Thanksgiving kitchen blitz

After doing the stuff-your-face thing, we took advantage of the super-long weekend to show the kitchen who's boss. (Last Black Friday, we demo-ed the living room ceiling.  What a year it has been!) Dad came over again with a truck full of tools, and when that happens, you can make a lot of progress very quickly.  Here's how we went from this...

They're wearing matching shirts again

to this...


...in 982 easy steps.

After much negotiation (which may or may not have happened on the back of a crossword puzzle at Suds Pub), we settled on a cabinet configuration. I'm a huge fan of symmetry, and the island has to pack maximum functionality for two cooks into minimum space.  Dad cut and assembled the cabinet boxes out of 3/4" birch cabinet-grade plywood.

The island amounted to two 20-inch wide boxes with a cross pieces connecting them in the center to make the larger 30"x24" box opposite the cut-out for the fancy schmancy new range.

Last time Dad came over, he built the boxes for either side of the sink, one for the fancy schmancy new dishwasher and one which will eventually contain drawers.  This time, he worked on wall cabinets for both sides of the window.  Symmetrical, of course!

Gabe and the old man fussed with the boxes until they were perfectly plumb and square and all those other things that cabinets need to be.  At this point, Gabe had already applied a coat of varnish and sanded the pre-cut panels.  We'll give them a second coat later after all the other woodwork is installed. 

Oh, it's plumb alright.

Popeye the carpenter man.

Meanwhile, the rest of us sanded the drywall, ones of the world's largest pains in the you-know-where.  (Neck, shoulders, etc.) We dabbled in wet sanding, which is much less dusty than using traditional sanding blocks, because it's really literally just wiping down the dried joint compound with a special sponge. More on the results of that later.

Champ helped out by stirring the primer...yes, that's red primer.  It's leftover from the last time we painted our kitchen red. (The color was the only thing we didn't hate.) As a wise Home Depot paint person once told us, tinted primer helps you use fewer coats of the (more expensive) real paint when you're doing deep colors.  Deeper colors can take a lot of coats to get the desired effect so hopefully tinting the primer can save us a step or two. 

He's good with sticks.

After hastily applying a coat of primer to the ceiling on Saturday night, I couldn't wait to make those walls red again on Sunday morning. 

Coulda been a surgeon with my mad free-handing skillz

Here are all three of us doing our things. Gabe is electrifying new outlets on the end of the island - sure beats the heck out of this! This Thanksgiving blitz was a pretty good indication of how many people can comfortably work in the kitchen if we're ever able to cook in it again.  

After cutting a hole for a light box, Dad and Gabe jammed in a shelf between the wall cabinets. Turns out there's such a thing as making your measurements too accurate...this one took some planing and grunting to get in place because it was so tight.  I won't mention the new chip in the sink that resulted from this process.

That was a busy three days.  Oh yeah, and we also connected the sink to an actual drain (no more bucket!) and hooked up the dishwasher.  I'll give an update on our sweet new appliances and some more camera angles next time.  The countdown is on 'till Tuesday morning when Tommy the gas man comes and hooks up the stove (there are some things for which even I we will bring in the pros.) For now, it's time to catch up on some sleep.