The Kitchen Remodel – Part 7

It’s Sunday morning and I’m finally getting a chance to write the blog. It’s been real busy with work, which is a great problem. My days have just been starting earlier than normal and ending later than normal. This week was an exciting week here. First, we had some visitors to the house – Aunt Connie and Ron. They were staying in Orlando and they drove down for an evening to come see the house and to visit. We hung out inside in the A/C until Oceana got home from work and then we all went out for some gator bites and other delicious bar food at the Wild Turkey Tavern. We then took a drive around to check out where Oceana and I work.

A new kitchen sink

The second exciting thing was getting running water in the kitchen again. Since we tore out the old kitchen a few weeks ago, we’re either doing dishes in the tiny bathroom sink or outside where I rigged up a laundry sink to a garden hose. Also, we drink a lot of water. Previously we had a reverse osmosis water filtration system in place to fill up our water bottles and what not. Since tearing out the kitchen, we opted for one of those five gallon water dispensers and were refilling three of the five gallon jugs every couple days. It got to be a lot of extra work. And last but not least, this house has never had a dishwasher (at least I’ve not been able to see any signs of one).

Oceana wants a dishwasher

Oceana has been incredibly patient with me in living in this remodel, but she was pretty persistent about getting the kitchen back together enough to where she had a sink and dishwasher. That’s understandable. So now was the time to make it happen. Backing up a little, when we sold our last house, we remodeled the kitchen before we sold it. As part of that, we bought used appliances from an appliance repair guy. We picked up an extra dishwasher from him at the same time which came to this house with us. It has been in the storage unit until now.

Supply run

We ran out and picked up a utility sink from Lowe’s as well as some other odds and ends that we’d need for this job. We also picked up the dishwasher from the storage unit. With the parts and pieces in hand, it was time to get started. I assembled the sink and put it where the future sink will go. As a side note, this sink will become the future bathroom sink out the the shop once we get the bathroom built out in there. Back to the story, with the sink in place, I could locate the water and drain lines. I had already ran new water lines to the kitchen sink previously so I just had to bring them up through the floor. After bringing them through the floor I spliced in an extra shut off to hook up to the dishwasher.

Hooking up the drains

For the drains, I roughed in the drains and turned the drain out into the side yard for the time being. I still need to connect the plumbing on this side of the house to the new main drain line I ran on the opposite side of the house. That will happen when we remodel the master bathroom. At that point I’ll tie the kitchen sink drain into the main drain line and it will all be proper. Until then, the rose bushes get a bit of extra water. After bringing the drain pipes up through the floor, I cut and fit various parts and pieces together to get the sink drain tied in as well as the dishwasher drain. Lastly, I added a studor vent to allow the drains to function properly.

Water purification system

Next up was the water purification system. This was a system from Amazon and it has been great. We used it at our last house which had sulfur water and it completely removed all of the bad smell/taste. I got the brunt of the system installed and then hooked it up to a new water holding tank. We previously used 3 smaller tanks to hold the drinking water but since we’re redoing the system, I opted for a single, larger tank. As we finish out the kitchen, this tank will live in the inaccessible inside corner which makes good use of dead space for us. I got the system plumbed up and fired it up. We let it make water for a bit and then drained it all out to help clean out and purge the system. After that it was ready to go.

The dishwasher

Last up was the dishwasher. It was previously hard wired, which for me, means that it doesn’t have a plug. I want it plugged in so I found an old extension cord with a bad female end and cut it up to make a power cord. Done. The drain hooked up easy enough to the new sink tailpiece. The last piece of the puzzle was the water line. It didn’t have one and neither did I. We made a quick run to Lowe’s and picked one up. With the hose in hand, I got it plumbed up and turned on the water. All good. I ran a test cycle and listened. It filled up, it drained, but it didn’t spray the water around inside. I could hear a pump hum but nothing happened. Remember, this was a used appliance. So I drained the water out and located the pump that was humming. I took it out and got it to spin freely and then reinstalled it. A second test run showed the dishwasher to be running as it should. Awesome.

Mahogany countertops

With the dishwasher installed, I checked everything for leaks. I had to tweak a few things but was able to get the leaks to stop. What I found is that the drain parts that come with the utility sink are inferior. They don’t allow enough clamping pressure to seal the pieces together. Once I swapped them out everything was good to go. Now that the plumbing was done, it was time for some countertops. I found an offcut piece of mahogany plywood from a job that I’d done a few years back. I cut it to fit on either side of the sink and made some supports to hold it up on the walls. I rubbed it down with some butcher block oil and then installed them in place. Nice counters, a dishwasher, and a water purification system – It’s like we’re living in luxury now!

A business update

That’s all for the house stuff for this week. Here’s a quick update on my business. I’ve been making tambour panels for a distributor out of West Palm Beach for about 9 months now. In those 9 months, I’ve made 1,100 of these panels. That’s a pretty steady pace. Currently, I have orders in hand for 1,400 panels. These 1,400 panels are due in 2 1/2 months. To hit these deadlines, I need more space. More than what my current shop allows for. I’ve located and leased two shops that are 10 minutes from the house. I started moving into the smaller shop a week and a half ago and I just received the keys to the bigger shop this week. The smaller shop will be a woodworking shop while the bigger shop will be dedicated to the tambour panel production. I’m also leasing a third shop there which in the future I’m going to use as a finishing shop (spraying finishes). It’s not available yet though.

Starting from scratch

With setting up new shops, I’m starting from scratch. Meaning I have to run all of the electrical, lighting, and ductwork again to all of the machines before they can start producing. I’ve got the smaller shop electrical about 80% done and I’ve got the dust collection there rigged up. It works but it’s not great. I mounted lights to the sidewalls as it was quick but I want them mounted overhead. I’ll get it all squared away in time.

The big shop

Just yesterday I started working on the big shop. We’ve had some really heavy rain this last week. At the shop at the house, when I lay up panels, I’m working out in the carport. That means the panels are exposed to the elements. When it’s raining hard the panels get wet, which isn’t good. So on Friday in the rain, we were supposed to be laying up panels but instead we started moving all of the tools and supplies for laying up the panels into the new big shop. Now I need to get the infrastructure in place so we can run the tools necessary to lay up panels there. I picked up some big high bay LED lights and mounted them to the ceiling. I powered them from extension cords for the time being. The wiring in the electrical panel was atrocious so I spent a few hours disconnecting and removing almost all of the original wiring. I then wired up two new circuits to power the lights, fans, vacuum pumps, and small saws.

It works

Lastly, the previous tenant left a big air compressor. It looked real rough but hey, I need a compressor at this shop. I drug it over to the electrical panel and test wired it up. It fired right up and built pressure. Winning! I removed the temp wiring and hard wired it. That should be everything I need to start laying up panels. Over the next week or two I’ll get it wired for the big machines and then run the ductwork for the dust collection. The ductwork should be arriving just after memorial weekend. My goal is to be moved in and producing in the big shop in two weeks.

That’s all, folks

I know that my business isn’t necessarily house related (sometimes it is), but I try and share it to help give the big picture of what we’re up to. And right now the level of craziness of expanding the business greatly exceeds the craziness of this house remodel. It’s all good though. That’s all for this week. Thanks for following along!