Rehab 4470 - The Kitchen Is Done

I’ve been remiss lately in posting our progress to the blog. With travel and so much time away over the past few months seems like there’s not much free time. However we have made great progress on the entire house will the tile and hardwood completed – yahoo for my back! The kitchen has turned out really nice and we just have a little plumbing to complete in the next few days to finish it off.

I still question ripping up the 12 x 12 tile and putting in the 18 x 18 tile. It was a lot work. The new tile however turned out great and installation was easier than the last job even though the floors had bits of old grout even though we basically jack hammered the old floor out.

Mark did a great job on the cabinet installation and claims he’ll beat any bid. So if you need a cabinet guy I’d suggest you give him a call. As much as I would have liked to try to install them myself this time when there’s a guy like Mark I can focus on stuff that really needs to get done. He also did both bathroom vanities. Mark can be reached at 941-232-5631.

Granite from Johny exceeded our expectations and looks great. We had the same granite installed in the bathrooms. The large slab concept we added where we removed the wall turned out great and gave the desired effect we were looking for. We do regret not installing a couple of hanging lights over the large slab.  Check a previous blog for Johny's contact info.

Lou did marvels with the electric as always. Even he questioned what some of the wires were for when he saw the mess when we took down the side wall between the kitchen and the dining room. It was just a matter of moving the switches to adjacent walls and running new wire down the pillar that ran to ceiling. With vaulted ceiling there was not too much room to work in for Lou. He does great work at a fair price.  Send me a note if you need an electrician

We opted not to install a granite backsplash and tiled the backsplash with sheets of 2” travertine looking tiles. We found 12 x 12 sheets at Lowes on Clearance for around $3.50 / sheet. They fit almost perfectly and we used the same grout we used for the floor. Jan did all the grouting and switched out all the electric receptacles (great job honey – now I gotta teach you how to lay tile! I’ll stick to laying wood). We also reused the old under counter lights and just had to replace the light bulbs so all the light colors looked the same. The new bulbs made by GE for kitchens and baths actually bring out the backsplash color quite a bit.

Appliances were another story. After Lowes delivered a white stove with the stainless frig, dishwasher and microwave they delivered a stainless steel stove that did not work. Turns out it was discontinued and they had no others. They actually tried to get us to pay more – their argument was they had to give us a better stove because they had none of the ones we ordered. My argument was I wasn’t going to live there and didn’t care how nice it was. They finally delivered a current year model that matched all the others appliances – needless to say we got an $850 stove for $500. I almost want to replace our Kitchenaid unit at home it’s so nice. Give it to Lowes – they made it right as they always do.

A few more weekends of small stuff and this place is ready to be on the market!

Rehab 4470 - Kitchen Cabinets are in!

The cabinets were installed while I was out of town this week and they look killer.  Quite honestly I think this is shaping up to the best kitchen redo we've ever done.  At any rate I'm excited that we are past tearing walls out and  now we are putting things back together. I'll put more pictures out there after we get the appliances, under counter lighting, granite, and back splash installed in the next few weeks.

I sometimes find it relaxing doing physical labor - it gives my brain a rest.  So today it was sanding sheetrock in the master bathroom, digging out the last stump in the front yard, removing the vanity in the second bath, removing the marble window sills in the dining room, and attempting to purchase tile for the house all before my noon cutoff time frame (after which we were headed to the beach with the guests). 

Actually we purchased the tile but the yo-yos could not find the key for the warehouse door so we could not pick it up and bring it back to the house.  It was going to take 3 trips total since my truck can only hold so much. 

In the afternoon we met with our realtor to look at a few houses on Anna Maria island.  Turns out he has a trailer that might make it a one trip excursion to pick up the tile.  So looks like Monday we'll make another attempt to pick up the tile.  Its 18 x 18 porcelain with a rough finish which makes it easier to walk it on with wet feet - like when you're walking between the kitchen and the pool for ice.

Rehab 4470 - Ready for the kitchen cabinets to be installed

We finished painting the kitchen in anticipation of the kitchen cabinets being installed tomorrow (Monday).  Overall we really like the color which is the same as the bedrooms.  We've used this color a lot and it seems to be pretty popular with the buyers.  We added some graffti to the wall where the cabinnets will be installed for posterities sake.

We also picked out some 18 x18 tile at Home Depot for less than $1 / ft.  The savings should cover the thin set and the grout that we'll need.  In total looks like we'll need about 1000 sq ft of tile = lots of weekends = sore back.   The tile has a smooth edge which makes it harder to hide the problems if there's any problem with the adjacent tile.  This can happen sometimes if the floor is not level and after jack hammering up the old grout I would not be surprised to find a few surprises when the tile starts to go in next weekend.  I'll check for low spots and float them before I start with the tile.

We also got the Master bedroom painted with minimial touchup to finish it off after repairing the walls from the border around the ceiling.  The master bath still needed some more joint compound following the first good sanding.  The Jack hammer got the rest of the linoleum off the floor so its looking ready for tile.  The linoleum in the second bathroom came up with minimal work.

The front yard is also shaping up with two of the three stumps out and the holes filled.  I also came up with the brillant idea to move the pygmy dates near the street to the places where I dug up the small trees in the front flower bed.  This will save money!!

More next time - happy rehabbing!

Rehab 4470 - The Electric Hammer Drill with Chisel Adventure

Next time someone (who will remain unnamed) wants to rip up old tile (that looks perfectly fine to me) and replace it with new 20" tile remind to me run away as fast as I can.  What started out as a reasonably good idea has been a lot of work and it is still not done. 

In the future it will not be underestimated again.

First we had the tile removed by a couple of guys resulting in box upon box of old tile pieces in the garage that we over time carted to the curb.  The boxes could not be too heavy otherwise the sanitation engineers would not accept them.  So we ended up making a couple of trips to the local liquor store for boxes (and a bottle or two, but not more than three, per trip).  Then we had to transfer from  the boxes in the garage to the smaller boxes and then cart it to the curb on the dolly.  Luckily Carrie (my daughter was over for a few days and helped).   Some how she could talk on the phone and pull the dolly.

Removing the tile however was just the first step.  That left a considerable amount of thinset on the floor.  In fact too much to tile over and hence my new tool adventure for this project: 

The 20 lb Electric Hammer drill with a chisel bit.

If ever there is a man tool this is it!

It even makes a huge mess that you can have others clean up after you for days..

In all seriousness it works pretty good as long as the blade is sharp.  So needless to say I used a grinder to sharpen the blade after about every 10 minutes to chisel up the thin set.  Carrie even got into it and got pretty good at it.   It took about a half day but with the right angle and pressure the thinset flys off the floor.  There were a few areas that were very thick and I took out pieces of the floor but at least its all level and clean now.

Thanks to Carrie for all the help.  I don't see her that often and probably won't even more after this adventure!  Just kidding - after a while I couldn't get that tool away from her..

Rehab 4470 - Outside Paint Looking Good

Nick the painter started painting this past week and I'm dying to see how it looks.  With me being out of country (day job) and the camera just getting repaired, Jan has not been able to take any pictures (I have the other camera with me overseas).  She did say that the color, which by the way is the same as our house, looks great with the roof shingle color.  I was hoping it would as the roof shingles that are mostly grey do have some brown tones.  Nick will also be addressing some of the repair to the eaves which appear to have dry rot in a few minor places.

Nick does a great job and as any good painter will tell you it's all in the preparation.  Luckily this house is in great shape and there's not near as much foliage around it like our house.  He's got all the caulking completed and has started the seal coat everywhere.  That will be followed by 2 coats of paint.  I'll post some before and after pictures when I get them from Jan.

Followup:  Back in town and well it turned out great as can be seen from the before and after photos.  The brown really brings out the brown in the roof shingles and the black door really sets it off.  You can also see that most of the larger bushes are gone and the front of the house looks alot more open - don't worry landscaping and at least one big palm tree on the way to give it that Florida tropical feel and curb appeal!