Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by!
We are two house-loving DIYers now onto our second house. One of us has vision...and one has actual skills.
Design and working on our home are our major hobbies, whenever we have a few moments of free time not devoted to our daughter or jobs. We are hoping to share our ideas, triumphs and mistakes to help other DIYers and get new ideas from all of you!

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Cabinet install

Well, I did not lie - I got up at 6 this morning eager to get to work on our cabinets.  We started with the pantry wall.  Since these are the tallest cabinets we are dealing with, we thought that they would give us a good sense of how far from the ceiling we'd be around the room.  Of course, we realized part way in that the tallest cabinets are also the trickiest in terms of leveling...and that both our floors AND ceiling are very much not level.  We shimmed and leveled our way to getting the two pantry cabinets installed on their toe-kick bases.


We started with leveling the toekick platforms.
Our floor had a DEFINITE pitch, so this was really important.

Used so many shims today!

The first visitors to our "new" kitchen - Dad, Mom, Uncle Ed, and Aunt Pauline
stopped by this morning on their way into Boston for some sight-seeing.

Getting ready to set the two uppers.
There will be open shelves for cookbooks in teh center

Our first four cabinets set!

After a break for a fun birthday celebration for Jennifer, we came home and started to tackle the sink wall.  It was VERY tricky getting the garbage cabinet the exact distance away from the sink cabinet (for the dishwasher), and level in every dimension.  Our current base cabinets are slightly taller than the new base cabinets, so we built up the bottom first.  Then we used shims in all directions to tackle our off-kilter floor....darn old houses!  In the end, we GOT IT!


We also set the upper cabinet and we have the fridge panel ready to go.  We will have to space it for the SLIGHT increase in the width of the face frame.
Fridge pannel looking sharp!

The sink area (blue-taped cabinet) feels so differently with a great upper to the left!
This seems SO long ago!
Here's a peek at the cabinet layout plans.
Sink wall

Stove wall

Pantry/breakfast bar wall

We will be taking a brief break after we get the last base cabinet in (next to the stove) and build the cleat for the breakfast bar - at that point it will be ready for the cabinet templating.  The work is slowing down a little because Brent is injured - his right hand has some tingles/numbness/pain...not good!

Hopefully our brief vacation to the Berkshires, on my birthday :), will help heal him up a little!  I can't wait to see all of the cabinets up and with doors and hardware!  It's starting to feel like a kitchen again!

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