More Leveling

The most time consuming aspect of making our countertops is making sure they are flat and level.  This wasn't a problem I had with the samples I made because the samples were so small that imperfections in flatness or level were not detectible.  Imperfections in flatness and level do show up on the larger surface areas, so this is something I've had to figure out.

At first, I tried to eye-ball the level, that didn't work out.  The human eye can only see so much at once.  The brain fills in details that just aren't there and something that looks level isn't.  

The next method I tried was to use my T-square to find all the valleys, mark them then grind down to them.  The problem with this method is that not all valleys are the same height, nor are they all level.

At present, I'm finding the highest spot, marking it, and grinding it down.  This seems to be the most accurate method.  It's also very time consuming.  I'm using my longest level, marking the high spots on the X-axis, and marking the high spots on the Y-axis.  The high spots are simply the parts of the countertop that touch the bottom of the level.  I'm shining a bright light across the counter top on the side opposite to where I am so that as I look under the level I'll see the light anywhere light passes under it.  I'm also using my putty knifes to lift the low end of the level to make the level . . . well . . . level.  I'm marking all the places the light does not pass under the level using the level like a ruler.

Notice the hash-marks I've drawn on the countertop in the photo above.  the places where the hash-marks intersect are the only places I grind down.  Eventually, when the counter is flat and level, no matter where I put the level, the entire level will touch the surface of the counter top and no light will pass under it.

At the moment, there is a 2 mm difference between the highest and lowest points on the kitchen island counter top which are just over 2-feet away from each other.  Grinding down these peaks requires a very light touch.  I've already turned a couple peaks into new valleys so I've put the 15-Amp Makita high-speed grinder away and switched to my variable speed polisher with the large 7-inch grinding wheel on a low speed.  

Polishing New Countertops

I think I'm on the final stretch polishing our counter tops.  This is the most time consuming part of the whole fabrication process.  

The polishing process started with grinding the surface of the concrete down to expose the aggregate and to remove any blotches.  Grinding the surface also exposes small air bubbles and pin holes so they need to be filled with a slury mixture.  Repeat the slurry and grinding process until counters are smooth, level, and flat.

When the counter tops were reasonably flat I began polishing them with 50 grit diamond polishing pads and worked my way up to 6000 grit pads.  

Here is one of the counter tops polished up to 3000 grit.

The photo above shows the exposed aggregate (rocks), glass, and quartz sand that I used in the concrete mix.

Just to show the difference between un-polished vs polished.  Here is the area the kitchen faucet and skink will be installed.  It's only polished to 400 grit.  The picture just after shows the same area polished up to 3000 grit.

It's slow work but we're getting there

Poured Remaining Countertops and Started Grinding Island

April and I spent last week working on our new concrete counter tops.  On Monday and Tuesday we worked on the kitchen island countertops.  On Wednesday I had to resupply some of my colloring and do some yard work.  Thursday was spent removing the remaining old countertops.  On Friday we installed the Hardee board and built the forms for the remaining kitchen countertops.  I  had hoped to pour the concrete for the remaining countertops on Saturday, but it was all I could do to get the foam inserts and cut-outs made for the countertop stove and the kitchen sink.  I also cut and placed the rebar and wire wire mesh.  Whew.

As I mentioned on the 4th, we removed the old countertops on Thursday.  It was quite challenging because there was hardware holding the old countertops together that I hadn't expected to have to deal with.  Part of the challenge was finding the right tools in addition to finding the hidden things holding the counter tops to where they are/were.

I started trying to remove the old countertops by trying to remove the screws underneath; however, I quickly found there was more than just the screws holding everything together.  

The backsplashes were attached to the countertops via screws, and the backsplashes were also glued  to the walls as shown in the photo above.  I tried to use a putty knife to separate the backsplash from the walls; however, I still ended up pulling some of the dry-wall away.  I'll have to repair this later.

After all the old counters were removed, I installed the Hardee board which is a board made from Portland cement and common sand.  I chose the hardee board because it's super stiff and virtually the same stuff I'm pouring.  A good combination.  

In the photo below I'm leaning against the Hardee board.  Next I'll setup the forms.

I attached the forms directly to the Hardee board with a 1/2 inch gap between the front edge of the Hardee board and the form.  The gap will allow the concrete to flow in front of the hardee board.  By adding this gap you see an countertop that's 1 1/2 inches thick.  It is all concrete, but only an inch of the expensive stuff was actually poured.

Here is my rough sketch showing how I attached the forms to the Hardee board

It took a couple days to setup the forms because I also sealed every gap.  The diagram does not show the foam cut-outs, the rebar, or the wire mesh that I had to install due to making the countertop one giant piece.

The photo below shows the wire mesh, rebar, and foam cut-out for the sink installed and ready for the final pour.

On Monday night, my wife April and I worked together to mix and pour the concrete.  While each new batch was mixing I was using a palm sander (with no sandpaper) to vibrate the air bubbles out of the concrete.

It took a few hours to pour the counter top slabs, and a couple hours to clean up the equipment.  As a rule, never leave cement on the equipment because if you do, it will become a permanent part of the equipment.

It was a long night of hard work but as the photo above shows, we finished pouring the remaining countertops.

Next, we removed the tools from the center island to begin grinding it down.  The photo below shows the rough and un-ground countertop.

Here is a different angle that shows off how uneven the top of the slab is, due to the river of rocks.  Notice though that you can't see the rocks yet, at least not like we will see them after I start grinding off the top 1/8-inch.

You can see some of the rocks in the corner.  There are a lot of pin-holes and voids but they will be covered when I add a slury coat.

After a couple of hours of grinding down the island counter top, we can finally see what the river will look like.  Here is a picture of my wife April inspecting the rough ground river effect.  April is the one who designed and placed all the stones for the river effect.  I really like it and we can't wait to show it off the way we intended it to be seen.

Removed Remaining Old Countertops

Yesterday and today I worked on removing the remaining old countertops from the kitchen.  I keep underestimating the amount of work it takes to do demolition work because I tend to assume it takes little skill to tear something apart.  My assumption would be correct if all I needed to do is indiscriminantly swing a sledge hammer; however, if I want to keep cabinets, walls, lighting, and other fixtures undamaged then I need to exercise extreme discression when removing the old stuff.

I'm sure there is a life lesson in this.  Giving and receiving criticism comes to mind. 

In order to remove the countertops surrounding the kitchen I needed to spend a little time studying how the counters were attached to the cabinets.  To do that I needed to remove drawers and empty the top shelf of the cabinets under the counters.  

When April and I started pulling things out of the kitchen again I thought to myself, 'Oh No! We just moved back into the kitchen.  Not this again.'  The pain of being displaced from our kitchen is still a fresh memory.  The good news is that this work is not going to take two and a half months. Actually, most of thie work will be finished by Saturday.  Not bad considering I started this on Monday.

Yesterday I was so proud of myself for finding and removing the hidden bolts holding the separate sections of the counter tops together.  I had expected to finish removing the old remaining countertops in about an hour.  The problem is that I didn't expect them to be glued so well to each other and to the walls.  The following picture shows the damage I inflicted when I removed the backsplashes that were glued to the walls.

I'll patch up the dry wall but not worry too much about making it look pretty because we are going to add a tile border that will cover this up good.

Once I got the first section out, removing the other sections of countertop was a little easier.  Out of the four days I've spent working on the counter tops, I've spent a day and a half removing the old countertops and two days (so far) making the new ones.

Here is a picture April took of me just after I had finished measuring, cuting, and fiting the last piece of Hardee board, a cement board that will support the cement and will become part of the counter top.

Tomorrow I will do the stove and sink cut-outs, pre-install mounting hardware for our new stainless steel single-bowl undermount sink, attach the cement forms, tape and mud all seams, and caulk everything.  Caulking everyting is important.  I didn't caulk anything before I poured the center island and we ended up leaking cement everywhere.  It was bad.  So bad that this time I've put painters plastic under the Hardee board that's attached to the wall, covers the cabinet top (under the Hardee board) and covers the front of the cabinets.

Poured Island Counter Top

Today I finally poured the concrete for our new counter top over the kitchen island.  Here is a photo of the island with the old formica countertop:

Here is what the island looks like without any countertop

It didn't really matter that there were no supports under the bar area; however; I really don't want to have any cracks in our new countertop so I'll need to add supports.  I'm also going to add a 6-inch bar to the left end.

After removing the old countertop and inspecting the cabinet I found that there wasn't much I had to reinforce.  I used a really inexpensive hard-wood to add some structural strength to the cabinets where I added supports to the bar areas as shown in this photo

Once the reinforcements and the supports were added I installed the 1/2-inch Hardee board.  The Hardee board is the backer to the concrete countertop.  It's made of Portland cement and sand.  

I had to tape and mud only one seam in the island countertop.  The Tape is a glass fiber tape specifically for cement work.  It's similar to the mesh dry-wall tape.  The biggest difference between the concrete mesh tape and drywall tape is the thickness of the tape and the color.

Once the backer board was in place I was able to attach the cement forms I made from strips of melamine.  Here is the countertop with the forms attached to the backer board.

I will admit I made two mistakes.  First I neglected to caulk/seal the underside of the Hardee board and the melamine form.  I also forgot to put tape over the screw holes in the top of the form so we had to be very careful when we poured the cement to prevent it from getting onto the heads of the screws.

While the freshly taped and mudded seams were curing I setup the mixer in the kitchen.  in order to get the mixer high enough to pour directly into the forms I had to use a bunch of the sample slabs I've poured in the past to make a platform to put the mixer on.  In hind-sight, this was not necessary.  We were actually quite lucky that the mixer didn't buck or jump much while mixing or the mixer could have fallen over dumping a load of cement on the floor.

As it was, I didn't seal the forms so there was a lot of leakage we had to clean up.  Instead of pouring one countertop and starting the disassembly of the others, we just poured the one countertop and cleaned up the mess afterwards.  

The picture above shows the freshly poured countertop.  I hadn't yet troweled the cement; however, April has created her river effect in the middle of the countertop.  You can kind of see it but it's covered in a cement slury.  

After the slab has curred for at least three days i'll remove the forms and grind off the excess slurry to expose the aggregate.  We can't wait to see what it will look like.

Almost Ready To Pour New Countertops

I received the custom yellow pigments, admixtures, pva fibers, and broken mirror glass from blueconcrete.com. My plan now is to do one more sample then to pour the counter top for the island next week. Here is the bright yellow:

Here is the yellow oxide:

Concrete Calculator

Here is a handy calculator I found on the Concrete Network for calculating the number of bags of concrete you will need for a project:

Searching For The Perfect Concrete Countertop Design

I've had a lot of fun creating sample concrete countertops.as you will be able to see from the pictures I've posted below.  You might think I've done a lot of this before; however, I have not.  My prior experience with concrete was with setting fence posts by digging the hole, throwing the bag of concrete mix in the hole (not even bothering to open the bag), then pouring some water in the hole while shredding the bag with the shovel and mixing everything together.  

The process of remodeling my kitchen has been fun because I've been able to learn almost everything I needed to know via sources on the internet.  Before the World Wide Web we had to learn things from books, school, or other experts.  With the World Wide Web anyone can watch DIY videos on YouTube and other web sites.

I've also been able to buy specialized supplies over the internet.  For the earlier stages of our kitchen remodeling project I was able to buy most of what I needed at the local hardware store.  Now that we have finished phase one and are starting phase two, I've found that the work in phase two is more specialized and there are things I can't buy at any local hardware store.  For example, the I've not been able to find any local sources for the following:

  * 10mm PVA Glass Fibers (blueconcrete.com)

  * AR Glass Fibers (blueconcrete.com)

  * Diamond resin embedded polishing pads (ebay:tools4stone)

  * Diamond profiling router bits (ebay:urdiamondtools)

  * Wet polishers (ebay:tools4stone and specialtydiamond)

  * Plastisizers (blueconcrete.com and directcolors.com)

  * Pozolians (ebay:venturabreeze)

With a little searching and help from friends, I was able to find local sources for the following:

  * White Portland cement (Buehner Block in Salt Lake City)

  * Lithium-silica concrete sealer and hardener (Intermountain Concrete Specialties in Salt Lake City)

  * Color/pigments (Bhuner Block in SLC)

  * Fine aggregates from PetSmart in the aquarium section

  * 3 1/2 cubic foot cement Mixer from Harbor freight

I could only find the following items for my concrete countertops at my local HomeDepot or Lowes:

  * Acrylic Admixtures

  * Rebar

  * Wire Mesh

  * Foam board for cut-outs

  * 15-amp Makita 7" Angle Grinder

  * Rigid 7" Turbo grinding cup (the orange one, not the blue one)

  " 4'x 8' sheet of melamine for my non-stick pouring table

  * 3 saw horses for pouring table

  * Lumber to support my melamine toped pouring table

  * Some decorative aggregates

  * Gloves, goggles, face mask and other safety equipment

  * Mixing buckets

  * Misc hardware and tools (i.e. trowel and float)

I also found the following websites an invaluable wealth of information:

http://www.concretenetwork.com/

http://www.trinic.us/

Both sites offer a wealth of information

One of my first objectives was to determine the concrete recipe to use.  Here is the recipie I used for a sample batch that I've adjusted up or down 

  1 lb Portland cement

  2 lb Sand

  0 - 2 lbs aggregate (depending on desired effect)

  1.6 Oz of Super Sealz

  2 Tbs PVA Glass Fiber

  3/4 tsp Color Pigment

  8 oz of Acrylic Addmixture

  2 - 8 oz of H2O (depending on slump)

I've found this mixture is great for small batches, has a high cement ratio for high performance concrete, and uses very little water.

I measure out each ingredient on a digital electronic food scale (wallmart), starting with the dry ingredients then adding the fluids.  I've been mixing the concrete until I can make a ball of it in my hands that remains solid as I move the ball in my hand, yet falls through my fingers when I let the ball rest in my hand.  

Once the cement is mixed, I pour it into one or more molds and let it cure over the weekend.

After the concrete has cured for at least 2 days, I can de-mold it and begin to grind it to expose the aggregate just the way I want it.

Once the aggregate is exposed I polish it up with the diamond polishing pads.

Usually there are voids and pin-holes I need to fillwith a slury mix.  I've been applying slury after grinding and polishing up to 200-grit.  I've even tried adding the hardener/sealer to the slury which has helped me rapidly slury coat my samples and resume working on them in a couple hours.

When I've polished the concrete slabs I've started with a 50-grit padd then worked my way up to a 6000-grit buff pad.

So far, I've created 17 samples.  Here are the latest ones:

My favorite is the one in the upper right corner.  My wife April decorated this one.  I call it, 'A River Runs Through It', after one of the last movies Robert Redford made.

Right now, there is just too much pink/orange in the color.  It's time for me to abandon using the buff color and switch to one of the other colors that's a warmer yellow.

Fabricating Sample Kitchen Countertops

Now that our kitchen has new lighting and paint, April and I would like to see what we can do about replacing our old formica kitchen counter tops.  When we started our kitchen remodeling project I had originally envisioned resurfacing them; however, as we worked on the kitcen we noticed things with the counter tops that we wanted to change.  

For example, when we were removing the cabinets from the kitchen we noticed that the countertop next to the ovens wasn't straight.  When I measured the depth of the countertop next to the oven I found it was 1/4 of an inch narrower on one end than on the other end.  Later in the remodeling project I accidentally burned a nice little hole in the island countertop.  There is also the issue of our old and obnoxious kitchen sink.

As with any remodeling project, the more we looked at the kitchen, the more we saw that we wanted to change it.  The problem with this is that, in practice, we never stop finding things we want to change, but I digress.  Ultimately, we just compiled mental lists, prioritized the list, then work on the tasks in iterations.  Kind of like Agile software development practices.  

The next items to replace in our kitchen remodeling project are the countertops.  We have countertops around the perimiter of the kitchen an on an island.  The challenge with the countertops around the perimeter are that we have a stove, sink, and large U-shape to deal with.  At the moment we think that we want the perimiter counter top to be one giant contiguous piece.  Concrete is very heavy so if we do keep these as a single contiguous piece then I'll be pouring them in place.  As for the island.  The island is quite large; however, with the help from a few friends we can lift the countertop so we will fabricate it outside and bring it in when it's done.  

It's important to us to be able to have at least one countertop available at all times so we will start simple and pour the island countertop in the cure it, grind it, polish it, and seal it in the garage first.  Once the countertop on the island is ready for full-time use, then we will turn our attention to the perimeter countertops.

Before I even think of pouring a counter top I'm going to try pouring some samples.  I've already started pouring samples and have achieved some surprisingly great results.  

Here is the very first sample I poured

It was important to me to be able to re-use the mold so I made one out of malamine

I've secured the melamine sides of the mold to the melamine sheet on the bottom with 1-1/4" dry wall screws then sealed the corners with black 100% silicone goop.  The silicone will give a nice round edge to the concrete and make it easier to remove the slab from the mold.  Before I poured the concrete into the mold I rubbed a little olive oil all over the inside of the mold to help release the concreate from the mold.  By the way, the olive oil work perfectly so I'm not sure why anyone would ever buy a specialized form release agent.

Before I poured my first sample I did some research on concrete countertops and found several recipies for DIY-ers, made a list of ingredients I'd need to purchase, and researched where I could buy the supplies I needed.  Surprisingly, I could only buy about half of what I wanted from Home Depot or Lowes.  If I could have accepted black or grey countertops I could have purchased most of what I need from the local hardware store; however, I'm picky and hate grey.  I also don't like pure white; however, I have more control over the color of my countertops with white cement because I can add pigment and stains.

For supplies for my first sample I picked up white Portland cement, white quartz sand, Ultimate Fortifier addmixture, silica fume, buff cement color, assorted aggregates, and a colloidal silica hardener/sealer.  The aggregates I picked up to try out were white marble, greay grannite, decorative pea gravel, and brown glass to grind up.

Despite all the cool aggregates none of them mean anything unless the surface of the concrete is ground down to expose the aggregate.  The bottom slab is fresh out of the mold but the ones on top were ground down into the aggregate.

In order to grind the concrete down to expose the aggregate I need some specialized tools.  In my research I found the consensus to be that a high-speed grinder is needed; howver, in order to polish the concrete, a high-speed angle grinder would not work; rather, a variable speed, watter-fed polisher is needed.

In order to pour larger slabs I've created a table in my garage.  The table consists of three saw horses, 2x4's, a 4'x 8' x 3/4" sheet of particle board, a 4'x 8' 3/4"  sheet of MDF and a 4' x 8' x 1/4' sheet of melamine.  I've also decided to try creating my forms without using dry-wall screws; rather I've used a hot glue-gun to tack down the sides of the forms onto the 1/4" sheet of melamine.  I've also mitered the sides of my 1-1/2" melamine strips.  Like this:

The roll of galvinized wire is going to reinforce the concrete.  When I poured the concrete into the larger 2'x2' molds I trimed the wire to fit within the molds and be between 1" and 2" away from the edge.  I also just pushed the wire mesh into to concrete after puring it into the molds. 

In the photo below I've removed the slabs and flipped them over after letting them cure over the weekend.  The closest slab has also been ground to expose the aggregate, an inexpensive pea gravel I picked up from home-depot.

These two slabs (above) are 2 feet by 2 feet and 1-1/2 inch thick.  Both of these slabs will become table tops for end-tables.  

Unfortunately, I'm not happy with the results of the two new 2" x 2" slabs.  I put too much color in them.  I'm also not happy with the color of the aggregate.  I feel I can do better.  April likes the slabs but agrees that they are too dark.  We both prefer the color in this slab:

However, we like some of the color of the aggregate in this slab:

We don't like the pink rocks or the broken glass in the slab above so our quest to find the perfect concrete mix design contines.  

For our date-night on Friday we went to the large Home Depot in Sandy to look at the Silestone countertops to seek some color inspiration.  We found that we actually liked the black flecks in the engineerd quartz countertops, so with some new-found inspiration, I went to Petsmart and picked up some bags of decorative Aquarium gravel.  It turns out that Petsmart has a huge variety of colors.  I picked up 25 lb bags of black, brown, and white gravel, as well as a 5 lb bag of black large-grain sand.  April also went to michaels and picked up a bag of green recycled glass that has a mirrored surface on one side, and a bag of beautiful brown aggregate.  

Last night I cut 1-1/2" forms to make four 1-foot square forms.  This time I'm not using the glue gun; rather I've fully taped the sides of the forms and have just used the black 100% silicon caulk to secure them in place.  I'd like to re-use these square foot forms.  Plus, It'll be much easier to convert the mixtures I use into larger portions when I do the final pour.  Here is a picture of the forms:

As  you can see from the pictures, I'm also going to experiment with rounded corners (closest mold) and sink knock-outs in the 2nd and 3rd form

Getting Garden Started

Those of you who knew me when I was a teen in San Jose may remember how much I hated doing yard work.  I'd do anything to avoid it.  When we moved to Utah in 2011 my attitutde began to change a little.  For one thing, the previous owners of our home created the most perfect soil for growing stuff in.  As a matter of fact, if I don't plant something in the soil, something else will definitely grow on its own.

I'd have to say that our 2013 garden was the biggest and best garden we've ever had.  Here is a picture showing the garden out-growning the two little garden boxes I setup in the side  yard.  The garden ended up consuming almost the entire side-yard.  It was awesome.

Please note, the picture above was from last July or August.  

We have had a very mild winter and spring has arrived early; however, as a rule of thumb, we wait to plant the stuff that can't handle frosts until after Mother's Day.  So what to people in Utah do to get a jump-start on their gardens without running the risk of loosing it all in a freak frost?

We use green-houses, water walls, or anything that will keep the frost off plants.  

Here is this year's attempt at getting started.

Notice the bag of rocks on the bottom shelf.  The rocks are there because the past few days have been very windy.  On Sunday the wind blew the green-house over along with all the stuff I had already planted.  It was very sad to see all the baby plants smooshed upside down.  

The plants that are not in the clear plastic starter jiffy kits are actually in the recycled paper forms that the Kitchen LED lighting came in.  The recessed lighting I installed in the kitchen was packed in these really nice recycled paper boxes.  I liked them so much that I kept them and I'm now growing strawberry plants in them.  Woot Woot!

Kitchen 90% Functional

We still have a lot of work to do before we can declare phase 1 of our kitchen remodeling project done.  However, April and I put in a huge effort to get the major pieces back together and functional.

Our kitchen has come a long way from where we started.

It took quite a push yesterday to make it as far as we did.  April literally spent the whole day painting.  One of the things April did was paint the under-sides of the cabinets to match the brown stain.  The darker undersides of the cabinets looks much better which is important because they are three inches higher and therfore easier to see when sitting down.

I also painted the walls adjacent to the kitchen.  One wall has the new corner where a soffit used to be, another wall between the kitchen and the dining room, and the wall I added the light switches to.

One thing I'd like to say about April is that she has an eye for details and will do anything to attend to them (the details that is).

I had to warn her to not look too closely at the rest of the house; otherwise, she would never stop.  To give you context, April has been a professional cake decorator.  She has made many wedding cakes that are fit for royal weddings (IMO).  When I think about it, painting is not all that different than decorating a cake.

A Jig for Drilling Cabinet Doors

Today I made a drilling jig, not a dance; rather, a tool, from some inexpensive hardwood that I picked up from the hardware store.  Before April and I started our kitchen remodeling project, we removed the original door knobs from everything.  We HATE knobs.  Knobs will reach out, grab a pocket on cargo pants, and rip the pant leg right off.  Everyoe in our family has had at least one item of clothing ripped by snagging a knob while we walked by.

We LOVE handles because they pose virtually no clothing hazard and they look really great.  There are a couple of challenges installing handles.  First, there are twice as many holes to drill.  Second, the holes need to be exactly as far apart as the corresponding holes in the handles the screws attach them to.  Third, the holes need to be aligned with each other.  I suspect so many kitchen cabinets do not have handles on the cabinets because they are so much harder than knobs to install.

Over the past two months I've thought a lot about how I would install the handles on the doors.  I knew I couldnt eye-ball each hole.  The question I kept asking myself was, 'How do I drill two holes in exactly the same spot on every door, and how do I mirror the holes on opposite sides?'

The answer to my question was to build a jig.  My first design was an utter flop.  In fact I asked my son-in-law Zach to help me with this.  I gave  him exact instructions and he followed them exactly.  The problem was that my original design was vulnerable to drill-bit deviation, a deflection of the drill bit.  It was also too big and impossible to build with the tools I had on hand.

My son-in-law did an awesome job, my design was flawed.  A week later I came up with a jig design that reduced the effects of bit flex, would put the holes in exactly the same place every time and would mirror the holes by flipping the jig over.  I'm happy to report the jig worked flawlessly and is pictured above.

The jig works by placing it over the corner in the door where the handle will go then drilling through the jig's holes into the door.  I secured the jig with a clamp.  I also placed a piece of wood behind the door to reduce splintering when the drill bit pass out the back of the door.

Here I'm drilling the holes in an upper cabinet door that opens on the left (hinges on right).  I've positioned the jig so the holes will be in the lower left corner of the door.  I can mirror these holes on a door that opens on the right by flipping the jig over.  Nifty eh?

It took me an hour to create the jig; however, once the jig was created I was able to drill all the door handle holes in just a few mintues.

Pendant Lighting Installed

Installed the pendant lights and the above the sink lights last night.  Their Oiled Bronze finish goes perfectly with the cabinets.