Post#13 - The CounterTop & BackSplash

Good morning everyone,


This will be the last entry in this blog as we finally finished our kitchen project by installing our back splash. We are very pleased with the overall project.

Here is a closer picture of our serengeti counter top.


http://www.amfgranite.com/portfolio-post/serengeti.



Louise and I spent about 3 days installing the back splash. One day was spent cutting the tiles and putting them on the wall and two days to grout and clean up.

Below you will find some before and after pictures of our kitchen project.



Week#1



Finished

We are very pleased with our project and I especially enjoy cooking in our new kitchen. The natural gas range is a dream to work with and I find that the extra counter space is very useful. The kids really like having the fridge with the icemaker. I hope you enjoyed following us in this project and we are very proud of the final product. Not sure what our next project is going to be, a new garage or renovating our living room. One thing is for sure. I plan on blogging about the experience.

Post#12 - Bostonian Doors

Good morning everyone,

Wow, we've been working on this project for 12 weeks already. Thank God we are almost done. I'm looking forward to going back to work. I've missed my students.

This week we completed the installation of our 4 Bostonian doors. Three of them are already varnished. I still need to varnish Julianne's door. Yesterday I installed all the casings, baseboards and mouldings in the hallway. Last night we bought some door handles which I will install tomorrow. The next picture is one of our hallway.

Hallway

Unfortunately our counter top is still not installed. We are hoping to have it in by Wednesday at the latest. I will need to do some plumbing in order to install the sink and the dishwasher. 

We also have our natural gas range connected. I'm looking forward to cooking on it. We hope to have our Christmas supper in our new dining room. Have a great week everyone.

Post#11 - Kitchen Table

Good morning everyone,


Last week I got some very good news about my job. I am returning to my beloved school, Northern Secondary as of January 9^th. I am so happy and I'm looking forward to working in my community once again. The kids are also very excited about this as dad will be much closer to home.

This past week we did a lot of little jobs in our kitchen. I installed the water line to the fridge on Monday. Adrien was quite excited as now he can get his own ice and water and believe me he is drinking a lot of water. I'm also happy because I will now have a constant source of ice for my rums. We also installed our chandelier that goes over our kitchen table. We have the same chandeliers in our recroom in the shop.  The next picture is one of the chandelier. Louise finished sealing the grout on the tiles.

Chandelier

On Monday we received our kitchen table. It is made our of wormy maple and was custom made for us by The Cutter's Edge.  They are the ones that installed the cabinets in our kitchen. They are simply awesome. Our table extends at both ends by 18". We bought 8 ladder back chairs to go with the table. The next pictures is the table in our dining room.

Table

I also started removing the mohogany doors from the various rooms upstairs and installing the Bostonians doors in their place. The biggest part of the job is not the installation but the varnishing of those doors. It takes me about 6 hours per door to varnish. So far I've installed 3 doors and have one left to go. I hope to install the last one on Monday.  I hope to finish varnish and installing mouldings, baseboards and casings by the end of the week. The next pictures was taken in my shop where I'm varnishing the doors.

Doors

We hope that we will receive our countertop by the end of the week so that next week we can move back into our kitchen. The gas for our oven should be installed by mid-week. I have about a day's worth of work to install the plumbing for our sink and dishwasher. The next picture is our project so far. We are almost done. Have a great week everyone.

Project - Week#11

Post#10 - The Cabinets

Good morning everyone,

Wow, I've been on my parental leave for 9 weeks already. Time is really flying by. This past week we finished up a lot of little jobs. We grouted the hallway tiles and cleaned the haze on the tiles in the kitchen and dining room. I stained the moulding on the North wall and painted the heating grill and air intake. Louise sealed the grout in the floor and I sealed our cultured stone on the North wall.

We finally got our cabinets installed. The installers were supposed to come in on Wednesday but ended up coming on Thursday because of a snow storm. The cabinets look awesome as you can see in the next picture. All that we are missing right now is our quartz counter top. We should get it installed in a couple of weeks.

Cabinets

On Saturday we received our appliances. So far I installed the fridge and microwave. This week I want to install the water line to the fridge and get the natural gas installed to our range. The next picture shows our kitchen with some of our appliances installed.

Appliances

This week we are supposed to receive our Yukon table and finish installing our cabinet lights. In addition we are getting a corner basket installed in one of our cabinets. I also hope to install the chandelier that goes over the table. It's going to be another busy week. Have a great week everyone.

Post#9 - The Floor

Good morning everyone,

This past week we worked on our floor. It took a little bit more time than I had figured it would but in the end we got the work done.  We started by laying down some mahogany subfloor on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It was quite a challenge to get the hallway done. I had to cut the bottom of the each of the door jambs to fit the pieces in the hall. I figured it would take me two days to install the subfloor but it ended up taking 3. The next pictures show our progress in the hall.

Hallway

On Thursday and Friday we installed our tiles. They are manufactured by Manington and are called Adura.  The ones we bought are called Corsica. Below you will find a link to the Adura tiles website. We spent the day yesterday grouting the tiles in the kitchen and dining room. The grout has to dry for 24 hours before one can step on them.  We still have to grout the hallway.

Adura Tiles Website (click to visit) 

We were lucky to have Louise's mom come over this week to take care of Julianne and help us with the house work. Without her help I don't think we would have finished the tiles on time. Louise and I really enjoy working together on projects and we make a great team. The next picture shows our project so far.

Project - Week#8

This week we get our cabinets installed.  We are very excited about this step in the project. I have 6 more weeks before heading back to work. We still have a lot to do prior to completing this project. We still have to install a backsplash, our Bostonian doors and a variety of mouldings.  This should keep us busy until the Christmas Holidays.  The next pictures is one that I took last Friday night.  The reflection of the doors on the wall come from the light on our poolhouse. Alex was playing basketball at the time I took the picture and had the poolhouse light on.

Reflection

Well that is all the news for this week. Talk to you next week.

Post#8 - The Ceiling

Good morning everyone,


This past week was a busy one.  I finished putting up the knotty pine on the ceiling in the kitchen, dining room and hallway. There was a lot of wasted wood in this part of the project because I didn't want to have seams in the ceiling. Each board measured 16 feet in length and I needed just over 9' to cover the ceiling and was left with a bunch of boards which measured 7'.  I hope to be able to use them somewhere else. The picture below is the project so far.

Project - Week#7

Louise and I installed the cultured stone at the end of the week. We were hoping to avoid having to grout the stones but we ended up having to do that too. The next pictures show the progression of the stone wall.



Cultured Stone Wall

Louise tinted the posts and beams in a walnut colour. We might tint the doors in the hallway the same colour.

We received a couple of pictures of our cabinets as they are being built this week. They will look awesome I'm sure. The next two pictures is of our cabinets.

Cabinets

Next week we will tackle the floor.  We have to install some tiles in the hallway, dining room and kitchen.  The week after that we get our cabinets installed. We hope to be back in our kitchen soon. Have a great week everyone.

Post#7 - The Hallway

Good morning everyone,


This week has been a busy one again.  Louise finished taping and putting mud on the walls in the kitchen. She did an awesome job. In addition she painted those walls. We were lucky to have Jinny's help on Friday. The picture below shows our project so far.

Project - Week#6

I installed a fan in our bathroom which took most of a day.  It was hard to get the hose through to the soffit but in the end everything worked out fine. We plan on remodelling our bathroom soon.

We had a lot of rain last week which slowed me down quite a bit. I like to setup on my deck to work when its nice outside. If it rains I have to cut all of my pieces in the shop which is about 75 feet from the house. I tried putting a tarp on our trellis but it was raining so much that the water was collecting on the tarp and was leaking on the deck. I'm still trying to come up with some way of keeping the rain off the deck. The next picture is the hallway with the knotty pine.


Hallway

We receive 2 of our 4 Bostonian doors last week. The other 2 were damaged in the wearhouse.  I should get the other 2 doors in 4 to 5 weeks. I'll probably install the doors at the end of the month once we have our tiles in.

I also installed the cement board on the wall in the dining room. We are still waiting for our cultured stone to come in.  I figure it will take us a couple of days to install. Hopefully we will receive our cultured stone by the end of this week.

This week I'm hoping to get the knotty pine on the ceiling and install the cultured stone on the dining room wall.

We have 2 weeks left before the guys come in to install our cabinets.  We hope to have everything done on time. Have a great week everyone.