1.25.2020

Jim worked this morning on getting wood ready for kitchen door pieces!

Getting pieces rough cut and sized...

Jim ordered a cover for the Mini - he's going to be doing some work in the metal shop and wanted to protect the car a bit.  Nice and cozy for the winter!

Speaking of working in the metal shop, Jim's new engine for the snow blower came in yesterday.

 Starting to take things apart...

Things were going okay but then Jim couldn't get the hub off.  It was a good time to quit anyway - we're heading off to church.  We weren't sure the weather would allow because we were under a winter storm advisory, but it's just raining right now.

High 36/Low 29

1.24.2020

It was a fun day today with even more pieces of my kitchen coming together!

This morning, I emptied out our temporary pantry shelves in anticipation of bringing up the next cabinet!

Jim worked on getting the rest of the drawer glides on and everything fit in the cabinet - beautiful!

In the kitchen, he brought up the stove to overlap the countertop.  There is a required 1/2" space to be left between the cabinet and the stove - you can see how perfectly Jim has the countertop sized so that everything is perfect!

We did discover a missing piece to the stove.  Again, you have to leave a space between the stove and the wall and the stove was supposed to have come with a filler kit to fill in that gap.  However, we don't have that piece.  We've had our appliances since before we even thought about framing the living space but Jim is meticulous about keeping parts together and magically knows where everything is - neither of us ever remember seeing this piece.  So I ended up calling Samsung and ordering it - it was way overpriced but we need it so not much other choice!

Jim next put the anchor for the stove that's required to keep it from tipping.  This meant drilling through the bamboo floor - never the easiest job.

All in place...

And moving the stove back into place.  You can see that Jim moved the temporary shelves around and it didn't take me long to get everything arranged again!

Next, we brought up the cabinet!

 Then started fastening it to the wall...

 And bringing up the drawers and getting them installed!

I am SO excited about the way the kitchen keeps getting more and more amazing!  It really looks fabulous!!  Jim brought up another piece of plywood so that I can use have counter space on top of the new cabinet.

Jim also did work on the redoing of the drawer fronts, switching from adding pull hardware to having the finger pulls.  Priming...

Painting for 1 minute and then an hour of clean up!

All done and drying...

In between all this work, Jim was interrupted by my postage meter rep having to come to the house this afternoon.  The security module on the meter needed replaced along with some other maintenance.  That's all done now - it was totally dead this morning so I had to revert to the old fashioned way of hand sealing envelopes and buying stamps to complete a fire school mailing that had to go out today.  I'm quite spoiled but when you are mailing hundreds or thousands of pieces of mail, technology sure makes life easier!

High 39/Low 22

1.23.2020 - First countertop!

Jim got the countertop ready to bring upstairs this morning - wrapped the edges in some foam pipe insulation just for protection...

Then we carried it upstairs and into the kitchen...

 Then moving it into place on top of the cabinets...

Look how gorgeous it is!!

I got it cleaned up and the appliances back on.  It makes the whole kitchen look so finished and beautiful!  Jim didn't use caulk to fasten it down to the cabinets yet - he'll see if he needs it off in order to put the drawers in. Plus, the other corner cabinets will need to be in and then Jim can get the stove in place over both countertops.

Back in the shop, Jim started putting together the drawers on the other cabinet...

Marking locations for the drawer glides...

Putting together the drawer cabinet!

High 33/Low 16

1.22.2020

After more discussions this morning, we decided to go ahead and use finger pulls on the other drawer fronts.  Which meant that Jim had to redo his beautifully finished fronts!  He did the first cutting of the pull...

Then he sanded them with the drum sander...

All done and a coat of primer on them!

Another design element we've been deciding on is hardware for the door fronts.  Jim uses inset doors, which are harder to make because, just like the drawers, everything has to fit totally perfect inside the face frame.  Overlay doors leave lots of room - the door is bigger than the face frame and goes outside of it.  We already had hardware we liked and used in Ohio for the inset doors - however, they also require a catch mechanism inside the cabinet which can sometimes be difficult to find and incorporate into the cabinet.  European hinges are another option but they are harder to find for inset doors.  Plus, just like on our drawers, a soft close is a wonderful feature but even harder to find for inset doors.  However, Jim made some calls and found and ordered a possibility.  He set up a demo so that we could get an idea of how they would work and whether or not we liked them.  So he set up a piece of wood to act as the face frame and one as the door, then installed the hinges.

You can watch the demo here!  We're pretty sold - the soft close feature is just so nice and it makes for a very clean look both inside and out.

Jim did some hand sanding of the edges of the Corian countertop...

Then started doing the beginning finishing work!

All done - and so absolutely gorgeous!!  Now I'm even more anxious to see it upstairs but it will sadly have to wait until tomorrow - so stay tuned!

High 31/Low 10

1.21.2020

Love this holiday - make sure to hug your favorite person today - I know I did!  Today was a good day for hugging to stay warm - it was -5 when I got up!

This morning, Jim got all the clamps off the Corian.

Then he cleaned up the inside edges with a combination of the router and a hand chisel...

All clean!

Time to turn it over...

Using his router and guides, he carefully took just a sliver of Corian off to clean up these edges.  He only goes about halfway down this first pass...

First pass done...

Jim got a new, longer router bit with 3 cutting edges so that he can clean up the remainder.  This has a bearing on top so that it tracks along the first cut edge to insure everything is straight.

He had to turn the Corian over again and he worked from the bottom side...

All the edges are now perfectly straight and clean!

So time to flip it over yet again!  Looking great!

Jim, however, is looking pretty covered in plastic shavings!

Starting to make the first cut of the edge design...

Jim takes multiple passes, cutting deeper each time...

Top edge cut all done!

The side view so far...

Then he had to turn the countertop over again and do the half round from the bottom side.  It's now all formed and looks beautiful!  Jim will have to do a little hand sanding on it tomorrow but I'm starting to picture it in the kitchen!

After all that, Jim had to do some cleaning.  Just one pile...  Plus these shavings go everywhere so Jim had to clean off his tools and work areas.  These shavings really cling too - they aren't like sawdust!

High 22/Low 11