Cook Top Replacement Day

 Our re-ordered cooktop has arrived so we are going to go get it.

First order of business was to pull out the old defective one. It wasn’t too much of a chore. It required getting under the cabinet into uncomfortable positions and struggling to loosen some fittings, but I got it.

Now we are off to the Depot to get the replacement. We’ll be right back.

2:47PM: We are back from a venture into retail madness and we have successfully reinstalled the new gas cooktop. It appears to be working as we hoped. We purchased a 5 year warranty for $105.00. I still have to puruse the literature on it and figure out what we need to do.

Anyway, I’m happy with it and we shall see how it all works out.

Day of Productivity

We don’t have much going on around the house today so I’m going to take advantage of the lull and try and unplug a slow flowing drain in the upstairs bathroom.

The non toxic home remedy I am using is baking soda and vinegar. I’m going to recreate one of those school science project volcanos in the drain.

I begin by pouring a pot of boiling water down the drain.

After five minutes, I poured a cup of baking soda down the drain and let it be for 10 minutes.

While waiting, I am sitting on the balcony typing this and enjoying what looks like will be another hot August day.

Here’s what my view looks like.

Okay, it’s been 10 minutes which means it’s time to create a chemical reaction by pouring the vinegar (1 cup) down the drain.

Here comes the volcano!

I see some bubbling and effervescing but it does not look like the solution is draining at all.

I have ten minutes to let it work and then I’ll pour more boiling water into the sink.

It appears I have only made it worse. By the way, the little flakes you see floating around in the stagnant water are chili flakes. This was not part of the recipe but they were in the vinegar I used. Susan used the vinegar last week for pickling green beans and she had some left over.

Since this process has worked so poorly, I’m going with my original plan to run a snake down the drain.

I’m going to give the pipes a half hour to drain and then I shall take it all apart and run the snake. It’s a good thing I have half an hour because I have to figure out what I did with the snake.

6:05PM: Well, it turns out that the plug in the drain was right at the top where the drain is attached to the sink. I removed all the pipes and was able to clean them out. Then I used a length of electrical wire I had to ream out the drain. I was not able to find my snake. That will happen at a future date when I’m looking for something else. 

There was a lot of hair and goo that was reluctant to be removed. But I got it and now the drain runs like it’s supposed to.

I finished in time to go across the street to the pool and refresh myself. I also patched a small hole in Susan’s floatation device I got her for her birthday.

I’m calling it a productive day.

Smoke and Modern Marvels

Since Friday, we’ve been smothered in a smog of cloudy effluent. There have been two large fires raging in the area just outside of town. Medical Lake to the west has been under an evacuation order as has Elk, to the north. Over 200 buildings have been lost and at least one death.

The acrid  smell of smoke has hung in the air for several days.

Yesterday, it rained. According to the rain gauge in my yard, we got four tenths of an inch. The Weather Service says we got .39” so I say that’s a good confirmation.

Today the sun is back and the forecast calls for a pleasant 72°.

Susan had a colonoscopy yesterday so we did nothing but deal with that. That’s my way of saying we have done nothing more on the kitchen since Saturday when I finished installing the pendant light over the island, which we really love. The light in the kitchen now is quite illuminating.

I am contacting Shaun today to get back into his schedule so we can get going on the floor.

In the meantime, we are continuing to enjoy and marvel at the modern convenience of a sink and a gas cooktop, as well as the other improvements we’ve made to the kitchen. It makes the six months we went without worth the sacrifice. Almost!

Pendant Light Installation

 I am hopeful that the pendant lights above the island shall be installed today.

I did some preliminary work yesterday and have everything ready to go.

The plan is that I will tap in to power from the wire up in the large square cut out and feed it over to the first light, which will go in the smaller hole on the left.

The wire will link to the center pendant light and then to the third light at the other end of the island.

Everything went smoothly until I got to the third hole. After I cut the hole, I tried to feed the wire from the center hole to the third hole. Because this is in the area of the addition, there was a cross brace that blocked the wire from getting to the center light.

So I broke out my drill and used a 7/8 paddle bit to make my hole. What I did not count on was the thickness of the cross brace. They must have sistered three or four boards together or they used a really big beam. I ended up using my six foot drill bit and it was easily 10 to 12 inches in before it broke through.

Then it was a matter of running my fish stick through the hole, locating it at the center hole and pulling the wire back through.

So now, I’m all set to put in the boxes and wire the fixtures into place.

So, here we go!

4:10PM: It’s been a good four hours since last I wrote and I’m almost home.

It hasn’t been difficult except for having to hold a fixture in place while connecting three unruly wires. Times three. Times three lights.

I just have that middle light to finish up and then this project will be complete.

Ta Duh!

Please note that all the shades on the lights match. Quite an accomplishment when you consider that the lights were bought 10 years apart.

Clearly, I’m pretty pleased with myself. In fact, I’m going to go all smug on my ass and enjoy a G&T.

I shall temper my joy with the knowledge that pride comes before the fall.

Bottling Day

We are into Day Three of a Heat Wave where the temperatures are topping out at just over 100°. I must say that I prefer too hot to too cold. 

Part of my reasoning is I have access to a pool when I would like to cool down. It’s the high point of my day.

In the meantime, while we wait to start on the floor, I am working on the lights over the island.

I borrowed Shaun’s laser level so I could map out the placement of the lights. My next move is to cut the holes for the boxes. Once I have the holes cut, I’ll have a better idea of what kind of boxes I’m going to use.

Yesterday, I moved this light from the hole you see to where it is now. The reason was I want it to line up with the pendant light over the island.

The light on the other end will line up with the pendant light as well.

However, before I get to work on the lights, we have wine to bottle.

We have 6 gallons of a blend of Grenache, Tannat, and Shiraz which we started last September. It’s a kit wine and it’s long past time for bottling. I like to let the wine age in bulk rather than the bottle, so that’s why it’s taken so long.

My cyphering has concluded that this wine will be 12% alcohol.

We need this to be ready for the Spokane Interstate Fair which is about a month away.

We bottled our Cab/Merlot blend last week and I’m very happy with the taste of that wine.

12:35PM: We have successfully bottled our Grenache/Tannat/Shiraz blend and got 30 bottles. The last bottle is just a tad light so we’ll be drinking that tonight.

Here’s a special video treat of the bottling process.

Home Made Gin

 It’s going to be hot for the next few days so I took it upon myself to help out the local squirrels and birds. I filled up the Turtle Pond in the back yard.

I had a little trouble getting into the back to turn on the fountain so I further decided it would be a good time to prune the bush a bit.

So I broke out the wheel barrow and the nippers and started trimming the bush. At one point, I noticed the thick piney smell of the bush as I clipped away the excess branches. It occurred to me that it kind of smelled like gin.

A couple of weeks ago, I got into a discussion with a woman at church named Sue. She had read about making gin with juniper berries. She was talking more about an infused gin where you use a neutral alcohol (vodka) and soak it with juniper berries, lime and lemon peels, and other aromatics and botanicals.

When I got home from church, I googled juniper berries and where I could get some.

That was two weeks ago.

So I’m clipping away and noticing the sweet smell of gin when it suddenly occurred to me, is this a juniper bush?

I returned to the Google machine to find out what a juniper bush looks like. 

It looks like the one next to the turtle pond…and it’s loaded with berries.

So I went out for about half an hour and picked berries.

This is what I got. I have no idea if these are ripe although I suspect they aren’t. But they have a definite gin flavor to them. So I’m going to soak these in a jar of Everclear along with some lime and a sprig from the bush. I’ll check it in a couple of days and go from there.

Kitchen Love and the Wood Pile

I love this new kitchen. I cooked our standard, Saturday morning breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed doing it. I made messes all over the place and quickly cleaned them up because I had a sink near by.

When you go six months and eleven days without a kitchen, you really appreciate having it back.

The one problem I am wrestling with concerns the cooktop.

This one burner does not work consistently. The problem is the igniter. You are supposed to push down on the knob the start the igniter and then turn he knob to the left to start the gas flow, at which time, the burner should ignite.

This lower left knob does not always engage the igniter when I push down on it. If I give it a little jiggle, it usually starts. The other fix is to depress one of the other knobs and then turn the lower left knob to get the gas to flow. All igniters fire regardless of the knob you turn.

My dilemma is whether this is a big enough issue to return it. The unit works, but it’s not quite right.

I’m reluctant to undue the fittings and have to repack the thing over what really is a small issue. It’s just that it’s not quite right.

Earlier in the week, I stated that I would have this wood pile cleaned up by Friday…yesterday.

I’m going to try and honor that statement today.

The side benefit will be getting good and sweaty so the pool will be all that more refreshing.

My wood pile is growing and the other one is shrinking.

I’ve only been out there for an hour and it doesn’t feel like I’ve made a lot of progress. I’m just taking a break right now and then I’ll get back to it. I am accomplishing my goal of getting very sweaty. The pool will be amazing.

While I’m doing all this work in the yard, Susan is continuing the task of figuring out where everything goes in the kitchen. During the process, she is discovering all the duplicate items we have as well as the use things we bought over the years that we never use. Things like microwave egg poachers and tiny little digital timers. She still has a long way to go.

2:20PM: The area is pretty well cleaned up. I still have the skeletal remains of a cabinet out there that needs to be cut up but I’m not doing that today. It is time for the pool.

Phase Three Completion

The final element to complete whatever phase of the kitchen remodel we are in is to fix the gas leak in the cook top.

Will from Anderson Sheet Metal was here at 10 this morning and it took him not even 30 minutes to solve the problem. And the problem was me of course. I put a connection on the line that I didn’t need. He removed it and all was well.

I went to Home Depot today to get the lights we ordered for above the island. While there, I purchased a soap dispenser for dish detergent to be installed in one of the sink holes. 

Tracy gave us a good tip concerning the dish detergent and the dispenser. He told us to thin the dish soap with water. One part water to two parts detergent. That makes it easier to fill and it won’t clog up the pump.

So now, the kitchen is complete as far as being able to use it. Susan is still figuring out where to put stuff and then I’m trying to find where the stuff she put is.

Next up, Phase Floor!

The Return of the Kitchen…kind of

We originally gave ourselves two months to be without a working kitchen. We realized pretty quickly that we would never make that goal.

Six months and eleven days was the goal we should have set.

Tracy the Plumber returned today to connect the sink and the dishwasher. 

So we are back with a mostly working kitchen. There are two issues that need to be cleared up.

First, even though the sink is running, the drain is not. It’s very slow. We already have another plumber here (Justin from Action Plumbing) and he has snaked the line. The problem is a tight turn in our pipe that the snake cannot make. The blockage is clearly beyond that “T”.

So, Tracy is going to cut a portion of the drain that has been abandoned. That will allow for the other plumber to return later today and run the snake the rest of the way down the slow running drain line.

Here is our problem area. Tracy has proposed to cut the pipes and connect up a smooth transition that the snake will go through.

When Tracy removed the pipe, this is what we found.

Pretty gross and it smells great.

This is how it looks now. I’m just waiting for Justin from Action Plumbing to return and run the snake again.

3:17PM: Justin has just arrived and is getting his equipment into the kitchen. 

Justin has run his snake and as a result, our slow drain has turned into no drain. He was not able to get the snake around a 90 degree turn that goes into a stand pipe and now it appears to be plugged.

I called Tracy to let him know and he is returning TONIGHT to fix it.

I know he had plans for a fishing trip which we have now screwed up. I told him Monday would be fine but he insisted on coming now.

7:12PM: Tracy got here about an hour and a half ago and we set to work to drain out all the water that wasn't moving and then to replace the rest of the pipe.

Cutting the bad pipe out was an ordeal and quite messy...and stinky. But it all went well and Tracy was able to quickly replace the old, rusting cast iron pipe with fresh new PVC pipe. 

Wherever the clog was, we removed it and now, the sink is working like it supposed to.

Between the two plumbers and all the supplies, this was a thousand dollar day.

Gas Cheese Eggs

This morning, I cooked my cheese eggs on the new gas cooktop. It was great to have a counter to work on and I love how quickly the gas heats the pan and the food. We just have to fix this leak problem.

I left the gas on and by the time I finished eating my eggs, I could smell it. It was faint but it was there.

So the gas is off again and I am waiting to hear from my professional gas guy as to when he will show up and seal my leak.

I think we are safe to cook on it. We just have to shut down the gas line when we are finished. Fortunately, the shut off is right there below the cooktop in the cabinet.

I am also anticipating that today is the last day we will be washing dishes in these buckets. Tracy the Plumber is coming tomorrow and then my desire for a working kitchen will come to fruition.

I hope!

I think we are now ready to fill the cabinets with all the stuff still sitting in the living room. I’m letting Susan figure out where everything goes and I’ll just be “the muscle”, such as I am.

10:24AM: The forecasts have been threatening rain for several days and now, it is finally here. I’m sitting on the front porch on a relatively cool but pleasant morning enjoying my coffee and the sound of the rainfall plus the scent of fresh, clean air.

This storm seems to be passing but maybe there’s more to come.

My professional gas guy is coming Friday between 10 and noon. So the ribbon cutting for the functioning kitchen is scheduled for 1:00 on Friday.

I will say it again. Our long national nightmare is almost over.

12:51PM: We have some wine to bottle. So I have been down in the basement cleaning bottles. I have discovered that I need some Sodium Meta Bi-Sulphite. That means I need to head to Brewing Store out in the Valley.

As long as I am out there, I need to go to Idaho and gas up. Gas is 40 cents per gallon less than in Washington.

The Gassy Gauntlet

Wow! What an ordeal.

Today was the day to connect the cooktop.

I bought a gas line back in February. I discovered today that the fittings were too large…5/8 inch. So, I got in the truck and drove to the Depot to replace it. I was able to find the receipt in my e-mail and all I wanted to do was trade it for a 1/2 inch fitting.

I got to the Returns desk and walked right up the counter. I explained the situation and the gal told me it was over 90 days so all I could get was a store credit. That was no problem because I just wanted to trade it. She said she needed my driver’s license.That’s when I realized I left my wallet at home.

So, I drove back home and then returned to the Depot. I made the return of the wrong gas line, got the gas line with the half inch fittings and returned home. 

It didn’t fit.

I drove to the Depot for the third time and this time requested to speak to someone who knew about gas. He explained to me that I needed a fitting to fit into the fitting.

It worked. I was able to connect everything which led to the moment of truth. Would the cooktop work.

I brought Susan into the kitchen, I turned on the gas and I attempted to light a burner. I got the igniter to click but no flame. I tried all the different burners and got nothing. I could hear the gas. I could smell the gas.

Finally, the center burner flamed on. I managed to get all the burners working, however one of them is kind of inconsistent as far as the ignition goes.

This was our first chance to actually see the downdraft fan work. I can actually see it sucking the flames towards it.

I went outside to get a cast iron pan we use for camping. Susan wanted to do cheese steak for the first meal. When I returned to the kitchen without the pan (cuz I couldn’t find it) I smelled gas. 

We decided to shut it all down and get Anderson Sheet Metal in here to confirm it’s properly sealed.

So no dinner from the new cook top tonight.

Counter Tops…Finally!

Our long national nightmare is almost over.

The guy for the counter top install is here. His name is Robert and he is working on them. He got here about nine and was ready to go, except nobody had dropped off the material for him. I think they got here by ten and dropped everything off and Robert got to work.

The island counter top is still a mystery because he hasn’t worked with downdraft fans before. He seems confident that he can make it work.

At the same time, Tammy and Lou are having a new pool liner put in. Their old one has had a leak for the last couple of years and it was time to replace. So we’re walking back and forth between here and the pool to see what’s happening and get in our supervising bona fides.

Susan and I aren’t doing much else than watching and supervising.

I just went out and picked a bunch of tomatoes. I had better start eating some before I run out of storage room. Our little garden is doing great this year. We don’t have much variety. Just tomatoes, peppers, chives and some weird cabbage.

12:38PM: Okay, this is exciting. The first counter top is in. It’s in the Pantry. It looks Pantry-ific. 

I’m not sure what’s next. Robert is working on the small areas because he is waiting for some more material for build up.

Next is this small little counter. Robert still has to put the rounded nose on it.

And there’s our nose.

I think the sink counter is next.

Yup!

Now we are down to the tense part. The Island. I sure do hope this is going to work. It’s the one thing I’ve been worried about concerning the install. Well…we are about to find out.

6:05PM: Robert is still here and it looks like he’ll be back tomorrow.

As feared, the island was a little precarious. We had a problem with the fan sitting flush on the counter. It took some jiggling. We jiggled it quite a bit and it finally dropped.

It’s not complete yet but we are a major step closer to having a working kitchen.

Fire Wood Rack

It appears that once again, we have not won the lottery. I guess we will just soldier on and try to make it through life.

We actually were productive today on a totally different little project.

For months now, I have been wanting to put together this firewood rack kit that I bought. In order to put it together, I first had to clean up the area by the back door where we store firewood. It’s been full of scrap wood that has been sitting there since we started the kitchen remodel.

So we moved all the wood out of the way into a brand new pile, cleaned up the area and I brought out the power tools to put the thing together.

Once I got it completed, I got out the table saw and started cutting up the rest of the scrap wood and Susan stacked it.

That’s all the farther we got but I’m happy to have gotten this started.

I’ll have that pile of wood cleaned up by the end of the week.

Editors Note: That last line turned out to be a load of crap.

Corner Cabinet Victory

I am working on finishing up our work from last night.

Shaun got here about 5 last night and we glued up the skins on the end of the island, cut down and placed all the corner cabinets and hung the frame for the ironing board closet.

This morning, I went to hang the cupboard door on the iron board closet and could not get it to line up. I realized I was going to have to carve out the plaster next to the frame because the hinges were deeper than the depth of the frame.

It took just a little work with my matte knife and my putty knife. But I made it work.

Now the new door looks pretty good and it matches everything else.

Next up, I need to get all the draw pulls in place and reinsert the drawers into the cabinets.

10:52AM:I had a little trouble with the drawers. One would not suck in evenly. I tried all the adjustments and can’t quite figure it out.

The drawer pulls went on okay but are quite tight. However, they are in and I will deal with the imperfections later.

Useless Information

It's a bit after 9AM and I'm planning my day. When I'm finished here, I need to get in a walk. I'm not very good at taking my morning walk and I need to correct that. Especially when the weather is as nice as it is.

I am subscribed to this Neighborhood website called Nextdoor.com. For the most part, it contains posts from people who were robbed or ripped off. You can post about anything but ripoffs seem to garner the most activity.

I had this post this morning.

What am I supposed to do with this?! It's totally useless. I guess I will start being suspicious of any 250 poundish guy in a black shirt and ball cap.

I do have a few projects planned for the day. And we are preparing for Shaun to come over tomorrow and finish up all remaining cabinet installation. Then we will be ready for Monday when the counter tops show up.

New Month, More Projects

Well, it’s a new month and with it, another new commitment to get some posts here. 

We’ve just finished mowing the lawn for the first time in about three weeks. The grass is just not growing. However, the weeds and undesirable plants that make up two thirds of our lawn are doing great.

I said “we” because Susan no longer allows me to mow the whole yard. I can’t say that I’m upset about it because mowing has definitely become more difficult for me. It wears me out.

So I did the back and parking strips and she mowed the front. We managed to cut all the little tree sprouts that popped up in the backyard and we collected a lot of the dead leaves and branches that fell in the front. Didn’t get too much grass.

So I’m sitting on the porch swing on the front porch, typing all this and contemplating my next project. 

I am thinking about tackling the job of cutting the corner cabinets. They are too tall and the height must be cut down in order to fit under the window. They have a very high toe kick area which will allow for the cutting down. 

I am only reluctant because I have a tendency to make small mistakes that we later have to fix. I know Susan is not confident in our (my) ability to do this correctly. However, I like to be self reliant and not have to depend on, or wait for Shaun to get over here and do it right.

In order to keep Susan in her comfort zone, I think I will work on the ironing board door, another project with a minor mistake.

12:51PM: I made quick work of the Ironing Board Cabinet Project.

But let me back up.

Last week I decided to get to work on the new cabinet cover for our built in ironing board.

The new door is not custom but they made it as close as they could to the size we needed. The new door ended up being a half inch too wide and about four inches too tall. However, we can make that work.

The first problem I had is that they made the door in two sections. The problem with this is that there is a stile in the middle so the ironing board can't be pulled down.

I called Jess at Cabinet Pro and she told me that they don't make doors that long because of warping issues. I wondered why our old door that has been there for quite some time never warped.

In any event, she told me what their installers usually do when they encounter this issue and it was exactly what I had thought I would do.

So, I took my jigsaw and cut the stile off. I sanded there area I cut smooth and applied a little paint.

Next, I used a couple of thin pieces of wood to shim the two doors away from the stile. I glued the stile with the shims to the two doors and then screwed them together, in essence, making one door.

It all worked out beautifully until the last two screws I placed where just slightly to high.

It has since been fixed and you would never notice it without having read this.

Removing the trim from the old door turned out to be quite easy and went quickly.

I am now waiting for Shaun to figure out the best way the hanging new door over the old ironing board space.