The Kitchen Project

We’re hoping to get our camera fixed (and/or borrow a friend’s while that’s happening) so today’s construction update will be pictureless. Just like those radio shows of yore.

Billy arrived this morning with two doors and some moulding. The doors will replace the really cheap door leading to the dining room and the door to the basement. With a new door to the basement we’ll no longer have to lock each other down there to keep Phoebe from getting down there. It will be the end of an era, but she’ll still sit in front of it and meow for access. She must have gone down yesterday and come back up on her own volition, since Mark realized he’d left it open for a good while after doing some more priming.

We talked through the week’s construction plans: crown moulding, new windows arriving, moulding around those, and most importantly, the floor. Billy was off to pick the flooring up after unloading his truck. That will be a really big change for us, and mean that we can clean up the basement. We’ve had a near constant rain of dust between the cracks in the subflooring, so we can get down there and sweep up. After the floor goes in, they’ll sand it, and then finish it. That should be the last of the big dust plumes, since installing the cabinets won’t be nearly as messy.

It’s going to hit the 90s today and I have closed all of the windows and shades. This is the one bright side of Somerville law requiring all windows facing on construction dumpsters to be boarded up with plywood in case of fire. Our front rooms are half cave and it’s keeping yesterday’s cold air in.

I’m up and down stairs doing laundry all morning while Greg enjoys his college reunion in the Berkshires.

Update: Greg, I just remembered. I’ll water the plants.

My cold got the better of me today. Finding the nap room at work occupied at noon and my afternoon schedule free of meetings, I took half a sick day and headed for home at 1:30.

The electrician was still at work, and I told him not to mind me. As of the close of business, he had installed several cans in the ceiling and plenty of outlets along the walls.

While I’m glad for that, today’s high point has nothing to do with the electricity. Our new door to the back porch has been installed. The previous door was a thick, cranky metal contraption with a small window obscured with heavy-duty chicken wire. It didn’t do a great job of connecting the porch to the house. That makes sense, because when it was installed, the house’s back porch was a plywood lean-to with ripped plastic for windows. There was also a second door dividing the kitchen and the back hallway and so this door truly served as the back door to the house. Since a 2001-2002 teardown-and-rebuild the porch has been a real room with its own entrance and its integration into the house is long overdue.

So, one door removed, one heavy door replaced with a paneled glass door, an interior wall taken down, and unnecessary trim from around the hallway entrance to the kitchen removed, and the upshot is that from my foyer I can see straight through the house and the backporch to the japanese snowbell tree in the backyard. Unbelievable. Our central hallway previously felt like a dark cul-de-sac and our kitchen and backporch were disconnected from the flow of the house. Now our house has a central axis.

I was concerned, when we eliminated one window and shrunk the other two, we’d lose too much light. So far my fears have proven unjustified. Not only are we getting plenty of light from the smaller windows, but the back porch is now letting in light, as well. Also, poking through the photos of the old kitchen, I remembered that we usually kept the shades at least half-closed in the kitchen anyway for privacy and because that provided more than enough light.

This is only Day 2 of construction.

Today was day two of demo. So much was accomplished yesterday, but when the guys left, there was still a ceiling to come down and some of the wall board in the back hall. Yesterday was held up by the dumpster that arrived a little late and had trouble getting into the driveway because of a car parked across the street. (Grr!)

Mark and I peeked in through the plastic today and he said “Wow! They did the windows!” I noticed quickly that the floor was up. We now just have the wide planks that run perpendicular to the joists, with light from the basement shining up through. There are some big holes where pipes used to run, and some smaller ones from knots. The space was pretty clean, but still very dusty. The ceiling is very high up there (about 9 feet) and very open.

The windows have been adjusted as well: The two we’re keeping have been raised to start about 44″ from the ground. The one we’re removing has been framed and is gone. With very little light in the room, it’s pretty dark. Especially since all the walls are dark wood studs.

Phoebe explored the space and poked around for a while. She had trouble figuring out how to get back out, and meowed at the plastic sheeting some. Her face got very dirty, so I washed it. She wasn’t too pleased about that. We have a nice layer of dust over everything.

Tomorrow: electricity.