"Butcher Block Countertops," in the Other Home Decorating & Remodeling Projects forum, begins: "Jim McClain said
I know, Tia. I ignored everyone, including one of my doctors, who has been kinda following this ..."
I know, Tia. I ignored everyone, including one of my doctors, who has been kinda following this remodeling saga. It was really stupid of me to do this finishing work inside my apartment, but I thought I could vent it well enough. I'm sittin' here really cold right now and won't be doing it again. I promise.
Jim
Don't feel too guilty Jim............. I can't set still either till a project is done.
If it is goin to slow I may disregard the safety stuff like dust masks or gloves just to hurry up just to "gitter done". It's even harder to "be good" when the great outdoors is your working space and crappy weather screws up the plan.
Take a break, eat some donuts, maybe with a double latte or two to calm your nerves.... then take a nap.......... The butcher block will wait as long as you allow it to.
We need ya Jim, so take care of yourself or we're all gonna have to come down there and whoop yur ass into submission!
CP gets the first whoop.
Rule 11 would apply here, Daris, so that leaves a lot of room for satisfaction. Now, if I can just find someone to pose...
Boy, I seem to be hitting a few roadblocks on this damn countertop. I wanted to mount the sink onto the underside of the countertop, so I paid an extra 15 bucks for the undermount kit from American Standard. Eight pieces of bent metal with a single hole drilled in them. This is what's s'posed to hold my sink firmly in place.
Click to see full-size.
The sink is made from what appears to be something like a cast resin - very light weight and you can mar the black part with your fingernail, so it's a little on the soft side. The porcelain finish appears to be coating a very thin molded metal. I have a bad feeling that if I put too much pressure on the clamp when screwing it down, it could crush the metal/porcelain edge and crack the porcelain even on the surface that shows.
What were they thinking when they made this? I double-checked the part numbers to see if maybe they gave me the wrong parts, but they're the right ones. I called their tech support and spoke with Courtney. She assured me I had the right parts, but didn't seem to understand the situation. In fact, she felt the thickness of the countertop had something to do with the ability of the clips to work properly - said they were designed for no thicker than 2" countertops. Mine are a fraction under 2", but that has no bearing on the clip function at all.
When I offered to send pictures (those I posted above) to her via email, she said she couldn't respond to my email until tomorrow because of the high volume of calls. I just wanted her to look at the pictures while we were on the phone so she could get a better idea what my problem was. She couldn't do that.
I emailed the pictures along with this crude drawing of an idea I thought would make a better clip. Granted, the production costs would be a lot higher, but Kohler sells a mounting kit for $72.00 (which I found for 45.00 and ordered). And they sell tons of them. People who want an undermount sink will pay the premium price for it.
Why do I think my email will just end up in her spam box and never see the light of day?
Oh well, a few more days waiting for the new mounting system. There's more stuff to do while I wait.
Besides flooring, I also do blinds. No matter how expensive the blinds, the screws they send with them are junk, so I always provide my own screws. But, it makes me angry to spend thousands of dollars for these things and get junk screws that strip out in one or two turns.
As I (im)patiently wait for the undermount sink hardware, I worked on the backsplash today. Actually, because I cut the sink hole too close to the back of the countertop, I had to find a way to give it a smidgen more room. My backsplash material is 5/16ths thick and just about right (good enough for who it's for anyway).
My original plan six months ago had my backsplash looking like this:
I made a deal with Globus Cork to put a banner ad up at the top of the page for 4 months in exchange for enough cork to do my backsplash. They sent the cork and it's beautiful stuff, but it was going to be more trouble than I wanted. According to them, you can't glue it to painted sheetrock (they sent glue too). And it had a lot of tiny crevices and beveled edges that might make it more difficult to keep clean.
As has become the norm during the last 6 months of this 2 week project, I changed my mind on the backsplash. Several times, in fact, but I won't go into the other iterations I dreamt up. I decided on some 3½" wide Pine tongue & groove planks. It's made for doing walls or wainscoting, comes in 8' lengths and has a lot of character knots and veins.
Some of the knots are loose and a few small ones are missing. And because this stuff doesn't come with end T&G and there might be some expansion and contraction over time, I decided to paint the wall behind the backsplash. This would have the dual purpose of sealing against any moisture that might find its way through to the flat and porous original paint and it would provide a background color for those boards you could see through.
Just before bed last night, I put the first coat of paint on. I had a hard time sleeping, so I got up at 5AM and did the second coat (and remembered I forgot to do a first coat on the side walls). I went back to bed and got up around noon and started installing the pine boards.
I decided to cut the boards to 4' lengths and install them with a 24" offset on each row. I didn't like the idea of a random appearance - too busy when using a countertop like butcher block. The boards center directly on the sink cabinet/feature cabinet. I hand sanded a beveled edge on all the ends (the planks came beveled on the sides). I know, I know, I was just complaining about the maintenance of the beveled cork, but this is different.
But wait, I ain't done yet. Not the side walls - I can't install those until the countertops are in. The finish. Yeah, I have a special finish in mind for this. I hesitate to say what the plan is because one, I usually change plans and two, if it don't work, I can tell you that what it does look like was the plan all along.
Well, I guess I can say. I'm reasonably certain it will work okay. I'm gonna use that same dark green paint (it's a semigloss), water it down and use it like a stain. I will wipe it on and wipe it off. The dark green will get into the cracks, knots and edges more, but should come fairly clean on the surface, just giving it a green tint. When it's dry, I will use a water based clear urethane to seal it and make it much easier to clean and maintain.
Maybe. I hope. At least that's how I see it in my dreams.
Dreams are what makes it happen. I wanted to redo my kitchen in the first house I owned. I wanted to pick it up turn it around and put it on the opposite side of the room which was the dining room and reverse them. Only problem was the dr area was concrete and how do you run plumbing in concrete that is alreaady down. Well one night I dreamt how to do it all. It woke me up I went in and measure and wrote everything down and went back to bed. I checked it all out again the next day and it worked. I ended up doing the remodel and broke up with the ex and sold the house.
Go for the dreams.
I did it again. Electricity is NOT my friend. That last big screwup was the light switch that was hidden by the new refrigerator location. I was gonna move it and it caused me to make a big hole in the wall that I needed to patch.
Well, this one has that one beat all to Hell. I went to bed last night right after I realized I had forgot to move the outlet that was right over the corner of my new stove location. Bad place. But since I spent all day putting up that backsplash material, I was thinking I might as well just leave it.
I woke up this morning thinking about my trip to Reno tomorrow and what I needed to get. New upper cabinet that the microwave is mounted under and... WAIT! Where am I gonna plug the microwave in??? I forgot to run the wire and make a new outlet location for inside that upper cabinet.
Me so stoopid sometimes. I can't believe I forgot that too - the most important outlet location in the kitchen area. Well, nothing more I can do but...
Another coat of wall mud to go, then primer, 2 coats of dark green paint and I can put my boards back - I saved them all, but the 2 that surrounded the old outlet location. Gee, a half day's work costs me a day and a half to make it right. I think my Friday the 13th just came late.
I took the opportunity to take a 20amp circuit wire that only fed 2 outlets for my microwave outlet. The other countertop outlets are also 20 amp, but there's 3 of them, 2 more near my desk and it also feeds juice to the ceiling fan/light. But you know, it was an interesting challenge and I actually had fun fixing my boo-boo. 'Course, I don't wanna do that again anytime soon.
The saddest moment in my entire remodel was when I failed to take into account that since my toilet had to be put on the diagonal (joist in the way where I wanted it), we should have moved the vanity over a foot. It still annoys me every time sitting on the pot. Granite corner too close to me. As soon as it all came down, I wanted to move everything, and Tommy put his foot down. My bad decision, not thinking ahead. Ugh.
The saddest moment in my entire remodel was when I failed to take into account that since my toilet had to be put on the diagonal (joist in the way where I wanted it), we should have moved the vanity over a foot. It still annoys me every time sitting on the pot. Granite corner too close to me. As soon as it all came down, I wanted to move everything, and Tommy put his foot down. My bad decision, not thinking ahead. Ugh.
Tia
I have to grin at your annoyance of the positioning of the granite corner...that's what keeps us "guys" close together........ blunt honesty!
When I'm on the pot is usually a weather thing or how late I am gonna be. You're too cool. Don't tell that guy Tommy I said that.
Have you ever said something in public ya wished ya wouldn't have?
I didn't think so.
Seriously, I can see that happening a lot. Everything looks good on paper, but in reality it has to be functional and sometimes you just can't foresee everything.
I have to grin at your annoyance of the positioning of the granite corner...that's what keeps us "guys" close together........ blunt honesty!
When I'm on the pot is usually a weather thing or how late I am gonna be. You're too cool. Don't tell that guy Tommy I said that.
Have you ever said something in public ya wished ya wouldn't have?
I didn't think so.
Seriously, I can see that happening a lot. Everything looks good on paper, but in reality it has to be functional and sometimes you just can't foresee everything.
Jim,
Tommy loves hearing about my communications in this forum, but I would never mention that we have been talking about the vanity. For almost two years, I've kept my mouth shut, but have already decided that once the rest of the house is done, it will be moved. He told me to think about how great it will be when I'm old, I can heave myself off the pot by that corner, but it is kind of dangerous for the grandkids, right at their head level.
Him and the contractor sent me photos right after they installed it, and I immediately realized the mistake, not changing my plan when the toilet plan changed, but they would have had to move pipes and light fixtures and mirror. Which will happen someday, just waiting for the right time ...
Tia
P.S. No, I never say anything in public that I wish I wouldn't have.
I am so amazed at how this finally came together. This particular project has taken a lot of hard work, the generosity of a number of people and a lot of my soul. I love how this looks. It's not done yet - I still have to hook up the faucet and drain. I wanna finish the backsplash before I connect the faucet though.
I'm sittin' here really cold right now and won't be doing it again. I promise.
I think my Friday the 13th just came late.
