Kitchen – Day 4

I bet you guys are curious about how my kitchen project is going 🙂

Well, let me tell you! I was seriously NOT loving my kitchen countertop a few days ago!

There was a moment during day 4, that I was thinking about just posting one sentence on my blog, saying “damn that countertop”. This was probably after having spent at least 1,5 – 2 hours doing nothing but try to pry that darn thing off my wall, and I was warm, tired and feed up with the lot of it 😉

So let me backtrack a little…

We started up reasonable well mid day. We removed all the drawers, everything in the cabinet, the oven and even the cooker came out really easy. We moved over to the dishwasher, turned off the water, managed to remove the dishwasher hoses with not to much trouble (even though it was cramped under the sink) and moved the dishwasher away. Moved on to loosening the plumbing for the sink and tap. We got to all the screws to the countertop and got all that out, easy peasy. All took but a hours or so.

And then we were ready for the countertop, and let me tell you, it was ready for us, ready for us to NOT move it 😉

I have to explain a little – we kinda new we would have trouble. You see I have a backsplash over the countertop, that, because of the way it was fastened to the wall (clip system) there was no way to remove it. It was either break the glass, or tear the fittings from the wall (leaving big holes in the plaster), and I didn’t fancy doing either, since I kinda wanted to keep the backsplash intact.

So we had to move around the issue. Now, that wouldn’t have been a problem, if it hadn’t been for the fact that my dad did such a super job, using silicone when we put the countertop in (which was absolutely the correct thing to do). There was silicone between the countetop and wall, and there was silicone between the countetop and the backsplash sitting on top. And since there was NO way to get to the silicone between the countertop and the back wall (because of the backsplash) you can see why we were having such trouble.

After cutting whatever silicone we could get to, pulling and prodding, “tearing” and swearing 😉 throwing our muscles to the thing, with no effect. We seriously started to contemplate removing the kitchen cabinets under the countertop, so that we could knock the damn thing off the wall (this was about 1,5 hours into trying to pry it loose)….

Coffee break!

OK, one more try, see if we can trick the damn thing. I managed to get to the silicone between the back wall and countertop where my dishwasher normally are, and that did the trick, we managed to loosen just enough that we got some momentum going and started to slowly tear the top loose. 30 minutes later… and it was off…

I am soooooo glad I have a strong friend helping me out, there is no way this would have gone as well if not…

As you can see, from the picture below, we tore a little wall with us, but that was an easy fix. Remove the loose paper, and give it a few licks of paint, and presto… we were ready for day 5 🙂

Kitchen – Day 3

We didn’t do much yesterday! The next stage – pulling out the countertop – is a big job, and we decided we need a whole day for it, not just an afternoon.

The plan yesterday was to change out a cold water stopcock, because last time I tried it, I couldn’t get it to work properly. This time around, we figured it out and it seems to work after all. So we didn’t need to spend the time swapping it out, phew 🙂

So instead we spend a moment “practising” putting together the pieces that connects to the sink. You know, all the piping that eventually connects to the drains. I figured it was a good idea to know where everything would go before we started, it’s easier to figure it out when you are sitting on the floor with plenty of space around you, rather than when you are cramped under the sink, all worn out 🙂

And today? We are going to to attach the countertop, so stay tuned 😉

Kitchen – Day 2

OK – we are still working on the lights, countertop light this time. You know, the one’s that are mounted under the upper cabinets! I have 5 of those.

First day with lights was a bit fiddly because I didn’t have a lot of space to work with. This job, plenty of space, but more work.

When we installed the kitchen originally, we used some cover panels underneath the cabinets, to make everything look nice. It also gave us the opportunity to hide the wires for the under cabinet lighting.

This time around I decided to recess the new lights into the cover plates. I figured it would be a much nicer look, than putting them on the outside, like the old one was. Since these lights have their own wiring system, we needed to get a little creative for how to hide the wires. and we decided to make an individual “groove” in the panels for each wire. Off course I completely forgot to take a photo during this process? Even though you can see what I’m talking about, on the first photo, on the second photo collage.

Pulling down the cover plates with the old lights, was easy enough, just unscrew, cut the wires and the panels was off.

Removing the old lights, easy peasy! Installing new ones? Not quite so much, but I guess that’s always what happens. It’s easy to tear down, not so easy to “build up”.

Fortunately I have pretty good tools, and as we know good tools are half the work. That all worked really well, until we tried to drill the holes for the lamps. Turned out my 56mm cutting tool, just didn’t want to corporate 😦

So what is a girl to do? Well the only solution was to buy a new one, and since we had to pack up to leave the house any-ways, this was a perfect time to do lunch 🙂

Back home again, I have to admit, it almost took longer to get the tools out, than to drill the 5 holes for the lamps.

Lamps installed (using screws, not clips 😉 ), wires installed in their “groves” (with a little help of tape to keep the wires in place), and we were ready for first panel/plate to go back up. This one only had one light so easy. Second plate, with two lights, just as easy, now the final and last plate, turned out to be the one to give us trouble! Mostly, due to the fact that the wires from the second plate, continued in “groves/channels” in the third plate… Crap! Fiddly stuff again 😦

We attacked the third plate, got the wires in place, pulled nicely at them to straighten as we “feed” the third plate closer and closer to the second. Screwed it all in place…. and is was crocked at the back, a wire had caught! Down again and start over! Second time around we had it down to a fine art, and within 20 minutes it was done.

Connected all the wires to the transformer, turned it on. Woohoo, it works!

Lights done!

Now if the rest would just be this easy (even though it took us all day) 😉

Kitchen – Day 1

We decided to tackle the lighting first! But we are doing it in two steps – no reason to rush into this right 😉

First up was the 4 lights, that are inside the glass door cabinets.

It turned out to be a fiddly process. As you can see from the picture below, there wasn’t much room to work with. I tried to remove the very thin sliver between my cabinets and ceiling, but my dad (when installing this) have obviously just about “velcroed” it together with acrylic, and I almost broke it trying to remove 😦

So I promptly had to give up on that! Which left me we only the small holes the old lamps was in, and the not even 2 fingers high sliver of an opening on top, to navigate all the wires/cables/transformers. As you can see from the picture, I ended up using a lot of rope (I figured this would be the only way I could pull the new wires).

Removing the old stuff was a pain. I have to admit my dad had done a good job installing everything, when we put the kitchen together originally, but removing the stuff!!! Seriously finger twisting work 😉

Installing the new stuff on the other hand, went like a breeze – probably had something to do with all that rope already in place 😉

It looks really good, but I’ve come to realise one small mistake. Installing the lights, you could either fasten them with small screws or a clip, I used the clip (it was easy), but have realised that if I ever need to change them out later, I will have to “break” the rim of the lights, to push them through the cabinet, as the spring loaded clip won’t let me remove them the right way. In hindsight, I should have tried to use the screws or a small dollop of acrylic to fasten them. That would have made any potential future removal easier.

Hopefully I won’t ever have any issues with these, and since they are of a type where it is possible to change the led lights without changing out the whole lamp, there is hope I will never have to change the lamps again! I just figured I’d give you a heads up, if you are ever installing upper cabinet lighting, and have less to no space to work with (like me), my recommendation is to not use the clips, if they won’t let you remove the lamp the same way it goes in.

Any-ways! At least I realised this before my next 5 lights 😉

During and Done

The wallet maker.

My every day wallet is dying. It’s a tiny, credit card only, pink leather “wallet”. That holds about 6-8 credit cards and a folded money bill or two. I don’t think I have ever had a big fat wallet, I just can’t stand having to carry a purse just to hold my wallet. I’m a wallet in my back pocket, kind a girl 😉

Sadly the pink one is getting worn out, and yesterday I decided to hunt for a new one. I remember having read something about some really thin, strong wallets made out of Tyvek on Kickstarter, so I decided to see if I could find them again. And I did 😉 My favourites are the the Card Holder at Paperwallet , the Micro Slimfold wallet, from Slimfold and the Mini Mighty Wallet from Dynomighty.

While surfing the net looking for these, I came across a website called Instructables , where I found a whole lot off instructions, on how to make wallets, and among them some cool, duct tape wallets, origami wallets out of paper or Tyvek, the original Tyvek wallet and more.

So I decided to give it a try. Since I don’t have any Tyvek envelopes in the house, I grabbed a mail pouch that I had laying around, and I decided to make a origami wallet out of it, since it don’t need anything other than a piece of paper to make it.

It actually didn’t turn out to bad, and I’ll be taking it for a test run over the next few days, just for fun 🙂 You can see it below. If it works out, I can let my old wallet go…

After I did that one, I came across a link on how to make the original Tyvek wallet, and I’ll be giving that a try next. I just need to get my hands on some Tyvek made envelopes first 😉

This was fun – definitely not the last wallet I make – might be the last wallet I buy though 😉 I’ll let you know how it goes when I get my hands on some material to use, there are several different ones I would love to try, within duck tape, Tyvek, and plastic.

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)