Another brick in the Wall

Well on to the kitchen.  This was a 2 year preparation for this one.
We actually started this project before the bathroom.  So go back to Fall of 2012.
The kitchen was way past it's prime.  It was past it's prime when we bought the house in 2002.  But we were just married and had no money.  Plus we didn't even know how much it was going to be.

In Fall of 2012 we started asking questions we paid for a structural engineer to let us know what we needed to open up the wall between the kitchen and dining room, then calling in contractors to estimate the job.

I called a total of 6 contractors to give me a quote.  Actually 7 if you include my buddy Mike.  He gave me a ball park for how much it would cost and what it would take.  He told me to hire a couple of Mexicans to help with the heavy lifting.

So the quotes ranged from $5K to over $40K (plus taxes).
One contractor I ran into at Loblaws.  He quoted me over $40K, and it was for removing the wall, doing the floor, rough in for kitchen, lighting, new drywall and he said I could cross things out that I didn't want him to do, that I would do myself.  So I knocked off quite a bit my first go.  And got it down to $8K.  Then I learned how to do the permit and drawings myself.  And that would have knocked off another $4K.  After that he never called me back.

One thing I learned was that if someone takes a long time to return your call, then when you have a problem, they will NEVER return your call.  So move on to the next guy.  You are probably better off calling Lowe's or Home Depot or Rona, because they will send a different crew to fix whatever the first crew did.  I know someone that went through this.  One with an individual contractor and one with Rona.  The individual never came back to fix his work, and Rona kept sending people back to get it right.

That was a problem, that never occurred to us.  Contractors not calling us back.  The reason was that they want big jobs.  They wanted to do our entire main floor.  Not jobs that last 3-4 days.  They want a job that will be minimum of 4-8 weeks. Out of the 6 that I called.   The contractor that came with the 1st structural engineer.  He never returned any of my calls.  Not one.
5 returned my call, only 4 came to the house to look at the job and only 3 actually got back to me with a quote.

And the quotes were varying.
1st guy that we really liked, quoted us $10K which included the structural engineer and permits to take down the wall and install supports.
2nd guy, I got him down to $3800 to take down wall and install new supports. But he never called back once I got him down to that price.  I guess he'd be losing money at that point. But what it did was validate how much the job is actually worth.  So the ball park of $5k was right.
3rd guy who was the company that we ended up with quoted $5K to do the job.  I ended up using my own structural engineer and I did permit part myself.

None of the quotes include any plumbing or electrical changes.  These are add ons.
I ended up getting a new panel because the 5 that we had were old and there was no more space to add circuits.  This was an additional $1300.  But it was worth it.  It cleaned up the fuse box.  We can now upgrade our service if we needed to without doing any more work inside the house.  95% of it would be external to the house and inside would be to reconnect the wires to the new panel and remove the old Frankenstein main switch, that I want to keep cuz it's so cool.

The wall removal and install of new header and post only took 3 days to complete.  And they didn't crack our plaster ceiling in the dining room.  I did have to fix the laundry, because they needed to move duct work and plumbing.  In any case  Before I could do anything in the kitchen I had to fix the laundry, but before I could do any of that.  I had to call the building inspector to sign off on the structural.  Actually he doesn't sign off, the structural engineer does that.  The building inspector does other things that I can't quite figure out.  Most of it is plumbing.  They are just checking to see you are not doing anything more than what your permit says you are doing.  Like adding on a new bathroom or addition to the back half of the house.

He only requested that I reconnect the drain back to the vent.  Then once I had everything closed up, to take pics and send to him and I could have my permit closed.  It was actually quite easy.
And getting the permit only took 5 days to get.  Navigating the waters of the City permits department and knowing what, where, when, why and how's is the tough part.

So once initial inspection was done.  I got to work.  2 weeks to put the laundry room back in order.
And then to the kitchen.  Gutting the remainder of the kitchen walls and ceiling, installing new lights in the ceiling and bulkhead, additional circuits for each appliance, for lighting.  Relocating the drain and plumbing, installing new supply lines. Bricking up the old vent hood hole. Framing and insulating.  Ripping up the old flooring for the entire main floor and laying down a new subfloor and prepping it for new flooring.

So we started this project on April 14-2014.
And I started working on the subfloor in mid-October.
Surprisingly we had selected all of our appliances.  It was final. Deposit was made.  I'm not quite sure how it happened so quickly.  But I think by then I was already broken down so resistance was futile.  I needed to get back to work on removing all the old boards and getting the subfloor down for the whole main floor before it got really cold.

By mid-Nov the subfloor was laid down and the first snow of the year was coming down.  It meant that I was done until spring.  That was my goal.  To get the subfloor down and wait till early spring to put down the new floor.

Because we had given our kitchen company an ETA to have the kitchen cabinets in by end of May 2015.  I had sent a list of wants and needs.  So now we wait until the ice thaws.
But I needed to dump all the old boards and drywall and wood and stuff that I no longer needed and return the trailer to my sister.

People often ask me if I work.  How do I find the time to do all this.
The answer is.  Yes I do work.  And I sacrifice all my personal time. ie. hockey, cycling, all the play time so that I can get in time to work on this.  Sometimes it's a few hours, sometimes it's the entire weekend.  But it's a sacrifice.  While others are going out for dinners, going cross boarder shopping or going to the cottage.  I'll be at home with a hammer, saw, drill, torch and my two hands and my reno clothes working on our place.

I don't wish to NOT be doing it.  I just wish there were more
hours in the day or more days in the weekend for me to do it.  So I can do everything else.
I like creating stuff.  And it feels pretty darn good to be proud of something you made with your own two hands.  Anyone can pay someone else to design and build something.  But when you put your stamp on it and it's all your sweat and ideas.  That means so much more.  Plus you have the knowledge that if you need to change it.  You can do it, because you did it.

Money can't buy accomplishments and achievements.
And if you did. You're a cheat and you know it.

July 2015 Update: Kitchen cabinets are being finalized and we are looking at Oct 2015.  That's still 6+ months sooner than we had expected after realizing we didn't have enough money to finish the kitchen at Spring time.  Flooring still to be selected.


Today is Oct 23 2015.  And we've nearly completed the flooring install.  The critical area was to have the kitchen flooring in place so that the cabinets can be installed.  That's done.
The only thing that remains is 1/3rd of the flooring in the hallway.  I basically have to rent the nailer for less than 1 hr, cuz I can only use it for 1 more row.  After that it's too close to the wall and I have to use a brad nailer.  That'll be done by this weekend.

We moved our temporary kitchen into the garage.  Those 2x4's and plywood tops sure made the last year easily survivable when you don't have a kitchen.  I sold our stove in August.  I was surprised to see it go so quickly.  As soon as I posted it, I got a response within 30mins.  And by the end of the day it was on it's way to a new home.  Kijiji is my friend.

The last big item was the fridge.  I moved it into the garage because I didn't want to be working around it, like I was with the stove.  And I didn't want to be moving it around on the new flooring. It's now sitting in the garage in it's new home, ready to take the overflow from our new incoming fridge.  It's now my beer fridge.

We received most of our kitchen cabinets this week, but not all, and not the corner base cabinet that was essential to start the install.  It's now delayed by a week, but we are happy that the kitchen cabinet company has high QC standards to not ship us something that was substandard.

But from what we have seen so far, it looks amazing.

Our Kitchen project

I've been playing with the time lapse capability on my action cam.  So I used it on the flooring install.
Glad it doesn't have sound or there'd be lots of BLEEPS.