Kitchen Nightmares: Somerville Edition

Yesterday was the TripAdvisor/Smarter Travel Media holiday party so I didn’t have a chance to post.  The best thing about yesterday was that the electrical and building inspections were crossed off the long list of visits required by the City of Somerville.  That cleared the way for installation of insulation today and - hooray! - walls early next week.

The room looks very pink now:

Pink insulation in the outside wall

The insulation in the roof had to be replaced because the previous stuff didn’t meet building code for cathedral ceilings.  Apparently what we needed was “R30″ insulation.  That means nothing to me, but it’s there now.

R30 insulation in the upper ceiling

All of this happened just in time for the first big snowstorm of the season.  It’s been pretty cold in the house lately, with the kitchen completely un-insulated.  Now we should be warm and toasty like we were before.

Another new touch that was added today is a directional piece on the light fixture at the back of the room.  Now the light points straight down, rather than into the room at the angle of the ceiling.  It’s much brighter and (I think) means that we don’t have to move the light farther back in the ceiling.  Here’s a closeup:

Pointed downward, not inward

Less glamorous but still exciting is that the gas line for the cooktop was installed yesterday.  There’s a short back story on it: apparently the gas line that we had running to the old stove was too small to provide enough gas to the new cooktop.  The plumber had to run a larger line off our furnace in the basement to fuel the five 15,000 BTU burners and one 9,000 BTU burner that are part of the one we’re having installed.  I don’t know how much a BTU is, but that sounds like a lot of them.

Endless BTUs

Lastly, I couldn’t resist posting this picture of nasty red goop that’s sealing the base of each basement penetration along the wall:

Red goop

I’m assuming this is to keep cold air from the basement from flowing up into the kitchen walls.  This in particular is around one of the drain vent pipes.  Yuck!

The next thing to do is to put the walls up and plaster them.  No more open walls!

Got take out from Cambridge Common for dinner tonight.  I was there for a couple of beers after work.  They have a southern fried chicken dish with biscuits and mashed potatoes that is really excellent, even after a short drive through the snow.  Still very little momentum for cooking at home, though Anne’s been eating microwaveable macaroni and cheese this past week.  That and coffee are just about it.

Uncategorized construction, inspections, insulation, lighting, open walls, plumbing, stove

Today’s most visible bit of progress is the new duct running from the future vent hood to the eventual outside vent:

Duct for vent hood running next to the support beam

As soon as the outdoor vent cap arrives, we’ll have a hole cut in our outside wall and siding and the duct covered on the outside.  Then we can redirect all of the smoke and steam from the cooktop to the outside.  Hopefully not the aroma of what’s cooking though.  No need to share too much with the squirrels.

The duct was installed by Mike the carpenter, who also finished up the ceiling frames and marked up the electrical changes that will be made in the next couple of days.  That’s maybe the most significant bit of progress today: I spent some time this morning with George and Mike ironing out all of the outstanding questions about lighting and wiring.  The electrician will be back tomorrow and/or Wednesday to finish things up, with an electrical inspection to follow by the end of the week.  Having all of that resolved is a huge relief.

Markup on ceiling straps for lighting installation

There’s a ton to do in the next few days: finishing up electrical work and the electrical inspection; building inspection for all the new framing; drywall and plaster installation and inspection for that; and finalizing details on tile and installation for that.  We also need to make sure we’re on track for countertop templating and delivery once the cabinets are in.

Speaking of which, the cabinets arrive a week from today!  Ruskin tells me that we’re just about ready for them.

What are all these weird markings on the floor?

Anne and I had a nice dinner at Temple Bar tonight.  Last night was pizza and wings from Andrea’s in Somerville.  Seriously, if I come out of this project under 300 pounds, it will be a major accomplishment.

Uncategorized construction, framing, inspections, lighting, open walls

The past two days have been all about electrical wiring and outlet box installation.  All necessary, but hardly exciting.  There’s a lot that has to be done: outlets, overhead lighting, under-cabinet lighting, disposal and dishwasher wiring, cooktop hood fan wiring and controls.  At some point we need a 240-volt line for the ovens but I haven’t seen that yet.

One complication with this project is that our house has only 50-amp electrical service.  Apparently most houses now have 100-amp service or even more than that.  To power the ovens and everything else, we need to upgrade to 100 amps.  I really have no idea what that requires, but the electrician has asked for access to the other three basements in our building.  We’re not exactly keen on bothering our neighbors with this, or trying to coordinate access during the day when everyone’s at work.

This is all moving along, but I find myself staring at empty outlet boxes and trying to figure out what’s going to go there.  Where are they going to put switches for under-cabinet lights?  Where will the overhead lights be placed?  Are we going to have enough outlets?  I’m becoming quite the micro-manager as I grill George each day about these kinds of details.

Speaking of George, he gave us one awesome piece of news on the cost front: our semi-complicated tile installation will NOT cost us any extra!  For once something will not add to the cost of this project.  Hooray!

There’s not a whole lot new to look at, but here’s some wiring:

Markup and new electrical wiring

Some yellow wires, some white wires. What does it all mean?

Uncategorized construction, electrical, lighting, open walls

So I had a request for more info on the big support beam we had installed yesterday.  I’ll try to describe the issue and show some more detailed pictures.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, our upstairs bathroom sits on top of the kitchen, but it only covers about half of the room.  The other half is where we have a higher ceiling in the back of the kitchen.  At the back of of the bathroom, a load-bearing wall across what is now the kitchen must have been removed at some point.  No replacement support for the upper floor was added.

Now, I don’t believe that the upper floor was completely unsupported because we never had any settling or or instability up there.  I think it just wasn’t supported in a way that met modern building codes.  It looked like the framing of the upper floor may have been attached to the side of some large support columns on one side, but there was nothing supporting it directly from underneath.  The bottom of the upper floor looked like this:

Kitchen ceiling

Unfortunately I don’t seem to have any pictures of the sides of the upper floor, where it meets the two kitchen walls.  Just the photo above, which shows what the main part of the ceiling looked like before the changes.  The old strapping, about 3 inches’ worth, was removed, lessening the amount that we would have to lower the ceiling to accommodate the beam.

Yesterday, the new support was installed across the kitchen.  It’s the large, medium-colored horizontal beam in this photo:

New support beam

It’s now sitting underneath the back of the upstairs bathroom.  The old wood above the beam in the photo is the outside of the bathroom.  On what would be the left side of the photo above, it’s supported by a large column that was already part of the structure.  A notch was cut out of the column and the beam was set into it, like so:

Left-side support for new beam

The existing column is the ancient-looking wooden piece in the lower-right.  A new 2×4 was also placed to the left, presumably to add extra bracing to keep the beam in the notch.  The three horizontal slats below the beam are unfinished strapping for the ceiling to the right.

On the right side of the first photo, a new support column had to be built.  It consists of three 2×4s stacked together and placed alongside part of the brick wall.  You can only see one of the three 2×4s (the others are stacked behind it), and there’s a lot of other stuff going on in this photo, but here’s what it looks like:

Right side support for new beam

Again on this side, there’s an extra 2×4 to support the outside of the beam and hold it in place horizontally.  The plywood over top of the column is extra support for cabinets.

In the end, we lowered the ceiling below the bathroom by about 6 inches.  The old ceiling was somewhere around 9 feet, so we’ve still got an 8 1/2-foot ceiling in that part of the kitchen.  Not too bad.

Progress today was less dramatic.  There’s a lot of that plywood bracing for cabinets:

Plywood supports for cabinets

And the plumbing for the sink was moved:

A very exciting picture of new pipes

I am pleased to report that we have had daily inspections and have, to my knowledge, passed them all.  Every day when he’s allowed downstairs, Ruskin heads straight for the kitchen and sniffs everything from new construction to floor protectors to tools that the workers left behind for the night.  As far as I know, his only complaint has been that it’s “different.”

The inspector at work

Also today, Anne had her LASIK enhancement.  We ordered from Redbones and ate in near-darkness to avoid hurting her eyes.  Afterward I finally washed some dishes in the upstairs bathroom.  It was awkward without a drying rack.  I was constantly worried about clogging the drain with the little amount of food left on the plates.  And I just know I’m going to drop a bunch of glasses trying to carry them up and down the stairs all the time.  Maybe plastic is best.

Uncategorized construction, framing, inspections, open walls, plumbing

Yesterday’s bad news turned into today’s progress.  Many of the fixes were completed, including installation of the big support beam, leveling out of the main wall, lowering the frames of both ceilings, repair of the mystery door, and removal of the insulation which wasn’t up to code.

Incidentally, today I was home trying to get over a slight cold.  The goal was to get some rest to keep it from getting worse.  It’s hard to rest, though, when the house is rattled constantly by hammering, pneumatic nail guns, and the extremely loud air compressor powering them.  I guess it’s just not a good idea to be sick during a renovation project.

Had an Anna’s burrito for dinner tonight.  Very few dishes required for that.  We haven’t even tried yet to deal with the microwave/toaster oven setup we’ve got in the dining room.  Dining In and our favorite delivery/takeout places are our best friends.

Here are a couple of pictures of the new work:

New support beam and lowered ceiling frame

Other side of the support beam, and repaired mystery door frame

Lowered upper ceiling frame to accomodate new insulation and lighting

Uncategorized construction, framing, open walls