Vacation TODO: Day 2

I woke up this morning feeling pretty under the weather. So much so that I went back to bed and didn’t get up until 11. I didn’t much feel like working on the house, but sometime after lunch I forced myself into the shop to work on cabinet doors.

Last night we went to our friends Scott and Heidi’s house for dinner. This was the first time I’d seen their house, which they built new a couple of years ago. Let me just say that it was simply the nicest new home I’ve ever been in. From the street it looked as if it had always been there (this had been a vacant lot in Seattle, not part of a housing development), and the inside was jaw dropping. I’ll have to do a full post on this house later.

Scott and Heidi’s kitchen has custom cabinets all in fir, like the ones I’m building. If mine turn out as nice as theirs I’ll be more than happy. They were pretty darn sweet, I must say, and it was fun to have a preview of what ours will be like. Ours will have a few details done diffeently, but the look is generally the same Craftsman style look with inset panels and flush doors.

Speaking of cabinet doors: once I got motivated this afternoon I set out to mill all of the stiles and rails for the cabinet doors. Previously my dad and I had cut them all to length, but all of the rails needed tenons cut on the ends and the styles needed mortises. They all needed a dado for the panel. So this is what I spent the afternoon doing - making all of these cuts on the new SawStop. I think it all turned out pretty well.

Tomorrow morning I’ll cut the panels to size, sand, and varnish them. Once they’re dry I can assemble the doors - if I’m lucky I can do this all tomorrow so I can move onto drawers on Tuesday. We’ll see if that happens or if I’m overly optimisitic.

I wanted to cross one thing off my list entierly today, so before I cleaned up from working on the cabinet doors I purused my list for low-hanging-fruit. The lowest hanging fruit was “Cable TV to the kitchen”, so I did that. Pretty easy and turned out great. Not that we have a TV for the kitchen to try it out with.

Here’s where we’re at. I’m crossing out half of #1 since I’m about half done.

1. Kitchen cabinet doors. 11 total. 4 important ones for the base cabinets.
2. Kitchen cabinet drawers. 7 total.
3. Upper cabinet crown.
4. Kitchen nook seating and table.
5. Kitchen island trim and panels.
6. Kitchen under-cabinet lighting.
7. 3 interior doors: sand, varnish, install with hardware. (Important baby-proofing item…)
8. Paint kitchen ceiling and walls (already primed).
9. Paint foyer ceiling and walls.
10. Electrical panel - re-order the breakers and document them all.
11. Strip and sand baseboard for the living / dining room. Determine if it can be re-varnished.
12. Cable TV to the kitchen. Forgot this when we had the walls open (DOH!)
13. Window sill for kitchen nook. Started this but is incomplete.
14. Exterior lights by the back doors.
15. Dining room chandelier (choose, purchase, install).
16. Dining room speakers (purchase, install - I prewired for them before we drywalled…)
17. Cat door platform (ask Trissa…)
18. Clean the upstairs hall closet - it’s a MESS!