Wednesday, April 6, 2016
More kitchen misadventures
This week we made some progress .
Tore four layers of drywall off the wall between the kitchen and the living room .
Pulled up the old Berber carpet in the living room and found beautiful Douglas Fir flooring that will clean up nicely with a minor sanding .
Last week I bought a 8" x 6" x 12 foot pine timber .
Went at it with the planer to clean it up .
Hit it with the belt sander with 60 grit .
And 120 grit to clean it up a bit .
Today I put up a temporary wall in the living room . . .
. . . to hold the upstairs floor in place while I took down the old wall
Lugged the beam in to the kitchen a little at a time . Yes all by my self . Note the rabbet I cut in the beam to fit the top plate of the old wall and the mortise on the end to fit around the wall by the fridge .
Working very slowly , one step at the time , I shifted it in closer to its final destination .
Got one end on the small ladder first and then the other on top of the fridge .
Got the fridge end up and in place with a punch under it , and started jacking the other end with my high lift jack .
. . . and up in place .
Makes for a nice big open space .
I am pleased with the results .
Just as I had planned .
The big let down was when I was jacking the end by the fridge in to final position the jack slipped and gouged the fridge door . Really put a damper on the feeling of success . I will need to figure out how to repair that one . For now we will hide it with a magnet .
Misadventures? It looks beautiful, and all done by yourself alone, fantastic! About the dent in the fridge, the magnet is a good idea - as they say here 'provisorio para siempre' hehehe...
ReplyDeleteYes, Misadventures, cause I was really pissed off at myself for letting that happen. I realized the potential about a quarter second before it actually happened.
DeleteGood job. Can you get a new cover for the door?
ReplyDeleteYes, I am looking in to that. I need to see if I can take this door apart and then perhaps gently tap the dent out and sand it to match the rest of the door. Failing that I'll look in to obtaining a new door cover or a new door.
DeleteI wonder how many square feet of beautiful hardwood flooring is covered by linoleum and carpet in the entire state of Maine? Grandma's farm up in Aroostook has lino throughout - all covering beautiful hardwood!
ReplyDeleteYes Linoleum was the thing back then. It was easier to just do the glue down 12 x 12 squares of lino than have to re-sand and re-poly the wood. I am actually glad they put carpeting over our Fir flooring. Since it has been covered almost since new the wood is in excellent shape and just needs a light sanding to make it look new again. I noticed evidence of at least three different carpets installations over the years. Previous to that the shadow on the wood betrays someone had a large area rug that covered all but a 12 inch perimeter. Other than in main traffic area of the doorway it is almost brand new, So I'll have no problem making it look new again with little work. Nobody does Fir flooring these days, its just too expensive. It would probably work out to about 8 or 10$ a square foot just to buy and install plus the cost of sanding and finishing.
DeleteLooks great - at least the slip didn't happen in a customers house or I don;t think you'd eb hiding it with a fridge magnet.
ReplyDeleteLast week I knocked my glue over on a customers carpet - luckily they're changing it next week or I could have been in trouble!
That's a good point Kev. Been there, done that. I suppose it is inevitable and at some point it will happen to all of us in the trade. Not sure how easy it is going to be to repair it as the stainless is formed around the plastic inner part of the door. For now I've covered the dent with a magnetic business card from a emergency clinic with a big red and white cross emblem on it.
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