03-23-06

03-23-06_0822.jpg, originally uploaded by Jrome.

We started off with an idea...

Trash Island 80% Completed

The wood frame sits on a rabbet I cut in the drawer box. I can change the frame over the years as our needs change. I'm sure we'll have a different trash can in 20 years... and when we bought this round one, we said it would be temporary. 20 years is rather temporary?

Kitchen Media Center

When we first sketched up the plans for the kitchen, I imagined a place where we could work on the computer...you know: look up recipes while cooking, google something, look up horse breeds on wikipedia, that sort of thing. I had actually budgeted a Mac Mini and a flat panel monitor... but we ended up just bringing down our G4 iMac when my wife got her MacBook.

This cabinet has had various window treatments. It was to have an associated wall cabinet, where the monitor was going to be placed; electrical run just where we needed it and all the cables were to run in the wall....well, none of that happened. I built the cabinet. Plopped it in place and we've lived with it. The concrete countertop is not yet siliconed in place, since I need to finish the cabinet and attach the panel next to fridge. It weighs a ton and hasn't budged.

I still need to finish the kick space (secret compartments housing our external hard drives and pirate booty) and velvit oil the door and trim. The door needs a handle and some bumpers. Yada yada yada. But I think it looks good. Cleaner. Neater.

Kitchen Work part 58.3

Ever since we saw Mark and Sharron's awesome doorstops, we've wanted one super swank one for the kitchen. The way the bathroom door opens up, its doorknob can slam into the concrete countertop...not that it would hurt it, it's just a horrible sound.

Months passed and I forgot what Mark's doorstop looked like. Fast forward (rewind?) to three or four days ago, I'm buying hardware to finish off some projects and I notice the catalog I'm perusing has doorstops. One looks not too shabby. Here it is installed.



Here are some of the doors and hardware I installed as well...



Not all of the Amerock bar pulls arrived. These two slim cabinets (hold baking sheets and two drawers full of utensils, hot pads, mitts, and a timer) will be adorned come a week or two. I still need to Velvit Oil some of the trim. I'll get to that in 20 years. I like how they look like J and L and two squat Hs.



Here's a picture of the cabinet in the corner, which I lovingly refer to as the "kittycabinet." Maddy demos the sweet barpull action.



The cabinet our cat's food and birdseed for the feeder outside the kitchen window. Nicole recycled two large containers and I built the cabinet just for them. They're pretty standard plastic containers. We've got a million of them in and around our basement where the cat does her bidness. Those are Blum hinges, easy to install and the mounting plates are interchangeable with various varieties of hinges I'm using around the house. (Well, so far they're interchangeable...)

Trash Island

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Does that work for islands?







The drawer will get a full overlay door front to match the rest of the kitchen. The butcher block still needs to get siliconed in place. It's heavy enough to not slid around at the moment, but every once in a while someone bumps it and it moves an inch and scares us.

It was a busy weekend, but this little project took me only a couple of hours. Most of that time I spent staring at the drawer parts I'd cut to size, trying to visualize. The can is temporary, so the second interior frame cradling the lip will be relaced with a full sheet of waterproof something.

The hardware: Accuride full extension self closing. Good for, oh, 100 pounds or so. That's a lot of treasure.

Starting new projects, and going from 0 to 1

When Nicole and I began tearing up our kitchen, it was something we both had wanted to do for many years. Years spent renting apartments, flats, bungalows, basement units, and condos. You can't rip it out until you own. Once we owned, we tore out what we wanted. We lived with the scars for a while as we figured out what to do next.

That creative spirit was inspired. We could have lived with the old kitchen for years. But when the fridge quit at the same time Sears was having a sale, it took two minutes online to figure out that the time had come. Throw down $2500 at Sears, then spend nearly ten times that building something we'd never built before.

Fast forward to now. I have so many ideas now, I don't know where to begin again. I think I need another fridge event to trigger. Or I just need to do something. Pick up the wood and turn on the saw. Strap on the googles and gloves and the goggles and get to it.

But Ze Frank said it best yesterday, on my little girl's birthday, so I'll just let you hear it from him. Then get out there and do it.

Ikea hardware...in action videos!

Ikea Grip Hardware

I took a spare moment this evening to mount some hardware we picked up at Ikea over the weekend. I've always liked the simplicity of these pulls. They work and give a nice clean look.






These doors on the sink cabinet will get long handles for dishtowels. We have a long bar on the dishwasher, but it's a tall tub, so the dishtowels end up wiping the floor when you open the door. I suppose I could clean the floor more often...



BTW The blue espresso cup is a commemorative cup from the 2004 summer Olympics that my sister picked up. I love Athens. I spent a summer studying there, and it was one of the best experiences I've had.

1500 watts of power

Last Friday we had our electrician come by to check on our dimmer switch, which was running hot to the touch. Well, seems there was a misunderstanding about how many Tweak heads - ten (pumping out 75 watt PAR 30 floods) - we were running on the TechLighting rails.

We didn't have all the right parts when he first ran juice to the box, but thankfully we didn't blow anything until his return visit. To manage the power, he installed what I like to call the MacIntosh Dimmer. It's vented. It's not entirely black, I hope it didn't cost a small fortune, and it wasn't built in Binghamton, NY.

Oh, and he told us to just vent the hood out the side of the house and avoid messing with the old knob and tube..."it'll be fine, just don't mess with it." So the venting, yeah, that'll have to wait until spring.

Lights, Camera, a bit of hot action

We installed the last of the kitchen lights. Tweak heads, with PAR30 75watt wide floods. Dimmer of course. TechLighting line voltage. White. Bright.



Aerial view from high command.

Some After Pictures of our Concrete Countertops

The seam is logically located at a break, from cabinet to open undercounter storage. The open storage allows us to sit on stools and look out the window. We eat more meals in the kitchen sitting on stools than we do in the dinning room.

It doesn't auto-retract, but it's easy to use. Our water pressure is strong, so when you open the faucet all the way up, you get a super powerful jet. The hose extends long enough to reach the corners of the sink.





This secretary style cabinet will get a full door closing off the base. And that drawer front will get the finished piece installed. The one that's on there was just temporary. Funny how it's been like that for 6 months.



There's still lots to do. The center island/trash home is on deck, as are all the cabinet doors. We actually installed all the lights overhead, so I'll post more pictures of that soon. (It's now extremely bright throughout this room!)