Removing beams

We are at the end of day 2 and I am continually impressed by the speed of the demolition. Today the workmen removed the ceiling, wall drywall and a whole bunch of beams so the ceiling can be exposed. It's amazing how they put together the addition to the house back in the late 60's. You can see where the old roof ends and the new one juts out. All of the old materials (other than roof shingles) is still there.

One of the odd things is the lack of supports in the middle of the room. Originally, there were room dividing arches that we has assumed were load bearing. I guess since there isn't anything up there they are not as load bearing as we thought, at least I hope they are not.

Tomorrow I belive they are removing the tile on the floor.

It is very interesting to see the crappy craftsmanship of previous work. In some areas there is still carpeting where the previous cabinets were placed and there are two levels of old linoleum tile below the existing floor, which would explain why the floor had all the cracks and was not level. There are also several layers of wallpaper in areas that were behind the cabinets. While the additional wallpaper isn't a big deal, it does mean that previous owners were laying wallpaper over wallpaper during at least part of the house's lifetime.

First day of construction

Yesterday the workmen actually came and ripped out the old kitchen. While the floor and some of the walls are in place the majority of everything else has been removed.

What I was most impressed with is the tidiness of the place when I got home last night. I guess I expected more kayos.

The one thing that did not arrive yesterday was the dumpster, so the workmen piled the garbage on a tarp and covered it so it would not go all over the neighborhood.

Our house is a split level so it was interesting to be able to see the bathroom pipes behind the exposed wall. If I was more gung-ho I would use this opportunity to remove the tub trap and clean in out since I won't get this opportunity again.

Shown to the right is what it looks like after the demolition has been started at the end of day 1.

Lights are green, up is go.

After an extra month of waiting the workmen and their associated dumspter should be showing up today before 9am.

This is a fantastic opportunity to see the current kitchen and dining room without all the associated garbage and such. Shown next to this post is the dining room on the left and the kitchen on the right. These are in actual proximity to each other in the layout from the house.

When completed the kitchen will span the area of the two photos along the back wall, and the dining area, now a formal dining area will be an informal dining area in the front area of the photos.

The two windows on the left (marked with an ‘A’) will be going to Habitat for Humanity. These are the new windows I put in about a year ago. The bay window (marked with a ‘B’) will also be going to the same place. The last bay window (marked with a ‘C’) will be replaced with a new bay window. And the dividing wall between the two rooms will be removed, and replaced with a beam.

We spent the better part of last night cleaning out the cabinets and moving furniture out and setting up our secondary kitchen in the laundry room, where it will be for the next three months.

Now lets see if they show up.

Scope creep in contracting jobs

Yesterday we met with the contractor and the plumber who wanted to survey the job before beginning sometime in the next century.

After answering some of his questions and poking about we asked them some 'wouldn't it be nice' questions, and this is where the problems begin.

Controlling costs of a kitchen upgrade is a problem. If you hear or think any of the following run the other way:
a) It's only a small change
b) Since you're doing this anyway
c) I didn't think about that
d) What's another few dollars
e) Hey that's a good idea
f) Can you estimate this

All of these are trouble and should be avoided to control the costs. That being said, the first two items have already hit the bricks - The bay window and an external gas line.

Under the "can you estimate this" category is the bay window.I hate this thing, it leaks air all winter and since I have 2 other windows (really good windows - only a year old) that we are not going to use I thought put one of these there.

My wife will have none of it, she wants a bay window. So, right now we're estimating the cost of fixing the existing one.

The other item is admittedly mine, the external gas line. This one falls under the "since you're doing this anyway" category. All the gas pipes are moving and the deck is right off the kitchen, so logically why not have an external gas line for the BBQ put in since the whole wall will be open anyway.

We will be getting cost estimates on both.

How to turn 3 weeks time into 10 weeks

Apparently contractor time is not the same as human time.

Here we sit waiting for the kitchen job to begin and we are still waiting on the cabinetry to be completed. All I can surmise is that people are generally stupid and cannot adhere to timetables. Such is the case with kitchenscapes.

Our order was placed before the new year to take advantage of pricing before a new year's increase and was finalized at that time. Our Start date for beginning work was early April. The contract knew this, the cabinet guy knew this and we knew this. But I guess it's too difficult to understand your business enough to know how long it takes to build cabinets and then count backwards to finish on time.

Four months sports fans, and our contractor says its going to take another 3 weeks to complete the cabinets.

Ebay and the Kitchen sink

My lovely wife, who is always looking for a bargain for her new kitchen to be has taken to scouringInternet for deals on things like sinks and faucets and has done a pretty good job finding what she wants and then finding it for a better price.

As a result the first two things to show up at my door are sinks. Since we are going to have two sinks it would behoove us to get two basins, since the alternative are big holes in the new countertop with water running down them.

The good thing about the sinks, the one in the island in particular, is that I actually got my way. That's right sports fans, men 1, women 0. Ok, so it's probably more like women 459 and men 1, but I got my way.

Originally I thought it would be great to get a rectangular sing for the island. It would be smaller, and cooler, and I could fill it with ice and beer for all the parties I don't have. The wife, did not think staffing for parties I don't have would be the best reason to get a long rectangular sink, so she went off on her merry way getting whatever she wanted.

But, months down the line when it came time to find the sink for the island, I snuck the little chestnut in that it would be a good thing to be smaller and have more island space (for the palm tree). She actually went for it and I'm the new owner of a new rectangular sink.

It's even an undermount sink, which is prefferable, but caused all sorts of gyrations from the wife, since she bought it on auction and didn't remember the exact specifics.

So, the moral of the story is save some cash (about $200 per sink) by finding this kind of stuff on auction. Just be sure it's what you want, because otherwise you might be doing the selling on eBay.

Counter tops

In anticipation of getting the kitchen done we needed to go and pick granite for the counter top, so Saturday morning I was in a warehouse with about 60 different types or granite and marble arranged in large slabs that could crush you at any moment.

Apparently the way this works is you actually pick not only the type you want but the actual slab(s) they will use to craft into your counter. It reminds me somewhat of the 'pick your own cow' before they take it and slaughter it for you.

The only problem with all of this is that they don't actually move the slabs on Saturday (apparently there are only 2 sales people on Saturday) so what we ended up picking was the top pieces we saw. One for the island and a darker piece for the other counter.

My wife has had enough of this counter top stuff and has been subjected to a wide assortment of stone, so she would have gone with the pink polka dot marble had I insisted.

The sales guy who helped us said that you only pay for the part that they use, a fact that I don't really believe. One good tip I had heard was to ask for the extra pieces since you paid a premium for it. I figured I would use the extra for a cutting board. It would make a good contrast on the island with the darker cutting board.