My knees are on fire

Tiling progress on Saturday was slow. Rob got most of the tile laid, but ran out of mortar before he could finish.





Progress was better on Sunday, thanks in part to Rob J and Jonas. Rob J completed the plumbing and Jonas put cabinets together while Rob grouted the tile. Once tiling was complete I had the honour of scrubbing the floor, on my kness, tile by tile, not once but twice - once to clean off excess mortar, and once to clean off excess grout. I am worried that I have done my lungs permanat damage with all the grout dust I inhaled. But the completed floor (and plumbing) look pretty darn good.









I am too tired to write anything more. Here is PJ having fun with the dimmer switch.

More slippage

Once again, we didn't get as much accomplished as we'd hoped today. We now will not finish tiling until tomorrow, which means Sunday will be spent grouting. That means no cabinet assembly until the beginning of the week, when we will only have evenings to work. We have to at least have the base cabinets installed by Thursday, since that is when the people are coming to measure for the countertops and install the gas line for the stove. Pressure, pressure.

That said, I'm happy with what we were able to get done today - we worked hard! Even with kneepads (albeit Rob's volleyball kneepads, but kneepads nonetheless) my kness are chaffed and aching.

We started off with Rob working on the plumbing while I prepped the floors for laying the sub-floor. Rob's proficeincy in soldering pipes in a small space is impressive!





I layed out the Ditra sub-floor while Rob mixed up the mortar, and then the mortaring began.



Once the Ditra was layed, and I had gotten countless blisters from ensuring it was smooth and flat, the tiling began.



Once a few tiles were laid, I left to go pick up Patrick and have a hot meal at Dave and Molly's while Rob kept tiling away. He made great progress, and we should have the room finished tomorrow. Then we get a well earned rest (and a night off to watch the hockey game) until the tiles have set and grouting can begin.

Schedule slippage

With his Dad gone and only me to assist him, Rob had an agressive schedule for yesterday. Too agressive, as it turned out. We are now a bit behind schedule but are optimistic that we'll get things back on track soon. Just to be safe we have rescheduled the counter-measuring people to come on Thursday rather than Monday.

I am an ametuer drywaller. Look at the awful mistake I made on my first attempt! How embarassing. Rob assures me it can be fixed with plaster.



Once I got used to it, I was all over the power drill. Check out my tool belt! How cool am I!?



My next attempts at drywalling were much more successful.





We found some old newspaper crumpled up in the walls - you can't really make it out but the date is May 30th, 1962!



And, last but not least, here is Patrick, thinking that deciding to renovate this kitchen was not at all logical.

Let there be light

Rob and the electrician made fantastic progress today, and despite a couple of days of schedule slippage we appear to be back on track for now.

The big news is that Rob went ahead and picked a kitchen light fixture without my input, and I actually approve of his choice! Wonders will never cease!



My pot lights are all in place, and are working wonderfully - with a dimmer switch, no less!



The dimmer switch:




Wires, plugs, and cable for the flat screen tv that will reside on this shelf, as well as hook-up for speakers to the stereo in the living room:



And the side door is now only a peice of drywall away from being a door no more:



And, finally, Patrick took some time out from his delicious meal of spaghetti from the freezer (which you can see all over his face) to sing you a little song:

Progress at last!

After having to reschedule the electrician twice because things weren't ready to be electrified, Rob and his Dad got enough done that the spark man can come tomorrow and do his thing. Props to them both, because a huge amount of progress was made in one day.

Most importantly, wires have been pulled for pot lighting. This is a big deal because at one point, a few days ago, Rob sat me down and broke the news to me that the pot lights he had promised me might not be possible after all. We might, he said, have to settle for track lighting. Pot lights would be very difficult given the space they had to work with in the ceiling. To which I said: "So. Do we want this to be easy, or do we want it to look good?"



The biggest change in terms of layout is that what used to be a door is a door no more and ready to be reborn as a regular old wall.



The giant pile of debris in our driveway is gone, too, much to the neighbors relief I am sure.







However the garage is so full of tools, supplies and old appliances that there is no longer any room for the jogging stroller, which will have to be moved to the basement. Good excuse to not run, score! Ha!




The only small step backward is that the soon-to-become a light switch thing that I documented yesterday is no more. I tried asking why, but never got a real answer. I can only guess that it never should have been put there in the first place. Hee!

Day Five - A door, a door, but not much more

I set out for work Monday morning, for the first time in recorded history thrilled to be leaving the mayhem that was home and happy to bask in the relative calm of work. Thrilled!

I returned home to find that, once again, progress had been slow.

I was greeted by a thing that will at some point in the future become a light switch. Very nice looking soon-to-become-light-switch, don't you agree?



There were also wires coming out of the ceiling in not one but two places!





And, at long last... the french doors! I can now sleep at night without worrying about thugs ripping off the pathetic layer of plastic that was all that protected us from the outside world. Four days later than planned, but they are there. Beautiful, and obviously well worth the wait. Can't you hear the chorus of angels singing?



Patrick is clearly tickled pink with our new door situation.

Days Three and Four - Two steps forward, one step back

Knock out the wall and put in french doors out to a deck. Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it?

Apparently not.

The window is gone, but what lies beneath?



Apparently, what lies beneath is six or seven layers of old siding, stucco, and cement



Not much progress has been made on the former-pantry area


But at least the entryway into the room has been widened and made higher. In the background you can see a few of our legion of workers who get paid in beer, pizza and the occasional burrito



At last! The doorway has been created! Sure, it took two days longer than anticipated, and at this point we don't even have a door to put in the doorway, but all that is beside the point. Look at the doorway!! A thing of beauty, to be sure.




Here we have framing that will not only become built in shelves to hold, you know, stuff, but will also be "flush" with the fridge. It is very important to have things be flush, did you know?



This is Patrick, thinking to himself that we've all clearly lost our minds, but at least we still give him goldfish crackers. When he gets cut off from the goldfish crackers, he's in deep trouble.

Day Two - Progress is slow

After the fantastic progress made by Rob's Dad on day one, progress slowed down on day two. Here is the kitchen at the end of day two, looking remarkably like it did at the end of day one. Apparently his day's work consisted of bringing some tools in from the garage. Not that we are complaining! Free labour is, if nothing else, free.

Day One - The Plan, The Destruction

This was the back wall of our kitchen. The plan is for this to be turned into french doors out to a currently non-existent deck.



That means getting rid of this door to a side porch, and putting a pantry in its place.


The space that currently holds our "pantry" (and I use quotes because I'm not sure it is correct to use the term pantry to refer to a really ugly double closet with shelves) will hold our refrigerator, some cabinets, and the beginning of our new counter. Ignore the old fridge half-removed from the room.



Along this wall will go more cabinetry, our new gas oven, our dishwasher, and a double sink:


While renovations are going on, this is what our dining room looks like. It is horrible, but whenever it gets to me I just look at my new fridge and breathe deeply.







Rob's Dad spent the day Thursday ripping out the existing kitchen. He worked hard and did a great job.




Here are Rob and his Dad trying to solve a controversy over what exactly was holding up the ceiling. As it turned out, our "pantry" was a support wall. Or maybe not?



Meanwhile, Pete was confused wondering what, exactly, we had done to his back yard. In the background you can see our lovely new french door. Well, sort of. As it turned out, they delivered the wrong door, so that isn't really "our" door...but the door we ordered looks almost exactly like that one, only different.







Here is Patrick wondering when all of the madness will be over



And Mommy wonders... when will my dining room look like this again?