Plaster & Disaster

First off, thank you guys for everything this past week — from the support you expressed when you thought we had totally lost our minds and bought a death trap fixer upper to the support you expressed when you discovered that we had totally tricked you and instead were grown women embarking on a dollhouse makeover, you really are the best. Of course all that we learned through this process is  you’re totally okay with being cruelly tricked and misled, so duly noted for the future!

Our tiny bloggers will be back on and off in future weeks to share progress on their totally unique and special home renovation, but in the meantime it’s back to full scale reality.

Ugh, the kitchen. So when I last left off, we had made the bold decision to remove the floor, and spent a three-day weekend living with the consequences of this choice.

I’m happy to report that almost two weeks later…we still don’t have a floor, because the tile I ordered arrived and I don’t like. Not one bit. Womp womp.

But that’s a post for a future day. Like probably next Friday. In the meantime, today I’m here to share a little bit about progress we’ve made building the cabinets for what I’ve been referring to as “the pantry wall.” As you’ll recall, it used to look like this:

And eventually, it will look just like this:

And when you last saw it, it looked like this:

And currently it looks like this:

It might not look like much, but we’re making progress! My amazing dad is helping us build the custom cabinetry for this wall. He’s a very talented woodworker (c.f. the basement workbench), but he’s never made cabinets before so this is a fun learning experience for both of us.

We’re starting with the pantry cabinet, which is going to the right of the fridge and will be 24″ wide by 24″ deep. You might wonder why I didn’t just buy a manufactured pantry cabinet, but all the prefab ones I could find are a maximum of 18″ wide and we really wanted more space than this so we can store a lot including a microwave. So obviously we had no choice but to make our lives more difficult and build our own.

My dad came to visit the weekend after our awesome contractors took down the kitchen wall, which was also the same weekend we ripped out all the tile flooring. So it was a very busy and productive weekend! Fortunately while Sam destroyed things inside, we had nice weather to set up a workshop in the driveway:

First we finished up the base of the cabinet (he’d built a little of it in Vermont before coming down):

And then most of the time we spent constructing the main “box” that will form the body of the pantry. I’m not going to give a full tutorial now because it’s far from done, but maybe once we have it all finished. In the meantime, here’s the overview:

He had already cut the top, bottom, sides, and back to size. What a guy. The wood is really nice plywood with a great finish (similar to what I used on the coffee table). Even though I will be painting it, he wanted to be sure the finish is nice and smooth under the paint.

We used a biscuit joiner, wood glue, and screws to attach the top and bottom to the sides:

Then we used the kreg jig to add a shelf right at the vertical halfway point. We’ll be constructing sliding shelves for most of the pantry, but this solid shelf is where the top and bottom doors will be divided and where the microwave will sit.

We attached pine 1x2s around the front to frame it out, and he routed grooves in the framing so it’s inset around the box.

I’d never used a router table before, and it was cool to see it in action.

We attached the framing with finishing nails and glue, drilling tiny pilot holes for the nails first and then sinking them with a nail punch so that they can later be wood puttied over and hidden.

Next we attached two support strips to the back edge along the very top and halfway down using the kreg jig.

And finally we attached the back — which was a thinner plywood — with finishing nails and glue.

We measured where the hole for the outlet in the wall will be (one of the ones we installed in March), and then cut out an opening for it using a drill to start the hole and then a jig saw.

Then we carried it inside, and here it is in place!

The advantage of setting on a base is that if it were a single piece it would be too tall to stand it up inside without it hitting into the ceiling. This way we can stand up the main box and then lift it and set it on the base. We won’t actually install it until we put in the new floor, though so for now it’s just roughly sitting in place which is why the hole for the outlet doesn’t quite line up.

We did make use of it while doing a little touch up work on the refrigerator surround (we removed the side panels briefly and cut .5″ off the bottom of them so now they’re floating above the floor and can sit on top of the new flooring):

The other cabinet project was to hang the glass-front cabinet that will go above our coffee bar area. We’re using the cabinet that is one of a set that Naomi and I salvaged from that local high school last year and then made over for one of our blog anniversary posts. As you may recall, I used mod podge to add patterned fabric to the back of mine:

But I knew I might use it in the kitchen, which is why I picked something easily reversible. The mod podge definitely put up a fight, but I successfully ripped it off.

Before mounting it onto the wall, we first needed to add some framing pieces. The space between the wall and the left side of the fridge cabinet where we planned to mount this was about 50 inches, but the cabinet was only 46.5″ wide. So first we cut some strips of wood to be 1.75″ wide (or rather, 1 & 27/32″ according to our very precise calculations):

My dad has a woodworking calculator app on his phone, and it’s amazing. Go download it immediately.

We cut these strips to length and then I used the kreg jig to attach them to the front sides and bottom sides of the cabinet.

Once it’s mounted and painted, the other edges will be hidden and the framing will look like part of the cabinet.

The back of the cabinet was recessed in an inch:

So next we added two strips of wood across the length of the back of the cabinet. The goal was to fill that gap and give us something solid to drill into between the cabinet and wall. Of course it wasn’t easy because the back was recessed in 1″ which is a difficult depth to achieve — most boards are 3/4″ deep, so we actually glued together two 3/4″ strips and then ripped them on the table saw to shave them down to 1″. My dad is a genius. I failed to take photos.

Then we determined where the studs were in the wall, marked those corresponding spots inside the cabinet and drilled pilot holes, drilled a bunch of additional pilot holes, and pre-set screws in all of them (3.5″ screws in the holes that would hit studs, 2.5″ screws in the other holes). Then with Sam’s help, we lifted the cabinet into place with 1″ spacers sitting temporarily on the top to make sure it was the same distance away from the ceiling as the other cabinets along that wall (we’ll fill the gap with crown molding) and quickly drove in the screws. Like with the workbench, we used star-headed screws, which never strip. REVELATION. Of course halfway through the drill died and we didn’t have a back-up battery, so we had to wait 24 hours to finish. But finish we did!

So in conclusion, our kitchen is basically done.

Okay maybe not, but it was a ton of fun to work on this with my dad and I feel so lucky that we have a shared hobby that lets us hang out AND make progress on my wreck of a house. Love you, Dad!

Oh and as if this three-day weekend wasn’t busy enough, we also got our new countertop templated. It was cool to see how they do this with plastic strips and hot glue — here’s a photo I creepily snapped.

Man, I hope this dollhouse is easier than a life size reno…. But progress is progress!