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Mrs. Oxford is the lady for whom I did the big custom Master Bath a while ago. Now she wants a tile backsplash in the kitchen. And some under counter lighting. And some recessed lighting in the ceiling. And take down one ceiling fan and a ceiling light and patch up the holes. And fix a couple of places where the ceiling boards are separating. And change a light out for a new fan. And hook up the new sink and dishwasher when the granite counter is installed. Is tomorrow too soon? Did I mention she's getting all new appliances?
Well, let's start with the backsplash. Her son Dan found out that taking tile off of wallboard can be tricky. This is a picture of what we started with. Have to be careful not to ruin the painted wall bits as they are faux treatments and cannot be touched up.
Mrs. Oxford is the lady for whom I did the big custom Master Bath a while ago. Now she wants a tile backsplash in the kitchen. And some under counter lighting. And some recessed lighting in the ceiling. And take down one ceiling fan and a ceiling light and patch up the holes. And fix a couple of places where the ceiling boards are separating. And change a light out for a new fan. And hook up the new sink and dishwasher when the granite counter is installed. Is tomorrow too soon? Did I mention she's getting all new appliances? Well, let's start with the backsplash. Her son Dan found out that taking tile off of wallboard can be tricky. This is a picture of what we started with. Have to be careful not to ruin the painted wall bits as they are faux treatments and cannot be touched up.
The first step is to remove all the tile around the edges.
Getting the tiles off that 1/8 inch wood board on the side of the double oven was a real pain. Plenty of wood came off too.
Here's what the long side of the kitchen looks like.
Oh, and a vent hood was removed. I'll have to fix the cabinet holes later. The new cooktop will have a downdraft vent.
With the edges clear, I cut out the wall board which exposes all the electrical that I'll need to access to power the undercounter lighting.
I used 2x4s to brace the tops, bottoms and sides of the openings to support the new wallboard.
I ran the new wiring before closing everything up.
The new wallboard is up. Notice that the wall outlets and switches are now lower too. For some reason the Oxfords expect counter outlets to be no more than two inches above the counters.
Except when they don't want any outlets at all! Here I'll be putting the outlet and dimmer switch for the undercounter lights on the bottom of the upper cabinet.
Oh, and after I closed the wall up, Dan called to say that he wanted the control panel for the downdraft unit to be mounted on the side of the cabinet above the stove. So I snaked a cord from the inside of the cabinet down to come out inside the lower cabinet. They can use the cord to pull the contol wire through when they do the cooktop install.
Here are the undercounter lights in operation. Except the dimmer switch and all the wires won't fit into the short undercounter box.
A second box, or maybe a bigger one if it looks good, is definitely required.
A bigger box it is. Wire Mould makes presentable boxes for surface work. Although this one sticks down further, its location still makes it look good.
What do you think? (The switch is up under the cabinet on the right side of the sink)
The new lights sure look purty. I used the 120v, 20w halogen 'hockey puck' type lights.
If the electrician who wired up this house was present, someone would have to be calling 911. I wasn't a happy camper. I was turning a three-way circuit into two single on/off switches with dimmers. The cable coming in used the white wire as the hot instead of the correct black one and they were switching the neutral side of the circuit instead of the hot side. Even after I figured out what was what in the room, it still didn't work. Lord knows what they did up in the ceiling. I didn't look. I used an alternate method to get this outlet and dimmer switch working.
Here's the setup up under the cabinet. Doing it this way eliminates any holes in the wall (and the new backsplash tile.)
So I ended this week ready for the new countertop, which may take a week or so to get installed. I'm putting the Oxford's on hold now and will start the Gilroy's fence project next week. That includes taking down an old rotting split rail fence and then putting up a new 42" high picket fence. All 140 feet of both.
Here's what Mrs. Oxford's kitchen will look like when I finish. But I guarentee something will change before I get started on it again!
A week and a half later and the granite is in. Not my choice of pattern, but they like it.
The fauset is just there for looks. I get to hook it up along with the sinks, disposal and dishwasher.
Even the little spot next the the fridge gets a piece.
Three Russians showed up to install the new cooktop and double ovens. They got in my way, but I finished before they did.
I installed new cutoff valves and waste pipes. Then I hooked up the new fauset and disposal.
The fauset looks nice. Not my style, but it works well.
When it came to the dishwasher, I ran into many problems. Some were simple, like this errant nail in the way of getting the old one out.
But the real problem was the opening's overall height. They had added a real wood floor and that cut down the available space. Seen above, I was just able to get the old one out. The new dishwasher is a modern high end monstrosity that would not fit. I left the homeowner with the suggestion of getting a different one with a shorter minimum height, or get someone else to cut out some floor boards. I left to finish up the fence project. More later.
The fence is done, so now it's on to the rest of the lighting. Here I've already removed a chandelier from the sitting area (in the far distance) and have marked the ceiling for joists and the new recessed lights. X marks the lights. The fan shown here is coming out. A new fan is going in where the chandelier was.
Some of those X's are pretty close to the joists.
The new fan gets installed.
The first two lights I put up in the hall were centered right under a brace in the attic. I cut the brace out in both locations and put new braces in a foot or so over. The square metal box holds the wiring that used to be in the old ceiling light fixture.
The recessed hall lights looked pretty good, and with 65 watt bulbs, put out plently of light.
To add insult to injury, the first hole I cut in the main kitchen was right under an electric cable. With luck like this you now know why I don't play poker. I was able to pull some staples in the attic to get enough slack to push the wire out of the way.
Here are some of the seventeen recessed lights in the attic. You can see why electricians call them 'cans'.
And here they are in action. I expanded the single switch in this area by adding a second one. Now the fan has a three-speed switch and the lights have their own separate dimmer.
The owner asked that the cabinet over the stove be dropped down 1-11/16ths of an inch. The little retired school teacher could see the wiring and lights the way things were. So here I'm adding the necessary board to hide the lights from direct sight.
After filling the gaps, sanding and a little paint, that section looks like its always been there. So ends another week. Next I fix the ceiling flaws, re-line the cabinets shown here to hide the old vent holes, fix the vent hole in the outside siding and, eventually, when they buy the tile, put up the backsplash. Take care till then.
FINAL PIX
So this week its on to the small stuff - until the homeowners make up their minds and pick out the backsplash tile. The ceiling is cracked where the hall meets the kitchen. I scrapped it and found that the joint was sound. It just needed to be re-screwed back to the joist.
There were two places where there had been ceiling fixtures. I closed up the holes with a pre-made patch made of sheet metal and fiberglass mesh.
Then I covered the whole mess with plaster.
I also designed and made up a couple of braces for the granite counter overhang. I used some scraps of 2x10 and 1x2 cut out with a band saw, sanded with my table top belt sander and then I shapped the edges on the router table. Here they are (upside down) with a base coat of tinted primer.
A couple of lag screws apiece held them securely in place. Here you can see some of the brown glaze being applied to the old cabinets.
These two wire racks had been under the old stovetop. The new cooktop has a downflow vent so they wouldn't fit there anymore. I moved them to this new location after cutting out the internal shelf so they'd fit.
I sealed up the old vent that ran out the side of the house. I used caulk and sheet metal screws from the outside. On the inside I first cut and folded up the protruding pipe.
I then filled the hole with insulation and covered the whole back of the cabinet with a piece of luan plywood. I used another piece to cover the hole in the shelf too.
Remember that under counter lighting? When the ladies sat in the seating area they could see all the wires, etc. Sue suggested I cover the bottoms of the cabinets with more luan. They liked the idea, so more luan it was.
I took the measurements and made up a piece for each of the four cabiinets. The lights themselves and the electrical boxes will stick through the plywood.
I made up some 3/8" spacers and screwed the boards up underneath the cabinets. You can see that the result looks pretty good and will be even better after they get painted up.
You can see that the view from the sitting area looks real good.
On Friday the homeowner picked out their tile, but it wouldn't be available until the following Tuesday, at 12:30pm! I started on Tuesday, and while the homeowner hoped I'd also finish that day, all I got up was from the end of the cabinet over to the end of the window.
Here's part of the reason. The tiles came in 12x12 inch sections and were quite fragile. Each individual piece had to be taken off and cut (and recut) until it fit.
In addition, they bought some 2x2 decorative medallions. I cut out a similar sized tiles and glued in the medallions in a random decorative pattern.
On Wednesday I got the rest of the tile up. It was looking pretty nice.
And on Thursday I got it all grouted. I also got the ceiling painted, including a new crack fix in the ceiling of the Master Bath.
With grout and switch covers in place it looked real nice.
That crack between the tile and granite will be filled with matching sanded caulk, but the homeowner wants to do it, so I'll let 'em.
I came back on Friday to clean up and pick up my stuff. Here is a parting shot. Maybe I'll get back after they finish painting the cabinets.
Bonus Pix
After 9" of rain in a couple of weeks, the front yard got a couple of new additions.
Taken on the ONE day of sun in the past month. Everyone take care.
Mrs. Oxford is the lady for whom I did the big custom Master Bath a while ago. Now she wants a tile backsplash in the kitchen. And some under counter lighting. And some recessed lighting in the ceiling. And take down one ceiling fan and a ceiling light and patch up the holes. And fix a couple of places where the ceiling boards are separating. And change a light out for a new fan. And hook up the new sink and dishwasher when the granite counter is installed. Is tomorrow too soon? Did I mention she's getting all new appliances?
Well, let's start with the backsplash. Her son Dan found out that taking tile off of wallboard can be tricky. This is a picture of what we started with. Have to be careful not to ruin the painted wall bits as they are faux treatments and cannot be touched up.
Mrs. Oxford is the lady for whom I did the big custom Master Bath a while ago. Now she wants a tile backsplash in the kitchen. And some under counter lighting. And some recessed lighting in the ceiling. And take down one ceiling fan and a ceiling light and patch up the holes. And fix a couple of places where the ceiling boards are separating. And change a light out for a new fan. And hook up the new sink and dishwasher when the granite counter is installed. Is tomorrow too soon? Did I mention she's getting all new appliances?
Well, let's start with the backsplash. Her son Dan found out that taking tile off of wallboard can be tricky. This is a picture of what we started with. Have to be careful not to ruin the painted wall bits as they are faux treatments and cannot be touched up.
The new wallboard is up. Notice that the wall outlets and switches are now lower too. For some reason the Oxfords expect counter outlets to be no more than two inches above the counters.
Except when they don't want any outlets at all! Here I'll be putting the outlet and dimmer switch for the undercounter lights on the bottom of the upper cabinet.
Oh, and after I closed the wall up, Dan called to say that he wanted the control panel for the downdraft unit to be mounted on the side of the cabinet above the stove. So I snaked a cord from the inside of the cabinet down to come out inside the lower cabinet. They can use the cord to pull the contol wire through when they do the cooktop install.
Mrs. Oxford is the lady for whom I did the big custom Master Bath a while ago. Now she wants a tile backsplash in the kitchen. And some under counter lighting. And some recessed lighting in the ceiling. And take down one ceiling fan and a ceiling light and patch up the holes. And fix a couple of places where the ceiling boards are separating. And change a light out for a new fan. And hook up the new sink and dishwasher when the granite counter is installed. Is tomorrow too soon? Did I mention she's getting all new appliances?
Well, let's start with the backsplash. Her son Dan found out that taking tile off of wallboard can be tricky. This is a picture of what we started with. Have to be careful not to ruin the painted wall bits as they are faux treatments and cannot be touched up.
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