Remodel's Ninth & Tenth Weeks

Why is it that, when you finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, the train starts to slow down? That's kind of how I feel right now because a couple weeks ago I saw the light but the work is progressively slowing down. The up side to that is that there aren't a lot of strangers lurking about. The down side is that the kitchen is still not finished.

Week Nine:Monday
The electrician came back to do his final top out, i.e., install outlets, switches, and their corresponding plates and circuit breakers. He was to hook up our range hood as well but it won't be installed until tomorrow so he'll have to come back.

Tuesday
The HVAC guy came by to hook up the range hood to the venting pipe and was not expecting that he would have to install it as well. Nervous about doing the job by himself he called the project foreman for help but Denis was on another job site and could not help; he'd just have to do his best. I ended up helping him for a couple hours before leaving for my PM appointment in Portland. We got the hood in place after removing some tiles and attaching a bracket to the wall. When it came to putting on the decorative SS sleeve that covers the vent pipe, we discovered that it was too long despite instructions saying the hood distance from cook top had to lay in the 24" - 30" range (ours is 29") and not giving us a minimum distance from bottom of hood and ceiling. We had 26" of space to fill with the two-part sleeve (about 27 1/2" fully collapsed) so we would either have to move the hood down or cut the sleeve. I liked the position of the hood and didn't relish the idea of removing more tile so decided to pay up and have the sleeve cut. In retrospect, though the cost of cutting the sleeve was a tolerable $45, it would have been more prudent and less expensive in time and money to precisely measure all components before starting the install.

Today was also the day the rest of the appliances were to be installed. The range and microwave were put in place but help had to leave early so the refrigerator would have to wait for another day. The microwave looks great in its space but was not left in place because the edge of the cabinet face frame prevents the door from opening completely. There are three possible solutions: 1) shave the edge off about 1/8" - 1/4", 2) rout out part of the edge, or 3) fir out the wall behind the microwave bracket so it sticks out past the cabinet face frame enough for the door to freely swing. We will try solution 2 to begin with, then move on from there if we need to.

I'm a little disappointed that the range is not sitting flat on the counter top. There's anywhere from 0 - 3/16 of an inch gap, which means wiping the counters down could eventually fill the gaps with food or whatever. Filling the gap with caulk is not suggested because it causes issues when/if service to the range requires its removal. I will need to investigate more about this because, frankly, I would expect a range in this price category to sit flat on the counter top. The good thing about the range is that it doesn't stick out from the counter as far as I thought it would.

Thursday
Denis dropped off the reordered cabinet hardware and we had our Thursday meeting. Talked about what comes next among other issues. After he left I thought I'd take a look at the hardware. Guess what, they're wrong-again! This batch was purchased directly from Atlas Hardware and either the order was wrong or they sent the wrong size and style; got oil-rubbed bronze instead of Venetian bronze. Got the small knob instead of the large knob and got the 4" pull instead of the 6" pull. I fired off an email to Denis and Tiffany about the screw up. Tiffany checked her email to Atlas and did in fact order correctly, the pickers at Atlas screwed up. Tack on another few days until projects end.

In addition to hooking up our range hood, the electrician also fixed a problem with the new phone jack that only Monday I discovered wasn't working. He had to run new wire and left it dangling outside the house at the patio for me to tuck into corners and crevices and repaint at a later date. When we first met, I ask him to move the phone jack to a different wall in the kitchen and I also wanted him to run the wires into the attic to get rid of the ugly long strand of wire dangling along the siding; would be a much cleaner look. His original solution was great and took care of all but about one foot of exterior wire. Now I'm back to having about ten feet of dangling wire that I hope I can hide well enough and paint to invisibility.

The cabinet guys dropped by hoping to install hardware but I told them the story so they moved on to other things like routing down the back edge of the cabinet face frame to allow the microwave door to open wider, filling holes and re-staining problem areas.

Friday
I picked up the freshly cut chimney for the range hood and waited for Denis to arrive as I am to be his helper today. We will install the microwave, hood chimney and refrigerator. All went well with the exception of an annoying drip from the water dispenser in the refrigerator. I had to strategically place a paper towel to catch the drips. The dripping stopped by Saturday morning.

Three inspections were held this week, electrical, plumbing and project finals. The electrical passed but plumbing did not. The project final will pass pending purchase and installation of three new smoke detectors and pass of final plumbing. Plumbers can now install a venting valve in a wall without going through the roof but they must not be enclosed, i.e., they have to be able to breath. Ours did not so the solution was to replace the valve access door from the garage with a vent grate. The project final required that I install a smoke detector in the office, master and guest bedrooms. He gave me an hour to purchase and do the install.

Week Ten
It was a quiet week remodel wise. Monday the plumber was by to scope out the failed inspection issue and had that taken care of. The appliance service was by on Tuesday to install the new control panel replacing the one the plumber damaged when he installed the dish washer. Wednesday I had surgery on my right shoulder and was pretty much worthless for the rest of the week. Just as well because the only other remodel item was the replacement of a heating grate in the 1/2 bath/laundry room-white, which will not do.