kept the mood going while Wayne and Gina cut the posts:

And there, like last time, there was a lot of banging and sledgehammering to get the posts in place and square:

Then Matt and James screwed in the side supports and we were done!

While all this was going on, Wayne took on the kitchen. We (ok, I) decided, perhaps foolishly, to take down the backsplash before installing the butcher block. While we were doing this, I asked if we could move some of the outlets around so that the were all level (I'm not that OCD, but it was driving me crazy!).

 

This turned into more of a project than we were imagining, mostly because the outlet above the oven (dead center in the above picture) didn't have enough slack to be moved down behind the oven. So, change of plans, we decided to turn it around and stick it into the bathroom and then run a second outlet off that junction down below the oven. This meant some bathroom demo (check out that awesome wall paper. Yes, it is lilac and pink flowers:

Here's wayne in his hidey-hole in between the island, the counter, and the oven, which has been pulled out, working on the electric:

And here's where we ended up for the evening:

Tomorrow, we'll (and when I say we, I mean them, since I'll be in bed) demo the rest of the backsplash, attach the butcher block, and put up drywall where we've removed the tile. Oh, and patch the giant hole still in our basement wall. Maybe that too. :)