With the counter top on, and all the cupboards in place (bar one little one), we've put the doors on the cupboards. Just got to fit a few handles and box in the vent pipe going up the wall (almost finished that anyway). Then we've got the decorating to do, and we're done.
On Tuesday last, we took a trip to Halifax to have a meal with friends and go to the cinema. Whilst we were there, we took some time to go to Home Depot, one of the largest hardware stores in the province. They normally order in appliances like dishwashers, but they had a delivery of a number of cheaper dishwashers in. So we picked up a dishwasher. My wife also spotted a shower stall for $100 cheaper than we've seen anywhere else, so we bought that too. It almost didn't all fit in the van. We also got a replacement tap (also known as a faucet over here - how quaint)
Having got the dishwasher home, we discovered two rather odd things about it. Firstly, it doesn't heat the water itself, it uses the hot water from the hot water tank. I only discovered this after I'd pulled the sink apart to put the replacement taps on. It means we've had to do some major reworking of the pipes at the back of the sink to re-route the hot water into place. The second thing we've discovered is that it has to be hard wired into the electrical system. This is a particular annoyance as it means we've had to go another week before we can put the dishwasher in place. *sigh*. It would be nice not to have to do the dishes by hand - especially as I have a dishwasher sat in my kitchen looking at me every time I walk through the door.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Kitting out the kitchen, and starting on the dining room
The cabinets are all in place, and the counter top is on. We had some difficulty getting it in place as the length was a few millimetres too long. We also had the forced air pipe to deal with. I had to cut a slot in the back of the piece, and there was a window frame at the other end of the top. Thing is, we could have avoided a lot of the problems. The company that made the counter top can only make them in 10ft sections, and ours is 14ft long. They offered to join the two sections together, an offer I took, but I wish I hadn't. It made it very difficult to get in place, especially when we found it was just a fraction too long. We've put a bit of a dent in couple of the walls doing it. Shouldn't be too difficult to fix - bit of drywall compound and it'll be invisible. We've also got the power cable for the cooker moved, so we can complete the cabinet installation.
We've also got a lot of the lights put in around the building, replacing all the older fixtures. All the lights were at least 30 years old - some older.
We've started work on the dining room. Not much to do in there except remove the walls, insulate and re-gyprock.
Stripping walls is time consuming, but we've managed to cut that time down by being a little more violent with the wall. When we started, we were quite gentle with the plaster, picking pieces of lathe off one by one with a wrecking bar. We've learnt not to go too close to electrics, but otherwise you can be a lot quicker with piece of 2 by 4. Open up the wall with the wrecking bar, or drill and reciprocating saw/circular saw, then slide the 2 by 4 in and pull back. The plaster peels off the wall in sheets, and the lathe just pops off. Now all we've got to do is work out a quick way to make sure all the nails come out of the studs. Currently we're taking them out, one by one with the wrecking bar or claw hammer. Using this technique though, we managed to strip, insulate, vapour barrier, and started to gyprock a 16ft wall in two days. Considerably faster than the week it took to just strip the walls in the nursery.
We've also got a lot of the lights put in around the building, replacing all the older fixtures. All the lights were at least 30 years old - some older.
The dining room
We've started work on the dining room. Not much to do in there except remove the walls, insulate and re-gyprock.
Stripping walls is time consuming, but we've managed to cut that time down by being a little more violent with the wall. When we started, we were quite gentle with the plaster, picking pieces of lathe off one by one with a wrecking bar. We've learnt not to go too close to electrics, but otherwise you can be a lot quicker with piece of 2 by 4. Open up the wall with the wrecking bar, or drill and reciprocating saw/circular saw, then slide the 2 by 4 in and pull back. The plaster peels off the wall in sheets, and the lathe just pops off. Now all we've got to do is work out a quick way to make sure all the nails come out of the studs. Currently we're taking them out, one by one with the wrecking bar or claw hammer. Using this technique though, we managed to strip, insulate, vapour barrier, and started to gyprock a 16ft wall in two days. Considerably faster than the week it took to just strip the walls in the nursery.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Kitting out the kitchen
In the last week we've hit a couple of very big milestones, which feels great. The major concern the house inspector had was the state of the wiring, so we're spending a small fortune having the house rewired. This included moving over to using a new fuse panel. The old one should only have been handling up to 60 amps, although I'm sure it's been doing more than that. Until now the electricians have been running the power through the old panel and into the new panel. To move to the new panel, the new electrics had to be inspected* before the power company would come in and do the cut over. So the inspector was here for about 15 minutes, before making a call to the power company to get the van over. Once here, the power was down in the house for about 45 minutes before the new cables were up and running. Over all a smooth operation with no hitches. It's been a little frustrating as the power company had to delay this cut over by more than a week - the weather knocked out power for a lot of homes and they had to divert the resources to fixing that before they could come and sort us out.
The other major milestone was moving the water heater in the kitchen. It used to be in the middle of the wall next to the cooker. The kitchen units that we've bought are very low, so I've put in a stud framework to raise them off the floor. The floor itself is not flat nor level, even after sanding it so thoroughly. So this is an opportunity to provide a raised, flat surface to install our new units onto. It is also a convenient place to run the pipes through for the water heater. Whilst we were sanding the floor, we had to take up a couple of the floor boards which took several hours. To route the pipes under the floor would have taken nearly a day just to get under the floorboards.
We've temporarily moved the kitchen into the dining room. We had to keep on moving the cooker, which was scratching the floor. So I cut a hole in the wooden cladding, and fed the cable through.
The pipework was a bit of a challenge. I'm used to using pre-soldered joints, so I had to learn how to solder the hard way. We were only without water for a day. The pipes were only 6 foot long, but the stud work is 14 feet, so there were a couple joints in the middle of the runs. Turns out that one of the joints in the middle, and the two elbows coming out of the floor were 'dry' - not enough solder in the joint - and leaked spreading water all over the floor. We had to drain most of the water out of the system again, cut the pipe, solder in new pipe and some interconnect pieces and fill the system again. Eventually I managed to get all the joints soldered properly.
Finally, all the stud work is done including the cupboard round the new location for the boiler, boiler's working just fine and we're onto the next phase of the kitchen.
* I have to say, I don't have much faith in the inspection process. The inspector has considerably less experience than our electrician and assumes no responsibility if it's not right - it's still on the head of the electrician. What's the point in that?
The other major milestone was moving the water heater in the kitchen. It used to be in the middle of the wall next to the cooker. The kitchen units that we've bought are very low, so I've put in a stud framework to raise them off the floor. The floor itself is not flat nor level, even after sanding it so thoroughly. So this is an opportunity to provide a raised, flat surface to install our new units onto. It is also a convenient place to run the pipes through for the water heater. Whilst we were sanding the floor, we had to take up a couple of the floor boards which took several hours. To route the pipes under the floor would have taken nearly a day just to get under the floorboards.
We've temporarily moved the kitchen into the dining room. We had to keep on moving the cooker, which was scratching the floor. So I cut a hole in the wooden cladding, and fed the cable through.
The pipework was a bit of a challenge. I'm used to using pre-soldered joints, so I had to learn how to solder the hard way. We were only without water for a day. The pipes were only 6 foot long, but the stud work is 14 feet, so there were a couple joints in the middle of the runs. Turns out that one of the joints in the middle, and the two elbows coming out of the floor were 'dry' - not enough solder in the joint - and leaked spreading water all over the floor. We had to drain most of the water out of the system again, cut the pipe, solder in new pipe and some interconnect pieces and fill the system again. Eventually I managed to get all the joints soldered properly.
Finally, all the stud work is done including the cupboard round the new location for the boiler, boiler's working just fine and we're onto the next phase of the kitchen.
* I have to say, I don't have much faith in the inspection process. The inspector has considerably less experience than our electrician and assumes no responsibility if it's not right - it's still on the head of the electrician. What's the point in that?
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