Toly and my weekend under the house.

Toly is awesome help, first and foremost he is NOT scared of spiders. Second, he can be counted on. He will go get things with incredible accuracy. We finished the hot water portion of the plumbing. This involved a re-circ line back to the water heater. This keeps warm water at the fixtures.

We also did some drainage plumbing, including the vent through the roof. This shows the under sink lines. There is a hot water supply for an instant 180° water dispenser--remember the dream kitchen thing?

Toly and Tristan learned how to sweat (solder) copper pipe.

I also rewired the second half of the kitchen.

Outlets everywhere...

Trying to get up to date.

We had to tear up the floor. There was water damage from years of leaks. Tabitha counted eight layers of flooring. The worst was the upper most layer of particle board. It was nasty, spongy and nailed with far too many ring shank nails.

I plumbed new gas line to where Merrick the stove will live. It is flexible stainless steel line. I had to get certified to install it but it is great.

The new subfloor really changed how sturdy things felt.

I used a heavy duty ratchet strap to jack up an inferiorly supported joist. Going into the crawl space is an event and must be avoided if possible.

The final piece of sub-flooring.

Closed in... it's spring 2016

The kitchen is taking every available free moment these days. Sorry for the delay in my updates.

Well, it is really spring around here. Spring in Berkeley is a special time for those olfactory appreciators of blossoms. The smell of jasmine is pervasive wafting from every direction. It is singular as the most missed thing when we lived elsewhere.

Gigi is at that fabulous age of sweet, precocious and loving joy. She is always in the fray and deeply loved by everyone in her life. In fact, she has so many fans that it has skewed her sensibilities. She demands that everyone dote on her with great success.

Tristan is taking piano lessons from a wonderful instructor. He has brought Tristan to an entirely new level in a few short weeks. Kassi is taking Violin and loves it. Toly is taking ukelele. He will make hearts swoon on camping trips in a few years. 

The kitchen is leaps ahead from my last post. It is all downhill from here. 

This is the chimney wall. 

I had to repair some of the mortar and deal with the pneumonia hole.

I entertained mortaring it shut and calling it quits but this is exactly where our new range hood will go and I decided to use the chimney as the range hood vent. 

This was my solution. I adapted some venting into a transition for the vent. 

This wall also is where we found some wonderful artifacts of significance.

Yes, that card on the right is a Ty Cobb rookie card. We sent them to a dear friend. Since we are not sportzie people we cannot appreciate them properly.

The ceiling had another treasure trove of artifacts, photos nicknacks and random tidbits. Nothing else of value but interesting none-the-less.

Here is a photo of all the rubble from the walls.

This was where the old window was. I reframed in a smaller window to sit directly above the kitchen sink.

Since this is Tabitha's dream kitchen and she thought she might want a pot filler, I plumbed it into the recirc line to the upstairs bathroom. Now she'll be able to fill large pots directly on Merrick the stove. Yes it is on the hot water line but we have an instant hot water heater that doesn't have the things that are bad for you as in normal tank water heaters.

Godfather George sings 'happy birthday' to Georgiana!

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Tristan takes the bronze medal. He also caused an upset forcing the gold and bronze to have a rematch.

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Happy Birthday My Beauty Beauty

Kitchen progress

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in less than two months Georgiana will be TWO

 Dangeroo

Breakfast and kids photos

The boys love the new wii and television

(only to be used for movies & wii)

 Kassiopeia & Tabitha Made sourdough English muffins from Malichi, the new sourdough starter.

 Then Kassiopeia then made all of us a delicious breakfast. Pancakes on the new griddle.

Georgiana couldn't wait. She started early.

k-)

Artifacts in the walls

We have found quite a bit of stuff in our walls and ceiling. Here are some inverted snaps of the glass plate negatives that we found.

Kinda cool...

We also found something of significant value. I don't want to disclose what it is because we are sending it to a dear friend and want it to be a surprise. 

I'll post about it later.

No, that was not the final kitchen.

Albeit a vast improvement over our last "play-kitchen" this iteration of our kitchen is only temporary. We are hoping that it'll only be like this for several weeks. We are not quite halfway there. This second phase requires substantial plumbing gas and water. It also requires me to run new wiring for our convection oven. Then the usual stuff like new outlets and lighting, insulation, drywall, new window, painting, new cabinets, sink, countertops, range hood, subway tile the backsplash and stove wall, and flooring. ...whew

Yes, this is a big project.

The big push toward halfway or the play kitchen gets moved.

Sheet rock and behind the walls electrical is done.

I trimmed out the new windows and door.

I put in the new subfloor and leveled it.

We painted it green.

I filled the transition gap between the house and the addition (probably added on in the 20's)

I left the gas from the old stove location sticking up and plumbed temporary water for our play kitchens new location.

We started laying the new awesome cork flooring. This is the first time I have ever laid click together floating flooring. Tabitha and I got pretty good at it.

It is so great.

We are putting Led in lighting, dimmer and three-way switches. These switches are designed to be wired one-way or three-way.

With so many devices that require USB charging we have installed several of these dual purpose outlets.

Really I know what I am doing.

This is the Play Kitchen initial move. 

This is Merrick, our new Wedgewood stove. He is still getting set up here. 

These are the lights that are intended to be over our kitchen table. They are zip tied up for now while the play kitchen is in the dining area. 

Here Kassiopeia and I are trying to put together the IKEA pantry. Ultimately Tabitha and I put it together. The recursive nesting paper instructions got to be a little much.

I got the first coffee/item cooked on Merrick. There is nothing like the precise flame that comes from a Wedgewood stove. 

The new cabinets sans handles.

This iteration of the play kitchen is a vast improvement. Soon the plastic curtain will fall and phase two can begin.

Kassiopea made pancakes on Merrick. They were the best ever.

Let phase two begin....