Kitchen Tales

Yesterday DH started doing more of our kitchen re-model, and is finishing, hopefully, the plumbing today. It’s a temporary/permanent change.

The sink/counter/cabinet lower section is now on the opposite side of the kitchen, so it’s flipped from how it was positioned originally, but down a few feet towards the other end of the kitchen. It’s temporary placement with the sink there. It’ll be fully functional by later this afternoon, if all goes well (which I pray will happen!) This frees up the outside wall of the kitchen for all the work that needs to happen there. The old doors left a hole when we removed them some time ago, and that area is covered with plywood only. It needs to be insulated and drywalled. We also have some flooring issues that need to be taken care of there.

The upper cabinets are still in place. We need to remove them and will do so when we have space cleared in the garage for them. I still have to measure the doors, if they are the same size as the other section of uppers we have then well split the new-movers apart and marry two door sections to our other uppers, maybe. Maybe not. I have to check it out for functionality and beauty to the eye. The other section I’m speaking of used to be opposite the sink section. We took that apart earlier this year, and it’s now at the end of the kitchen. We haven’t fully installed that section yet. We have to tear out a partial wall by the steps and rebuild it as a full wall, then install lower and uppers right up in the corner of that wall, then I’ll also know if the cabinets that might fit with them, if they will work to go next to them. I’ll have at least 50″ to play with, but want to do a corner cabinet there in order to not have any dead corners where things wrap around towards where the primary sink will reside eventually.

I’m not sure what we’ll be doing on that sink area … I want to get a large garden window to go there, and may not have any upper cabinets at all along that stretch, which will have some counter, the sink, the dishwasher and the refridgerator. Beyond that will be sliding glass doors hopefully this Spring. I might have to wait until then to get that wall more fully finished, the new sink, window, dishwasher, etc.

The things that were just moved are what will be in that spot, but well rebuild parts of it, lower it to more a table height and eventually it will all get new countertops, which will extend out a bit for bar-like table area. There will be a Vegetable sink at the end, about where the sink is now, but much smaller, of course. I want to have Filtered water there, and maybe a garbage disposal (we don’t have one at all right now, a septic system doesn’t allow builders to install one, it’s only an after-market owner choice to put one in.)

The plan calls for a new stove as well, a slide-in sort. We have a free-standing one currently, that has many problems. It’ll be a dream to do away with it. When the new stove will be gotten is anyone’s guess.

All these things cost money. Moving what we have around doesn’t cost much at all. Repainting the cabinets cost money, but not much compared with getting new ones. New hardware is partially decor, and worth the upgrade. We have bought some new hinges and knobs and pulls for the end cabinets. The color change is very handsome. The cabinet color is a butter yellow, and I have sanding I need to do and a final coat or two to finish that, and improve upon my technique to get the rest of the cabinets done faster. The section that we just moved I will not change at all until we know what we are really fully going to do with it. It’s part of an L section, and really will be functionally similar but changing at some point or points, so it’s a waiting game to get that to final look status.

DH is doing this work today on a Sunday, since it is Sunday. He was going to do the plumbing yesterday, but only got part of it done. He had no choice in doing it today then, he has to go-out on Monday and can’t do it then, and I can’t wait until he’s back to do it as I need my kitchen in better working order for Thanksgiving prep and birthday prep.

All in all it was an exciting day yesterday though. Under the sink cabinets we found mouse poop, and on down the line there was a nest made from drywall paper … they’d stripped the paper surface off the drywall there … very ingenious of them. They got in via a hole under the cabinets, where a pipe poked a curve through the floor. I wasn’t happy when I saw it, a bad, bad design by the plumber, builder, whoever, they left a nice little gap next to the pipe, quite large enough for a mouse to see that as a great enterance/exit hole.

We’ve had mice in the kitchen before a few times and now know the reasoning behind how they got it so easily, and why they were doing it. It’s that the hole goes into the crawl space, and there’s a hole to the outside right there via venting grill in the foundation wall. Wonderful setup, easy get-to-outside, and dry warm nesting space inside. :rolleyes: The cats did catch a mouse last week. The dog caught two in the yard. There’s at least one more alive, we saw it scurry out of the nest as we moved the cabinet yesterday. DH was in the crawl space awhile ago and heard something moving, undoubtably a mouse. We’ve let three of the best mousers (three of the cats) have free access to the crawl space today to encourage mouse-catching. Nothing so far.

So my kitchen in it’s mobile state is a far cry from finished, but betterly organized to mobilize me to cook in it and my dream of flipping and flopping and twisting and reinventing the space is fully underway, quite close to the shadow of what the space should be. Just have to get the final appliances, and doors and windows and countertops and painting, finishing out cabinet pieces to match what we already have to fill in gaps.

I’ll end up with a Double-L layout, which is basically an L and an L nested in a stagaring fashion, one inverted.

Sort of like that stuff below:

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But formatting in WP doesn’t do it justice. I make a drawing of it soon (sometime) to input here.