Peter and Kathy's Kitchen, Bathroom, and Downstairs Remodel, Part 2:
Peter and Kathy's Kitchen, Bathroom, and Downstairs Remodel, Part 2:
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| Friday, February 07, 2025: All the back wall cabinets are installed, and the doors hung back on. |
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| Bubble Wrap, nice and thick! |
Sunday morning, February 09, 2025: I got this crazy idea that I should try to temporarily install some cheap lights again in the two spots for the under cabinet lighting that don’t work, just to make sure, so I go back to Lowe’s and buy two more lights. When I got home to install the two temporary lights, and I take off the first wire nut, I realized that I had tightened up the wire nut so hard that I broke the black electrical feed wire, so that’s why the lights didn’t work!!!!!! I stripped off some more black wire, hooked it all up, and Presto, all four under cabinet lights worked!!!!!!! Hurray!!!!!! Now I’m happy again, and can continue installing whatever needs to be installed (which is more cabinets, ha, ha, ha)! Below is a picture of the broken wire…
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| Sunday morning, February 09, 2025: Broken wire… |
Tuesday, January 11, 2025: Back at Builders Surplus to buy more cabinets!
Wednesday, January 12, 2025: Back at Lowe’s, spent $35.54 on flexible ducting for the range hood; didn’t really work… Finally came up with a rigid tubing solution which you can see in the picture below. Also spent another $14.29 at Lowe’s on the same day for miscellaneous stuff.
Thursday, February 13, 2025: All the upper cabinets are finally installed, including the modified cabinet for the over the range fan. It was Kathy’s idea to use a Hauselane in-cabinet range hood; now the over the range fan is hidden, and it does not stick out to hit you in the head. You can also see more of the extensive drywall repairs that we had to make. Thank heaven for a rolling tool cart! Also went back to Lowe’s twice, spent another $37.67 on screws and miscellaneous stuff.
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| Thursday, February 13, 2025: All the upper cabinets are finally installed. |
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| Thursday, February 13, 2025: The Hauslane in cabinet range hood. |
Saturday, February 15, 2025: The light rails are put on the bottom of the uppers in the right hand corner so that you don’t see the under cabinet lights, and the doors put on. Builders Surplus does not sell light rails for these cabinets, so we made our own from decorative end panels that we cut up for a light rail. This was Kathy’s idea, and it looks sharp!
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| February 15, 2025: The light rails are put on the bottom of the uppers in the right hand corner. |
Saturday, February 15, 2025: The doors are hung back on the upper cabinets and the improvised light rails are all installed. This was a great milestone, getting all the upper cabinets installed, and they are still up, thanks to hundreds of screws!
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| Saturday, February 15, 2025: The doors are hung back on the upper cabinets. |
Monday, February 17, 2025: Back at Lowe’s, spent $80.15 on drywall, plywood and miscellaneous stuff.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025: Back at Builders Surplus for cabinets, decorative end panels, and another dishwasher end panel. We also went back to our local landfill in San Clemente to dump a truck load of junk.
Friday, February 21, 2025: Spent $9.16 at Lowe’s for miscellaneous stuff.
Saturday, February 22 and Sunday, February, 23, 2025: Worked on cutting down the pony wall over by the right door, and modifying the blind cabinet where the dishwasher will go. Also spent $3.81 at Lowe’s for some miscellaneous stuff, and $17.93 for screws and metal angles for support.
Monday, February 24, 2025: The first base cabinet for the wall against the window is installed and screwed to the wall. In order for this to work with the dishwasher, the cabinet had to be extensively modified, so I could fit the dishwasher end panel.
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| Monday, February 24, 2025: First base cabinet by the window is installed. You can see the cut down pony wall to the right in the picture. And of course, more 2"x2" reinforcements... |
Tuesday, February 25, 2025: Went to Lowe’s, spent $3.92 on some miscellaneous stuff.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025: I installed more cabinets for the sink, and I also built a little dishwasher garage, with the two dishwasher end panels and a piece of plywood.
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| Wednesday, February 26, 2025: Sink cabinet and dishwasher garage are installed. |
Thursday, February 27, 2025: Went to Lowe’s, spent $20.30 on miscellaneous lumber and other miscellaneous stuff.
Friday, February 28, 2025: Went back to Lowe’s, bought $9.97 worth of drywall mud.
Sunday, March 02, 2025: Went back to Lowe’s, bought $65.56 worth of screws and plywood.
Tuesday, March 04, 2025: All the kitchen cabinets are installed and the first piece of plywood underlayment for the counter top is in!!!!!! Also, made another trip to Lowe’s for more screws and more plywood; spent $57.69.
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| Tuesday, March 04, 2025: All lower cabinets are installed, this is by the right side by the back door. |
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| Tuesday, March 04, 2025: All lower cabinets are installed, this is by the left side by the cooktop. |
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| Tuesday, March 04, 2025: First piece of plywood underlayment over by the coffee bar is installed. It is sooooo satisfying installing the plywood underlayment; now we are well on our way! |
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| Thursday, March 06, 2025: All plywood underlayment is installed, this is over by the coffee bar / boom box holder / CD storage / recharging station. Throughout this remodel, my old trusted boombox went wherever I worked. Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Steely Dan, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennet, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, The Beach Boys and The Eagles kept me motivated! |
Thursday, March 06, 2025: All the plywood underlayment is installed!
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| Thursday, March 06, 2025: More plywood underlayment in the kitchen, over by the right side by the back door. Another flat surface for my tools and screws! |
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| Thursday, March 06, 2025: More plywood underlayment in the kitchen, over by where the cooktop will go. |
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| Thursday, March 06, 2025: More plywood underlayment, this time in the hallway between the garage and the power room. This is the printer home. |
Friday, March 07, 2025: In order to celebrate the fact that the cabinets are installed, we decided to go to dinner at Nicks in San Clemente, CA, a super cool restaurant in downtown. Gotta celebrate once in a while!
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| Friday, March 07, 2025: Kathy and Peter enjoying dinner at Nicks in San Clemente. |
Wednesday, March 12, 2025: Up in Anaheim to check out the slab for the kitchen countertop. Kathy had picked out a Aquarella quartzite slap for its ocean and sand like coloring. In order to make it work with just one slab, Kathy had to buy a “prefab” slab, which is a smaller piece with the sandwich edge already installed.
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| Wednesday, March 12, 2025: Checking out the slab for the countertops. |
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| Wednesday, March 12, 2025: Kathy by the prefab slab, that was going to go in the coffee bar. |
Saturday, March 15, 2025: Made another trip to our local landfill in San Clemente, more junk, debris and cardboard. All of the cabinets from Builders Surplus are wrapped in cardboard, so with some 20 new cabinets, that’s a lot of cardboard to get rid of!
Sunday, March 16, 2025: Kathy informs me that she doesn't think that one slab will work, and that we need two slabs, in order to get the coloring right. Fine, no problem, since we are only doing this once, we need to get it right. Went back to Lowe’s, bought a Kohler sink and some miscellaneous stuff, spent $133.98.
Monday, March 17, 2025: Kathy goes back up to Anaheim to pick out two new slabs for the counter tops.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025: Back at Lowe’s, spent $28.66 on knobs and drawer pulls.
Thursday, March 20, 2025: Back up in Anaheim, CA to look at the layout for the new slabs for the kitchen countertop, since one would not cover what we needed. Now, since we have more slab than we need, and the fabricator can’t store the leftover slab, we decided to also redo our two upstairs bathrooms, with new vanities for the bathroom countertops. So, on the way back from Anaheim, we stopped at Builders Surplus in Santa Ana, CA, to pick out the new vanities for the upstairs bathrooms. As we are looking at vanities, and realized that there aren’t any vanities that will fit the two spaces, I got the “brilliant” idea that we should buy modular cabinets, so that we would fill the spaces better. So we bought three cabinets for the master bathroom (two sink bases and one drawer base), and three cabinets for the guest bathroom (one sink base and two drawer bases). This time, we picked the Arctic White series cabinets from Builders Surplus. Even though this was a bit of a surprise project for me, it will allow us to finally get rid of the old, short existing vanities, and replace with something new and taller.
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| Thursday, March 20, 2025: New slab number one. |
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| Thursday, March 20, 2025: New slab number two. |
Friday, March 21, through Sunday, March 30, 2025: Worked like a busy bee installing the modular vanities for the upstairs bathrooms. Had to grind off some of the existing Travertine to fit the cabinets, but it worked out in the end.
Friday, March 21, 2025: Brent the plumber came to the house to move one of the cold water outlets in the master bathroom, so I could fit the cabinets in. Also, went back to Lowe’s, spent $61.82 for more lumber and plywood.
Sunday, March 23, 2025: Back at Lowe’s, spent $15.69 on screws.
Thursday, March 27, 2025: Went to our local landfill in San Clemente to dump the old cabinetry from the two upstairs bathrooms. On the way back from the landfill, we stopped at Lowe’s, to buy more stuff, spent $67.07 on more plywood and lumber. Also, as luck would have it, I found a Kobalt cordless reciprocating saw on clearance for $34.75 with tax, so I had to have it!
Friday, March 28, 2025: Took a vacation day today to work on the two bathrooms. After about 500 drywall screws, and several sheets of plywood, all the six cabinets in the two upstairs bathrooms are installed. This time, we picked the Arctic White series cabinets from Builders Surplus in Santa Ana, CA.
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| Before picture of the upstairs guest bathroom. A low maple vanity, with the same granite counter top like the rest of the house. The giant mirror had to be taken down, which was scary. Since we had taken down a similar size mirror in the powder room downstairs, and our son Matthew got cut from the mirror, I was very leery with this huge piece of mirror. First I put masking tape over the mirror, then I took a hoe from the garden and smacked the mirror. Nothing, not even a dent… Then I took a shovel, and smacked it again, but it did nothing! So I took a hammer, and threw it on the mirror, and it just bounced back and hit me in the leg! Finally, I took an old brick and hurled it toward the mirror, and that finally did the trick! The mirror broke in a thousand pieces; it took us a good hour to clean it all up! |
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| Friday, March 28, 2025: Guest bathroom new modular vanity is installed. |
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| Old master bathroom vanity, complete with more granite… Same custom maple cabinetry like the old kitchen. For some reason, when they built the cabinetry, they built them very low… |
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| Friday, March 28, 2025: New master bathroom modular vanity is installed. |
Sunday, March 30, 2025: After yet another 200 screws, the plywood underlayment for the bathroom counter tops are installed.
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| Sunday, March 30, 2025: Guest bathroom plywood underlayment is installed. |
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| Sunday, March 30, 2025: Master bathroom plywood underlayment is installed. |
Monday, March 31, 2025: Christian the countertop manufacturer is at the house measuring and getting his templates ready to cut the new countertops.
Tuesday, April 01, 2025: Back at our local landfill in San Clemente to dump yet another truckload of junk.
Thursday, April 03, 2025: Back at the landfill in San Clemente; don’t even remember what we dumped, but I’m sure it was a truck full.
Friday, April 04, 2025: Back at Lowe’s, spent $5.36 on miscellaneous stuff.
Monday, April 07, 2025: This is the day we have been waiting for; the new countertops and sinks are being installed! Had to go back to Lowe’s to buy a new oscillating saw blade for cutting metal, so that I could fit in the new cooktop, spent another $18.30.
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| Monday, April 07, 2025: Christian the counter top fabricator and his team bringing in the big counter top for the kitchen. |
Tuesday, April 08, 2025: All the new countertops and sinks, in kitchen, hallway and bathrooms have been installed! Whooo Hooo! Also went back to Lowe’s for some $8.06 worth of miscellaneous stuff.
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| April 08, 2025: New counter top by the coffee bar. |
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| April 08, 2025: New counter tops in the kitchen. |
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| April 08, 2025: New countertop in the master bathroom. |
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| April 08, 2025: New countertop in the guest bathroom. |
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| April 08, 2025: New counter top over by the hallway between the garage and powder room. This is where the printer lives. |
Tuesday, April 08, 2025: Brent the plumber is at the house, installing all the new faucets and hooking up the drains for the kitchen and bathroom. Having installed soooo much plumbing on my own in the past (which I hate), this time I decided to have a professional plumber install all the fixtures. Much less swearing on my part!
Thursday, April 10, 2025: Back at Lowe’s for a $2.33 wall plate.
Friday, April 11, 2025: Leo the electrician and his helper Jack is at the house, hooking up the stove and oven/microwave combo. The new cooktop and the oven/microwave combo have electricity! We are back in business with a fully functioning kitchen!
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| April 11, 2025: New Bosch cooktop is installed and hooked up. |
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| April, 11, 2025: Oven/microwave combo electricity is hooked up. |
Saturday, April 12, 2025: I’m starting to install the knobs and the drawer pulls. We also went back to Lowe’s, spent $89.37 for a new mirror for the guest bathroom, and some more miscellaneous stuff.
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| April 12, 2025: Drawer pulls and knobs by the cook top. |
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| April 12, 2025: Drawer pulls and knobs by the toaster. |
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| April 12, 2025: Drawer pulls and knobs, coffee bar. |
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| April 12, 2025: Knobs by the back wall. |
Wednesday April 16, 2025: Almost all the knobs and drawer pulls are installed, with the exception of the cabinet over the stove and the refrigerator. Kathy is still deciding on knobs or latches for those two cabinets… Also, Brent the plumber is back to install the filtered drinking water system. In order to fit the drawer under the cooktop, I had to cut down the sides a bit, yet another detail!
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| April 16, 2025: Knobs and drawer pulls by the back wall. |
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| April 16, 2025: Knobs and drawer pulls by the coffee bar. |
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April 16, 2025: Knobs and drawer pulls over by the cooktop. |
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| April 16, 2025: Knobs and drawer pulls over by the toaster. |
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| April 16, 2025: Modified drawer under the cooktop. |
Thursday, April 17, 2025: Went back to Lowe’s, spent $11.83 on Kilz spray paint, and $56.14 for new shelving for the bathrooms.
Friday, April 18, 2025: Took a vacation day to finish off the two new bathroom vanities. Gotta install the drawer pulls, doors and knobs. I also made some custom shelves for the bathrooms, to go into the vanities for more storage. Also, Byron the painter is at the house, painting high walls and ceilings downstairs.
Sunday, April 20, 2025: Both new vanities and countertops are done in the master bathroom and guest bathroom, including knobs and drawer pulls! Even though this “little” side project was not originally planned, it makes such a difference, and finally we have counter tops in our bathrooms that are tall!
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| Sunday, April 20, 2025: Guest bathroom new vanity done! |
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| Sunday, April 20, 2025: Master bathroom new vanity done! |
Thursday, April 24, through Saturday, April 26, 2025: Ripped out all the old Travertine flooring downstairs, with the exception of the downstairs powder room, to get ready for the new flooring. Kathy was super busy paining all the walls downstairs to get ready for the new flooring.
Monday, April 28, 2025: The flooring installers from Designers Magic here in San Clemente, CA, are at the house installing the new flooring. After having lived without proper flooring for almost four months, it is soooooo nice to see our new floor going in!
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| Monday, April 28, 2025: New downstairs flooring is going in. |
Friday, May 02, 2025: Kathy went up to Builders Surplus to pick up the toe kicks for the kitchen, and some more scribe.
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