Taping and Staining

This weekend April and I  made significant progress on the Kitchen.  April applied three layers of the gell stain, and I finished installing dry-wall where the soffits used to be.

Here is a photo taken after April finished one or two coats of stain.

Here is the dry wall.  It will be a challenge to even out the seams where the new sections meet up with the old sections.  It will be easier to deal with the seams along the wall because most of it will be hidden by the cabinets.  I'd like the seems to be perfectly hidden; however, it's not critical.  The challenge will be the ceiling.

Here is a picture April took of me finishing up the last bit of sheetrock on the wall

A couple people suggested hiring out the task of matching the ceiling texture to the existing texture; however, I have not yet given up on the idea of doing the work myself.  That said, I do have a neighbor that used to drywall and paint professionally.  I'll lean on him for advice, and if I run into trouble, may ask him for help.  

The orange discolloration you see on the ceiling is from a citrus-based stripper I used to remove some of the original ceiling texture.  The citrus stripper actually worked quite well except for the stain it left on the ceiling.  I had better resuts applying the stripper with a paint brush.  A couple weeks ago I tried a stripper that used a sprayer; however, half the compound ended up on the ground or on me.  Call me picky but I need a lot more precision and I hate it when the stuff burns a hole right through two layers of plastic gloves and leaves a nasty chemical burn.  In the end, I found the full-strength stripper to be a little better on the ceiling only because it does not leave a stain.  The citrus stripper worked best on removing the wall paint.  Plus, the citrus stripper left the dry-wall behind the paint alone.  The full-strength stripper however ate through everything, including the chemical resistant gloves I was wearing.   So the lesson learned with the full-strength stripper is to wear the best protection money can buy, gloves, goggles, respirator, hazmat suit, . . . everything.

To me, the most exciting accomplishment is the work April is doing with staining the cabinets.  She has experimented on the back-side of the drawers.  This picture shows the awesome results she has achieved.

Starting to Tape and Mud

Yesterday I started taping the drywall seems and applying the first layer of joint compound to the kitchen ceiling.  I thought it was interesting how simple things like joining drywall have changed.  When I learned how to do thi all we used was mud, paper tape, trowels, and a lot of hand sanding.  Nowadays, taping knives have replaced trowels, the tape is now fiberglas instead of paper, and the joint compound contains elastic polymers and dries ias hard as a rock.

I really prefer the fiberglas tape over the paper tape for several reasons.  The main reason I prefer it is because I can push extra joint compound through the tape into the gaps to create a bond superior to what I could do before with mud and paper.

Sheetrock On Kitchen Ceiling

Yesterday, the city's building inspector signed off our electrical work in the kitchen.  The sign-off on the electical work means I can install the dry-wall over the areas the soffits used to be.  I had to wait for the electrical inspection to be done before hanging the drywall so the inspector could see the electrical work.

Last night, after work, I came home, tore down the plastic covering the openings into the attic, cut the sheetrock, and screwed it into the kitchen ceiling.  We look forward to no more attic insulation falling down into the kitchen.

I have church meetings tonight so I will not have a chance to get sheetrock installed on the walls until tomorrow or Saturday.

April is almost done coming up with the process we will use to apply the gell stains to the cabinets.  The technique she is using is producing a rich dark brown with a touch of red.  In order to get this color April applies layers of three different Gel stains: Java, Candlelight  and Cherry.  The layers of the different gel stains create an effect similar to nice multi-color clear coat paint jobs on cars.  It's an amazing look and I can't wait to show it off when it's ready.  We can't take credit for the idea to layer different gel stains.  The experts at Woodcraft of Salt Lake City/South Valley suggested this to April.  They explained that this is the technique that makers of fine heirloom qualilty furniature use.  It shows.

Finally Some Drywall

Today we hung the first bit of drywall in the kitchen over the stove.

I need to leave the wall section open until the inspection is done. The things taped to the walls with blue tape are the face plates.  I figure the inspector will want to see inside them but then again they may also want to see faceplates there too.  

I've a also started to prepare the ceiling where the old fluorescent light was for new texture and paint.  All I was able to do today was scrape old texture off.  Any suggestions for scraping old knockdown texture off?

Any good ideas for blending old and new texture?

Diagnosing Source of Oven Issues

When I pulled our double wall ovens out so I could move the electrical wiring and to re-finish the cabinets I was surprised to see scorch marks up the back of the oven and along the wall behind where it had been.  At first I considered taking the ovens straight to the Junk yard; however, we are not ready to replace the ovens yet and we certainly don't want to be without an oven for any longer than necessary.

I decided to explore the burned area of the oven to see exactly what the issue was.  I certainly don't want to re-install something that's a fire hazard.  So here is what I observed:

From this I couldn't tell what happened.  I just knew it wasn't good.  When I looked through the holes I saw wires.  I also thought I saw melted metal; however, when I looked closer it just looks like really scorched metal.

There were just a handfull of sheet metal screws holding everything together so I decided to take stuff apart.  It was actually quite easy.  

Once I removed all the protective metal I saw what looked like the base of a light socket.  The light socket itself looked to be in good condition.

I inspected the wiring and despite things looking a little smoky, the insulation was good (no bare wire exposed) and the rest of the oven looks OK.  This is actually the socket for the oven light so I checked the inside of the oven.  The glass lense that covers the light looks like it's in excellent shape, in fact, it looks new.  My guess is that there was an oven fire that traveled found it's way through the light socket and up the back of the oven.  The fact the glass covering the light in the oven looks new leads me to believe the previous owners found the problem and fixed it.

Instead of throwing the oven away I think I'll clean up the back of the oven.

Any suggestions on a good way to clean up zinc galvanized sheet metal?

April's Handywork

April has realy been working hard to find just the right stain for the cabinets.  We've been trying the Stain+Polyurithane blend but it hasn't worked out.  Today, April tried a gel stain.  

To me, it looks really good.

The interesting thing about the gel stain is that you wipe it on, then wipe it off.  April is wiping off the excess gel stain in the picture above.  

We are going to experiment and put on a layer of Java gell stain, a layer of Cherry, then a final layer of Java.

April is using the back side of one of the drawers as a test board.

As for Electrical, my brother-in-law Kevin suggested I use nail guards on the 2x4s that the wiring goes through.  These protect the lines from screws going into them.  Now I just wish all the walls had these.

I've called for an inspection on Tuesday; however, I only left a message for the inspector and havn't received confirmation anyone can do it on Tuesday.

Finished Re-routing 220-volt power

I found the right drill bit to drill through two 2x4's together in a tight space.  The photo below shows how hard it was to get just the right angle.  The little trench you see is where the power used to be.  It's an outside weight bearing wall so I didn't want to trench the hole any further.  I opted instead to drill a new hole to route the power through.

Here is the finished product from a slightly different angle.

I have a GFCI tester.  There is a button on it that, when the tester is plugged into a GFCI outlet, will trip it.  I went through all of the existing GFCI outlets in the house and found that most of them were not working.  I even found that one, according to the light indicators on the tester, had been wired backwards.

When I make my home-depot run tomorrow I'll pick up another bulk pack of GFCI outlets, along with the faceplates for the new outlets I've wired up in the kitchen.  I understand that I should have them off when the Electrical inspector comes the first time.

Here is the other 220-volt line I re-routed.  This one isn't used because we don't have an oven under our gas range; however, the line was there so I've run its wires through the wall studs too.

Re-routing this power line was a completely different challenge when compared to the other 220-volt line for the double-ovens.  This line runs diaganoly, I didn't want to rip out the entire wall so, before pulled the electrical line, I taped some wire onto the wires at the other end of the wire.  When I pulled cable the wires I tied to it came through too

Next I re-routed the power line through the holes I drilled, then fed it back through the existing holes by tying the wire I had previously pulled through to the end of the power line, then pulled it back.  It took a while but it's finally done.

DIY AirFilter

April has been sanding in the garage.  The thought of all the wood dust, polyurithane particles, and other who-knows-what floating in the air got me to thinking what it would take to filter large quantities of air without spending too much.

While walking down the isles at Walmart I noticed an inexpensive 20x20 box fan for $17 and thought it was too bad that they didn't have one with an air filter attached to it.  Two isles over I also noticed the air filters for central home heading and air conditioning units.  My curiosity piqued, I checked to see if they had a 20x20 electrostatic air filter and found they had some.

So for $17 for a box fan, $2.75 for the filter and about 4 feet of duct tape, I made a dust filter.

Here are some pictures of it.  It took all of 10 minutes to assemble.  Here is the side the air exits

and here is the side the air enters, the filter side

I'm not sure how well this will work compared to the other air filters that I've seen in the stores that cost $100 and up; however, I don't need silent operation, ionic breeze, or a tilting swivel base.  What I need is to clean epic volumes of air quickly and for as little $$$ as possible.

I think this'll do the trick.  I'll keep everyone posted.

Tonight was our Family night (Monday) so we took a break from working on the kitchen and took our son Richard with us to the South Jordan Rec. Center for a little cardio work-out.  It was a good break.

I was able to get the Electrical permits from the South Jordan City Hall.  I hope to finish rerouting the 220 Volt lines and schedule an inspection for Thursday so we can begin to drywall on Friday.

Photo of the kitchen before we started any work

Here is a picture of the kitchen before starting any remodeling work

We are doing all the work ourselves.  So far we've purchased all the materials from  Homedepot except the stove, the pendant lights, the chandelier for the table, and the light for above the sink.  April found the stove on KSL.com, and I found the pendant, chandelier, and sink lighting on lightingdirect.com.

Here is the kitchen with the recessed lighting installed, the fluorescent lighting above the island ripped out, the cabinets removed and the soffits ripped out.

Hopefully the pendant lighting will show up today.  If it does I'll temporarily install it to see what it looks like.  

Kitchen Remodel - Finished Switches, Outlets, and repositioning 110 Volt power lines

Yesterday I finished rewiring the 110 volt electrical outlets and switches in the kitchen and April stripped off the old stain from the cabinet doors.  The stain we were using before kept developing flecks.  Not bubbles, not blotches, but flecks.  Grain-sized concentrated bits of stain.

Here are some of the outlets in their new positions.  I figured if I'm going to have to sheetrock the walls and ceiling where the soffets used to be that it didn't matter what kind of holes I had to make for the outlets

My trick to finding which breaker to turn off before working on an outlet was to plug in my radio then trip the breakers one by one until I found the one that actually turned off the radio.

Here is some of the wiring that I drilled new holes to rout the wiring through

Here are the cabinet doors that April has sanded, painted, and re-sanded.

Funny story, This is the third time that April has re-sanded these doors.  She has been doing the sanding by hand.  The first time she re-sanded the doors I offered her the electric sander but she declined.  Yesterday, after she determined the stain wasn't working and needed to be sanded off again I offered her the use of the electric sander.  April looked at me and asked, "YOU HAVE AN ELECTRIC SANDER?!"