Glacial Kitchens, LLC

I'm still working on that day-gum kitchen. It's looking like something, sure. Not sure, though, if the something it looks like looks something like a kitchen.

I think it does, though.

A little aside to all of you people out there in computer land who have a deep desire to buy junky pressed wood cabinets for your own kitchen: be prepared to use up a lot of plywood in an attempt to make them strong enough to handle a countertop with the carriage of, say, anything more than formica. We completely blew it when we bought our cabinets, and I will never and can never forgive myself. We'll do better next time, though.

Whatever the exact opposite is of the nick of time.

I love This Old House, the TV series. I also love This Old House, the magazine. We subscribe.

The magazine, as well as the website, are invaluable (which I love to pretend kind of means "not valuable", it's an inside joke I share with myself. Which is probably why I keep it inside) resources, when I'm stuck on a project and I need Norm or Tom Silva or Richard Trethewey to help me out of a jam.

But lately (in the two most recent issues) they've published articles I could have used to help me with that @#*! kitchen crown moulding project, had they been published earlier. Certainly, this isn't the fault of anyone at the magazine. It's just bad luck. Kind of maddening, though.

I'll use the info on our next house. If I remember where I stashed those particular issues, of course.

Looky what I did tonight...

New staircase. In 3 hours or so.

So we have this little staircase that descends into the kitchen from the south. It's kind of weird and was originally some sort of closet, with doors on either end. We plan to make it a coat room, of sorts. A coat...case...maybe?

Now follow along with the photos.


This one.



And this one...are the way way before shots. Day after we moved in. I feel only nausea upon viewing these photos.



Now this is more like it. They look great in this before pic. This was earlier tonight. I'd scraped all of that linoleum off a year ago. More, maybe...? But the look doesn't seem to go with the new floor. Plus, that bottom step was split, and people were slipping on it.



Just after I popped the top. No C.H.U.D.s under there, much to my surprise. I more than half-expected a subhuman baby skull or something. Maybe a cat carcass. But only boring 100 year old cobwebs and a 1974 penny.



This is skipping ahead a bit. As you may be able to see, I buffeted up (and straightened out) that center stringer quite a bit. Lots of shims and screws and nails and bits of plywood and things. Glue.



An almost-after shot.



And...there it is. It took about 3 hours, I think. Maybe 4. I was having so much fun, I lost track of time.

I may have skipped over the part where I miscut the first two stair treads and had to cut little wedges to fill in the gaps on the sides. And the part where I mis-placed the second tread and had to tear it out and glue-up and nail together the part that broke off before re-placing the tread. But beyond that, it was a fairly straightforward and relatively simple job. Comparatively speaking.

Phase two of this project will involve cutting a hole in the bottom riser for the cold air return grate (yet to be purchased), caulking the gaps, priming, puttying the nail holes and painting the treads slate gray. The woodwork and risers will be white. Walls will be a TBD color.

Now it's bed time.

Up next.

So that's done.

I could go into great detail about all the minutiae involved with the new floor that bother me, but I'm too tired. I was up until 3 am last night/this morning finishing things up. A series of tricky cuts around the basement stairs/pantry/other steps area slowed me down.

It's done, though. Now onto cabinets and other things. Hopefully electrical today. Oh yeah, and the oven we bought in the fall of 2007 (!) is coming today, too.

Kitchen floor progress. Day one.

This blog is not unlike a podcast. I do the thing, then post the pictures later. But we'll all pretend it's happening in the now.

So we started this yesterday, working around all the ridiculous things we usually have to work around in our house -- which I won't even bother to go into.

OK, enough talk. Every picture tells a story, don't it...?


Speaking of podcasts, I'm listening to one in the above photo. Or music, maybe.




Ye olde style plumbing, which will need some updating.




1/3 finished.

The floor.

This is my job for the next two days. Or so.