Day Six-fifty-one: kitchen (still cont.)

Maybe it's natural when getting close to the end that you start to let up or maybe we're just making more time for other interests, but when we typically spend only the weekend working on the kitchen then progress is slow and steady. But that's what won the race, right?

Part of what we've been painting and sealing were shelves to install above the oven for quick access to some everyday use items. Well those shelves went up this weekend.

If you think it's a coincidence that the shelves line up with the lower rungs of the shelf attached to the new cabinet, then you don't know us very well. Aesthetics are always a consideration, which may be one reason why a simple project can take 2 or 3 times longer than you'd expect.

We also advanced all of the drawer fronts and doors to their next phases. Here are all the drawer fronts--painted and stained and now with markings for where to drill the holes for the handles. The next step is to attach them to the drawers.

With the drawer fronts out of the way we moved a stack of doors into position for their two coats of sealer (this is about half the doors).

The cabinet that we took down and sanded clean also got its first coat of primer.

Finally, we spent more quality time with the orbital sander and got a big chunk of cabinets done. All that remains is the little part around the sink. We also have to figure out how to make the fake drawer in front of the sink into a tilt-out drawer.

As a flashback, here's what this side of the kitchen looked like a few weeks ago.

Day Six-forty-five: kitchen (cont.)

We'll start where we left off last time, with a picture of the structural/stabilization work we did on the cabinets to keep the two pieces together. Here's a look at the 1/2-inch piece we used to fill the gap between the sides of the cabinet.

And here are the four screws holding that board in place (they're the small silver dots toward the top and bottom--pretty inconspicuous).

Elsewhere we sanded off all the paint from this cabinet. Nothing that several hours with the orbital sander couldn't handle. We were very happy that we took this down to work on because it would have been quite a chore to stand on a step stool or bench for those same hours.

We took advantage of the cabinet being down to make sure there was nothing amiss--mold, whatever--behind the wall, so we cut out a small piece and found no surprises.

Lest you think we only take things apart, we also made good strides getting the doors and drawer fronts ready to install. The doors got their final coats of paint.

And the drawer fronts and shelves (the long pieces) got their final coats of Bona Mega, so they're done and ready to install.

Day Six-forty-two: another day, another cabinet

Tying up loose ends, after we installed the new cabinet we had to put it through its paces. Here's an "action" photo. So far so good.

With that part of the project complete we turned our attention to the already existing upper cabinet, which is in need of sanding and repainting with the new color. Here's what we started with.

Since this was already in the right place and at the right height, we decided to do a reverse ledger board and installed it flush with the bottom of the cabinet so we could put it back the way we found it.

Then it was an easy matter of removing the six holding screws. We opted to take this down to work on it because it'll make sanding and painting a lot more convenient if we can have the cabinet on the ground.

These are actually two cabinets. The large one has the two big doors and the small one has (no surprise) the one small door. They were attached by a couple of screws through the frame but because we'll be moving them around a lot we wanted to secure them together better. So we slid a piece of 1/2-inch plywood between the cabinets to fill a space and drove a few screws through it. Now we can confidently manipulate the whole unit without fear of the smaller part breaking off. Tomorrow's a sanding day.

Day Six-thirty-six: well this is a pickle, part three

With the framing in place it was time to get down to business.

First we installed a ledger board to keep the cabinet level and to provide a little support as we held it up.

Next we needed to patch the big hole that we had cut. Here's where saving the piece of drywall came in handy. We marked where the new studs were and had the drywall in place in a jif. A little spackle/compound to close the seam and we were all good.

Identifying where to put the screws through the cabinet took a bit of calculating because we wanted to ensure that they'd go into the framing we went to all this trouble to install. We planned to put a few screws through the top crossbar, a couple down the left side (the cabinet's too narrow to reach the right side), and a couple in the middle crossbar. The last one needed a touch more prep work because the plywood back was raised, so our screws would have pulled it back toward the wall. Nothing a little shim couldn't handle.

With all of our holes predrilled, we needed to get it in place. We set the cabinet on the ledger board and both of us held it while we drove the screws home with our power screwdriver. (The blue tape marked where the framing studs were.)

Then came the corner shelf, which we attached to the wall and to the side of the cabinet to keep both pieces in sync.

And that concludes our adventure in cabinetry.

Day Six-thirty-six: well this is a pickle, part two

When we left off we were trying to figure out how to install some struts and supports from which we can hang the new cabinet. Well this is what we came up with (slightly modified after consulting our technical consultant).

Step one was to figure out how much of the drywall that we needed to cut. We tried to be judicious because in every other respect this is a fine wall.

Then came cutting that piece out and setting it safely aside to reuse, because after all it's the perfect shape and size.

Once we had the wall open and could scout around we noticed a small hiccup. On the sides where we planned to attach new 2x4s the surface wasn't level, so we had to add some filler strips.

Now that the sides were flush we could add some 2x4s. We opted to add one layer on each side and a couple of cross beams. This would give us plenty of material in which to screw the cabinet.

At this point we realized that we needed to create the whole top piece because we wouldn't be able to attach the cross piece to the tops of the vertical pieces.

A little fancy finagling and the whole thing is in, with several screws in each of the four vertical pieces to hold them securely in place.

Still more to come.

Day Six-thirty-six: well this is a pickle, part one

Today we decided to install our new upper cabinet. If you read about how others have tackled this you know it's a moderately involved but not overly challenging endeavor. A huge help is to build a box to sit on top of the countertop or a ledger board to keep the cabinet level and take some of the weight while you're installing it. Then installation basically consists of finding the studs and driving screws through the back of the cabinet into them. Easy, right? Well...

Here's what the area looked like as of this morning. About what you'd expect. The cabinet will be a standard 18 inches above the countertop and to the left of the outlet. Our little corner shelving unit will be to the right and above the outlet.

As we thought about how to tackle this something dawned on us. There might not be the usual supports in the wall to which we could attach the cabinet. Why? Because if we step into the wayback machine we'll recall that the space in question used to have a built-in bookshelf above an eat-in table.

You're thinking "So?" Well, we dug up a photo from when the walls were all down and it confirmed our suspicion--right where we want to put the new cabinet there is nothing, nada, zero that we can hang it on. It's just a big empty space where the bookshelf was. Tapping on the wall and using our stud-finder confirmed that no structural boards were added after this picture was taken.

Decisions, decisions. To be continued....