rtstarr

Saturday:

pics: Day 15 Photos

So this is the big daddy day. Getting the cabinets installed. Luckily we have Kyrie, Nader, Justin and Hannah coming to give us a hand.

Goals: Assemble cabinets.

Rena and I get up early to go look at floor tile for the kitchen before we head over to the place at noon. We ended up seeing only one place and couldn't find a decent tile that was a decent price, so we decided to hold off. We met a guy working at a tile place in North Hollywood that seemed like he was giving us some good information, so we have some additional leads now. We did find a really nice tile that we liked (limestone, I think) that matched what we both want for the room.

We head over to the new place, stopping to get some lunch materials and beverages on the way. At this point I should mention that for the last week or so, it has been freezing in Southern California. And as we came out of the store Saturday, the temperature seemed to have dropped about 20 degrees. It turns out that the high for Saturday was 46 degrees. Let me say that again, 46 DEGREES! The heat is off in the new place because the gas is turned off, because there is no shut off valve on the stove gas pipe. So let’s just say that it is mildly cold in the place. Our only form of heat is physical exertion and the work lamps (which actually put off quite a bit of heat). Now I know you Indiana viewers might laugh at a 46 degree day, but those of us who have become accustomed to something a bit more hospitable are freezing our asses off.

We arrive, and attempt to clean up the place as much as possible before people arrive. Kyrie and Nader (Rena's sister and boyfriend) roll in around 1ish, and Justin and Hannah (our hero from last weekend and his lovely wife) are hot on their tail. We get the introductions out of the way, and the boys are hot to trot and want to get in on the cabinet action. I had read the instructions a few days before, but have been swamped getting everything ready, so I didn't entirely understand the wonder that is the Ikea cabinet building process.

We decide to start on the right wall because that side is less visible in case we do something horrible. The Ikea high cabinets install using a railing that attaches to the walls, and the cabinets are bolted onto that. It's a pretty straightforward process that seems simple enough in theory. We had some problems determining the correct height of the cabinets, because the Ikea directions conform to Plato's idea of the "perfect" cabinet. A perfect cabinet that doesn't actually exist in the real world, but one that our cabinets would nonetheless constantly be compared.
....sorry got sidetracked. Our kitchen was built by blind midget yetti's so, our cabinet height doesn't really compare really well to the "perfect" cabinet height described in the ikeabible.

So using this knowledge, we mount the railing too high the first time. This after Nader marked out the Ikea inspired railing height, and me disagreeing. Turns out Nader was right...score one for the Iranian contingent, score zero for the pasty faced Polish/Native American moron.

So we move the railing to the correct height, slide our anchors in and set the first cabinet on the wall. We are all so excited that we simultaneously take a step back, gasp and watch the cabinet fall off the wall. Luckily Nader's thumb caught the cabinet on its way down and broke itself rather than letting the cabinet break. So for those of you keeping score: Iranian thumb contingent: 0, Ikea Wall Cabinet: 1.

The next 2 wall cabinets go up relatively easy. And then we get to the above microwave cabinet. (Did I mention that we didn't know Nader's thumb was even hurt until Sunday? What a champ). The last cabinet on the right side of the room is the microwave cabinet, and it sits directly under that old oven vent that we weren't going to use anymore. Unfortunately, the vent was not done using us.

The vent causes the ceiling to bow down, and in turn caused our cabinet not to fit. We had already mounted the railing, and decided that it needed to move down about an inch to mount the micro-cabinet. The problem was that 3 other cabinets were already mounted on the same railing, and we didn't want to take all of those cabinets down again. In comes Nader's angle grinder which I use to cut through the railing while it is still on the wall, and so begins our love affair with all things angle grinder.

We eventually get the cabinets on the right done, and start working on the top left cabinets. These go in relatively easy. We had some problems locating studs, and poor Nader had to run back to the hardware store to get anchors and things that I should have bought before Saturday...I blame it on the head cold. My mind was not working nearly well enough. We ran into the same problem with the rails and the tall over-fridge cabinet, so Nader got to try his hand at angle grinding into the wall to cut a railing. As a bonus, he also got to use my dremel tool to cut through the steel. The sparks and little heat given off by the cutting devices were enjoyed by all.

We finish with the upper left cabinets, and started working on the base cabinets. This required a lot of angle grinding of holes for water pipes. The angle grinder is a great tool, but is really not the best tool for cutting through cabinetry. The burning smell and smoke drove us away from the kitchen.

By this point it is nearing 9 o'clock and we are all getting ass tired. So we decide to head out to get some dinner.

Oh...you may be asking "what were the girls doing during all of this?" and my answer to that would be....looking pretty and offering morale support. Then I would get slapped and would say "they were building all the shelves, and finishing up building all the remaining cabinets that Rena and I didn't finish (for the island, the tall base cabinet, the sink cabinet etc...)". They seriously kicked much butt getting those things ready for install. We also found out that not only is Hannah an accomplished writer and figure skater, but she is also a master drawer builder.