Weekend Update – Aug. 4/5 and 11/12

The kitchen is taking a bit longer than expected to finish.  I can’t wait to show the final pictures but alas, there are no final pictures to show.

Aug 4/5 we spent a bunch of time getting the apartment cleaned out.  We still have a TON of stuff over there but we had a new sub-letter coming in and he didn’t need the room furnished so we had to move all the furniture out.  It wasn’t raining as is typical of moving days but it was perhaps the hottest day of the summer.  After loading up the truck and the Honda fit to the brim, we were drenched in sweat and ready to rest a bit.  The goal for the kitchen was to get the sink installed.  That task had a couple pre-requisites.

First, we had to get the vertical piece next to the fridge installed:

And we needed to get the drain re-done. We did figure out how to hook in the sink drain to the vent stack. That really helps the sink drain much faster. If you’re unfamiliar with plumbing drains, as I was about 6 months ago, the vent basically lets the “bubble” of air out of the drain. There is a column of air between the water in the sewer and the water in the sink. This can be especially seen if you fill a sink and then pull the drain plug. Poorly vented sinks will stay full until enough agitation occurs to let the big air “bubble” bubble up through the water in the sink basin so that the water can drain. The vent is a branch off the main trunk of the drain that lets that air escape so the sink can drain without issue.

Before we could move onto the sink, we needed to get the counter placed and the hole for the sink cut. We also needed the corner piece of countertop cut and installed before we sealed everything up since the seam between the two sections of counter was right under the lip of the sink.

Here is Stefan cutting the big sink hole.

Getting that corner piece cut was no small feat. We finally settled on making a cardboard template which worked out well but ended up taking approximately forever.

Between Saturday of Moving and a super fun brunch on Sunday along with the life sucking heat and lack of adequate insulation to help the AC keep the house cool, we didn’t get much done.

By the next weekend, Aug 11/12, we managed to have the corner piece cut and installed. Whoohoo. Yay for those couple hours of free/work time after work.

Friday evening, we got the sink set into it’s hole. Whoo, it looks so good! By Saturday we had it plumbed and running. This weekend was Massachusetts tax free weekend so we went on a marathon 3 hour, $700 trip to Home Depot.

On Sunday, we cut a hole for the vent hood and spent most of Sunday which was an absolutely beautiful day working on the yard which was in desperate need of some tlc. Stefan mowed which was quite a chore since it had been more than 5 weeks and every pass with the lawn mower had to be done 2 or 3 times to get the long grass cut. We also spread some grass seed and took out 3 full trashcans of yard waste. I still have a lot of weeding to do but I figure if I can keep the weeds from flowering this year, the weeding can wait until things are a little less crazy.

My wonderful parents are coming in tomorrow(!!) for a long weekend of working on the house. I will be diligent in photographing the progress.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you! The porch guys started on the posts and railings last week. It looks amazing!

 

 

I’ll keep you post-ed! hehe

Sarah