August 2008

We had some drainage issues in the side yard caused by the crazy-hard Concord soil (aahem, clay) and the slope. Not that it was a house-issue (a good feature of being on a slab several inches above the ground), but it does make for a soggy pathway come rain-time (aka November – March) — especially in one particular spot outside the bathroom door.

I started the project the other day and discovered the digging holes is no fun. In comes Labor-Ready. I drive by their offices literally every day (en route to BART), but just stopped by the other day. For $25/hour per person, you can hire labor that comes pre-screened and insured… much safer than picking up someone form a hardware store parking lot.

Chris and Bruce showed up on time (8am) and started digging within minutes of arrival. They worked until they’d excavated a 4X20X2 trench that we filled with better draining material and a french drain to better distribute the water.

So, if you’ve a project you’d been dreading because of the toil it will take, give them a call (925-827-2352 in Concord). For folks in the South Bay, there are locations in Redwood City, San Jose and Mountain View.

So, as previously mentioned, we're not finished with the kitchen… still countertops and cleanup (and staging) before any final photos… but here are some detail in-process shots that might help should you decide to install an Ikea kitchen.

(Edit: Sorry for the tiny in-line photos… click on them for larger ones).

This is the edging I mention in the earlier post…

It took a bit of planning to get the reveals the same on both sides of the window.

We installed cover panels on both sides of the inside of the dishwasher to give it a more finished look. This was a very wise choice, methinks.

I wanted the filler pieces to be flush with the doors which meant two things: (1) the pieces had to be 3/4in thick which mean we used the sides of a lot of 30in doors and (2) I had to create something to mount these pieces to. The green tape is s'posed to be some miracle painter's tape — we'll see…

We love the built-in look of the fridge… again, some planning went into this set-up… and a skillful dialing-in of the leg-height.

I installed a switch-controlled outlet behind/within the filler space (as opposed to hard-wiring the light) in the case  we want to change-out the under counter lights.

Some overview shots… To get the "island", we backed up 12in (deep) cabinets to 24in (deep) cabinets which creates a nice-sized island plus tons of storage space.

And speaking of storage… I love the visual ironies that exist in our current existence: (1) Johnathan Adler, meet Rory Gilmore (and Rocky the Squirrel). (2) A place for German stainless steel and French carbon steel knives… and (3) why do we have so much gum?

A fellow Eichler owner asked me for a bit more detail on our Phifer solar shades. A few more pictures seemed the best way to answer.

When we originally ordered the blinds, we thought we’d like the "reverse roll" option which sort of hides the roll by rolling over, rather than under. However, the regular roll lies a bit closer to the surface (which is good for heat transfer). The only problem is that now the stitches at the bottom are backwards since we’ve turned them around… I’ll live with that one for a short while.

Otherwise, these have a great fit and finish and we’ll be ordering a few more for the other windows soon…

Sorry the kitchen updates are coming in so infrequently, but the progress has been slow. It’s actually finished save the new countertops which were just ordered through a new Home Deopt countertop program where they’re offering 2cm SileStone (which we prefer) for $63/sf with all sorts of free cut-outs and install. Unfortunately, the temporary counters made of particleboard do not make for very good photos (especially when stained with spaghetti sauce), so we’ll hold off for a while on a final photoshoot… but it’s done. Well, mostly.

Anyway, one of the nice things about the Ikea Nexus Yellow-Brown is that it’s been very easy to work with. Granted, we have had quite a few pieces come in damaged or not matched well (lighter, darker, more grain) — but for the most part, it’s been very do-able.

One of the nice things about this pattern — which I can’t say for the others — is that it’s been easy to remanufacture pieces on the fly… In a kitchen like this, nothing is ever really out-of-the-box. Edging the boards has been one element which I’ve found to go smoothly specifically because of the pattern. Nexus is based on an oak veneer and stained to give it the colors in the range. The yellow-brown is just a shade off from MinWax’s Early American stain (somewhere between this and Pecan, but it’s close enough that custom blending would be a waste of time and money).

Using hot-melt edge banding available at most woodworking stores, I’ve been able to give an edge to some inside pieces (no heavy wear) that would have otherwise looked a bit odd if left as particleboard after the saw cut — places like tops, bottoms and interior edges of filler pieces and the inside of the oven cut-out (where you can see the edge through the vent holes). The Ikea edgebanding is a bit thicker than the hot-melt type, but for an interior edge, you can’t tell… plus the added finishing gives the particleboard some protection.

So, a "garage" iron ($10), some edgebanding ($5), a hand edge trimmer ($4) some stain ($4) and some Deft ($5) has made easy work of the process. I prefer Deft as it dries super fast with its alkyd base — it’s easy to work with and rarely runs or drips. I can finish an edge from saw cut to installation in about an hour and a half… likely sooner than Deft would like me to mention, but I can get 3-4 coats of Deft and a final wipe/buff with wax and steelwool in this timeframe. Makes for an easy finishing and installation.

The picture below is the newly finished edge.

… the first meal you make on your new cooktop is generic tuna-helper from the 99cent store.

So… we’ve been breaking a sweat in trying to get the kitchen project finished off and in doing so, there’s been a sort of radio silence — not because of some grand conspiracy, it’s simply hard to take pictures with sawdust in your eyes.

Anyway, we went with an Ikea kitchen as previously reported and so far, we’re happy. The installation was not terribly difficult, but it was time consuming and, at times, tedious. Brad and Kerensa helped assemble quite a few of the shelves and Stephen came down from Benicia on a Saturday morning to help dead-lift the largest cabinet.

But, the hard work is past us and we hope/think we made some good decisions along the way. Being more craft-oriented than perhaps the typical installer, we did some things that were time consuming, but ultimately "right" (we think)… some of these details coming soon when we can take better pictures.

Here are the first few that Casie took for her sister’s viewing enjoyment.