Ok, maybe I won’t give up the weekly progress reports just yet. I think our to-do list is still random enough.
1. Backtracking a bit – here’s the recap on our lyptus butcherblock:
Our lyptus came as a 25″x144″ piece. We discovered that biscuiting together two pieces would be significantly cheaper than buying one slab. Not wanting to take any risks on the strength of the connection, Kyle did two rows of staggered joints.
…then we clamped the crap out of it. (These clamps belonged to Kyle’s late grandfather. I’m sure he’d be happy to see them put to good use.)
After the glue dried, we cut the slab to size and sanded the cut edges. The material came pre-finished, but we bought some extra finish for the edges.
2. After our silestone counters and backsplash were installed, it was time for some finish electrical work. Below is Kyle’s greatest electrical accomplishment to date – a 5-gang!
It was a success…besides installing the outlet upside down.
3. Our range has been installed and functional for over a week but we couldn’t fire up the gas cooktop without our 900 cfm Vent-a-Hood (it has a Magic Lung people, I have been looking forward to the day when we would finally have a venthood that did not filter the air through a 20-year old mesh and then back into my face)! This proved to be a little bit more cumbersome than we expected (IKEA and Vent-a-Hood, please coordinate your fastener locations so they’re not in the exact same place!).
Done! There’s still a lot missing on this wall, like a backsplash at the range, the custom open shelving, and another steel ledge. In due time.
And what about this sexy Seiho vent! Complete with bugscreen and raincap, it’s the big sister to the dryer vent we installed last year.
4. I may have shed a tear when the faucet and sink went in. The Grohe faucet is solid and elegant and the Kraus sink is gloriously deep. Not only can I actually fit pots and pans in it, but I can hide at least a week’s worth of dirty dishes (but you know I won’t)!
5. In IKEA news, we’ve installed a whopping 6 drawers! We’ve been really impressed with the IKEA drawer hardware so far. Then again, it’s been 4+ years since we’ve had drawers so the concept itself is pretty awesome.
6. Finally, we spent part of our anniversary furniture shopping. It was, for the most part, a success. Pieces were re-evaluated, decisions were narrowed, but by the 6th store…we were tired and I was giving Kyle the stank eye on everything he pointed out. Except for that giant Z from an old sign. We need that. Last night, we did some mock-up space planning to figure out what size couch and coffee table to get. This is more or less what we’re thinking…just imagine a sectional in a brown felt and a white lacquer coffee table. Oh, and those IKEA ex-cafeteria chairs that we bought in the as-is section for $10 each? Eames, LCW lounge chairs in natural cherry. Someday. IKEA for now.
We also picked up a new piece of art on Saturday. More on that later this week – though I must warn you, the bird theme continues.
So where did the dryer and hood vents come from? Love the upside down outlet – has the “hand of the artist” in it.
About the upside down outlet – when punch listing a project in rural PA, I noticed all the outlets were upside down. The builder’s rep told me that they do all their outlets with the ground up nowadays because it’s safer!
Anna, we ordered ours through a local rep (http://www.air-commodities.com/). If you go to Seiho’s website (http://www.seiho.com) and click on “find a rep” that should take you to a page with local dealers.
yeah, that’s what I meant to do;) safety first, thanks christine. I’m taking it off my punchlist.
I was going to say the same thing Christine. It’s now code in our are to install them upside down…or is it rightside up now… The idea is that if you dropped a metal object on something plugged in that it would hit the ground first.
The house is looking really far along! Is your kitchen functional now? I know it’s not finished but using a real kitchen must be exciting after living out of a microwave.
Robin,
that’s good to know and makes good sense.
I’m so impressed by people who do their own work! I’m simply awed at the butcher block top you guys put together. I want one for my kitchen now because yours looks so great.
When I’m trying to decide what size furniture would look good in a space I use painters tape on the floor. It comes off easy too, but boxes work too!
Thanks Eric! We thought about using tape too, but the couch we were looking at came in three different lengths so having the cardboard be able to overlap to show the different lengths made things a bit easier (plus we have a ton of cardboard laying around these days!).
[…] glue into each slot. (Side note: we used this same process to join two pieces of lyptus for our kitchen island, saving a ton of […]