Long Time, No Kitchen

It has been two months since my last post, and we’re still hacking away on our kitchen. Here is a photo update. So much has happened since last post that I’ll just skip the small stuff…

Lights. We picked hand-painted lights from Schoolhouse Electric. We are very happy with these lights. The code requires pin-base fluorescent lights, so that is what we put in. We purchased some bulbs that have a warmer color temperature (2700k) than most fluorescent lights.

Flooring. We chose to put in Marmoleum. It is a completely natural, green product. Made from linseed oil, wood flour, jute… you name it -if it is natural, there is a chance it is in our flooring. This is sort of a fifties pattern that we chose to hide dirt and dog slobber.

Cabinets. I’m getting the hang of making cabinets, and I have a pretty good system for doing so. This photo shows the curly redwood that I acquired from Humboldt County. The face frame wood is vertical grain Douglas-Fir. This is old growth, likely reclaimed from one of my many wood-hunting excursions. Side Note: Douglas-Fir was named after David Douglas, a Scottish botonist, who coincidentally died in 1834 [some say murdered] by falling into a pit containing a bull [some say the bull fell in after Douglas] -in Hawaii. When my wife and I were on the Big Island in Hawaii, we visited the Parker Ranch, where Douglas met his death. I asked about this tale, and the guide said that most people suspected foul play.

This sink is a fireclay apron front sink. I had to scribe the curves to fit a face frame to it. Not an easy task.

The walls in our house are not at right angles (to anything). The floors are not level. The cabinets all have to be custom-scribed and fitted to each wall and each other. This is a photo of my #4 Stanley plane.  I use it to plane off small amounts of the frame to fit the cabinet against a wall. I hand-sharpen all my plane and chisel blades using waterstones. It is a tedious process, but rewarding. The blade I’m using in this plane is made by a company on the North Coast of California, called Hock. I’m a huge fan of Hock blades. They also make Shellac, which I use to French-polish my guitars.

As you can see, we (my loving wife) painted our new rooms a pear-green color. Very cool. We love it. You can also see my dog, Beryl, leading the way through the mess. I put the dishwasher in a week ago, and then I decided to put up molding and a shelf above the kitchen sink area before there was too much stuff in the way.

I used VG Doug-Fir for this as well. I used a 16-ga nail gun to secure these to the wall. I pocket-hole screwed the whole frame together, sanded and finished it prior to nailing it up.

There is the final product, sans a few details. The shelf is a piece of a reclaimed door that I acquired from Oxnard, CA.

We put the sink in tonight. We also put in the drain flange. We also put in the cabinet to the right of the sink, which happened to be 1 inch too deep. Somewhere, my math went haywire, and so it added another hour to the project.

It is amazing what you’ll find in your sink drain sometimes. That is all for now, but I’ll update this more frequently than I have been. We just bought a fresh load of plywood for the next installment of cabinets. I’m going to try and hook up some water and drainage to that sink tomorrow. First time in months.

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