Keeping Mentally Sharp at 70 and Beyond; Part Two: Fix, Make and Build Things!

 

As I now enter into my seventies, I’m well aware that for me and my contemporaries, there will be some “normal” age-related cognitive decline; I myself experience situations where I can’t think of the right word, can’t remember somebody’s name, or I lose stuff that I seemingly had right in front of my eyes just a few seconds ago.  All of this is annoying to say the least, but I’m thinking that maybe we can slow this “normal” state of affairs a little bit, maybe with some new ways of thinking, and maybe doing!  Caveat; I’m not a neuroscientist, I’m not an MD, I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, I’m just a guy that’s been alive on the planet for seventy years, and I’m hoping to be on this side of the grass for as long as possible! So, as I’ve been “slowly” (ha, ha, ha) thinking about this, I’m going to share some of the things that I’m planning to do (or have recently done) in order to keep as mentally sharp as possible, for as long as possible, even though I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed to begin with!  But we gotta work with what we have, right?  Now, of course having good genes helps; fortunately, my dad Leif lived to be 87, and he was lucid and pretty much took care of himself until he passed away, maybe with the exception of his last few months.  So, I can only hope that I will follow in my dad’s footsteps, at least regarding my mental health!  

So, for those of you that have been reading my little blog from the beginning, you all know that my wife and I just did a pretty substantial remodel of our house, where we upgraded pretty much the whole downstairs.  So, if what I’m about to tell you in this little blog installment sounds like a bunch of bragging, well so be it!  I probably am bragging a bit, but if the outcome looks good, then why not?  Also, for those of you who may be thinking about doing something similar yourselves, maybe this little blog post can serve as an inspiration, or a cautionary tale, you be the judge! 

So, the whole premise is to do things and challenge ourselves with tasks that we don’t normally do, in order to keep our mental faculties as sharp as possible.  Now, if you are a professional kitchen cabinet installer, then this is probably not for you, but if you are like me (a mediocre hobbyist at best), and wanna remodel your whole kitchen (and part of your bathrooms), then maybe you can use that situation to sharpen your cerebral faculties.  By the way, all of the work that Kathy and I did has already been documented on my blog, see below: 

Peter and Kathy's Kitchen and Downstairs Remodel, Part One, the beginning!  (Published May 11, 2025) 

Peter and Kathy's Kitchen, Bathroom, and Downstairs Remodel, Part 2:  (Published May 11, 2025)

Kathy and Peter’s San Clemente remodel, Part 3:  (Published May 13, 2025)

Kathy and Peter’s San Clemente remodel, Part 4:  (Published May 19, 2025)

May 22, 2025:  The fireplaces are finally done!  (Published May 23, 2025)   

Kathy and Peter’s San Clemente remodel, Part 5:  We are DONE!!!!  (Published June 05, 2025)   

However, what I want to chronicle in this latest blog post, are the challenges that we faced along the remodeling way, and how we solved those problems, usually by trial and error (lots of trials and lots of errors…).  So, I’ve revisited my blog posts, to remind me what the challenges were (and there were many), and how we overcame the challenges.  Also, as I re-read these posts, I’m actually quite astonished that we did all that work, and that we were able to finish, and pay for it all!  So, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and enjoy the roller-coaster ride!

I think that one of the main (and oftentimes overriding) challenges was to stay on task, and not get side-tracked.  If you are planning to do a project like this, you gotta stay focused, and “be in the zone” (also known in positive psychology as “flow” or being “locked in”) wherein you pretty much block everything else from your mind (with the exception of snacks and yummy foods), and let your creative self almost take over your whole being.  Of course, if you are doing a kitchen remodel, you can’t live out of a field kitchen in your living room forever, so you gotta finish before your marriage starts to suffer too much!   

As I explained in Part One, we had done a couple of kitchen remodels before; in 2001 we did our kitchen at our town home on Tanglewood in Irvine, and in 2011 we did our kitchen at our house on Soaring Hawk, also in Irvine.  Now, let’s realize that when we started our San Clemente remodel, we hadn’t done anything that big since 2011, and at that time we were more than a decade younger!  Not only that; I’m not a carpenter, I’m not a cabinet installer nor a professional handyman, I’m just a guy with a bunch of power tools that I’ve collected over the years, so I make it up as I go along!  Nevertheless, I had promised Kathy that “I have one more kitchen in me”, so there was no going back on my word!  It is funny, now when I revisit my original remodeling blog posts, I think to my self “how in the world did we do all that?”, but when you are in the zone, you just do it!     

The demolition was a challenge in and of itself, since the existing cabinetry was custom-built, and it was very solid (and being maple, it was also heavy), but with my son Matthew’s help, we got it all demolished in about a week.  After all, demolition is mostly brawn, and not so much brains, so that’s where I excel! 

The first big challenge was getting the first two 96” tall cabinets from the front of the house into the kitchen.  In my ignorance, I thought that since the “normal” ceiling height in a house is 8 feet (96”), we should be able to slide the cabinet from the hallway into the kitchen, with maybe a little wiggle room.  Not so; the cabinets got stuck pretty much as soon as we started going into the family room.  As is true to my nature, the first thing I did was take a hammer to the ceiling where the first cabinet got stuck, to hopefully get some room.  Not so, they still got stuck…  My next brilliant idea was to dig a “travertine trench”, wherein I got the Bosch Demolition Hammer out and started to break up the almost 1” thick travertine flooring, so that that the cabinets could slide right on the concrete floor.  Even so, they still didn’t fit, and I realized that the ceiling was not exactly at 96”; instead, it had some dips that one couldn’t really see, until we started to drag the 96” tall cabinets around.  Finally, we solved the problem by cutting off ½” of the bottom of both cabinets, and then putting ½” thick plywood underneath, after the cabinets were in place.  What an ordeal! 

Friday January 03, 2025:  Travertine trench.  Christmas tree is still up!

 

Friday January 03, 2025:  Travertine trench, continued (into the kitchen).

 

Friday, January 03, 2025:  The first cabinets are temporarily put in place.  On this picture, on the left cabinet, you can see the original oven-microwave oven opening, and the three drawer openings below.

 Second challenge was modifying the 96” cabinet for the oven-microwave combo.  The cabinet that we had bought only came with a 36” high opening for an oven-microwave combo (see the picture above), but the one that we liked and bought is a 42” high combo.  I ended up cutting off on of the drawers from the 96” cabinet, and then building a reinforced “floor” for the oven-microwave to sit on.  Lastly, I cut off about 2” from the top using a Skil saw, but in the end, the new oven-microwave combo fit like a glove!  At over 200 lbs., it took four of us to lift the combo and slide it in place, but in the end, it looks like the cabinet was made for it!

The new oven-microwave combo is installed.  You can see that I “simply” cut off the top drawer on the cabinet to make room for the combo.  I also had to cut off a hunk of the cabinet on top to make it all fit.

 Next challenge, which was more of a frustrating inconvenience, happened when I tried to raise up the electrical outlet over where the coffee maker sits.  We had originally only planned to have one electrical outlet over by what we call the coffee bar, but I realized that we needed two, so that we could plug in both our phone chargers in one outlet, and then the coffee maker in the other outlet.  So I called our electrician Leo, and he came out and installed another outlet.  However, the two outlets did not match in height, so being as anal as I am, I undertook to raise up the outlet about ½” inch, to make them match.  I spent a good 30 minutes cutting and sanding a little custom wood block so that the electrical outlet could rest on this little wood block, to match the height of the existing electrical outlet.  As I tried to slide the little wood block in place, it fell out of my hand, and disappeared behind the drywall, never to be found again!  So, I had to spend another 30 minutes making a new little wood block, and this time I fastened the new wood block with masking tape, so it wouldn’t disappear.  After a good hour of cutting, sanding and trimming (all the while swearing like sailor), I finally got the new electrical outlet in place, which now matches the height of the original outlet.  Funny, in the end the new electrical outlet is pretty much hidden by the coffee maker, so I could just have left it alone and saved myself the aggravation, but oh no, it had to be done just so!  (I admit it, I’m crazy anal sometimes…) 

On this picture, to the left of the refrigerator, in the area we call the coffee bar, you can see the original electrical outlet that Leo the electrician put in (without a wall plate), and also the new electrical outlet that Leo put in, just to the left of the refrigerator.  And now they both line up nicely!

 Working on the corner cabinets posed yet another challenge, since Kathy didn’t want corner cabinets; instead she wanted straight cabinets.  Since I didn’t know what to do with the void between two cabinets that hung 90° from each other, I came up with the brilliant idea to hang three cabinets.  In the picture below, the cabinet straight on is a 24” wide cabinet, and the cabinet to the right is a 15” wide cabinet complete with decorative end panels which I had installed earlier in the week.  These were tricky; even though you only see two cabinets in the picture, there are actually three cabinets that we hung.  So, in the corner, there is a 15” wide by 14” deep cabinet, which is essentially a blind cabinet.  This blind cabinet serves as a hanging point for the other two cabinets, while also closing off the bottom between the two cabinets that are hung 90° from each other.  Lastly, the blind 15” x 14” cabinet gives a nice clean frame to hang the other cabinets from.  Nevertheless, because the wall is not straight, hanging these three cabinets were quite a pain…  Initially, I used a clamp to force the right-side cabinet more closely toward the blind cabinet, only to crack the right-side cabinet, which I had to repair.  In the middle picture below, you can see how there are gaps between the blind corner cabinet and the two adjacent cabinets.  I ended up putting in a strip of plywood between the right-side cabinet and the blind cabinet, and then I screwed them together.  In the end, it looks great, and having the blind cabinet in the corner gave me a nice sharp edge to hang the two adjacent cabinets from.      

Saturday, February 01, 2025:  Got more hanging upper cabinets installed.  You can’t see blind corner cabinet, but it is there!

 

Saturday, February 01, 2025:  The blind cabinet from the underside.  You can see the gaps between the cabinets, which is a consequence of the wall not being straight in that corner…

 

Saturday, February 01, 2025:  Having the blind cabinet gave me a clean edge to hang the two corner cabinets from.

Saturday, February 08, 2025:  After trying to install the last two under cabinet lights, I’m in a crazy panic.  A couple of days before, I temporarily installed some cheap lights at the four connections by the cabinets facing the window, and all four lights worked just fine.  So, I go to install the last two under cabinet lights, and they don’t work!!!!!!  I called Leo the electrician in a panic, thinking this would require taking down some of the cabinets, or cutting more holes in the drywall, or both!  I’m in a crazy funk!!!!  Fortunately, that Saturday night I played a gig with our band Smack Dab at a local place in Dana Point, CA, so it took my mind off my kitchen troubles.  

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…

Sunday morning, February 09, 2025:  Broken wire…

As we had installed all the upper cabinets and the under-cabinet lighting, we were sitting on the couch in the family room and looking into the kitchen.  We realized that when you were sitting down in the family room, you would see pretty much all of the under-cabinet light fixtures, and it just didn’t look good.  So, since Builders Surplus don’t sell light rails for the Moderna cabinet line, Kathy came up with the great idea that we should make our own.  We took some decorative end panels and cut them down, and made like 1” strips, that we screwed onto the bottom of the upper cabinets, so that the lights weren’t so noticeable.  In the picture below you can see the added light rails on the bottom of the upper cabinets.  It may not look like a 1” strip on the bottom of the cabinets would make much of a difference, but now when you sit on the couch in the family room, you don’t see the under-cabinet lights, and it looks finished.    

February 15, 2025:  The light rails are put on the bottom of the uppers in the right-hand corner.

One of the modifications I’m most proud of was the “Dishwasher Garage” that I pretty much built from scratch.  The Moderna kitchen cabinet line did not come with a dishwasher cabinet; instead, I had to modify two dishwasher end panels and fasten them to the ends of the other cabinets, then I put a piece of plywood on top.  It took quite a bit of ingenuity, measurements, cutting and of course a whole bunch of screws, but in the end the dishwasher fit really nicely! 

Monday, February 24, 2025:  One end of the “Dishwasher Garage” is attached to the base cabinet, using 2” x 4”s for reinforcement, and of course a whole bunch of screws.  I had to measure, measure and measure again before cutting…

 An additional little annoyance was the fact that in order to match the height of the bay window in the kitchen, I had to raise up all the bottom cabinets (save for the two cabinets where the coffee bar is) about 1.25 inch.  I had originally though that I would use plywood and build some sort of platform, but in a flash of insight, I realized that I should just raise up each cabinet, which I accomplished by using 2”x4” studs cut to length, and then glued and screwed the studs to the bottom of the cabinets.  This was an additional little task I hadn’t planned for, but you gotta do what you gotta do, and some 300 2” drywall screws and a couple tubes of Liquid Nails later, it was done!    

Wednesday, February 26, 2025:  Sink cabinet and dishwasher garage are installed.  You can see how the other dishwasher end panel had to be cut, in order to be able to pull the hoses and electrical cord through.  On the bottom of the cabinets, you can see the double row of screws that I used to screw in the cut studs into the bottom of the cabinets.

Also, since the Moderna cabinets are made from Birch, which is a pretty soft wood, the cabinets would easily get nicks and scrapes, that's why you see the cabinets being wrapped in bubble wrap most of the time as the work was going on.  Even with the bubble wrap, it was almost impossible to completely avoid some (small) damage to the cabinets during the assembly, but with some touch-up paint, it all came together in the end.   

Probably the biggest challenge was the kitchen (and what later became the bathroom) countertops.  Originally, Kathy had picked out one slab of the quartzite countertop material, but in order to make that work, Kathy had to buy an additional “prefab” slab, which is a smaller piece which had the sandwich edge already made. 

Wednesday, March 12, 2025:  Checking out the slab for the countertops.

      

Wednesday, March 12, 2025:  Kathy by the prefab slab, that was going to go in the coffee bar.

However, on 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 needed to get it right. 

On Thursday, March 20, 2025, we drove 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 allowed us to finally get rid of the old, short existing vanities, and replace the old ones with something new and taller. 

Thursday, March 20, 2025:  New slab number one.

  

Thursday, March 20, 2025:  New slab number two.

The main challenge with this bathroom “change order” was the speed at which it had to be completed, since we had a pretty tight schedule to make sure that Christian the countertop fabricator could measure for the new countertops on time.  I essentially worked my little tail right off; two solid weekends with a vacation day thrown in for good measure.  I had to be in the carpenter zone the whole time, but 500 drywall screws later, all the six cabinets (three in each bathroom) were installed and secured together, and Christian came out for the measurements as scheduled.  No rest for the wicked! 

Friday, March 28, 2025:  Guest bathroom new modular vanity is installed.

 

Friday, March 28, 2025:  New master bathroom modular vanity is installed.

 

Sunday, March 30, 2025:  Guest bathroom plywood underlayment is installed.

 

Sunday, March 30, 2025:  Master bathroom plywood underlayment is installed.

After the bathroom vanity cabinets were installed (and after all the kitchen cabinets had been installed), it was time to switch from heavy carpentry to the delicate work of installing drawer pulls and cabinet knobs.  This is the kind of work where you can’t be rushed; this is really measure twice, trice and maybe measure again for the fourth time, just to make sure, because if you make a mistake or you are sloppy, you may have to buy a new cabinet just for a drawer or a new door, to replace one that you messed up.  Fortunately, I took my time, made templates for the drawer pulls, and measured, measured and measured again, to make sure that the holes I drilled were in the right place.  If I may say so, it came out really nice, and in my humble (yea right) opinion, it looks totally professional!  

Also, since the cabinet doors and drawers are inset into the cabinet frames, it took quite a bit of finessing to get the doors and drawers to line up, so that the final look is professional and pleasing.  Both the cabinet doors and the drawers on the Moderna line have several adjustments that can be made, but it takes time and patience, something I was running out of!  Anyway, in the end it looks fine (maybe not great, since not all the cabinet doors are exactly the same height), and we are very pleased with the final outcome.       

April 16, 2025:  Knobs and drawer pulls by the back wall.

 

April 16, 2025:  Knobs and drawer pulls by the coffee bar.

 

April 16, 2025:  Knobs and drawer pulls over by the cooktop.

 

April 16, 2025:  Knobs and drawer pulls over by the toaster.

Also, in order to make sure that the cooktop fit just right, I had to make a notch and cut down the top drawer, but at least the drawer is somewhat functioning, and we can fit some utensils and stuff in the drawer. 

April 16, 2025:  Modified drawer under the cooktop.

The final touches were all done by Kathy; she chose the backsplash tiles, designed the layout for the tiles, did all the installation, and finished off by grouting all the tiled areas.  The trickiest part with these tiles was the subway pattern, which means that each row of tiles are offset from the tile row below (Kathy always starts at the bottom).  In order to make the design look professional, there are a lot of adjustments that are needed, and the corners are especially tricky.  So Kathy did a lot of moving of tiles, which is tricky because after the mastic adhesive is set, you can’t move them!  Fortunately, we had bought a laser level just for this sort of work, and it came in really handy.  In between the layout of the tiles, the installation and finally the grouting, Kathy spent probably a good week on all this, but in the end, and being the consummate perfectionist that she is, it came out looking absolutely great!      

Kathy is laying out the tile for the coffee bar, to get an idea of what it is going to look like once it is up on the wall.

  

Monday 05-27-2025:  Kathy is installing tiles over by the right side of the window.  It is a messy job!  You can see the laser level line toward the bottom of the tiles.

 

Saturday 05-31-2025:  Kathy is starting to tile over by the cooktop area.

 

Thursday 06-05-2025:  We are DONE!  The grout has been sealed, and the outlet covers are installed over by right side of the window!

 

Thursday 06-05-2025:  We are DONE!  The grout has been sealed, and the outlet covers are installed over by the cooktop!

 So, in conclusion…  Was it fun to remodel a whole kitchen and more?  Nooooo, not at all, and I’ll probably never do it again, but as cerebral exercise, it was great!  Constantly focusing on tasks and finishing those tasks, overcoming challenges, experiencing the great feeling of “being in the zone” (which is maybe akin to runner’s high, although I never experienced runners high, believe me…) where ideas and solutions just seem to come out of nowhere, are great was to boost one’s confidence and overall abilities.  Only one caveat; if you are thinking of doing something like this, but have never done it before, please, please, please start small (maybe a closet or a storage space) before you take that sledgehammer to your old kitchen cabinets.  The key is to grow and learn as we go along, build confidence, and stay safe!  Safety glasses and hearing protection are a must!!!!!!  Good Luck!