Scary Cabin

July 13th & 14th 2013

The kitchen was demolished. Well, all the cabinets were pulled and moved to the shed. We have grand plans of re-using the cabinets in the garage one day. These aren’t individual units like you get with pre-built type systems today, they’re one complete upper for each wall and similar large assemblies for the lowers. They appear to be made of maple and the construction looks pretty good. But, they don’t match our vision so out they go.

With the cabinetry gone, all the paneling was removed too. A lot of work scraping off old glue and sealing all the areas where the sheetrock paper was pulled off with the glue. Then a lot of joint compound to smooth out all the areas where the glue was scraped off. We’re making a couple of changes/improvements to the electrical now. Adding an outlet for the microwave, adding an outlet and switch for a garbage disposal. In addition to the garbage disposal switch, we’ll add another switch for under cabinet lighting. The kitchen lighting needs an update too. We pull out the old florescent tube lighting fixtures in the kitchen. The ceiling sheetrock was cut out for the fixture so instead of just a couple of small holes for wire, we had nice 3 ft. by 8 inch holes in the ceiling that need to be patched. In their place we cut holes for can lights. We’ll be using LED can lights.

Work continues on the bathroom. A vapor barrier was added to the floor, just in case we ever have a leak. The tub is now placed. After the rough plumbing is done, sheetrock is added. We use mold resistant sheetrock here.
[edit: If doing this over, we’d have put in sound insulation in the walls while they open just to isolate the bathroom a bit]

Barbara worked on the back bedroom, removing the “wainscoting” and pulling staples from the floor getting this room cleaned up.

Currently there’s a 3/8” particle board subfloor. Our plan is to replace that in the bathroom with 3/4” plywood and then add 1/4” plywood on top of the particle board everywhere else. This should provide a fairly even floor and give us the chance to screw things down.

Kent, the plumber, does our rough plumbing in the bath and kitchen. We also have him add a new valve for a fridge ice-maker. For everything he has to touch, he replaces the old cast iron pipe with either Pex or copper.

We have the hot water heater out so that we can work on the pantry. Kent installs new Pex lines for the hot water heater and leaves us with shark bite connectors so we can easily hook it back up once the pantry is finished. Speaking of the pantry. We fix up the sheetrock in there and add a disconnect for the hot water heater.

We’re finding that there are a lot of little details that we need to keep track of and be aware of as we work to rebuild the various rooms. If we forget something now, it will be much harder to do later in the process. An example is the light switch in the hall (for the hall light). The only kitchen light switch is over by the door that leads outside. It seemed like we needed another one and by expanding the hall switch box to a double gang box, a Insteon remote switch could be used to provide a second kitchen light switch. Doing this now while the bathroom sheetrock is out is easy, doing later after all the sheetrock is done would be difficult.

We have a rough plan for the remodel — gut it and rebuild it all. Simple.

Ok, not so simple when you go down to the next level of detail. The though process went something like this … Remodel downstairs first leaving the upstairs alone. Start with the bathroom and kitchen, once we finish those, it
becomes easier to spend nights in the cabin. Also, the bath and kitchen should be the most time-consuming and difficult so get them finished first.

The bathroom has been gutted. It’s taking at least 3 times longer than first estimated but otherwise it is progressing well. What have we learned so far?

1) We don’t know enough to know what we need when. We get stuck either because we need to buy tools/supplies or we don’t have the tools we need with us.

2) Tasks take longer than expected. I think this is because we’re taking the time to think things out as we go. So now we’re trying to plan out the tasks for each trip with more detail.

We’re starting to put the bathroom back together. A new fan/light has been installed, most of the electrical is done. A new plywood underlayment is going in. Soon we’ll be calling in a plumber and then it’s sheet rock time.