I had my cabinets and some appliances shipped to a friend's house in Delaware to avoid the 900.00 in sales tax I would have had to pay here in MD.  This felt morally ambiguous at first, but then I decided it's the same as shopping at the outlet malls in DE, and then I felt fine about it.   And so then I spent that 900.00 on a trailer to pull the cabinets and appliances home with.  My brother volunteered was coerced into coming along to help, and off we went.  The FedEx guy met us about an hour after we got there.  We unloaded from his truck and off he went, leaving us to try to figure out how the heck to load all these things up onto my 6x12 trailer and the back of the minvan I borrowed to pull it with.  Our faithful little Wrangler doesn't have the towing capacity to pull this thing fully loaded because of its short wheel base.  We decided to un-palletize most of the cabinets and play a little Tetris with them.  When we finally got all the cabinets and appliances onto the trailer and into the van, I graduall started raising the trailer tongue support and watched as the shocks of the van bottomed out.  It was clear this was not going to work.  We borrowed an F-150 from a friend out there, and pulled it home with that.  This was what it looked like shortly before hitting the road.

12ft high!

It was a bit scary.  And stupid.  But hey, I was committed at this point; no turning back.  Just to make it more interesting, the Bay Bridge had high-wind warnings, so we opted to go the long way north.  Once we made it home, all the cabinets were unloaded into the garage and then I turned back around and drove the 3 hrs back to Delaware to return the truck and bring back the van.  A LONG day.

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When we were going through the house w/ the home inspector, I asked him if I'd need a chimney specialist to determine if there was any degredation.  He looked up with the flashlight and said it looks remarkably clean.  Later, the owner told us that they had never used it.  Not once.  And they moved in in 1963.  Further, she said, the owners before them had never used it either!  Apparently, the house has cedar shingles at the time, and they were afraid some ember would start the house on fire.  Well, we'll be breaking that trend.

First, though, we've got to do something about that look.  White walls, white brick.  Who paints brick? 

After some online research (of course) I determined that sandblasting might be overkill for this, and it could damage the brick.  We wanted to avoid any harsh chemicals, as we don't like using them on principle.  We bought some citrus-based stripping gel and started with that. 



The citrus-based stripper



The carbon brush wheel



After brushing it on and letting it sit overnight, I attacked it with a scraper.  I got some chunks off, but obviously this was not going to get it out of the grit of the brick to the level we wanted.  So I bought one of these carbon steel brush wheels and a new Dewalt corded 1/2" drill to turn it with.  Oh, and a dual-filtered breathing mask, because this was going to put a lot of paint dust and brick residue in the air, and I don't want me or the wife breathing that in.  Oh, speaking of dust in the air...



I put a sheet of plastic from floor to ceiling to encase the living room.  It has a very ET feel to it.  "Elllll--eeeeee--ooooot?"

This was a good move.  There was a LOT of dust.

Stopped for a progress shot.  You can see where the citrus stripper has removed chunks of paint where the brush wheel hasn't been yet.  But the best part is, of course, that the wheel is getting the brick to the distressed look we are after.  Unfortunately, it's also wearing out that brush incredibly quickly.  We ended up going through 5 or 6 of them in total.  Once I had the technique down, I showed it to the wife, who is always sometimes willing to jump in on our ongoing projects. 

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For the design phase of this project, I wanted to be very thorough.  Very.  Thorough.

And now it's time to share another life lesson from Dad.  More times then not, you should stare at things.  No, really.  Just stare and think.  To the uninitiated (our wives) it appears as though nothing is happening.  Clearly, if a tool belt is not on and dust isn't being made, we must be not making progress.  Au contraire!  Until you interrupted me, darling, I was half way done tearing out that cabinet in my mind.

After staring at the kitchen for countless hours, it was design phase time.  First stop?  The intertubes!  I needed a free, low-learning-curve piece of software to design the kitchen with.  There's some great home-design software products out there that you can buy that will do an awesome job.  TTFWEB over at 10K Kitchen has some nice software that I've been eyeing up, but I'm not prepared to spend yet.  So, I found the Kitchen Planning Tool by Ikea.  The good?  It's free, it's very intuitive and usable, and all of Ikea's cabinets follow the same sizing as the rest of the cabinet manufacters do.  The bad: Ikea may not have the variety in cabinetry you are looking for.  But for where I was, it's perfect.  I build the layout with the Ikea software and then sent it to some other cabinet manufacturers we are considering.  All Wood Fast through Costco has a free design service.  Using my schematics and the room measurements, they came back with these.

My wife really likes the idea of big corner cabinets.  They look really good now that I've seen them in the design. 

The Farmer's Sink is something that we feel is pretty central to the rustic theme we are going for here.  The cabinet under it will be a pain, though, as the cabinet manufacturer doesn't make one.  That's an upper cabinet placed underneath.
 

I'm not totally sold on the "Appliance Garage" cabinet, but I like the basic idea of hiding away small appliances.

The flooring isn't accurate, as we'll be going with ceramic.  Although I love hardwood flooring, the rest of the house will eventually be hardwood, so we'll do ceramic here to offer a little variety.

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Well.. I suppose most pumpkin-carving is DIY, but I'm going to show them off, anyway.

My brother, the Apple enthuisiast, has an obvious contribution, here. Mine is the power symbol. Why? Because long before I installed a floor or light switch, I was installing hard drives and mother boards. It's true... I'm a geek.

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The other day I started thinking about a project my Mom did when I was a kid. She found an antique icebox and refinished it, turning it into a very handsome filing cabinet. Her brother bought it from her and uses it in his office to this day. I've always loved it.

So, as frequently happens when I think of random things, I turned to the internet. Well, hey, here's a nice one on Craigslist. And it just happens to be close to my house. Hmm...

I don't know when or where, but I'm going to use this for something nice.

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Well, it's almost time to start the big one.  The kitchen.

Let's start with some honesty.  I'm not a home-improvement novice, but I'm probably pretty close.  The wife and I moved to this house from a townhouse, and it's needs were few.  The biggest job we did there was the kitchen renovation.  We refinished the cabinets, installed Hardwood Laminate, new laminate countertops, appliances, and paint.  I had to do some minor drywall repair on the backsplash when we removed the tile.  My home improvement budget was minimal, and so was my tool repertoire.  Happily, that little townhouse ignited within me the spark of DIY, and the desire to find a house that wasn't perfect already.

So, back to the kitchen.  This one is going to be huge.  The biggest DIY I've yet attempted.  Onto the pictures.
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That small open area between the oven and the upper cabinets is where the women were to put the food for the men, I guess?



The view from the small area between the counter and the cabinets

Note the baseboard heat, here.  The house is on a oil-fired boiler.  The heat produced is just awesome.  It doesn't dry you out, like our heat pump did.  I dont like the look of the baseboard radiators, though.  We'll be taking them out and exploring...other options.  [wink]

The space between the fridge and the peninsula is not made for fatties.

This oven is too narrow for a 9x13.  Eek.

These cabinets were hand made by the 2nd owner in the 1950s.

Note the grooves in the doors, here?  There's radiators inside the cabinets!   This was a totally custom job.

Living Room to left, Sunroom to right

From the living room entry way looking to the sunroom

So there you have it.  Out kitchen, the last time you'll see it in a non-construction state for a long time.

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