The new base cabinet extension

I was very happy with the look and build of the base cabinets from Young Furniture. The installation of the cabinets was another thing that I didn't want to attempt myself. I wanted to make sure that they were installed correctly (level, plumb, nice cuts, etc.) so I wouldn't have any problem later on with the countertop installation. It took about 5 hours to get them installed, and I was very happy with the installation (props to Donald Kinder). Below are some pics of the installed cabinets. Notice I had already started installing the backerboard for the tile floor when these pics were taken.

Drywall

The old wall was made of plaster about 7/8" thick. I bought the 5/8" Fire-Shield board to replace it. The problem in putting up thinner drywall is that I had to level off the area where the new drywall met the old plaster (kitchen/dining room connection). In hindsight, I should have used small strips of wood to build up the wall beams to make up the missing 1/4". Instead, I needed to apply 5 layers of joint compound to slowly level off the drop. This was a high visible area of the room, so I wanted to make sure it looked seamless. I was happy with the results in the end.

Insulation

The old insulation was not that good. It was blown in insulation which appeared to be made up of newspaper and fiber. When I took down the old walls, this insulation would just crumble to the ground. It was a major pain to deal with...very messy. When I decided on my new insulation, my first thought was to the Pink Panther - Owens Corning, but after a bit of research I decided to go with Johns Manville ComfortTherm Insulation. It is wrapped in plastic for more comfortable installation with less itch and dust...I was willing to spend a couple extra bucks for a cleaner installation. It was very easy to cut with a utility blade and stapled to the beams nice and tight. I chose R-19 which is the recommended R value for external walls in the Northeast. Here are some pics of the insulation going up.

Electricity - Part 1

Most of the electric outlets were going to remain in the same location, but I did want to add a few outlets for the new base cabinets, one for the range (120V for the light and ignition of the gas), and I wanted to remove a 240v that was originally being used for a built in air conditioner. I also needed to add a new circuit that would be dedicated to the radiant heat and run that from the main circuit box in the basement to the thermostat that I would be installing in the kitchen. This was a job that I would prefer to get a professional in to do. Luckily, a good friend of mine is an electrician, and he was nice enough to help. He ran new wire for the additional outlets and created a new circuit for the radiant floor. I'll post some better pics soon, but this is the only one I have right now (2 new work boxes for additional outlets).

Installing a new exhaust fan

The existing exhaust fan, while quite retro, needed to go. We had decided to go with a range hood and therefore I needed to remove this old fan and create a new spot for the hood exhaust. To do this I needed to 1.) Remove the existing fan, 2.) plug up the existing hole in the exterior wall, 3.) cut a new hole in the exterior wall to fit the hood exhaust.

Removing the existing fan

This was a much easier task than I anticipated. Two screws was all that was holding the onto the wall. Once the fan was was removed I was left with the existing duct work, which proved a bit more difficult to get rid of. The duct work ran up behind the wall cabinets and out of the house. To remove it I had to work from the outside in. I first took off the vinyl siding on the exterior of the house where the exhaust was located. I then needed to remove some shingles so I could get to the nails holding the exhaust to the house (to my surprise I noticed that my house was once painted pink). Once I removed the exhaust from the exterior, the interior duct work came right off. Not so bad.

Plugging up the existing hole

To plug up the hole left from the exhaust that I just removed, I needed 1.) a piece of wood the size of the hole (3" x 10"), 2.) a piece of rigid foam insulation to cover the plugged hole. 3.) A new piece of vinyl siding to cover the bare spot. The only real difficult thing here was finding a piece of vinyl siding to match my existing siding. I was able to find a really close match at Home Depot. Because it wasn't an exact match, and this was a very visible part of the house, I decided to remove a piece of siding off of the back side of the house to use here, and I replaced the back side with the new siding from Home Depot.

Cutting a new hole for the range hood exhaust

This was a bit daunting at first...it was wierd to be cutting a hole from the inside of my house to the outside. A sawzall makes this job quite easy. Milwaukee makes an excellent sawzall and is well worth the price. To start, I measured the dimensions of the hole and drew the cutout on bare wall board. To start the cut I drilled 4 holes in the four corners of the cutout so my sawzall blade could fit into the cutout (this allowed me to start the cut). It was then a peice of cake to cut out the hole for the exhaust. I then installed the vent and was done (not the best pic of the new vent, but it is looking at the exhaust from the inside of the kitchen).

Sanding the existing cabinets

To take on the job of sanding the existing cabinets to remove any existing paint and stain and prepare the surface for a new stain, I purchased an orbit palm sander. I decided to go with the Milwaukee 5 In. Orbit Sander. With a price tag of only $69, and 5 star reviews, I felt comfortable with this purchase. I used 120 grit sand paper for my first sand over the cabinets and doors. I chose 120 because it was rough enough to rempove some pesky paint and stain that I didn't get off with the paint stripper. The sander did an amazing job. My advice when sanding cabinets and doors are: 1) when sanding the top and side edges of the doors and cabinets, make sure you don't sand one spot more than another or you'll end up with a lopsided edge. Try to keep the sander level and sand each section evenly. 2) Check to see if your doors or cabinets have a wood veneer (a thin slice of wood glued onto the core panels). If you do have a veneer, be careful not to sand too much and sand right through the veneer. 3) Put up plastic if you are sanding indoors. I would also suggest putting some fans in the windows facing out to help exhaust any sand dust (and there will be plenty of it). 4) A round orbit sander does a great job, but it can't get into corners. I recommend picking up a Dremmel MultiMax tool. This is a great tool for many do-it-yourself projects, not just sanding.

Once the sanding was complete, the kitchen started looking like I was making some progress. It's exciting to have the cabinets down to the raw wood. I finished the sanding by using 220 grit to help smooth everything out and prepare it for the stain.

Deciding to add a pot filler faucet

With the walls down to the studs, you have the ability to add things and change things around that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to with drywall installed. One thing that I wanted to add was a pot filling faucet above the stove. I came to this decision after checking out the piping in my basement. I noticed a cold water pipe that was feeding an outside faucet. I figured that I could just Tee off of that pipe and run an additional cold water pipe for the pot filling faucet. To do this I would need to cut the pipe and run an additional line up to the kitchen. I will be posting a step by step instruction after I do the actual installation. This post is more to show how I came to the decision by seeing my options after looking at the piping in the basement. I realized that I could do this fairly easy. When working on a project like this, look at what you have around you (pipes, electricity, etc.) and then make your "add-on" decisions based on that. This will give you some nice additions to your project without having to break your budget.

PIPE IN MY BASEMENT RUNNING OUT TO OUTSIDE FAUCET

KITCHEN WHERE THE PIPE WILL BE RUNNING UP FOR THE FAUCET

Kitchen Rebuild (part 1) - choosing the flooring

Radiant Heat

With the heater in the kitchen being removed to make room for the additional cabinets, we decided to install radiant heat under the floor. I chose electric radiant heat as opposed to hot water radiant heat for a couple of reasons: 1.) Installing the electric mats is much easier than attempting to install hot water plumbing, 2.) Electric radiant heat is perfect for smaller areas, whereas hot water radiant is more for new construction and entire house or large area projects. 3.) The electric radiant heat had a much smaller initial cost than hot water.

After extensive research on the internet I decided to go with a company called ThermoSoft. They had the best combination of price, features, and possitive reviews. I ordered 90 sq. ft. of their ThermoTile 120V Mat ($479.41), a programmable thermostat ($128), and an install kit ($55.95). The electric mats have zero EMFs, which means they won't interfere with any wireless devices or plasma TVs. The programmable thermostat allows you to setup your tempurature and times (6 days, 4 settings/day; 2 settings 7th day), which was a nice feature because we really only need to have the heat on for breakfast, dinner and other times on weekends. This would help save us money on electricity.



Floor covering

The old kitchen had a very dark brown floor, which seemed to make the room smaller than it actually was. I wanted to go with a lighter/brighter color for the floor, but I also wanted to go with a natural stone type material. Another thing that I had to keep in mind when choosing a floor cover was to get something that worked well with radiant heat. And of course, I wanted to choose something that looked good! After looking at slate, granite, ceramic, porcelin, etc. I came across a material that really caught my eye - terra-cotta clay floor tiles. Not only was the color very warm and welcoming, terra-cotta works excellent with radiant heat. My wife is the cook in the family (I miss her food now that she can't cook in our demolished kitchen), and I liked the idea that the terra cotta blended into her hispanic heritage. She cooks a lot of spanish inspired dishes and the terra-cotta seemed like a perfect base to our new kitchen. After looking at many different companies, I chose a company called Pave Tile & Stone, and decided on the 9in. x 9in. St. Tropez Hand Made Terra Cotta Tile. The surface that I need to cover is 120 sq. ft., so I ordered 135 tiles (I added 10% on to what I needed just in case I broke or cut some wrong). The cost came to $1700.00. Check out some pictures of what the tile looks like (this is finished with the Cacao Wax which gives it a nice dark finish).

Kitchen Rebuild (part 1) - choosing base cabinets

Now that the demolition and gutting of the kitchen is complete, I needed to decide on what should be done first. I decided that I needed to begin shopping for cabinet makers for my base cabinet extension. There were a few things that I needed to keep in mind when choosing cabinets. (1) I needed something that was unfinished so I could use the same stain that I would be using for my existing cabinets that I was refinishing. (2) I needed a flat (slab) door for the cabinets and drawers. (3) I needed maple wood to match my existing cabinets. I started my search on the internet where I found a company called Young Furniture in New Hampshire. After giving them a call, I was informed that I could purchase their custom cabinets at my local Home Depot. They had exactly what I was looking for - maple wood, unfinished, with a flat faced door. Buying cabinets unfinished will save you money if you don't mind staining them yourself.

So I headed over to Home Depot to get an idea of how much this would cost and what steps I would need to take next. I made sure I brought my kitchen dimensions with me. A nice lady at Home Depot put my dimensions into an AutoCAD program and then walked me through picking out cabinet sizes and styles. She printed out the final version, and made an appointment for a contractor to come out and verify the design and measurements. She noted that the cabinets would take 3 weeks to be made and quoted me a price of $2,600 not including installation.

AutoCAD version of cabinets

DIMENSIONS

Removing an existing hot water convector (heater)

I had decided to extend the base cabinets and countertop on the right hand side of the stove for the new kitchen. To do this, I would need to remove an existing heater that was built into the wall. To an amateur like myself, this looked a bit daunting. There were two pipes running up from the basement feeding each side of the heater. My initial thought was that I could probably just remove the convector and join the two pipes. I'm glad I did some research before doing this.

I went down into the basement to see where these two pipes were coming from. To my surprise, the pipe feeding the right side of the heater was coming off of one main line, while the pipe feeding the left side of the heater was coming off of a completely different line. This made me double think my decision to connect the two pipes after removing the heater. I decided to search for a plumbing message board on the internet. I found a fantastic forum at plbg.com. I posted my question and I received an answer within 5 minutes! You can view my post here. I not only learned that what I had previously thought was a radiator was actually called a "convector", I was also informed that "If the two pipes are feeding from separate mains, then you can simply cap them off." So, that's what I did. I purchased a mini tube cutter ($10.26) to cut the pipes, and then used 2 SharkBite 1/2 In. End Stops ($4.94/ea) to cap the two pipes. It literally took me 15 minutes to do.

Demolition - gutting the existing kitchen

This was the worst part of the renovation so far. The house was built in 1940 and some of the construction appears to have been built to protect against a nuclear bomb. The walls were made with one layer of drywall, one layer of plaster, one layer of steel mesh, and one layer of ceramic tile, resulting in a wall about 1 inch thick. Behind the wall was a paper/fiber-like material that appeared to have been blown in from the outside of the house after the walls were put up. The floor was two layers of linoleum affixed with a black tar like material. Here is what I learned from the demolition:

Tearing down the walls

The first layer on the walls was the tile. I bought a good wrecking bar (which ended up helping me throughout the entire project). I purchased the FATMAX 36 In. Wrecking Bar for this job ($17.97). This took care of the tile easily, leaving me with the next layer - plaster sitting on top of the dreaded steel mesh. The plaster made the biggest mess, seeing that I had to smash through it to get to the steel mesh. Once at the steel mesh, I found it most effective to try to peel it off of the studs using my hands and my wrecking bar. I also found it useful to cut pieces of the steel mesh off of the wall so I could get to other sections. The tricky part was finding something to cut through the extremely tough mesh. The Wiss Metal-Wizz 9 In. All Purpose Snip ($10.47) worked perfect for this situation. This thing cuts through anything and made this job a bit more tolerable. Some other things that I purchased to help with this job were a drilling hammer ($15.97), a pair of leather palm safety gloves ($1.97), safety glasses ($3.98), and a high quality mask ($6.97).

Removing the old countertops

I had laminate countertops that I was removing. This job wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Just make sure you spend the time removing all of the screws and bolts underneath (which can be a bit tricky). Once the screws are removed, just use the crowbar to pry the countertops up off the cabinets (be careful not to damage the cabinets when prying).

Ripping up the laminate floor

This is where I made my first big mistake. I tried to cut and scrape the 2 layers of laminate floor up to remove it. I was trying to use a utility knife to cut up sections of the laminate top and then used the crowbar to lift it up. This was horrible. The tar adhesive was very hard and brittle and it took hours to rip up just a small 12 x 12 section. I decided to buy a power steamer ($49.00) to see if I could soften up the tar. This worked quite well at softening the tar adhesive, making it easier to scrape off the sections of laminate. The problem now was the absolute mess this created. The adhesive would turn into a gooey liqued and made for a disaster. Plus the power steamer only covered a 12in. x 9in. section. This would have taken me forever. I finally decided to just rip up the entire plywood floor that the adhesive and laminate was attached to. This exposed the subfloor beneath. Wow, this was so much easier, cleaner, and will actually prove to be the better decision when I'm ready to install the new floor. I wish I had done this from the beginning - I would have saved hours of time and $49 for the steamer.

WALLS and COUNTERTOPS

LAMINATE FLOOR and SUB FLOOR

Refinishing the existing cabinets (part 1) - stripping the paint and varnish

Our existing cabinets are solid wood, so I decided to refinish them instead of purchasing new cabinets. I estimated that this would save us around $5 ,000 - 7,000. It would require a little bit of work (stipping paint, sanding, installing new hardware, etc.), but it seemed to be well worth the cost savings. The first step was to strip all of the existing paint and varnish off the cabinets. It took me about 2 weeks (I have a full time job and can usually only work nights and weekends on this), and I did learn a lot along the way. Here is my advise for stripping cabinets:

Choose a good paint stripper

I can't stress this enough. Do not attempt to save a couple bucks by buying a cheap paint stripper. You will save a lot of time and energy in the long run and it is worth the extra $20 - $30 that you'll end up spending. With that said, the absolute best paint and varnish stripper I found was the Citristrip Safer Paint & Varnish Stripping Gel from Home Depot. Not only does it work brilliantly, but it is Safe for Indoor Use, contains no harsh fumes, easily strips multiple layers, and is biodegradable. I do have a bit of advice before using it though. The directions say "apply and wait 30min to 24hrs before removing". I tried waiting about 1 hour and the gel did strip some paint, but it was tough to remove and required some very heavy scraping. The next day I tried to wait the full 24hrs, hopefully allowing the gel to soak through. Wow, what a difference! The paint (all four layers that were on my cabinets) came off like butter. There was literally no effort to remove it. And, some of this paint was on for over 30 years. Another word of advice - do not buy the Citristrip Aerosol spray. The aeosol spray surprisingly does not have the same stripping power as the gel. I went through 5 of the 1/2 gallon containers to strip 12 wall cabinets and doors and 8 base cabinets and doors. TOTAL COST: $97.35 (at $19.47 each)

Get a workbench

When I first took off all the cabinet doors and drawers so I could strip them, I didn't have a workbench that I could use to help me with the job. I made the mistake of trying to lay the doors and drawers on my garage floor to apply the stripper and scrape the paint. This was a royal pain in the butt, but I didn't want to fork over $300 for a workbench. So, I did a little bit of research on the internet and found that I could build my own bench for around $20! I actually built 2 to help with this job. Check it out for yourself at hammerzone.com - A Cheap And Sturdy Work BenchFor About $20. I not only saved time and stress while stripping my cabinet doors, but I now have 2 workbenches for future projects. TOTAL COST: $58.00

The decision to "do it myself"...

After purchasing our first home and deciding that we wanted to remodel the kitchen, my wife and I were shocked by the estimates that we received for our kitchen renovation (chalk this up to inexperience on our part). The quotes ranged from $60,000 for a complete gut and rebuild to $20,000 for just cabinet refacing and new countertops (and neither of these prices included new appliances). We were willing to be flexible on some of the materials for our kitchen, but we did want a solid surface or stone countertop and we were set on having an island built. After some extensive research on the internet, I decided to attempt to do it myself. My plan is to replicate a $50,000 quote, but do it myself for around $10,000.



"Doing it Yourself" allows you to compare prices through the internet, read reviews, and make sure you are getting the best product for the best price. I will post all of my "deals" and materials that I decide to buy for this project.

Here is a sketch of my old kitchen setup and another one of what I want my new kitchen to look like (I used Google SketchUp to put these together).

OLD KITCHEN

NEW KITCHEN