Start Of A Little Reno....

Ten days is a lot of time. I bet you surprise yourself. It's going to be really nice when you are done.

We moved forward a bit this past week...
Enough to have to book the granite people in to measure for this first phase of tops.
The boss picked an undermount cast iron sink so the cabinet it will go in needed a cradle to carry it. Not to sure how much that puppy weighs but it is real heavy. I needed a buddy to come over to lift it in. The old oven and microwave have been installed for the time being while we wait for the steam oven an regular oven.
As I wait for the stone floor guys to get here in a week or so I will build the drawers and start on the new island.







The boss comes home from visiting the grandkids tomorrow.
Lets hope the progress the past week meets with her approval.

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time.

Fantastic, Gary, love the bay window too. Boss sure will be happy.

Looking good so far, Gary.

As we have gone along in this reno there was talk of me making a nice walnut kitchen table for our nook.
But as things go we changed our mind once again and are going to do a counter height small island that will have overhangs on three sides. So this weekend I built a couple more carcasses and we have the idea of the size that will work now.
As guys we can't have enough storage in our shops, my wife is taking the same attitude with her kitchen.



We did the rendering at the granite place today so I was able to confirm they will have a chunk big enough to do a top for this.
They told me I can go 55"X40" max.
This granite will end up being 53 1/2" X 35 1/2".
I have to give credit to the folks at World Stone here in Edmonton for top notch service. The bathrooms went without a hitch and it seems like the kitchen will too.
It was neat to go into their big shop and see the granite slabs on a computer program that could flip the pieces around so we could get the figure in the granite where we wanted.... I will call that a custom job.
Stone floor guys were to start again tomorrow but we had no call.
Lets hope they get here in the next couple of days.
Main island will start to get built this weekend with another last minute modification.
Boss wants a nice microwave drawer. So I guess she will get one. That will be added to the appliance list....


You know I might even have a working kitchen in a couple of months.
And I may even have this reno done in under two years.

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time.

Absolutly impressive. Everything ties together real well designwise too. Nice job!

Today the guys were here to set a few of the pieces of granite in.
These pictures do not do the stone justice on how the figure looks in it.
The flow turned out just the way we wanted thanks to the granite peoples computer layup....






Now we wait for the floor guy to get his part done so we can install the two islands.... and get the last of the granite installed.
Then I have a swak of walnut doors and panels to make.


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Wow, the granite is stunning

Thanks Bob.

This past week we got most of the stone floor done in the kitchen.
It's been a little slow going as our tile setter is putting out a few fires as he does our job.
Fingers crossed the border around the perimeter will be finished tomorrow so one can grout on Wed.





By the end of next week we hope the laundry room will have it's stone floor in too....

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time..

We got a bonus today.
Our stone guy worked this afternoon and got the laundry room done.
Now it looks like we will have the grouting done tomorrow in the kitchen.



Looks like we will be doing a little more baseboard and trim at the end of the week to finally finish that part off.

I'm even feeling like this game plan is starting to come together.....


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Both the granite and the tile look great, Gary. Are you tiling the back splash too?

Thanks Ted.
We will do the back splash. First thought is to cut some of the 18"x18" travertine into smaller pieces so everything matches.
But the boss is talking about a glass strips in it also.
The final decision will be done as I get some of the panels and doors make and then put on....

The past week we spent building the carcasses for the main island.
A couple of things were changed at the last minute. First the boss wanted her drawer microwave to open toward the ovens because of this I made two f the carcasses 28" deep to match the 28" wide third one.
The small 10" wide cabinets were another addition at the last minute. The island was only going to have 6" wide "wings" that would of had fluted trim.... We also added a couple of electrical plugs that are on the inside of the small cabinets.
I'm liking this design better. The slab of granite will be 84"X44."






Now we wait until Wed. to have the granite guys do the measurements for the two islands.

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time.

Just keeps getting better and better.

Very nice Gary, excuse my ignorance but does the granite go over the sheet of ply?

Thanks Rob and Glenn.
Rob the granite sits on the carcasses. The plywood is just being used so the boss can see how far the actual tops will be from her other counters...

glenn bradley said:

I am still learning to accurately judge the time required to do something. After all these years I still have not perfected the formula for visiting relatives, weddings, funerals, holidays, the flu, etc. You are making great progress and I applaud your stick-to-it-ivness (?).

Click to expand...

I'm sure glad Glenn explained why my time lines never seem to work out. Now I can stop worrying about it and just go with the flow (down the toilet?).

Since I am one of Glenn's relatives I can sure understand his problem...He is always there when wanted or needed. He always gets the job done...whatever it is. For some dumb reason he still seems to love me in spite of all of his time I use up...It makes me glad that I didn't drown him when he was a teenager (That drowning part goes for his brother too. Glenn didn't have an exclusive on that part of life.).

Enjoy,
JimB

Gary, your work is excellent. How you get all of that done is beyond my comprehension. Now that the value of your home is around $14,000,000, what are you going to do with it? Live in it and make all of your neighbors jealous? Sell it and retire to Florida living the life of luxury? Rent it to Egyptian royalty? Something else?

This weekend I wanted to get a few of the 15 drawers done.
All of the dovetails I have done have been by hand but I don't want to take the time to these 15 drawers by hand so I picked up a small Leigh dovetail jig from LV.



It took an evening to go through the learning curve on this machine but once that was out of the way it can crank out a drawer pretty quick. I am using pre finished material that will speed my process up also. Making the tails I found that I had to use my titemark to scribe a line on the shoulders or I had some tearout. Otherwise they came out nice and clean. One has to also watch as the thickness and height of this pre finished stuff has some minor variances which can create some havoc to the appearance of the finished joint.
Saturday morning I cut the pieces for four drawers that are all the same size.
Everything went perfect. Or so I thought.....
My front and backs were supposed to be 17 3/8"
For some reason I set my saw up at 17 5/8" which king of screwed up the four drawers I made in the morning.



These will be a reminder to check twice before I cut......

But upside is I got one done this morning before I ran out of 1/4" plywood.
One down 14 more to go..



All in all not bad.... Even if they are made by a machine.
I'm not a fan of the thick pins but this will have to do..
Even the boss made a comment about them.

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time.

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I now am doing the final preparation on the island to get ready for the granite guys next Tuesday.
The first thing was to get a custom tin pan made up for the new downdraft.
As our floor is concrete there is no way the pipe can line up to the downdraft where the new island will sit.
Pretty straight forward after the tin bashers made me a second one. They made a little oops with the first one and made it a mirror image of what it was supposed to be.

Now that we have the proper one it went together in no time...







Now when the fan box it placed all I have to do is cut a 6" circle from the top and everything will operate as it should.

Next will be to do all the electrical in the island.
Two circuits are needed and I lucked out once again. When the house was built they electricians pulled a three wire to the island so I will split it so the downdraft and drawer microwave are on separate circuits.

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Another small battle under our belt.
We had the granite installed on the two islands and the boss is very happy.
I spent yesterday evening putting the induction stove top and downdraft in and she works like a dream....
We now have a fully function kitchen again. No doors or panels but those will come.







Now to get after the drawers.


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