Kitchen Update

Ok, so when you move into a 1920's house, especially one that was a rental property for a while, things are not necessarily updated to modern standards.  One thing we wanted when we moved in was a dish washer. That's not unreasonable, right?  Most counter tops these days are standardized at 26 inches deep and 36 inches high.  Ours, not so much.  Try 22 inches deep and 32 inches high.  To fit a standard dishwasher, you need at least 24x32, and those are under the counter-top dimensions.  So then began the scheming.  How do we make this work and not break the budget?  Do we cut the countertop and have a two tier setup?  How are we going to do that and not have it look like poop?  If we do all new countertops, what are we going to make them out of?  Are we going to reuse the sink?  Do we want other features like a sprayer?  Is it maybe just simpler to start from scratch and do the cabinets too?

Once we figured out what we wanted, what materials to use, and what our budget was, then the update began.  (Note: its still not quite done yet)  We started out by going to the local big box stores to price faucets, sinks, etc.  For the record, there is some really expensive crap out there.  We also visited the local Re-Store (associated with Habitat for Humanity) to see if there was a deal there.  Fortunately, we found a sink we liked (although not in the right color) for a tiny fraction of the money we would have spent on that same sink at the big box store.  So because we scored a deal on a Kohler (yes, name brand even) sink, it was worth spending a little more on some tub and tile refinishing magic paint to have a white sink.  I say magic, because the stuff is tough as nails once cured.  I have been quite impressed with the product.  Once the sink was done (refinished) it was off to other things.

Before I launch into the process of building and laminating the counter tops, I have to say a few thank yous.  The first is to my grandfather for the gift of tools.   Without the tools that he gave me (on the promise that I would use them), I would not have been able to complete this or any of the other projects I have done for the house (and for fun).  I am greatly thankful every time I step into my workshop and fire up yet another project.  I sometimes think that the tools carry their own wisdom from all of the projects they have done in the past with you.  Thank you Grandpa!

I also have to give a big thanks to my dad, who, even though he has plenty of his own projects going on, still seems to find time to lend a helping hand, and seems happy to do so.  This kitchen remodel would not have happened without you!  Thank you for your help on this and many other projects!!!!

I also have to thank my wonderful, understanding wife.  She knows that I love and NEED projects to keep myself sane in the free moments I have when not doing child care.  Thank you for being so understanding, and letting me totally destroy things to make our house better!

Counter-top

So I will admit, I knew nothing about building counter-tops.  Ok, so I had read the section in Don Casey's This Old Boat, but boat cabinetry is not quite the same as house cabinetry (although I probably should not have assumed that everything was square, but more on that later).  So off to the internet I went, looking for the best materials and methods, and just finding that everyone was adamant about their method, and even giants of the DIY home improvement world like This Old House were not in agreement with themselves.  One of their posts said to use particle board as the structure, and another said to use plywood.  Both articles seemed to think it was the preferred method, and from the same information source.  I gave up and compared prices, and that made my decision.  Particle board, while it has its issues (as does plywood, albeit different ones), is the least expensive method.  Also, the factory formed counter-top pieces you can buy at the big box store are particle board, so it must be an okay method.  Those would not have worked for this application though.  

What came next was trying to figure out how to make the counter tops.  I knew I was going to have to piece 2 different sheets of p-board together to get the 121 inches of length for the counter-top.  This meant that I needed a means to reinforce the butt-joints, as well as the counter-top in general, as the sink alone weighs about 80 lbs.  This is where I found general agreement on the interwebz.  While the width varied a bit, it seemed to be a consensus that riser strips were needed for making a strong laminate counter-top.  As you can see in the picture next to the clamps, there is a perimeter of p-board around the entire bottom side of the counter-top.  I used four inch strips across the bottom in locations where there would be more stress on the counter-top, like where the hole for the sink was, and where the L stuck out from the edge.  Once all of that was glued together with waterproof wood glue, I could focus on prepping the surface for the laminate.  In some cases, it meant just a little light sanding to bring things flush, and in others required getting out power tools like my router to do major trimming.  

The next challenge was to figure out how to do the laminate part.  Again, This Old Boat gave me a starting point, as there is a section on laminates in the cabinetry section of the book.  With some solid info, I then went off to the webernetz again looking for more info and again found that everyone seems adamant about their method.  With too much information at my fingertips, I again decided that I would price things out and just jump into the project.  I ended up buying the big box store counter-top adhesive, as well as a laminate trim bit for the router.  It was then just a matter of following the directions on the adhesive container (although I generally have a hard time following instructions....) and cutting the pieces of laminate that I needed.  I glued the back-splash and the vertical faces on the counter-top first, followed by the flat top.  I did it this way so that the edging would be overlaid by the top, and hopefully this will help keep water, oils, food, etc out from under the laminate.  This should contribute to its longevity, but only time will tell.

When putting the top on the counter, I used old dowels to suspend the laminate above the p-board until I was ready to stick the two together.  When you are working with full 4x8 ft sheets, this is very important, since touching the two pieces together (both have glue on them) means they stick.  Once the dowels are pulled, the laminate has to be rolled with a special rubber roller to make sure the laminate glue adheres properly.  This was not done correctly in the house I grew up in, and the laminates were always pulling up from the rest of the counters.  I hope to not have this issue in the future, but we will see.  Once the laminate was glued, I could then cut the holes for the sink, faucet, etc.

Then came the fun part.  By fun, I mean lots of work, swearing and sweat.  I had to remove the old counter-top from the kitchen and take out a cabinet where the dishwasher was going to live.  It was time to break out the demolition tools!  When the last counter was redone, they nailed a piece of 1/4 inch plywood on top of a solid wood counter, which was then covered with horrible 70's-esk yellow laminate.  And when I say nailed, I mean they put a nail every 3 inches, and were using 2 inch nails.  So not only did they WAY overkill the nailing of the 1/4 inch plywood to the existing counter, but they also re-nailed the existing counter to the cabinetry below.  (Insert swearing and sweat here!)  What I thought was going to take me an hour or so took me three hours.  Welcome to old house projects.  Do you see a trend here?  After a lot of pulling, grunting, and swearing, I had the old counter-top off, but I also had a pipe chase that was apart, as well as an entire cabinetry section to remove and re-orchestrate.

 Taking care of those took significantly less time, but still took time.  While I was doing all of this, my dad was doing the plumbing for the sink, since there had not been shutoffs for the sink when we moved in.  Here is where I took a page out of sailing plumbing (think thru-hulls) and used ball valves as shutoffs instead of screw-type shutoffs that are common in household plumbing.  They fail after a few years because they are not made from stainless steel or bronze, so after a few years, you are back to not having shutoffs.  With ball valves, especially bronze ones, they are hard to make fail.  This is why they are very common on boats where there are through the hull penetrations, because if you have a pipe fail in the boat, you have to be able to shut it off or you are going to sink and maybe die, depending on where you are.  In that case, it has to work, period.  I feel the same about house shutoffs.  What is the point of having a shutoff if its not going to work after a few years?

Eventually there was no longer a cabinet in the way, so the dishwasher could go in for a test fit.  This was after the 2x4 lift blocks were added to the cabinets.  It was convenient that I needed only 1.5 inches of rise, so the 2x4's were perfect.  Once the dish washer was test fitted, then we could get to work on wiring it into place.  There was an outlet that had been installed (I am assuming for a disposal that was no longer there) that was on it's own circuit breaker, which was perfect.  I just needed to move the junction box and run a second piece of romex that would reach to the dishwasher.  With that and the plumbing done, it was time for a lot more swearing, sweating, and work.

Remember how I mentioning that I probably should have taken more clues from This Old Boat with its hull shaped cabinetry?  Yea, 1920's houses are not square.  Sometimes pretty close, but more often than not, they are really out a square.  When I added the L to the counter top, I assumed that it was square, and built it accordingly.  That might have been because I only took one length measurement for the counter.  I should have measured at the back, middle, and front of where the counter was going to be.  As it turned out, the L needed a little trimming to even hope it would fit.  Even with that taken care of, we ran into another issue.

Remember how I built the counter in one piece?  Yea, that was a mistake.  When you are going wall to wall with a counter top, especially if it is L shaped, consider how you are going to squeeze it into place, especially if you have low wall cabinets to get the counter under.  Three of us managed to get it taken care of, but only after taking off window trim, wall trim, and gouging the crap out of the walls and paint.  If you are considering this, MAKE YOUR COUNTER IN 2 PIECES!!!!!!!!!!  Even still, I think the project turned out well.


There was some final finish work that had to be done, like closing the sink in again, but it was not challenging.  The last remaining thing to do is the put drawers in next to the dishwasher, but that is a post for another day!