Bit by Bit

I can finally say I'm done.  Done with the kitchen.  There's nothing more for me to do.  It's not 100% but there's nothing left for me to do. The remaining stuff is waiting on the kitchen specific folks.

A week and a half ago on the 19th the counters went in, and with it sink.  They glue the sink in.  And it's strong stuff, cuz the sink is heavy 16ga steel.  Then last weekend I did the plumbing for the sink. So that we didn't have to wash dishes in the laundry tub anymore.  After 6 weeks, I think it was time to move that operation back upstairs.

Then the following Monday, the appliances came.  Well just the stove, the hood and the fridge.  Wow was it tight.  But it all came in.  I was glad that 1) we laid down a ton of cardboard everywhere, and 2) I told them to put the stove and fridge close to the openings where they were supposed to go, cuz they were HEAVY!

First thing I did was hook up the fridge.  I was tired of going to the garage for food.  Plus the freezer wasn't working any more.  The fridge seemed okay.  But the freezer was definitely not freezing.
I was lucky that the plug was long enough to get to the outlet in the middle of the opening.  When I had finished putting in all the services and outlets, I was basically guessing.  Because we hadn't selected anything.  Cabinets, appliances, design. But I needed to get it done for the permit.  Also, hooking up the ice maker to the water supply was actually pretty easy, but I needed to an icemaker hook up kit.  You can get these at Home Depot, but you can't kink the hose.  So I got an elbow to ensure that didn't happen.

I couldn't hook up the stove, since we didn't have the gas line installed. In hindsight.  That was a good thing.  Because no one likes to do re-work.  It's just more work!  To undo what you did then re-do it. So all I could do was install the anti-tip bracket and lower the plug so that it fit under the stove. It was two less things to do when the gas line was going in.  That way all we had to do was connect the stove and push it in.

So this past weekend was busy.  Billy came over to re-route our gas line.  Didn't expect him till this week some time.  But Saturday he came by.  So Saturday the stove and the hood went in.  Pretty smoothly.

The ducting on the hood was a bit of a custom job.  Mostly because the hood requires an 8" duct.  Like my head can go through this duct with room to spare.  It's huge!  It took some patience cutting and bending the sheet metal to connect the hood to the elbow and to the outside vent.  But it went fairly easily.  Installation of the hood overall was pretty simple.  Came with everything I needed. Vent, duct cover, hood w/motor the only thing I needed to get separately was the 8" duct and elbow.  But I had gotten that the week before.  Can't get that at Home Depot.  They only carry 6" dia stuff max.

We can now pack up the 2 burner hot plate that has been our stove for the past 17 months and use the stove Tresa's always wanted, the one with the RED knobs.

Today I installed the dishwasher.  This is my first ever dishwasher, that I have ever had in my life.   As far as mid life crisis go, I thought it'd be a sports car, but I got a dishwasher.  Pretty exciting!

Tresa actually didn't want a dishwasher when we discussed the remodel.  She'd rather have cupboard space.  But when we have people over, I don't want to be washing dishes at the end.  I'd rather go to bed.  So we got one.  And it's German.  Just like the faucet.

All that's left is to install the 2 outstanding cupboard doors and the panels on the fridge.  That's happening on Dec 7th and 8th.  After that I can remove our wall to wall cardboard and we can see how flooring looks with the kitchen.

I can't wait.  It looks really nice right now, so I can only imagine when everything is all tidied up and uncovered.

Bit by bit we're getting our lives back.
Bit by bit.

Seeing RED

 It was quite a while since Kieran got graded for his next belt.  I was kind of worried for his morale if he felt like he was falling behind on seeing other kids who had received their orange belts after him.

But they have a rule at his club.  You cannot ask to learn a new kata or ask when you'll be ready to get graded for your next belt.  The sensei will inform you when you are ready.

When I found out he was up for grading Oct 24.  I was so happy for him.  He told me that when Sensei asked who was ready for grading.  He did not raise his hand, but Sensei told Kieran he was ready.

No one had offered to teach him the kata's he needed in order to get his red belt.  So what he did was watch others do the required katas and basically teach himself.  This was a good life lesson for Kieran.  That life is not handed to you, but you need to seize it.

He was very close to ending his karate lessons.  But I'm glad he persevered and found a way to break through.  I told him that it makes no difference the colour of the belt.  If you are good.  Then you don't need a belt of colour or a certificate to validate that because inside you will know.  And that's all that matters.

Indian spice and 10 year olds don't always mix

Fossil Kieran

Well they mix.  But don't always mix very well.  I think Kieran is just not used to spicy foods.  Especially when his diet has lots of bread and mac n'cheese in it.  Mix in some East Indian spicy samosas for dinner and well if it can affect my digestive tract, it'll do something nasty to his green innards.

After Boulderz we went with our neighbours to Buhkarra Grill.  It's an East Indian restaurant in the Bloor West.  We like it.  It's a sit down place, not a buffet.

I suppose the birthday stuff and the Indian food, well mixed.  It's like East meets West.  It woke Kieran up in the middle of the night.  We should have just told him to sit in the tub or on the toilet, or just stay put with a big bowl.  But key was to stay put, which he didn't.  Up and down the stairs.  Looking for comfort.

The end result was a large splotch on our relatively new marble floor in our bathroom.

Splotch On

Tresa and I cleaned it up, and it looked ok, but then we noticed after it dried that you could clearly see the vomit impact outline.  There was even this outline of Kieran's foot beside the toilet.

The marble was clearly etched.
Marble is porous.  And what happens when anything acidic comes in contact with it, is the acid makes it's way into the pores and reacts to the calcium in the marble and the result are etch marks.  It basically looks dull.  But you can see the outline of where the acid was.

Splotch OFF!

I was initially upset because I thought the floor was ruined.  And Tresa had mentioned a marble sealer, which would have helped prevent this.  But to what extent? I don't know.  Maybe, maybe not. I was glad he didn't do it on the new flooring on the main floor that I just finished installing.  That would have upset me more.  All that work to be undone in one fell puke.

But after sleeping on it, I thought about it.  Marble is a soft natural stone.  There must be a way to buff it out.  And sure enough I found many articles that show how to restore marble to it's original polished look.  There's a video from some place in Italy demonstrating the restoration of marble etched with muriatic acid.  The last stage is a powder polishing compound.   I had found my solution.
Now finding that solution somewhere in retail was the challenge.

I even asked a marble fabricator and he said that I should have sealed it.  Thanks Captain Obvious.  The other thing he mentioned was that I needed to have it professionally restored.  Sanded, then polished.
I was thinking c'mon.  It's not that bad.
In any case.  Home Depot, well they have nothing that would suit my needs, and the flooring guys I spoke told me that.  BUT, they did put me in touch with a place that supplies all the stone mason, tiler guys.  And guess what.  They had this marble polishing powder product from Tenax, it's about $30 for a 1kg tub.  It's a fine yellowish powder that looks like super fine silica sand.
You can see the faint outline of the splotch in the first photo.  Then I used the powder to polish out a few tiles and you can clearly see that the etch is gone!

Shiny again!

So I went to work on the rest of floor.  Leaving only the outline of Kieran's foot print.  Because I thought it was so neat.   It may eventually fade as the marble loses it's shine from use. But he'll only be 10 once and now that instance in time is forever etched in marble.

This just goes to show that you should not let someone tell you that you that you can't do it yourself.
You can.  There's always a way.  You just have to do some research, find all the options and pick the one that best suits your situation.