Breaking Rules

Today was SUPPOSED to be our day off from work as we took time out to watch Owen.  We both needed time to play, so we were happy to have a smiling, loving distraction from our daily remodeling tasks.

Owen arrived at about 7:00 a.m. The first thing we did was bake two loaves of zucchini bread.  The last time we watched him for the day, we had made eight small loaves of zucchini bread, so when we asked him what he wanted to do today, he said, "Make some zucchini bread."  OK.  Easy enough.  Owen really is a good little baker.  He chopped all of the walnuts in an old-fashioned crank nut chopper.  When he finished chopping the first 1/2 cup, we decided to do a second 1/2 cup.  I put more nuts into the hopper, and he started cranking it again.  He said his hand was starting to get tired, but before I could offer to take over for him, he simply turned the chopper around and started to crank/ chop the nuts with his left hand.  Oh, yeah.  I forgot.  Owen is ambidextrous. Using his left hand is almost as natural to him as using his right hand.

Nothing is better than a little butter melting into
warm, freshly-baked zucchini bread. Yum!

After the bread, we played games.  Owen rolled TWO Yahtzees while playing.  I definitely need to take him to the casino soon.  He is super lucky when he rolls dice.  We did a bunch of art crafts, played more games, completed some puzzles on the iPad, got some exercise with a big ball, and took time out to check on the plumbers who were installing our new water heater in the basement.

Owen puts a puzzle piece into place on the iPad.
Puzzles help children learn visual organization
which helps with reading skills.

Owen and Rick complete some art projects.

After lunch and after the plumbers left, we went to his house so I could make a big pot of chicken noodle soup.  He helped a little with the soup but was more interested in games and in completing some more art projects.

When Christopher returned from his first day of inservice for his school district, we returned home.  This is when the rule breaking started.

Our new tankless water heater takes up just a little
space on the basement wall.

We hope that we can get 15 years of service out
of this new water heater.

We went to the basement to view the new water heater since we had not had time to really look closely at it while Owen was here. Then I returned to the kitchen to start dinner.  I should have made sure that Rick followed me upstairs, but he did not.

With dinner about half-way cooked in the oven, I heard Rick stomping up the stairs, swearing and saying that he was stupid.  I knew then that he had broken the "no work today" rule.  I also knew from what he was saying, he had hurt himself and had also broken the "no blood" rule.

"I think I need stitches," he said as he reached the top of the stairs.  OK.  I turned the oven off, scooped the dinner out of the oven and threw it into the refrigerator, and grabbed the car keys.  On the way to the Urgent Care facility, Rick told me that he had been re-piping the water softener with PVC and had cut the tip of his thumb with the PVC pipe cutter.

The water softener now has solid PVC piping
rather than the old flexible hose that came disconnected
in the middle of the night!

Ouch!

Since the deep cut was very near the nail on Rick's thumb, the doctor actually glued the flesh back together rather than trying to put in a stitch.  Apparently glue works well; however, the doctor warned him that if he were to do anything too active, he could split it open again.  Ha!  IF he uses it?  Who is that doctor kidding?  Tomorrow I am sure that Rick will be back in the garage cutting slots in the shelves, inserting the edging, and trimming the edging to fit.

So much for rules.  I will continue to try to enforce them, but I realize that until this project is complete, the best I can do is to help him where and when I can and to be ready to get the sliver puller or the bandages out when necessary.

First Load

Now that the washer and dryer are upstairs and hooked up (thank you, Two Men and a Truck!), I was able to complete my first load of laundry on the main floor of this house.  How wonderful that was!  I did not have to carry the laundry downstairs, and I certainly appreciated not having to carry it all back up the stairs again.

The washer and dryer and installed and working well.
The Vroom vacuum is visible in the lower cabinet.

As we had feared, since the Miele washing machine spins at a higher-than-normal speed, it shook the whole room when it went through the spin cycle.  It also shook the range in the kitchen and some of the kitchen cupboards.  The revolutions shook the dust loose in the basement, too, so we will have to look into adding some sister joists to the floorboards and some braces between the joists to stabilize the structure under the washer.

The dryer, since it now has a shorter vent run to the outside, seemed to work very efficiently.  I still have to figure out where to store extra detergent and other laundry items, but I am happy that the process worked well... with no water leaks!

The same could not be said for the water poring from the sky, however.  We have experienced rains since Friday, including severe storms on Sunday evening and last evening. High winds made us thankful that we had the large trees removed from the yard earlier this summer, but the thunder and lightening kept me awake from 1:30 this morning until I finally arose at 5:30.  The Prednisone I am taking contributes to the insomnia, so last night was NOT a restful evening.

This afternoon a cold front came through the area, brining even more rain. We watched as $400 worth of new grass seed floated away or into pocket puddles throughout the yard.  Our side yard was completely under water, and Rick was a hero as he went out into the storm to reattach our neighbor's downspout.  Her basement window wells were filled to the top, and we feared that if the water continued to gush over rather than through the downspout, her whole basement would be flooded.

We are heartsick about the yard.  The first blush of grass had just started to show when the flooding came in.  We have no idea how much new grass we finally will see grow, but it certainly will not be all that we paid for last week.  However, tornadoes touched down in the state, so we are thankful that our house was not damaged in the storms.

Base shoe completes the outside of the lower cabinets and outlines
the area under the desk.

As the rains poured down, we worked inside.  Rick installed the base shoe around all of the lower cabinets.  He also added molding around the laundry floor.  We had to put a special floor under the washer and dryer since they cannot rest on a floating laminate floor.  We had some molding remaining from when we installed the floor, however, so it fit very nicely into our new flooring plans.

We reinstalled the drawers into the laundry unit bases, and I gave them all a good cleaning.  I was amazed at how dusty the units were being in the basement.  The light is not good down there, so I never noticed how much they both needed a good scrubbing.

When the movers carried up the laundry units, I also asked
them if they would bring the loom upstairs.  We brought the
smaller one up today, too, so we will be able to weave in the room also.

This afternoon the slot-cutting bit for the router and the edging for the cabinet shelves arrived.  That means that on Thursday we can take all of the plywood shelves and cut the slot for the edging.  Then we can finish sealing and varnishing them.  When they are dry, we will insert the edging and have the shelves complete for the upper cabinets and one small base cabinet.

Since the laundry units are now level and functional, we were able to secure the small cabinet next to the washer.  Then Rick installed the Vroom central vacuum system in that base.  I am very happy having an instantly-on vacuum in the room with a 24 foot retractible hose.  It has the full power of the central vacuum system, and the supplied hose is small enough to actually go into my dryer lint collection area.  It has not been this clean in years!

We planned on taking the day off tomorrow as we agreed to watch Owen for the day.  Rick said all week, "Watch.  The one day that we have plans elsewhere, the plumber will call and try to come to install our new water heater."  Sure enough.  We received a call tonight asking if they could come tomorrow to install the new tankless water heater.  Since they are so busy, we could not refuse their schedule.  Owen and I will bake bread in the morning and play a while; then we will go out for pizza for lunch.  In the afternoon, I will take him back to his house so I can make a big pot of chicken noodle soup for dinner.  If Rick stays here to be with the plumbers, so be it.  Owen is a great kid, so I am sure that we will be fine. I suspect that since the temperatures are supposed to drop drastically tomorrow, the chicken soup may be a welcome dinner when Chris and Lindsay come home from work.

Although we still have drawers and slide-outs to make, we both are anxious for Alise to come in to measure for the cabinet doors.  That will not happen for a couple more weeks.  Once the doors are complete, we will pick them up and install them ourselves.  We are having the same company who made our current kitchen cabinet doors manufacture matching raised-panel doors for the laundry room since the rooms are adjacent to one another.

The granite people are so busy that they will not come to measure for the granite until October; consequently, we will not have any countertops until mid-October.  By then, we sincerely hope that everything else will be finished in the room.

Our goal is to have everything completed by Halloween.  Then we can enjoy the holidays without having to work around construction in our reconfigured old home.

Phase Two

I considered Phase One of this laundry room project getting the old den cleaned out, getting the plumbing and pocket door installed, completing all of the finishing work on the walls, and making and installing the cabinets.  So far, so good.

Now we move to Phase Two which is making and installing the shelves and drawers while the professionals complete the cabinet doors.  Additionally, the primary purpose of this room is to get the laundry units upstairs and operable, and that will happen this coming week.

Phase Three will include bringing the looms and sewing machine upstairs and actually moving into the room for full-time use.  I also plan to transfer my "office" from the spare bedroom into that room to make use of the laptop desk.  Since the granite countertops will not be installed until October, though, that final phase has some expected delays.

For now, we are happy to move into Phase Two.  This morning we started this phase by measuring, cutting, sanding and staining 10 shelves for the upper cabinets and one small base cabinet.  We will have two shelves in each of the three upper cabinets on the west wall, one shelf each in the three cabinets above the laundry units, and a small shelf in the lower cabinet next to the washer.  Since that cabinet also will house the Vroom vacuum, a single shelf is all it will need.

Six stained shelves, suspended on painters' points,
 dry in the garage.

We are making these shelves out of oak plywood which we will edge with a plastic shelf molding.  We have the same kind of molding in our kitchen cupboards, and those shelves have lasted well for almost 30 years.  Since these shelves all will be hidden behind cabinet doors, we saw no reason to purchase solid oak for these utilitarian shelves.

We WILL purchase solid oak for the two shelves that will go above the desk in the bookcase since those shelves will be in view all of the time.  That wood we have yet to purchase.

The other four shelves dry on a second table while the base shoe
molding dries on 2 x 4 racks below.

While Rick started to stain the cut shelves today, I added a coat of sealer on the four strips of base shoe that I stained yesterday.  In a couple more days, we will be able to install that around the base cabinets.  We should have that finished by Tuesday.

My Grandfather Will died when I was only 18 months old, so I did not really know the man; however, my mother told me that he had a strict rule about never working on Sunday.  Sunday was the Sabbath, a day set aside for reading the Bible, contemplation, and rest.  I also learned that he was a hard working, industrious man who did not sit around much.  Would he have approved of us working today?  Probably not.  Yet, somehow,  I think that he would have understood our need to keep working on this project.

The temperature this morning was 59 degrees when I awoke.  We know that this is Wisconsin and that we quickly are losing our window of opportune temperatures in which to stain and to varnish wood in our garage.  The temperatures soon will be too cold to do such activities, so we have to make sure that we get everything built and stained before we run out of time. To that end, the work continues each day.

Crowning Our Creations

Building the boxes for the cabinets has taken us weeks of work, but we are finally at the point where we can start the finishing touches on our work.

We rejected the idea of using the crown molding that used to frame this room's ceiling because there just seemed to be an overwhelming presence of wood.  Today, however, we tried the crown molding on the cabinets, and we both agreed that using it to top the cabinets would work well.

Crown molding tops the cabinets that will hold items above
the washer and dryer.  Molding also frames the pocket door opening.

Kudos to Rick for figuring out how to cut outside and inside corners on crown molding.  That is not an easy task.  Even more difficult was maintaining the same reveal on the top frame of the cabinets while still reaching the ceiling when the ceiling is anything but level!  Rick actually had to cut a filler piece to make that happen, but the outcome is a bank of cabinets with crown molding at the top.

Crown molding also frames the tops of all the cabinets on the west wall. 

Rick spent part of this morning installing base boards around the rest of the room, and adding the woodwork molding around the pocket door.  We had to make a quick trip to Menards to buy some base shoe that we can install in front of the kick plates on all of the cabinets, and on the floor under the desk. I stained what we purchased, and tomorrow we will add sealer and varnish.  The base shoe should be ready for installation on Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

In digging through the stash of wood downstairs, I actually found some laminate floor molding that we will be able to use in front of the washer and dryer once we have those two units fully installed.  That should happen late Monday afternoon.  Two Men and a Truck are scheduled between 3:30 and 5:30 to carry the washer and the dryer upstairs for us.  We will have to reattach the base drawers and actually install the units to the dryer vent and to the water lines once we stand them up and level them.

We cannot attach the final base cabinet until we get the washer and dryer fully functioning.  Leveling them and hooking them up with that last cabinet in place would be almost impossible.  I hope that by the time I go to bed on Monday evening, I will have a working, wonderful first-floor laundry.

Once the last base is attached to the wall, Rick also can install my Vroom central vacuum outlet.  I cannot wait for that to be functional. It will make clean-up in the laundry room and kitchen so much more convenient.

For the first time in weeks, we actually were able to quit working on the room before 4:00 p.m.  We accomplish a little bit each day, and we make slow but steady progress in transforming that room from a den into a multi-functional room that we both will be able to enjoy.

Changes Outside and Indoors

Big changes occurred both outside and indoors in the last two days.  As we get closer to adding the "finishing touches" to our landscape and to our new room, the changes get more noticeable.

Travis, our landscape and snow removal contractor, said that he would bring a crew and come to our house on Friday to till the back yard and to bring in some topsoil into which he would plant grass.  Our back yard, then, finally would be level, smooth, and spacious as we regain its use as a back yard. However, rain was predicted for Friday, so Travis arrived on Thursday with a trailer full of black dirt and a truck full of seed and equipment.

Our unlevel yard full of trees is replaced with a smooth, seeded yard
that we hopefully will be able to enjoy next year.

He thought we might need four yards of dirt to fill in the back yard, but in reality, he needed six yards to fill the back and side yards.  Even now, we can see areas where we probably could have used even more dirt.  Travis and his worker smoothed out the yard, pulverized the topsoil into even smaller pieces, and planted over $400 worth of grass seed.  He provided temporary extended drain pipes from our rain gutters in the event that Friday's promised rains turned into torrential downpours.  He wanted to make sure that the new grass seed was not washed away from the ends of the gutters.

The extended gutters direct rain water away from
the seeds in the yard.

In the front yard, he dug up the old black edging around my flower gardens and put in new edging.  The tree guy who ruined our yard ran over a part of the old edging, absolutely burying it into the soil. Travis pulled it up, trenched around the garden, and added a new, heavy-duty edging.  The last edging was probably 25 years old, and it was cut in two or three places, so we were not sorry to see it go.  On Friday, as promised, the rains came in.  We have had a good, gentle rain most of the day, so we were happy to see it come.  The more it rains, the less I have to go outside to water!

New edging outlines my front flower garden.  Maybe next year
I will find time to update some of the bushes and perennials in
that garden.

Travis was only going to replace part of the edging,
but ultimately he replaced the section in front of the front door also.

In my last blog I talked a little about disconnecting the washer and dryer to bring the drawer bases up to the new laundry room.  On Thursday, Rick went back to the basement to reconnect the washer and dryer so I could use them until they are moved upstairs (hopefully on Monday afternoon). The dryer was easier to move than the washer since it weighed less, but connecting the dryer vent fought Rick all the way. He finally got it connected "good enough for five days," so I was content.  The heavy washing machine was more difficult to move back into place and to level, but the reconnection was easy.

Note how low the laundry units are in relationship
to the washer water hook-up in the wall.  

Then the test came: would they work?  Thankfully, they did.  I have completed two loads of laundry with no leaks and no dryer dust escaping into the room. I have learned to appreciate how much easier completing the laundry task is with the washer and dryer on their drawer bases.  Getting almost onto my hands and knees to load and to transfer the laundry to the dryer is NOT fun.  I am definitely too old to start doing that.  I cannot wait until my laundry facilities are upstairs and up on their bases again.

We finished applying the last coats of varnish for the remaining cabinet pieces on Thursday, so today we could work with those pieces.  Rick started by installing the kick plates on the west wall cabinets. I always am amazed at how those little details make such a difference.

We used our modified jig to help lift the large
bookcase into place.

Then he and I tackled the large bookcase that will hang over my laptop desk.  The case was difficult to maneuver because it was awkward, heavy, and built to fit snugly between the other cabinets and the large pantry unit at the end of the wall.  Rick had to modify his lifting jig, but after a bit of a struggle, the 46.5 inch bookcase was positioned just as we had envisioned it.  Lots of screws now hold it in place.  The good thing is that the bookshelf is so wide that we actually could use three studs in the wall to secure it into position.  Again, there is Anderson building at its best.

The "free-floating" desk frame is securely bolted
to the back wall and the cabinets on both sides.

The west wall now awaits the granite countertops,
drawers, base slide-outs, shelves, and cabinet doors.

Next on the agenda was the desk frame.  We mounted it lower than normal because 1) I am short, 2) it is supposed to be a laptop desk, not a normal height desk, and 3) it also has to serve as a sewing table.  Both the laptop and the sewing machine are easier to use if they are not halfway to my chin, so we mounted the desk frame lower than normal.  Once the granite is installed on top, it will gain another inch and a half, so it will come up the the correct height for my specifications.

Free from an errant nail, the pocket door is framed
and functions well.

Once that was finished, Rick added the door molding for the pocket door.  We actually added a second wall to accommodate the pocket door, so we had to redesign all of the molding to fit the new  dimensions. Everything went well until he forgot to change out the length of the nails in the nail gun, thereby accidentally driving a small nail right into the pocket door.  A bit of swearing did not seem to remedy the situation, so he had to cut the nail and remove the molding to get everything back our starting point.  A third trip today to Home Depot now has us in possession of the correctly-sized nails to finish that job tomorrow.

We took a short break today to return to the shop that is building the cabinet doors.  We took in a stained and varnished piece of our oak to learn if the finish we tentatively selected would actually work.  It does not.  We have decided to have the shop provide a custom mix of stain that will more closely match what we have already built and installed in the room.  Sigh.  As Rick and I too often have been saying, "It's only money!"

Our next task in this seemingly endless day was to install the crown molding.  Note: one should never try to figure out how to cut crown molding at the END of a long, long day.  Rick spent an hour getting the cuts correct, and then, sadly, when we had the crown molding up on the first wall, neither of us liked it.  All I see is wood, wood, wood in that room, and the crown molding was just too much.  We decided to take down the piece we have installed (tomorrow!), and to patch the holes.  Instead of the heavy crown molding, we will try to find some smaller cabinet molding to top the upper cabinets.

Of course, the challenges of the day were not quite over.  Rick took a final trip to the store while I prepared dinner, and came back to report that the tire light on the Lexus was blinking.  We had one very low tire.  The good news is that we have two compressors right now at our house, so filling the tire was not difficult.  The bad news is that we do not know if the tire had gradually lost air and we were too busy to notice, or if we picked up a nail during one of our thousands of trips to Home Depot and Menards, and the tire will be flat again tomorrow.  Time will tell...

As you can read, our days have been exhaustingly busy and eventful.  We smile at what goes well and work together to figure out how to change or repair what goes wrong.  We both are eager to get the room completed which is why we work so hard each day toward that goal.

Laundry Area Takes Shape

We have been so busy lately, that I have not even had time to write this blog.  Our efforts, however, are starting to pay off.

Since I last wrote, we have managed to make the frame for the desk, paint the laundry area wall, varnish the cabinets for that wall, purchased plywood for the floor under the laundry units, hung the wall cabinets above the washer, made the bookshelf for above the desk, and consulted with the granite company about our countertops.

Today we cut all of the frames for the pocket door and for the kick plate in the cabinets. We are starting to see the room come together... finally.

Once this laundry area was painted to match the rest of the room,
the room started to look "whole" again.

The cabinets in this area are smaller,
but they gave us grief as we were installing them.

The cabinet construction was a priority because we needed to get them into place before we can bring the laundry upstairs, and that is our primary reason for repurposing the room.  The cabinets themselves are smaller than those on the other wall, but this wall was bulged out in the middle, thanks to the washer box in the wall, so hanging the upper cabinets was a headache.  We finally had to take the last one down and reconstruct it a bit before it would fit snugly on the wall. The base cabinet is set in place, but we have not installed it yet.  We want to get the laundry pair up and leveled before we attach the base cabinet in place.

We brought the base units up for the washer
and dryer.  We will add the drawers and get them
leveled before we bring up the machines.

Two problems arose.  The first was that we could not find anyone to carry our washer and dryer up from the basement.  The laundry pair I have are German-made Meile machines.  The washer is very heavy, and we heard that the dryer was also.  We finally talked Two Men and a Truck into doing the move for us, and they are set to be here on Monday.

However, the movers will not move either machine with the base drawers attached.  So today, Rick and I tipped the machines on their sides and took off the base drawers. We learned a couple of things: first, the dryer is not very heavy.  We think that we could move it ourselves with a good furniture dolly.  The washer is a bit heavier, so we may need the movers for that.

Our second problem occurred when we learned yesterday that our sewer line was plugged, causing our kitchen sink to back up into our laundry tubs in the basement.  Just what we needed!  More plumbing problems.  Our only solution was to call a sewer clean-out crew to come in today with a long plumbing snake to clean out the system.  Sigh.  This house is really getting revenge on us for ignoring its needs for so many years while we remodeled Gladys!

Tomorrow we will add more coats of sealants or varnish to the bookcase, the desk unit, the kick plates, and the door frames for the room.  After those elements dry, we will install them to complete the west wall of the room.

We have been working for so long on this room that we both are ready to have it done. We are happy with the results so far, but we both are ready to start to enjoy the fruits of our labors.

Cabinets and Crooked Walls...and Ceilings...and Floors

Work started by 7:00 a.m. today, and we finished, sort of, by a little after 3:30.  In that time, we hung cabinets, installed base cabinets, built a face frame for the bookshelf, and prepped and stained the cabinets that will surround the washer and dryer on the south side of the room.

The first wall cabinet was a challenge because it needed to rest against the north wall, and the north wall in that room is anything but straight.  Also, the ceiling above where that cabinet hangs also has a few dimensional issues.  Rick had to do some creative planing to get the filler strip next to the wall to adjust to the way the wall was built.  In the end, he did a great job.  The cabinet is plumb, the filler strip conforms to the wall, and we hope that the crown molding will hide a multitude of sins regarding the ceiling.

With the first cabinet in place, Rick clamps the
face frames together to make sure they are plumb.

Our jig and jack that helped us lift the cabinets
to the proper height.

I am too weak to hold up heavy cabinets for too long, so Rick devised an ingenious way to get the cabinets where we needed them.  His invention started with a base scaffolding given to us by Stephanie's neighbor in Minnesota, topped with a cut-off piece of plywood.  We used a bottle jack which fit into an indentation in the bottom of a 2 x 4 structure which was topped with another cut-off piece of plywood that fit inside the bottom frame of a wall cabinet.  Once we got the cabinet up on the lifting structure, we simply had to balance it while we pumped up the jack, letting that do all of the heavy lifting.  Would this have been OSHA approved?  Hardly.  However, it worked for us and saved our backs.  Being able to adjust it up or down was fantastic, and we were able to get all of the upper cabinets in place without blood, backaches, or bruises.

Two down, one to go.

The second cabinet went up fairly well.  The third one took a bit of adjustment, but eventually, it, too, was plumb and secure.

The jack holds the third cabinet inlace while Rick
secures it to the wall.  Finding the studs was one of the
most difficult parts of hanging the cabinets!

With the laminate floor removed from the space,
we were ready to install the first base cabinet.

Once the uppers were hung, Rick cut out the floor so the base cabinets could rest on the subfloor.  Since the room has a floating laminate floor, we cannot put cabinets on top of it.  The floor must be allowed to expand and contract without moving the cabinets.  Thank God for Festool saws!  My hearing may never be the same after listening to the blade cut through laminate, but the result was a cut floor and room for base cabinets.

Another two down, one to go.

The base cabinets were a lot less taxing as far as weight was concerned, but the uneven walls did cause us to use quite a few shims to get everything level and plumb.  These base units will give us loads of storage space, and they will be easily accessible once we add pull-out shelves in them.

And then there were three!  The base cabinet
next to the wall is reserved for Owen's toys.

Once the cabinets were installed, we moved out to the garage to fill in pocket-screw holes, to sand the remaining cabinets, and to get them stained.  We finished all of that work a little after 3:30.

The face frame  of a set of bookshelves
balances above where my granite-topped
desk will be.

We both dreaded hanging the cabinets; however, in the end they were not as difficult as we thought they would be.  Yes, they took some adjusting, but if you have ever built anything with any Anderson in this family, then you know that they are built to last.  Nothing will make them come off the wall, and the base units are not about to fall apart or to budge either.  Rick's grandfather always said, "If two screws are good, then three are better."  I now have a room full of cabinets, and they are going to be here for a very, very long time.






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Plumbing and Plumb Cabinets

The last two days have brought about a tremendous change in our remodeling.

When we had visited the plumber a couple of weeks ago, he said that he would "try to fit you in on either Thursday or Friday" of this week.  For that reason, we took Wednesday afternoon off to drive to Wisconsin Rapids to visit my mother.  We have not seen her in weeks, and although we know she understands that we are busy, we still needed to make that visit.  She is 95 years old, so she deserves some of our time and attention, too.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning dawned, and I told Rick that I wanted to call the plumber.  He was hesitant to do so, but he finally agreed.  When I called, I simply said that Jason had mentioned trying to get to our house on Thursday or Friday, and that we were wondering if that was still in his plans.  We needed to get the laundry room plumbing roughed in so we could add drywall and install the cabinets before the countertop people come out to measure for the granite countertops.  The woman who answered my call said she would talk to Jason and get back to me.  About a half hour later, she called and asked if the plumbers could come out that day.  Of course, I agreed.  Rick and I were planning on installing the large cabinet in the room, but we knew that our job could wait.

Dennis and Neil came to our house and worked at least five hours.  They roughed in the plumbing for the washer and installed a vent pipe up through the roof.  We are SO glad that Neil rather than Rick was the one to go up into our hot attic for that job.  Our only chore was digging out some leftover shingles that we had stored in the shed so Neil could repair the roof where he cut the vent opening.  He did a fantastic job.

Plumbing lines lead to the new supply box
while the vent pipe travels up through the roof.

Dennis and Neil also rebuilt our soil stack in the basement and prepped that for the new tankless water heater that we will soon need to install.  Rick had added an outlet where they want to relocate the heater, and today we bought a large plywood panel which we will install so they have a place to mount the new system.  That will save them time and us money. They will come back at a later date to install the new water heater.

A new soil stack and additional drains
await the installation of our new tankless
water heater.

Ironically, the plumber had mentioned that the hose from our water softener was slightly crimped, and that since he put in a new drain system when he put in the new soil stack, that we might want to re-plumb the water softener unit with CPVC so the unit would not have restricted flow.  OK.  Good idea.

At 4:11 this morning, our water softener kicked in to recharge.  We both woke up and both heard a strange noise coming from the basement.  Rick went downstairs and found a flood: the water softener hose had blown off, and it was spewing water everywhere!  So there we were, reattaching the hose, mopping up water, and peeling back soaked carpet in the laundry room in the wee hours of the morning.  Such adventures!  Was it coincidence that the water softener just happened to blow its hose the day after the plumber mentioned it?  Had he touched it when he noticed it and jiggled something loose?  Was it just that old and under that much pressure that it finally gave way?  Who knows.  All we do know is that the clamp Rick put on the hose will keep it in place until our remodeling upstairs is complete so we can re-plumb the softener downstairs.  All in good time...

Note the clamp that holds the hose in place
at the back of the water softener.

This morning we both wanted to install the large pantry cabinet that we had somewhat put together yesterday after the plumbers left.  We added the face frame and spacer molding, and then we screwed the cabinet to the wall.  It is level and plumb, so we are happy with the results.  Rick tried some cabinet screws to attach it to the wall, and miraculously, we actually found the studs in the wall! (With these older homes, one never knows exactly where the studs might be placed.)  Six screws later, we have a secured cabinet that probably will withstand a EF5 tornado.  It's not going anywhere.

The large pantry unit secures storage in the
corner of the room.  This picture was taken before we
added the face frame (resting against the wall) and
attached the whole thing to the wall.

Rick really wanted to continue installing cabinets, but he faced reality and knew that finishing the newly plumbed laundry wall had to come next.  He added bracing between the studs so we would have extra places to secure cabinets.  Then, while I completed my Friday cleaning chores in the rest of the house, he stuffed Safe and Sound (fire resistant and sound-barrier) insulation in that wall.  The insulation was nasty stuff with which to work, but in the end we think it will be worth it.

Sound-barrier insulation will hopefully make running the laundry
fairly quiet in the rest of the house.

We are going to add a Vroom central vac component to the lower cabinet on that wall, so Rick extended the connection for that system.  Right now it hangs out about a foot from the wall, but once the cabinet is installed the system will rest inside the cabinet and will provide me with a quick way to pull out a 24 foot hose.  That will give me a easy-to-use, convenient vacuum for the laundry room, kitchen prep area, and back door.

After he finished that, Rick took measurements because there were several drywall cut-outs on that wall: outlets for both the washer and dryer, a dryer vent, the washer water supply box, the regular light fixture switch box, and the Vroom piping.   In the end, the drywall cut-outs worked fairly well, and the wall is now up.  Two hours later, Rick had the seams taped and mudded.

It's a wall! Another coat of mud, then primer and paint, and
no one will ever know that it was not always there.

While he was doing the mudding, I prepped the garage for tomorrow's task.  When he adds a second coat of mud on the new wall, I will stain the three wall cabinets and one base cabinet that will surround the washer and dryer.

Then, while everything dries, we will continue with the task of installing the cabinets on the west wall in that room.

A little bit each day.  We work long days, ache for our efforts at night, but feel satisfied as we continue to work toward our goals.

Cabinets, Circuits, and Cuts

We continue to make progress on the renovation of our den into a laundry room.  We want to get the cabinets on the west wall of the room complete so that we can hang them before the granite people come in to measure for the countertops.  To that end, we have focused our attention on those cabinets.

I joke that the main "pantry" cabinet -- which will house my sewing machine, laundry baskets, and some of the larger pots and pans that always are too large to fit comfortably in kitchen cabinets -- looks like an elephant's coffin.  It is tall and wide, but in the end that is the size that I want for the room.

Rick attaches the back to the pantry cabinet.
One side is longer than the rest in order to fit
the entire structure into the room.  An additional
box will be slipped onto the top.

Once we had that built, we hauled the rest of the west cabinets out to the garage so we could stain, seal, and varnish them.  We finished the staining two days ago, and yesterday we put a coat of sealer on the wood.  This morning we worked together to get the first coat of varnish on those cabinets.  We have to leave 24 hours between each coat for each to thoroughly dry.

The garage is filled with cabinets that we are working to finish.

One of the base units will have drawers for
office supplies and files.

Tomorrow we hope to lightly sand the varnish coat, wipe them all down, and then put on the second coat of varnish.  Hopefully, that will be enough for them.  Of course, the fun of hanging the cabinets still awaits us.  I hope that I am strong enough to help Rick get them all up on the wall.

While the sealer dried yesterday, Rick tackled the electrical components of this remodel.  He connected the washer circuit to the main electrical box in the basement.  He also brought over the wire for the dryer.  That connection was just waiting for the breaker that he purchased at Home Depot about an hour ago.  I am sure that the dryer will be hooked into the box before this day ends.

"Now where is that electrical tape?" Rick fished
the wire up the wall so he could move the
electrical outlet above where a base cabinet will rest.

Then he went into the new laundry room and worked with the existing electrical outlets.  He removed an old telephone/ cable outlet.  He changed all of the old-fashioned outlets into more modern square ones that match the rest of the house. He moved one outlet that would have been behind the new lower cabinets up the wall so that I will have access to an outlet between the upper and lower cabinets.  Two of the outlets on that wall will remain in their current positions since they will be under the desk.

Rick also fished an internet connection wire through the wall so I will be able to hard-wire my computer once it is on that desk.  We are going to see if I like having my "office" there instead of in the guest room.

The cut down heating grate fits well against the wall.

Another chore yesterday was making a heating duct grate fit into the opening.  We used to have two grates that were placed over the duct openings, standing against the wall.  Sadly, once my dryer is in the room, that grate would interfere with the dryer's placement and my ability to open the drawer below the dryer.  To remedy that problem, we purchased a floor grate that Rick had to cut down on one side so it would fit against the wall.  That took a bit of time, more than one cut for refits, and duct maneuvering, but in the end we have a grate that matches the floor and that will keep things from falling into the duct.

Our final work on the room yesterday was to look at samples of shades for the two windows in the room.  I love having the big windows, but covering them has left us with a quandary. Do we use white to match the appliances?  Do we go with a brown to match the cabinets and woodwork?  Do we try to find a shade that matches the paint on the wall?  In the end, we just ordered out eight samples to see what will look the best in the room.

Each day we move forward a little more, but we are far from finished.  However, in the end I think we both will enjoy our new room.

The Last Cut

We started the morning by finishing our installation of a new central vacuum canister in the basement.  We wanted to get the new vac installed so that when we get the cabinets in the new laundry room, we can add a Vroom vacuum canister in one of the lower cabinets.  (If you do not know what I am talking about, check out "Vroom vacuums" online.)

Our Vroom canister will be placed in a position where I can easily sweep up anything in the laundry/ craft room -- including dryer lint and yarn from the loom -- and anything that spills in the kitchen or is tracked inside through the garage door. We used to have a vacuum port in that position, so now I will have a whole unit available instead of having to haul out the big vacuum hose when I need a quick clean up. Now we just have to figure out what to do with the old (still working) central vacuum canister that is sitting in the basement.

After that, we started working on cutting up the four sheets of oak plywood that we picked up yesterday.  Dang, that stuff seems to get heavier with every sheet!  We had cut about two sheets when we received a call from Alise from the cabinet store about the cabinet doors that we wanted to order from them.  We dropped everything, changed into presentable clothes, and traveled across town to finalize that order.  We picked out the door style and stain that we are praying will match the stain we intend to use on the boxes of the cabinets.  The stain sample she had LOOKED like a match in the store, but lighting can do strange things to tints and colors.  We also chose some new hardware for the cabinets.  They will make all of the doors, stain and seal them, and drill holes for the European hinges and the new hardware.

From there, we stopped at The Granite Company to make a final selection of granite for the room.  We found a piece we both liked and had Jen put our name on it.  We arranged for a measuring time, and added a down payment for the stone.  We both hope that it will look great in the room.

Although neither of us felt like working on the cabinets any more today, we both knew that we had deadlines facing us.  We continued to measure and to cut out the last two pieces of plywood.  We came up one cabinet back short, so we used an older piece of oak plywood that we have had in the basement for a while.  I am sure that it will be all right since it is just the back of a cabinet that no one is going to inspect anyway.  We are to the point where if we have to cut something out of older wood, or we have to cut a small, hidden part across grain, we will do so if it is going to save us having to buy more wood.  Enough is enough, even!  Yes, we are saving thousands of dollars by doing most of this ourselves, but the wood, granite, and hardware still are far from free. Once we were finished, Rick said, "That was the last cut!"

Tomorrow, we will see how far we can get.  We have to pause for a bit to help Lindsay and Christopher take down part of their deck ceiling.  Then we will be back to constructing cabinets.  I hope to take time to mow the lawn while Rick preps the sides of the upper cabinets on the router, and there is always laundry and other cleaning chores inside that are a part of my Friday routine.

One day at a time, one task at a time.  Each day we continue to move closer to the time we can say, "Oh, come and see our new laundry and craft room!"  That day will come, perhaps not a quickly as we would like, but it will come.

Cabinet Creations

For the past two days, Rick and I have been working in the garage "workshop" as we start to assemble the cabinets for the laundry room.  We knew that once we cut the component parts from the plywood, we would have to work quickly to get everything assembled before the lovely humid weather (even though we are storing the parts in the air conditioning indoors) would cause everything to warp.  We are working as fast as we can.

On Friday, we assembled the first base cabinet.  Because we were not sure exactly what the best way was to put it all together, we spent about three hours just getting everything in place.  We found one small (1/4 inch!) error in one piece.  Rick's math was correct on the drawing, but in transferring that measurement from one drawing to the next, he added a quarter inch.  Thankfully, it was ADDED, which meant that we could easily correct the problem by trimming a quarter inch off one piece.

Today we were back in the garage to try to beat our assembly record.  My goal was to get at least two base cabinets constructed today.  In reality, we constructed the other two large base cabinets and the smaller base cabinet that will reside next to my washing machine.  The second cabinet took us a little under two hours to put together, and we assembled the third cabinet even more quickly.

Rick had to cut some of the pieces for the smaller cabinet, so that took a little extra time; however, by noon the two larger cabinets were finished, and by 2:00 p.m. all three cabinets were safely back in the cool indoor air.  (The temperature in the garage, sadly, was in the high 80s.)

The boxes for the four base cabinets await final placement in the new laundry room.

At that point, Rick and I carried his router table upstairs so he could cut the dados in the sides of the upper cabinets.  While he experimented with how those cuts would go, I came into the house to do a little laundry and a little baking.

Stephanie arrived last night so she could spend a couple of days in Door County with Lindsay.  One of her co-workers had given her a huge zucchini, so she gave it to me yesterday with a request to turn it into bread.  While Rick figured out how to route dados, I turned the zucchini into eight mini-loaves of zucchini nut bread.  I had a little batter left over, so I used it to make some mini zucchini muffins.  After sampling a few, I made Zucchini Man and sent Stephanie a picture. I am sure Owen will get a smile out of it before his Grandpa eats the muffins.  I still have enough shredded zucchini left to make eight more mini-loaves of bread.  I will do that tomorrow evening or on Tuesday.

Zucchini Man... before Rick ate his nose!

When I finished with the bread, I ventured into the garage only to discover a delighted Rick who not only figured out how the dados would work with the upper cabinets, but he also had gone ahead and cut all of the joints.  He was about to finish dry-fitting an upper cabinet when I joined him. I had to persuade him that at 4:00 p.m., he had done enough for one day.  The upper cabinets will be our next project on another day.

We are taking tomorrow off to join our family in Door County.  We need a rest, and I am sure that no mischievous elves will steal into the garage to assemble the cabinets while we are gone.  Work always waits for a person to return.

We accomplished more than either one of us thought we would today, so we both are happy with our progress as we transform our old den into a functional laundry/ craft room with lots of storage.

Doors, Dirt, Festool, Face Frames, and Fan

We have been so busy working both inside and outside of our house that I have not had much time to update this blog for the past week. We continue to make progress putting our disheveled house back together.

I'll start with the outside.  Lat week Steve of Economy Stump Removal came and took out the three stumps in our back yard.  Then he "followed the roots" of the main huge tree and pretty much made most of the back yard look like an angry ocean in the midst of a hurricane.  We were not upset about that because we needed to get those roots out, and we knew that Travis would come and smooth the yard out with his tractor.

Steve runs the grinding machine to remove
the large cottonwood stump in the middle of the back yard.

Steve and his son, Kyle, hauled away a huge trailer full
and a truck full of wood chips.

On Monday of this week, we noticed that water was standing in some of the deeper ruts in our neighbor's yard, causing a muddy, smelly mess.  To solve that problem, Rick shoveled 10 wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the back yard into the neighbor's yard to our south.  I distributed and smoothed the so the rain would not settle in deep puddles anymore.

We tried to be good neighbors by filling
in the ditches in our neighbor's yard.

The next day, while we were out of town, Travis came with his tractor and somewhat leveled the back yard. He wanted to do this so the yard would have a chance to settle before he returns at the end of August to add topsoil and grass seed to our yard.  He smoothed out the neighbors' yards to the east and to the north, and he spread out grass seed in the hopes that some of it would take.  Thankfully, we got a good rain last night, and today it has been misting/ raining all day.  That is just what the seed needs.  I hope that at least some of it takes and fills in.

Inside the house, Rick finished the pocket door and hung it.  We now will be able to close off the noise in the laundry room when we run the washer or the dryer.  The door matches all of the others in the house, and I think it looks really good.

Our new pocket door as seen from the kitchen.

We discovered when we took down the door molding to that room that the paint next to the door in the kitchen was peeling away from the wall.  We use Benjamin Moore Aura paint, so we knew that cheap paint was NOT the problem.  I was able to peel all of the paint off that wall in big sheets like one would do to remove old wallpaper.  Rick took one of the sheets to the paint store, and the owner told him that the problem occurred with the original plaster job of the house.  Apparently, the plaster was not mixed properly, leaving an unfinished and chalky surface.  Paint will not stick to that forever.  She told us to wash the wall with TSP, rinse it well, let it thoroughly dry, and then prime it with an oil-based primer.  Once that primer dries, we can paint the wall with a latex paint.

Once the pocket door was in place, we were able to buy, cut, and install the drywall in the laundry room on that side of the door.  We are still waiting for the plumber to install what needs to be done on the other side of the door, but at least we can finish this corner of the room.  That will allow us to start to build and install cabinets.

Drywall completes the pocket door wall. Rick
has since plastered the corner.

Yesterday I washed the wall twice with TSP, rinsed the wall twice with water, and we are letting it thoroughly dry.  Rick bought the oil-based primer, so that will be our next step.  We want to repaint the kitchen anyway, so we will start with that wall and with our new paint color.  Neither one of us really wants to paint the kitchen RIGHT NOW, so that task may just have to wait in line until we finish other jobs.

Thank God the wall I had to wash down was
not too large!  Once this dries, we can prime and
paint it, but that will force us to paint the entire kitchen.

We received a call from Shawano Wood Products that the 1 1/2 inch red oak that Rick ordered had arrived, so we took a drive to Shawano to pick it up.  Today we spent the day building the face frames for all of the cabinets in the new laundry/ craft room.  We bought a new Kreg K5 pocket hole screw system, and it worked beautifully as we put together the face frames for the cabinets.  I even drilled some of the holes... until the collar slipped on the drill bit and I did not notice it, so I ruined one piece of wood.  That was the end of my pocket hole screwing career.

Face frames for the lower cabinets line the wall.  The gap
in the middle will be where the desk will go.

All of the face frames await further construction
as we build the cabinets.

Our final task of the day was to install the new ceiling fan for the room.  Originally I did not want a light in the fan, but Rick and I found a fan that we both liked while we were at Lowes' in Appleton.  We like the sleek look to the fan, the size, and the fact that since it is remote controlled, we have no chains hanging down into the room.  The fan was a wiring nightmare, but it now is up and works well.

Before...

and after we installed the new ceiling fan.

We have had a very successful day, and we certainly are looking forward to dinner and resting this evening.  Tomorrow, if the rain ends tonight, we will be off to buy plywood so we can make the boxes to the cabinets.  For tonight, though, I am just going to rest.