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.

Post#6 - Posts, Beams and Drywall

Good morning everyone,

Wow, we're into November already.  Our project is really moving along nicely. This past week we were able to remove the remaining drywall in the dining room and in the hallway. Our recessed lights are all connected and functional. The next picture shows the kitchen and dining room so far.

Project - Week#5

I also worked on the posts and beams last week. It was a challenge to cut them because of their size. I do not have a saw that can cut through 6" of wood. The next pictures show the posts and beams in place. They look fantastic. We plan on staining them the same colour as our cabinets.

Posts and Beams

On Wednesday Alex spend the day at home helping me because it was Take Your Kid to Work day. We installed 6 sheets of drywall on the East and South walls. I think this was a good experience for him. He told me that now he knows he doesn't want to put up drywall for a living. I'd have to agree with him, it wouldn't be my first choice either. Alex and his friend Ryan also helped out on Saturday and the drywall is now completed.

Our new window is also installed.  It is a little bit bigger than the old one because Louise couldn't see outside when she did the dishes. She will now be able to watch the kids splash in the pool at the same time as she does the dishes.

Louise will be taking care of putting the putty and painting the drywall. We haven't chosen a colour for our walls yet. Well that is all the news for this blog.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon working in the hallway. I installed a recessed light and moved the access to the attic. The old one was too small and I figure this would be a good time to make it bigger. The next pictures shows some of the work I did in the hallway yesterday. This week I plan on putting some knotty pine on the walls in the the hallway.

Hallway

Even though things progressed nicely this week we still have a lot of work to do. The guys at Cutter's Edge are coming in on November 30^th an December 1^st to put in the cabinets. Last week we ordered our clearstone and our floor tiles. I'm hoping to get the clearstone installed by the end of this week. We plan on putting our floor on our own and figure we will be spending at least a week doing this. See you next week.

Post#5 - Recessed Lights

Good morning all,

When I first started the electrical part to this project I never realized the amount of work involved in re-routing the circuits from the panel upstairs to the one downstairs. At least now I'm done and all I need to do this week is connect the 6 recessed lights in the kitchen. The next diagram is the one that represents the recessed, cabinet and under counter lights.

Circuit 2

Last week I organized the two electrical panels downstairs which took over five hours. I still have lots of room in my main panel to add more circuits if I ever need too.

Downstairs Panel

Last week I bought lumber to build the posts and beams.  I'm hoping to get those in this week. The next picture shows the posts and beams in my shop.  Yesterday Alex and I planed those posts and beams and they are looking great.  The next picture shows the posts and beams in my shop before they were planed.

Post & Beams - Rough

I'm done varnishing 80 piece of 16' knotty pine that will go on the ceiling and part of the north wall in the dining room. I used over 3 gallons of varnish to get all of these planks varnished. I'm looking forward to putting those up on the ceiling. We insulated the south wall in the kitchen. The next picture shows our kitchen as of this week. I had to remove all of the insulation because we had condensation between the exteriour wall and the insulation. I hope that we get our kitchen window on Tuesday so that we can start closing the West wall too.

Project - Week#4

This week I hope to finish taking down the drywall in the dining room, start putting up the drywall on the east and south walls and maybe even install some of the posts and beams. Alex will be spending the day helping out on Wednesday because it's 'Take Your Kids to Work' day. It will be nice to have a helping hand. Hope everyone has a great week.

Post#4 - Electricity...More Electricity

Good morning everyone,


Welcome to this week's blog. I spent most of last week moving electrical circuits and adding new ones.  Most of the electrical stuff is done.  I still have to finish up putting in the recessed lights in the kitchen and the light over the table in the dining room. The next picture shows the electrical plans for the dining room.

Circuit 1

I've decided to hire someone to install our french doors.  The door was too heavy for me to put in on my own and I figured it would take a contractor a fraction of the time it would take me to do this on my own. So on Wednesday afternoon we installed the french door. Louise finished insulating the door on Thursday. It looks awesome.  The next picture shows the installation process for the french doors.

French Doors

The electrical panel is finally out.  I have two circuits to complete in order to finish the electrical work in this project. I'm hoping that by the end of next week I will be done and starting on putting drywall in the kitchen.

I removed more drywall this week. In addition I opened up the wall between the dining room and living room.  We're going to put up some beams between these two rooms. The next diagram shows the before and after picture of that piece of the project.

Living Room Wall

Louise didn't like the kitchen window we ordered so we ended up ordering a new one. I'm hoping to receive the new one next week at the latest. Well that is all for this week's blog. See you next Sunday.

Post#3 - Removing Drywall

Hello everyone,

I can't believe that I am already starting the third week in my parental leave. Time is certainly flying by and the project is moving along nicely. This past week we were able to remove most of the drywall in both the kitchen and the dining room. In addition we removed the partition wall between the kitchen and dinning room. We still have to remove part of the wall separating the dining room from the living room. I spent about two days and a half working on this part of the project. Yesterday Alex removed the foil off the wall, it will be replaced by plastic. The next pictures show the kitchen as of today.

Project-Week#2

Alex also helped a lot on Monday with removing drywall. He is growing way too fast and always eager to help out. I also started to varnish the knotty pine that will go on the ceiling. I can't really start working in the kitchen at 4:00 AM so I go to my shop and varnish for a few hours each morning. At the moment I have 40 pieces of 16' lengths with 3 coats of varnish on them. Many more to come since we decided that we will put knotty pine on the walls in the hallway too. The next picture shows the planks in the shop. I can varnish 16 at one time. I calculated that it takes me about 6 minutes per coat per plank.
 

Varnishing in the shop

I also started working on moving some of the electrical circuits from the upstairs panel to the downstairs one. So far I moved 11 circuits. I still have a few to go before I am done. I am probably going to spend most of next week working on electrical stuff. The next picture shows the panel upstairs.

Upstairs electrical panel

This week we receive our kitchen window. I will probably hire someone to put it in as I have too much work to do before they put in the cabinets at the end of November.

Post#2 - The Temporary Kitchen

Good morning everyone,


It has been a very busy week. On Thursday we went to watched our two daughters run in this year's cross country meet. Jasmine came in 12^th place and Jacynthe in 23^th place. We are very proud of our two girls.


On Friday Louise and I celebrated our 18^th wedding anniversary, which is actually on Sunday. (October 9^th)  I can't believe it's already been 18 years. I love you honey and I'm very lucky that you choose me to be the love of your life. We spent the day in Sudbury shopping.


This week we finished moving our kitchen downstairs. I had to do a little bit of electrical work to get the kitchen ready. I connected the receptacle for the oven and installed the hood over the oven. The next picture shows the new location for our kitchen. We took the table we had in our recroom upstairs in the shop and moved it in our temporary kitchen. We also moved our kitchen table from the dinning room to upstairs in our shop.


Temporary Kitchen


I also finished installing all of our old kitchen cabinets in the shop. In addition I installed my radial arm saw in the workbench. I found a nice mitre saw stand at Home Hardware in Sturgeon Falls for my sliding compound mitre saw. I also built a new cabinet for my clamps out of our old pantry. I ended painting the stairs because I had some paint left over from painting the kick plates.  The next pictures shows the shop as it is now. I actually spent more time in the shop than planned last week but at least the shop is now in tip top shape.

Shop

The next step in this project is to remove the laminate flooring and the drywall from our kitchen and dinning room.  I started yesterday and hope to get that done by mid-week at the latest. The next picture shows the project so far.

Project - Week#1

I also hope to start moving the electric wires out of the panel upstairs to the one we have downstairs. I think the electrical work will take a while to complete. I'll be spendnig some quality time in the attic pulling wires out. The next picture show the electrical panel upstairs.

Electrical Panel Upstairs

We plan on using the laminate flooring from our kitchen and dining in our bedroom. I will use the baseboards in my shop. I was lucky to have help from Louise and her mom yesterday to remove the laminate flooring. I also decided that I will varnish the knotty pine in my shop prior to putting it up on the ceiling. That is all for this week, see you next week.

Post#1 - Moving Cabinets

Good morning everyone,


Welcome to our blog. This is our first post and I hope you will come back and visit often. This week we started to take down our cabinets. I'm on a parental leave until January 9^th, 2012. I will be focussing on this project for the next 14 weeks. If things go according to plan we should be able to finish a little early and have our Christmas supper in our new kitchen.

The next picture shows our current kitchen:

Current Kitchen

Last week I started to move the cabinets from our kitchen to the shop.  I hope to finish this part of the project by mid-week. If everything goes according to plan I will have all of my cabinets installed in the shop by the end of the week. The next picture shows the cabinets in the shop so far.

Shop Cabinets

I bought an old radial arm saw last week. I need to install it in my work bench. The next picture is one of the saw. It is over 40 years old but in good working order.

Radial Arm Saw

I plan on using the radial arm to cut rough lumber and keep my compound miter saw to cut the good stuff. I'm looking to buy a mitre saw stand for my mitre saw. The one I'm thinking about can be seen at the next link. I just need to find a reseller close to our place.

http://www.kingcanada.com/Products.htm?CD=280

Once I finish moving and installing the old cabinets I will start to take the drywall off of the walls in the kitchen and dining room.