March 13th - painted cabinet doors
I've been painting the 18 or so cabinets doors during the week - two coats of oil-based gloss paint on the front. They really cleaned up nice!
I re-used all the old hinges, since none of the new ones from Home Depot or Lowe's aligned exactly with the existing holes in the doors and/or cabinets. I did decide that I will replace all the knobs, since they are a more standard hole pattern. I hung most of the doors this weekend, which greatly improves the look of the kitchen:
From the access panel in the master bedroom, I fixed the plumbing problem discovered in week 7. By using long drill bits, I was able to elongate the holes in the studs that the pipes passed through. This allowed the pipes to align better for soldering. When joining sections of copper, there are two types of couplings - the ones that have "stops" inside to prevent the pipe from being inserted too far, and "slip fit" ones that are handy when making repairs like this. I was out of the slip fit couplers, so I stopped by Home Depot to grab a few. I discovered that they have a new line of copper fittings - with the solder already pre-applied to the inside of the coupler. Being a guy who likes gadgets, I bought a few of the pre-soldered fittings to try, as well as some "old school" ones in case they didn't work out. After cleaning the sections of pipe to be sweated, flux is liberally applied to the joints. Using the propane torch, I kept the flame on the pipes, allowing conduction to carry the heat to the couplers. After several seconds of heating, the solder in the coupler started to bubble and flow. At this point, the flame is turned off and the connection allowed to set. All told, I liked the pre-soldered fittings!
After testing verified that the joints had a good seal, I put together a new access panel using the leftover MDO-faced plywood from the cabinet base repair and colonial style trim to match the door casings. It was installed it with drywall screws, with each screw placed to catch a stud. Once painted, it will blend in much nicer. :)
Notice the writing in the picture above? It says, "Leave room for the trim!". It's a message to the carpet installers that I intend to put some base trim there. The carpet will be installed in the next few days, but I am out of the base trim I need. In preparation of the carpet install, I picked up everything off the floors and swept up the place. By removing all the old carpet and padding and promising that the installers won't have to move a thing, I get the very best prices on replacement carpet. I'm looking forward to a big improvement once the new flooring is down!
Well, that's the end of yet another update. Two more updates to go! Come back later this week to see more progress!