The carpenter planned to run trim on Thursday. He asked me what exactly will be in the clean room, so he’d not put trim down where not needed or have to take it up for future work.
Because my husband died before he’d drawn the final plans for this part of the house, we’ve had to wing it. This sink from outside in the Tonka garage was to go in the clean room.
But the window has been put in the wrong place and the whole design had to change. I was trying to utilize the old cabinetry also and getting them all to fit in the new configuration was challenging.
We excavated the sink which was under a dozen large tarps to get firm measurements. It turns out it is 42” long, 26” wide and the backsplash sits up 8”.
We had wanted to get both corner cabinets on the left beside the window. They would fit, by themselves. I had hoped to used the spare sink base, but it’s only 30”, so that’s out. With the sink more or less under the window, the bottom corner cabinet would not fit. So it will stay in the pantry. The top one is ok.
Because of the 8” backsplash, the sink would not be at the 5” higher height of the new stationary island. This height is far better for my back. It would have to be only 3” higher to fit under the window frame.
So the carpenter was going to have to build a sturdy frame for the sink and countertop. It turns out all the wood used for the shower is nearly exactly the right size to do this. Once built, as a free standing frame, it will be painted and installed once the plumbing inspection is done and the plumbing for the sink is run.
Back to the photo above this one, we’d planned to leave the portable island in the clean room. It would no longer fit, being 4” too long. I am hoping we can get it easily into the pantry, and out again, if it is needed as additional counter space. There’s so much stuff in the pantry right now we couldn’t try it.
But two of the three 24” floor cabinets would fit. We were also trying to fit all the old or extra cabinets into the pantry, as it and the clean room are linked in what goes in and how they are used.
So we think we have it solved, at the moment. I did mention to the carpenter at about this point that he should not forget he will only have my intern 4 more days before she’s gone for a month on vacation.
They have a system for wallpapering and he likes to work with her. He wanted her for wallpapering the kitchen. He decided to wallpaper on Friday, and that meant he had to size the walls on Thursday. That meant I had to remove all the stuff from the walls. Chaos ensued…
I got the walls stripped and the furniture moved and the doors covered and he put the sizing on the walls. We still haven’t figured out what to do behind the fridge or over the window, but they will not get all the wallpaper done on Friday. We will have until next Wednesday to figure that out.
In the old kitchen, this corner post on the stairwell was a favorite cat scratching place, next to the chest of drawers. I’d asked the carpenter to find that piece of trim and put it back up, as the cat would merely destroy a new one. He was appalled at the piece of trim and didn’t want to put it up. It was much worse now than in this photo take in 2007.
In the end, he agreed to put it up and would try to make it look less awful, and I told him if he was still here when the 20 year old cat passed on, he could take it down and put up a nice piece.
Once he had that done, he got all set up to wallpaper when my intern arrives on Friday morning. The board he is using as a wallpaper table may end up getting used for the clean room countertop if the old countertop from the old kitchen doesn’t work. We have tried really hard to have little waste and make things go as far as we can.