The Doors

One of the renovation tasks we decided to tackle ourselves was the kitchen cabinets. Replacing cabinets is a very expensive proposition, and it requires a permit. We decided to "reface" the old cabinets instead. Here's the before picture from our old rental company.

Pretty hideous, right?

The first order of business was to remove the doors and drawers, patch the holes, and let our professional painters do their thing.

Going from dingy white to gray was an immediate improvement.

Then it was time to make a door prototype. I watched a few videos about making "budget shaker doors" and decided to use 1/2" maple plywood with a 1/4" maple border. While it came out OK, it didn't have the quality I was looking for.

I also needed to replace the drawers. The old ones were a little small for the cabinets, so I built the scrap wood prototype a little wider so there wouldn't be as much slop and play.

On the next trip to Tahoe we checked the fit and everything was perfect.

Time to go into production.

I watched a few more videos and decided to make true shaker cabinets. We would go the MDF route because it's inexpensive, easy to work with, and the doors would be painted anyway.

I took all my measurements and performed the calculations to build everything.

I purchased the components to build a fairly professional table router setup. It was expensive, but very much worth it.

This allows you to route all the rails and styles with precision.

Unfortunately my trusty old Craftsman table saw bit the dust during this project.

It was replaced with this DeWalt portable unit that turned out to be so vastly superior that I should have bought one years ago.

Assembly went pretty quickly and soon we had a bunch of doors and drawer fronts.

Each one had to be painstakingly sanded to smooth out the seams and round all the sharp corners.

Then it was off to paint, a task that Jennifer handled. She learned quickly and did a great job.

She pre-sprayed all the drawer parts so when I tacked them together, they were mostly painted.

Everything went up pretty easily and lined up well.

I made one calculation mistake thinking I would use 1.5 inch overlay hinges everywhere. It turned out that a few doors needed 3/4" hinges. No big deal, I was able to cut down the offending doors and replace one rail without too much effort.

Installing the drawer fronts was easily the most difficult part. Getting them level and lined up with both each other and the cabinet doors proved tricky.

All that was left was installing the black hardware. It was a piece of cake with the jig I bought.

In the end we were pretty happy with the finished product.

Were they perfect? No. But we learned a lot and next time we will edge much closer to the perfection we always seek with home improvement projects.

Later.

The Wall

After recently finishing the remodel of the Tahoe condo, I thought I would highlight some of the cooler improvements we made.

The bar area was pretty terrible: Tile countertop, hideous gray and pink tile on the wall, and a high bar level which closed off the room a bit.

We tore out all the tile and I cut down the wall.

I installed sheetrock so I had something to glue the wall treatment to.

Unfortunately we didn't quite have enough wall panel. Back to Floor and Decor.

In the end it turned out great. I will definitely use this stuff again for a feature wall.

Later.

Floored

Part of the slider installation project included removing the little pony wall to the right of the old door. This was essentially the cat's wall, and he wasn't thrilled about losing it.

(Grass samples for our front yard project.)

This left a hole in the flooring, so tonight I tackled that. Luckily the previous owners left a few planks of flooring in the attic.

The flooring on the left side still had the tongue intact, so that would be easy. However, the cuts on the near end and right side were jagged and uneven.

The first row was pretty simple.

After that it took many cuts, sanding and fine tuning to fit the new flooring in properly.

After cleaning up the old paint and applying a little stain to the edges of the cuts where the natural wood showed, it looked pretty good.

It's not perfect, but this flooring is semi-temporary, so it will do for now.

Later.

The Forgettable Fire

When we purchased the house it had a fireplace that we would never use surrounded by a hideous mantle we hated.

We decided to go with an electric fireplace that would provide a little heat and some ambiance. First we yanked off the mantle to see what we were dealing with, and what we were dealing with was a real mess. At some point the tile went up the wall and around the fireplace, so there would be some thinset cleanup involved.

A guy installed the electric unit and tacked in some new drywall.

I wasn't thrilled with the quality of his drywall work, but I thought I could fix it.

After taping, a lot of mud and sanding, texture, paint and trim it came out pretty well.

I still need to patch the holes, touch up the paint and caulk, but otherwise it's done. The awful tile will eventually come out, but that's down the road.

Later.

Hazy

The Camry has been a pretty good car, but at over 11 years old it's starting to show its age. The headlights were no longer clear and didn't function well. After trying various methods of polishing them with mixed results, I just decided to replace them.

When I was younger I was a Volkswagen guy. I owned three bugs and one fastback. On my 1966 bug especially, I performed almost every maintenance task you can think of. I dropped the motor numerous times, replaced the transaxle, replaced the front and rear suspension, brakes, carburetor, distributor, clutch, etc. You get the picture.

The headlight assemblies on a pre-1967 bug are removed by one large screw. That's it. The Camry? A few more than that.

I watched a YouTube video and got to work. You have to pretty much remove the whole front end of the car. It seems kind of stupid, but what do I know. One of the old, milky headlights is on the right:

I think it took a little over an hour. Hey, it works.

New and clear.

Done.

Another easy DIY that saved some dollars. Time to go buy some bike parts.

Later.

Goodbye Foothills

After 20 years of living in the Sierra Nevada foothills, it is time to say goodbye.

Tomorrow a new family moves in. I am sure they will make great memories here, as we did.

The renovation was tough. Really tough. We worked so unbelievably hard, but I am proud of the work we did and the resulting beautiful house. 

I am definitely going to miss the workout room. This is a luxury our new (and much smaller) home will not have.

When you are finishing up a long stretch of renovation, purchasing a new home, selling the old home and moving two decades worth of possessions, it's hard to feel anything but relief. I am sure in the coming weeks there will be many things I miss. But not today.

Later.