Backsplashing along

Last time, I told you about my sad, drab, pastel slate tiles, which were nothing like the pretty, shiny tiles on the website. Well, we decided to use them anyway, hoping a tile sealer would make a difference in the color. First, we laid out the tiles and washed them with an abrasive natural stone scrub:

That's already better. But something bad happened. The tiles, which are stuck together on a mesh backer, started separating from the mesh! I think the mesh is made out of some kind of water soluble material, and as we scrubbed, tiles were popping off and rolling around. What a nightmare! We used flat cardboard to transport them to some plywood in the garage where we could determine what to do next.

To keep the mesh from drying and sticking to the plywood, we coated it with layers of wax paper. We then used tile spacers to re-space the tiles on the mats properly. Not all of them fell off, but a good many did.

The thing is, you HAVE to wash the tiles in order to seal them, so I don't know how other people do it. Luckily for us, the tiles were dried back onto the mats a few hours later... For the most part. We applied sealer next. The sealer we used was a color-enhancing sealer, which darkens slate and gives it a sort of glossy look. It's not a high gloss, "wet" effect, but it makes it nice and polished. Our research had shown that alcohol-based penetrating sealers were the best for natural stone, and to absolutely not use anything water-based. Our sealer was the only Penetrating/Color-Enhancing Alcohol-based sealer in the store. Perfect.

The left side shows the tile with sealer on it, and the right is without. You can see some bubbles in the sealer on this picture, because I had just applied it with a sponge. I found dabbing and blotting the sealer onto the tile was the most effective way to get it down into the slate, especially on pieces with deep ridges or pits in them. Within five minutes, you use a lint-free cloth (we used painter's rags) to remove the excess sealer.

The next morning, the sealer was totally dry and we went to Home Depot to rent a tile saw. The saw uses water to cool and lubricate the blade, so we were again concerned about those mesh backing mats, and if they'd hold up to the saw. The short answer is sort of- many tiles fell off again.

We applied white thinset mortar to the walls, using a 1/4" trowel to remove the excess. The mats were pressed into the wall, and any missing tiles were placed in by hand and we used tile separators to get the spacing right.

One thing to note about this tile is that the beehives weren't a perfectly consistent size, making the spaces uneven in some places. They're also not consistent in thickness, so in this photo, some gaps look HUGE because the shallow tiles show more mortar. We had to use a lot more thinset than expected, too. I think this is because the thicker tiles were pretty hefty, possibly. Grouting will be a challenge.

We made sure to maintain 1/8 - 1/4" spacing between the lower tiles and the countertop, protecting the counter from the mortar with painter's tape. We were able to cut the tiles for the edges and outlets by making full scale templates of our wall and openings, and laying tiles on top of it or underneath it to get the right cuts.

The tiles were kind of disappointing to work with. Aside from separating from the mats and being non-uniform, the mats weren't 12x12 as stated. They're 12" tall and about 10 1/2" wide, so we were glad we bought more than enough extras. The biggest problem was that some of the slate tile faces sheared off of the tiles. The sealed faces broke off parallel to the backsplash wall, so we had to cut out those tiles and replace them with others before the thinset cured. Slate isn't super robust, and since it's made up of layers, it's understandable that some layers might peel away, but I think Daltile should test those tiles, or find a way to identify the unstable ones. Luckily, we caught it early on and were able to look at

Eight hours later, we had a backsplash:

Now we just need to grout and apply more sealer, add some trim, and we can call this one done!

Holy kitchen!

After weeks- months- of no visible work, a miracle occurred. We went on vacation, and when we came back, our kitchen was painted. All credit goes to my lovely and incredibly talented father, who, along with my mother, came down to Texas to watch our pets and home while we took a break from the city. Remember the kitchen?

While we were gone, Dad wanted to know what we were working on. Unfortunately, the big project we needed to tackle was the kitchen. Since our last post, the oil stains had kept reappearing through the coats of paint. A quick Google brought up a product called BIN primer, which is an alcohol-based primer for all kinds of uses.

A coat of that took away ALL the seeping oil spots. In a kitchen, all of the cabinet fronts are just covered in oil. This was also true for our wood wainscot, especially near the cooktop. On top of all of that, the cabinets had been stained with some kind of gel or oil stain that was incredibly stubborn.

The problem is, the primer smells AWFUL. It must be like 100% VOC or something. It absolutely works, but every time I used it, I'd get lightheaded and sick, so I couldn't get anything done. With Andrew at work all the time, it was up to me to get the painting done, and I couldn't do it. We discussed  hiring a company to come out and paint the cabinets for us, but we really hesitated. The few quotes I'd gotten weren't promising- most people wanted to spray the cabinets, some with the doors on still. Caulking and filling problem areas would cost us a ton of money, and we couldn't be sure of the quality. Not to mention possible overspray on the new cabinets, appliances... I'm still scraping paint overspray off the bathroom tile.

Enter my dad, a man who does things the right way the first time. First, he removed the doors and sanded down the cabinets, filling divots and smoothing the surface. They already looked better:

Then, he primed and painted every surface of the boxes.

We came home to the kitchen looking like it does above. I was speechless. The cabinets I'd almost given up on (by tearing them out and replacing them!) looked beautiful. All we had to do was put up the doors. We picked up the hardware at Ikea for a steal. Here's the finished cabinets:

We removed the doors on the two cabinets above the entryways, creating cubbyholes. One holds my collection of flower vases:

And the other stores the cookbooks and recipes:

I love these cubbies, but may put some fancy paper along the backs of the cubbies to make them bright and interesting. Nothing permanent, of course. And possibly some lighting or something to brighten them up. The biggest problem in our kitchen now is getting a nice equal distribution of light everywhere.

Once we put in the under-cabinet lighting, we should have a much brighter space. But in order to do that, we need a tiled backsplash. I agonized over the right tile for this space. I was initially hoping for a plain subway tile, which just seemed too plain when I visualized it. I wanted something a little old school, and was thrilled when I saw this beehive slate from Daltile:

It's shiny and reflective and neutral enough to work with multiple color schemes in a kitchen, but it's not boring. We happily ordered it. It arrived here two days later, but when I opened the box...

Blah. I got some of the tiles wet, as you can see in the picture, to determine if the shine was going to come out with some kind of sealer or finish... I don't have high hopes. Off to read the installation instructions and call Daltile for verification on the shade... I'll keep you posted!

Counters!

A great thing happened. We got countertops.

With them came a glorious sink, which allows me to do dishes in our kitchen, as opposed to a bathtub.

The counters really match the cabinets well. The granite is dark brown with some lighter brown flecks. We found a local granite supplier that was much cheaper than even the non-stone options at Ikea and Home Depot. Great deal.

Our sink is from Ikea, and is a sink made specifically for a corner. There aren't many options for corner sinks, and although this one is a bit smaller than I might prefer in a perfect world, it certainly beats the tub.

On the far right, you can see a little button in the corner of the sink. It's a fiber optic switch that controls the garbage disposal.

Note the green board on the walls-- we still need to tile the backsplash and finish the under-sill trim on the windows, but we're almost totally done! A few coats of paint will seal the deal.

We've done some work in the garage, but it's most organizational, so nothing fancy to share.

Paint fumes

There aren't many large, visible projects left inside the New Old House. A few light fixtures to change out, a window treatment here or there, but it's mostly getting down to the unseen details.

We've done some attic work, including replacing the evaporator coil in the air conditioning unit, replacing the very old HVAC ductwork in the house, and replacing some awful frayed wires in the attic. New cable lines are next on the attic list, since there is a whopping ONE cable outlet in the house, conveniently located in the guest room.

Meanwhile, the bathroom is entering the final stages of done. The last cabinet in the room was gross inside- a mixture of miscellaneous product stains and a wall color the approximate color of bread mold.

There's great storage in there, and with help from a few cans of paint, it's on the way to much cleaner:

Matching painted woodwork helps, too. The shelves are drying, and that will be that!

Of course, the almost-full paint pan had to be emptied, so why not start on the upper kitchen cabinets? The cabinets, in their dilapidated glory, required quite a few coats. The first coat was pathetic:

But luckily, the second (third, fifty-seventh) coats started looking infinitely better:

The insides are going to be done first, then all the doors will get removed, filled, repaired (oh, the repairs), and the outsides of the boxes will get a few coats. Then, doors back on, new hardware, and they'll be done, too! Thank goodness- the oily can stains on the shelves were pretty gross.

Cabinets... and things

It has been pretty quiet around the old blog lately... Mostly because we haven't made much progress on the cabinets. Well, that's not entirely true... We do have most of our cabinet doors and drawers in:

There are some pieces of the dishwasher to install still, toekicks for the cabinets, and you can even see a few granite samples on the "counter" -- a reality that is unfortunately weeks away. But what's that thing on the left side of the photo? Why, it's our refrigerator!

We made a promise to be moved in by Christmas, so we hired some movers and had them help us move the heavy things into the house. They brought the stove, fridge, washer and dryer, and bed frames over. Suddenly, the somewhat-filled house became a livable place. Only two weeks after we had our first guests sover for an evening. They'd be surprised at the changes!

We've been toting things over for weeks, which meant we only needed movers for the really large things. There's a pile of stuff in the old house still, but we're slowly sorting, donating, and filing everything away. We have a huge list of tasks to work through, but we're knocking them out at a decent pace.

For instance, the laundry room needed some storage space. The area above the machines previously held one modest wire shelf. Home Depot had some Closet Maid kits that were pretty inexpensive (and cheaper than buying the individual parts). They're not pretty, but they work:

I may end up sewing a curtain-type cover for the front of the shelf, just to keep everything visually clean.

Oh, and back in the kitchen, we began the process of trimming the window out again, since all the trim was torn out during the cabinet demolition. To get the trim to sit out beyond a tile backsplash, we had to build up the window area a bit. The first step was to cut poplar boards to fit in the area.

Then, some super thin birch plywood was placed on the inside of the window frame. This covered the edge of the poplar boards, making the window frame look like a solid piece of wood. We cut two poplar sills for the windows, trimming them together at the corner:

The whole window was then caulked and prepared for the trim. The pieces are cut, just not attached yet, due to the chaos of moving. I'm looking forward to crossing that off the list!

So that happened...

Remember how we replaced the sink in the bathroom? And the pipe was recessed into the wall, making it quite difficult to replace fittings?

Well, the sink in the kitchen had the same issues. And unfortunately, the other base cabinets in the kitchen were made the same as the little one we demoed already. So they all had to go:

It was rather frightening to see:

• The total lack of insulation
• The mess of wiring that ran every which way, none of which was properly terminated or code in the slightest. 
• A ton of pipes that were not only NOT code, but running through studs as though they had a personal vendetta against pine
• Scrubby asphalt paper
• A bleached out rat skeleton (not pictured, for the good of your stomachs)
• Actual live plants (vines) growing up into the wall cavity. You can see remnants of them in the trashcan in the picture.

It was truly a Pandora's Box moment, realizing that any improvements to the sink would require the work of the same professional plumbers we were planning to hire for the bathroom. At least the electrician, when he came to update the outlets, would be able to take care of that wiring mess. 

But the cabinets were gone, too, which was an ominous absence that sounded painfully like dollars being ejected out of our bank account at high speeds. Alas, the show had to go on!

The plumber finished the plumbing quickly, at the same time as the bathroom project. The electrician came and updated the kitchen wiring not long afterward. Unfortunately for us, the electrician required a permit... Which we did not have. And since the plumbing had been done as well, we had a few things to -ahem- discuss with the city. A few hours and $90 later, we had permits and inspection dates for the work. At least that went (relatively) smoothly. 

After the subcontractors left, the first order of business was to tackle the wall insulation. Although we could have shoved some fiberglass in there and called it a day, we wanted something solid that was a bit more difficult for vines, cockroaches, and pre-skeletal rats to get through. I grabbed some R-3 foam boards and a truckload of gaps and cracks foam and went to town:

The foam stops at the exterior of the house, for what it's worth. I left the asphalt paper remnants behind it, too, just for good measure. The seal was tight on the foam, and you could definitely tell the difference in airtightness. I mean, at least we couldn't see daylight anymore. 

The next step was to add some of that lovely pink, horrible-awful fiberglass insulation. We got R-13 batts (code requires a total of R-7, I think, so we are way over it now). We trimmed and stuffed the cavities with batts, and started slapping drywall up. 

Like how easy I made that sound? The first piece included two outlet boxes, so beyond trimming the general shape to fit under the window, we had a few holes. Too bad this happened on the first one: 

Uggggggh. We're tiling over that area, though, we were able to move ahead without losing the piece. 

Drywall is a super slow process. It's probably about the most painful job that looks so incredibly easy, but it never is. I've never had luck with drywall of any kind. At least we were able to get it moving, and finish the first piece quickly: 

You can see some of the batts here, including the one for the empty cavity, which is drooping over to the side because it decided to get sassy with me, so I put it in the corner. We struggled with more outlet boxes, the drain and water supply lines, but eventually we won: 

What's that you say? Something here looks off? One of these things is... not like the other? Apparently, Home Depot and Lowe's have some philosophical disagreements when it comes to mildew-resistant drywall. I prefer to consider this a journey to Mardi Gras, myself. At least it's done!

Next are the cabinets. We did a lot of research and ended up at Ikea, where the cabinets are inexpensive but modular in a way that we couldn't beat. If a door gets ruined, I can run over to the store, (which is 5 minutes from the house) and grab a new one. We started assembling the cabinets, and by the end of the night tonight, we had made noticeable progress:

Oh Ikea cabinets, thank you for not being jerks. Of course, the same can't be said for the water supply and drain lines, which made getting that corner cabinet in place a nightmare that even a can of Crisco and a shoehorn couldn't remedy. For those wondering, neither did prayer or cursing- in that order.

We still need to grab the door and drawer fronts, buy a countertop of some sort, and get all the shelving in, but so far, I'm pretty impressed with how sturdy the boxes are. We mismeasured the back wall, though, so our 24" cabinet will be going back to the Swedish motherland in exchange for a 21" box that will allow us to put a dishwasher in there. No dishwasher before- what a nightmare! 

Due to the upper cabinet positions and the placement of the windows, we have to keep the sink in the corner. The previous sink, if you recall, was a standard rectangle, installed at an angle with a custom-built cabinet to hold it:

Using standard cabinets means we need a special sink to fit in the corner. Ikea to the rescue again, with a cute corner sink that will work with any faucet we may buy:

Why, hello sink. One of these days, you will hold my dirty dishes. I hope you're excited. 

One more cabinet to go, then a bit of leveling with the adjustable legs. Sides, toe kicks, doors and drawer fronts in a dark finish, as well as drawer and countertop installation await us first. As soon as all of that is done, we'll be close to moving in! Of course, there's still a ton of work to do in the kitchen, including removing some erroneously-installed mirror film from the windows, demolishing and sacrificing the scallop trim to the kitchen gods, and painting all of the walls, upper cabinet boxes, and fronts... (Or replacing the fronts, perhaps?)

Finding a countertop won't be quick choice, either...

Update

I've updated our project list, which can be found here. As we decide to do more things (or ponder them without actually deciding), I'll update the list.