The Kitchen Project

Mark is jealous of me today. (What’s new, right?) I’m working from home this morning because our countertops are being delivered. This will essentially make our kitchen usable. We can finish putting things away and start setting up. The plumber is coming this afternoon to finish the stove, put in the dishwasher, and hook up the sink. We can’t use the sink for 24 hours while we let the adhesive dry/cure, but it’s gonna be one yummy day of pictures, sports fans.

Update: the plumber is here to hook up the stove while waiting for the countertop delivery.

That’s what the timer on our washing machine reads when you set it for a load of cottons. Yikes!

I am accustomed to the 30-minute washes of our old, standard American washing machine. However, I am also accustomed to mammoth quarterly water bills and waiting for the dryer to catch up with the washing machine, load for load, so I can easily live with the change an efficient and small washing machine will bring. I hope we’ll process laundry more frequently, too. Meanwhile, Greg can go shopping for cured meats and dark bread and pretend we’re living in Malmö or Heidelberg and all will be right with the world.

Today we made some significant progress. We got laundry. And water in the fridge, and ice from the ice maker. And a hood. (Mark really likes the hood.) And our pendant light was installed. Picture of the pendant tomorrow. I ran off to Lowe’s to get the few handles I’d forgotten. Counting was never my strong suit; I was three short. I also got some High Efficiency laundry detergent, and we started our first load of laundry. It will take an hour, compared to the 35 minutes we’re used to, but it’ll do the entire thing with a teaspoon of water. Okay, I exaggerate. But it’s a nice efficient front loader. It’s quiet, and it has lots of space-age buttons and adjustments. In the morning, I’ll throw it in the dryer, and we’ll see how that works.

Update: we realized the shipping bolts were not taken off as we though they were when the washer started shaking and walking around. Shipping bolts removed, we probably have to level something, but it’s otherwise pretty good.

Apologies for the title, but I couldn’t resist. This morning, the plumber came and started his work. We thought he’d be coming Thursday, but he came today in the hopes of finishing up on Wednesday afternoon and getting his inspection on Thursday. Today he started with hooking up the water and icemaker in the fridge, and is next going to hook up the radiator and the washer, as well as the stove.

So by tonight, we’ll have ice cubes.

The builders are also installing crown moulding in the hallway outside the kitchen, installing shelving in the pantry closet, and working with the electrician to hook other things up. (Washer/Dryer, please!)

This morning I began dismantling our old fridge in preparation for our next appliance delivery. The plan was to have the guys from Yale carry the old fridge down the stairs, so we could use it for overflow and parties. I took out the shelves, drawers, and started washing the inside of both fridge and freezer to be totally ready. I even took the door off its hinges so I could make the whole job easier.

Then, on a hunch, I thought I’d measure the door and the fridge to make sure we’d fit. Getting it through the first door was going to be no problem. The door to the basement however, was too narrow by an inch! Frustrated, I remeasured both, and while doing so, Phoebe managed to escape into the basement. I ran down after her (in my socks) and lost her in a pile of boxes. (I got her out after a while, with some treats. I always find it funny how they stare at you when you find them like “Oh, were you looking for me? I’ve been here the whole time!”)

I did measure our other door to the basement, which is under the porch. The fridge would fit through that door, but we couldn’t get the fridge under the porch in a way that it would ever fit down there. So I guess the idea of an overflow fridge will have to be put off for another day.

P.S. Thanks to Mark for putting up with an overly frustrated Greg, especially when we realized we didn’t have enough gas to start the car, and I had to get the spare can from under the porch to give me enough to make it to the station around the corner.

On Friday, we painted the trim a subtle white called White Chocolate. The arrival and installation of the cabinets before all of the crown molding had been installed meant that Greg had to do some stretching, craning, and awkward weight balancing on sills and cabinets to reach every corner of the room. I stuck to the windows and door frames. We did two coats one after the other and are happy with the results.

Although the kitchen is far from functional, we are now eating out of the new refrigerator and freezer. It beeps when the door isn’t fully shut and we have learned when it is closed and when it isn’t.

Yesterday, we turned our attention to the hallway. The replastering of the entrance to the kitchen required the hallway to be touched up, and since we lacked the paint we’d used in the rest of the hallway and had never finished the ceiling the last time, we decided to finish the work started years ago while moving in a slightly different direction in color. The ceiling was repainted white over the existing patchy single coat of gray. Greg chose a slightly greener tone for the walls, which he loves and I’m learning to appreciate. I don’t think we’ll need to redo the white trim around the doors, but the crown molding bears the scars of both ceiling and wall paint and needs to be done. We may replace it to match the kitchen depending on the cost.

Sunday was also devoted to working in the backyard. Our garden has been out of sight, out of mind since we handed over the back porch to construction. We’ve kept it under some control with basic weeding and mowing, but the most successful shrubs needed clipping, the tomatoes had yet to be put in the ground, and wildflowers had swarmed our perennials and needed to be pulled out in large clumps. I also removed several years’ worth of dead blackberry canes. The blackberries always ripen the week we’re away at the beach, and the birds get to them before we do; let’s hope this year is different.

The crown moldings and bottom rails on the cabinets have been installed. The baseboard molding and last bits of the wall crown molding have been put up. We need to paint the crown molding soon, which will be a challenge as some stretches are quite inaccessible above and behind the cabinets. All of these are visible in the photo below:

All of the appliances save the dryer have arrived. We’re hoping to see the electrician and plumber next week. The dryer should arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday, at which point they can cart away our old fridge.

The templater for the countertop pulled up to our house just as I was leaving for the busstop this morning. I’m looking forward to hearing from Greg how that went.

Note: The food contained within this refrigerator is intended for human consumption. This sign was placed at nose hight for your convenience.

We bought a set of new appliances for the kitchen. Over several years of renting and ownership we’d gradually replaced the ancient junk that Greg found when he moved in here in 1994, but we did not invest in more than the basic level of what we needed, and won’t miss them.

We gave our rollaway dishwasher to our tenant, who has none. I first encountered one of these beasts when I was 20 and living in Cambridge for the summer with five or six classmates. It made me feel like an adult then. It doesn’t now.

In the process of offering this, we found out his washing machine was on its last legs, so yesterday we crab-walked the rusty, screechy mess out of his half of the basement and moved in our machine, which had been on our porch since demo. Yale Electric will take away one appliance for every one they deliver.

Our electric dryer is still on the porch. Want it? The local appliance shop didn’t, but they bought our stove.

There’s also a small tube tv with a vcr velcro’d to the top on the porch. No hopes that’s going to walk away.

The fridge is in the dining room. If we’d spent $80 more at Sears in 1999, we might not have spent the intervening years threading the damn cheese drawer into its tracks every week. A lesson learned. I won’t miss this, either.

The microwave? After finding out that no one in the kitchen industry takes AmEx, we’re going to buy one with the Amazon points from everything else. For now, it’s our lifeline, along with the toaster.