Day 14

I've more or less finished the plastering - at least to the extend that I can do it. Most of it looks fine I think. I will do one more round of sanding today and a few spots might need another coat of plastering. This was pretty painstaking and definitely tougher to get a good clean finish than I imagined it. I got better at it with some practice but also the lack of time made it inconvenient. I would spend around an hour on it everyday when I got home but that meant putting the drop cloths over the fridge each time, cleaning the mud tray and knife and so on - so I really got to work on small sections at a time. Everything is secure, nothing is going to crack or anything but the walls could probably have been smoother. In any case, I am priming the ceiling tomorrow and sanding the walls for paint.

I am going back and forth on whether I should paint the walls now prior to installing the counter top and cabinets or wait. The argument in favor of waiting is that the counter top is more permanent than the paint and comes in fewer colors so one should match the paint color to the counter top. On the flip side, if the counter top and cabinets are not up - I can paint easier without worrying about smooth edges around cabinets etc. In the worst case, if the paint color simply doesn't match once I put up the counter top - I could repaint.. Another main reason why I want to paint first is so that I can finish off the messy part of the project with that. Right now the kitchen is a total disaster zone with the sanded powder everywhere, joint compound and tools lying around etc. I try to avoid it as much as possible except to heat up food. I would really like to just finish the paint so I can clean up the kitchen so that it doesn't look like this when I come back from the week in Florida.

I'm getting a plumber to come tomorrow to give me an estimate on changing the sink out. The electrician who had come had offered to do it though he wasn't a licensed plumber. Depending on whether I decide to install cabinets before painting, I might just get the new sink installed tomorrow or wait..

Day 11

I'm not sure whether the day count is accurate at this point. In any case, yesterday I bought a power pad sander on the way home. That definitely made sanding very easy. The dust collection bag was also very useful. I sanded the entire area and did another coat of plaster on some parts. I think it now is starting to look like its getting close to being done. I still have the critical areas to finalize but I think another half hour of sanding totally and another 2 hours of plastering will do the trick. That should take me two days. Hopefully by Thursday I'll even be able to put primer on the ceiling so that I can paint it by Friday. I miss a camera as it would have been nice to look at this later at some point.

Day 10

On Friday - since I posted last, the electrician stayed at home till 11pm finishing up everything. I woke up on Saturday morning, made a hardware store run and called Thejus to come over to help with the drywall. I of course grew impatient with waiting and by the time he came, had already installed most of the drywall on the ceiling. After he left in the evening I started plastering and taping which continued onto Sunday. By Monday morning, I was unsure about my work - I am not sure how bumpy the ceiling will look with my amateur plastering. In most places, I think it will not be very noticeable as the cabinets will go up almost all the way till the joints in the drywall. Over the window and door though, there wont be any cabinets and I guess these will be the most critical areas for plastering. I got home on Monday evening and sanded down the joints but it was pretty painful - I put way too much plaster the first time around. I think in my mind I had the images of masons in India who have to put on one full coat of plaster to cover the bricks. Here you really need only a very thin coat where the joints are and the rest can just be plain drywall.

I plastered the critical areas (over window and door) on Monday evening and I think I did a much better job on this than I did everywhere else because I was more used to it. Today the plan is to buy a power random orbit sander, sand the ceilings and put the second coat of plaster. I hope that by the end of the week, I'm done with the plastering and painting of the ceiling. I've called a plumber to come on Saturday morning to give me a quote on installing the new sink. I hoped to have bought and assembled the sink by Friday evening but checking now, I can't find the sink we wanted on Ikea and not sure if they discontinued it..

Day 7

Just got a call from the electrician - looks like I can't install the range hood after all. The place where the vent has to go up has a ceiling joist on it which can't be removed so the only alternative is to have a cabinet over the range with an under cabinet hood and then have a flexible vent inside the cabinet, bringing forward the vent and taking it to the ceiling. At this point, it looks like too much to do - also cause I'm not a big fan of the undercabinet hoods.

Day 6

Bought the range hood on the way home. Also looked a bit around Ikea to make sure the kitchen would work the way I imagined it to and I think it might. On the way home though, got rear ended by a Jessica someone when I got onto the 53. I pulled over and she did as well and gave me her card. The car didn't look like anything happened to it, could hardly even see a scratch though the thud from the crash had made me think . In any case, I'm taking it for regular servicing on Monday and will ask them to make sure nothing happened so that I don't have to claim her insurance.

Day 5

Decided to go with the electrician who said he would do it for cheap if I helped him. I thought that was great as I get to learn something new and get my hands dirty. More than half the reason for doing this project was just to get something to do and this should serve that purpose perfectly. He will start early though and I will join him on Friday once I get back from work. In the meantime, I can't put up drywall but can start taping the room for paint. I also need to buy a range hood either today or tomorrow.

Thejus is coming over on Friday evening to hang out and then put up the drywall on Saturday morning. I should be able to paint enough by Saturday as well as buy the wall cabinets from Ikea. The plan is to hang the wall cabinets first so that I can put back everything in shelves thats currently lying around the living / dining room so that I have space to unload the base cabinets. Hopefully, by the time I go to Hometown Celebration, it should start looking like a new kitchen.

Day 4

Got two electricians to come home and check out the work to drill the frames and put the conduits through that. Also, since we're doing all this - I thought it might make sense to re-vent the current exhaust fan which is sort of off center relative to the range, and make it a proper range hood. The estimate from one of them was $200 and $300 from the other. Among the two, I preferred the more expensive guy because he seemed like he would take more care than the first guy. Also the first guy can't come on a Saturday and I didn't feel comfortable with just leaving the house to him.

The other option is me doing the work myself. After doing some research and talking to people, I think I was probably just using the wrong tool. Though a rotary tool might have been better to cut right through a pipe, for the purpose of cutting through without damaging the wires, I need a tube cutter. With the tube cutter, I think I can probably do the electric work myself. I am very unsure about the vent work though.

In other news, had Am, Chris and Mat over to spend the night last night on their way to NYC. Also, last night when I went to the bathroom at night, I figured it was a lot easier to get up from Beks' side of the bed than my side to do so. My side of the bed is like 1 ft from the wall and I have to walk around the bed to get to the bathroom. Even though once I did get up and go from Beks' side - it made so much sense, I guess just out of habit, I've been climbing in and out of bed from my side for the past week, even though the bed has been empty..

Will figure something out for the electrical before the weekend.