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.