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

In the most visible progress since the framing was mostly finished, our kitchen now has working lights!  We came home today and six 4″ recessed light fixtures had been installed and wired to the wall switch.  This is very exciting, as it’s the first time since demolition day that we’ve been able to see in there at night after work without a flashlight.  Makes it start to feel more like a part of our house again rather than just a construction site.

All of the photos in this post were taken without flash - all lit by the new lights.  Here’s how the room looks:

Looking into the kitchen from the hallway

Three lights in the upper ceiling

The upper ceiling above has only three lights because the fourth corner will have a pendant lamp hanging down over the sink.  The electrical box is there now, but the lamp won’t be installed until near the end of the project.  We have to pick it out and buy it first…

Three lights in the lower ceiling (one without a bulb)

Because of the angled corner between the kitchen and dining room, the lights were arranged in a triangle in the lower ceiling.

It’s hard to tell how the lighting will look once the walls are up.  With the dark exposed wood it feels a little dim, but white walls and a white ceiling will reflect a lot more of that light into the room.  I am a little concerned, now that the lighting is installed, that the back of the room is a bit dim.  I’m planning to talk to George tomorrow morning about whether we should move one of the lights in the upper ceiling back toward the rear wall to help fill in some of that light.  Hopefully that’s not a big deal.  Should just be a matter of moving the fixture from one set of ceiling straps to the next.

Maybe a little dark in the back. The light in the right corner may need to move one block backward.

Also today, the electrician finished up almost everything needed for the electrical inspection.  The outlet and wall switch wiring was finalized, the 240-volt line for the ovens was run, and the line for the outdoor outlet (which we found out the other day is required by code) was run through the outer wall.  Everything’s looking pretty good inside the walls and ceiling.

In other news, George scheduled the appliance delivery for January 2.  So when we get back from New Year’s, we’ll almost have a refrigerator again.  Countertop planning also moved forward, with a new, cheaper quote from another company.  It’s rare that anything on this project gets less expensive, so it’s welcome news when it does happen.

Lastly, tomorrow morning we may actually get to place our tile order.  After the whole tile choice saga, and more recently the review by the tile installer to figure out how much extra tile we need to order to be safe, it feels like this process has been going on forever.  If all goes well, everything will be set by noon tomorrow.

Tonight’s dinner came from one of our favorite Somerville establishments, Cafe Rossini.  We order from them all the time.  They have great sandwiches and pizza, and they’re just around the corner so delivery comes fast.  I think sometimes they walk it over, probably thinking all the way that we could have just walked over and picked it up ourselves.  Yes, we could, but we don’t.

Uncategorized electrical, lighting, open walls

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

We came home today and had light housings in our ceiling.  This was a surprise, since we had never picked out the light fixtures that we wanted.  The plan was always to have basic recessed lighting, but we expected to have some options: different sizes and styles, different energy-saving properties, etc.  Apparently not.  Three basic six-inch lights had been installed down the middle of the room.

Where did these come from?

Our kitchen is a fairly large room.  The old kitchen had track lighting with three lights across the center of the room, and anyone could see that it produced an inadequate amount of light.  However, the electrician working on the new kitchen seems to think that all we need are three lights, albeit slightly better-placed in that they span the length of the room, rather than the width.  The half of the kitchen with the lower ceiling has exactly one fixture.

The placement of the lights was another surprise.  Even if we were happy with the style of light fixture, they were not where I had asked to have them placed.  I asked for six or eight recessed lights arranged in rectangles around the two sections of the ceiling.  This would produce more light from more angles, reducing shadows and putting more light on the countertops instead of the floor in the middle of the room.  Nothing like what’s actually there now.

Aside from the lighting issues, I look around the kitchen at the wiring job done so far and am perplexed at the number and layout of electrical boxes.  There aren’t nearly enough slots in boxes for the number of outlets and controls that I think we need.  By my count, we need switches for overhead lights, the pendant light above the sink, main wall under-cabinet lighting, other wall under-cabinet lighting, the back porch light, and the disposal, plus two controls for the hood fan and lights and the usual kitchen counter outlets every three feet or so.  If you look at the photos in earlier posts and below, there aren’t nearly that many electrical boxes.  There’s supposed to be an electrical inspection on Monday, but I don’t see how that could possibly happen given the amount of work left to do.  Especially since the electrician isn’t planning to be here tomorrow (Friday).

A counter-height outlet and a connection for under-cabinet lights... but how will we control them?

All of this happened today, but what didn’t happen today is just as frustrating.  At George’s request I went next door at 10:00pm last night to ask our neighbors if the electrician could get into their basement this morning to check out the electrical service coming in from the pole outside.  They agreed, but the electrician never showed up.  He still needs to get access to their basement at some point, but he didn’t bother to go when I arranged for it.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  It’s just a particularly frustrating day in that we had some work done but a good amount of it is wrong.  At this point it will probably end up setting us back a few days while we try to get the electrician back to redo today’s work.

One light for this half of the room!

Hopefully some better news tomorrow…

Uncategorized electrical, issues, 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