#the bigass piece is like. half-done. but also done Enough that like. if i run out of time i'll still look good as it is (fully inked)

[moe-broey]

TWO PIECES FOR SHARENA WEEK. DONE. We're SOOOOO BACK (on my meds LMFAOOO)

[houseinvictus]

Garden Log 2017, part the first

Last year I used my personal Tumblr for logging my progress. This year, we have a new home for our urban farming adventure! It’s long, and posted here for posterity.

Fish & Farm

My grandfather kept these journals about his outdoor activities. He called them “Fish & Farm”, which I doubt requires much explanation. Even though I’ve never been much for fishing, I call my lawn and garden journal Fish & Farm too. But it got thrown into a box when we were cleaning for company, and I don’t know which box. So since I’m not really using this much, I’m just going to keep a record of my activities here until I can transcribe them into the book.

8 April 2017

The sidewalk plow wrecked the garden boxes. Just shredded the wood. Need to move the front gardens back about 8" or so and fill with brick or concrete. Lavender looks like it’ll bounce back, and we’ll add more this year. If last year’s Landini lilies don’t come up, I might try a couple of rosebushes.

Cleared debris from out back today. Planning another dump run with Ryan soonish. Still need to rake up about three bags’ worth of pine needles and leaf litter, but at least leaf bag collection is unlimited.

Planted my first round of herbs. Four Jiffy pods each of rosemary, oregano, basil, chives, and dill. I had a packet of parsley seeds, but it seems to have disappeared. I also need to get some cilantro, sage, and some sort of mint started. Planning for a mason-jar herb garden in the back porch, two steps from the kitchen. If everything sprouts and grows, we’re going to set up the Wives with a set of plants, too. Maybe even strawberries.

9 April 2017

I went out back with three leaf bags and a rake this morning. I got the organics about halfway bagged. Really glad I have a bunch more bags, ‘cause I’d estimate at least two more to do the job if I’m lucky.

We need a new bird feeder. Water got in. A lot of it. Yuck.

Got the evergreen fertilizer sticks punched into the ground between the cedars. They’re still tiny and pathetic, but they made it through the winter.

Moved the picnic table out from the house and the planter-platform to where we’re going to build the permanent veggie bed. There may even be room for a second veggie bed before too long – that is, there’s room, but we won’t be able to build it right away because lumber is expensive.

Sweet woodruff and dianthus are hung out front where they belong. Not sure what to do about the third pot, which gets drowned by the break in the eavestrough we just haven’t yet been able to fix. Strawberries need dead bits pruned, then can go back outside.

K has suggested growing our leafy greens in planters around the perimeter of the back “yard”. We’re also going to get some people to test-park so we can work out where we can plant some grass back there.

Thinking about red roses behind the lavender out front if the lilies fail. Possibly even if they don’t.

10 April 2017

I planted peas today. Eight Jiffy pods. They’re in the foyer window with the herb pods.

That is literally the only garden related thing I did today. It thunderstormed overnight, so everything’s been soaked all day.

14 April 2017

K and I looked over our materials and did a general redesign of the garden boxes. Home Depot’s rough cuts on the 1x12" planks were extremely rough, so our new strategy is to cut them all to 42" length. First of the two veggie boxes is built. Second one will have to wait until they restock the rough pine planks, ‘cause I cleaned them out.

Grackles and nuthatches really seem to like the new bird feeder.

16 April 2017

Staked out the positions of the various garden boxes in relation to the property line. Way too wet out to justify doing much else.

Planted the last four herbs just now: parsley, mint, sage, and cilantro. Noticed the rosemary hasn’t done anything yet, but the dill, chives, oregano, and basil have sprouted. Also, the peas I planted are starting to do their thing. Checked the soil in the round planters; since it’s nice and damp, they don’t need to go outside yet. While I was in the porch, I also trimmed back the dead bits from the strawberries and set out mason jars for the herbs to go into later. Have to get some soil into them soon.

19 April 2017

Filled the first set of herb jars with soil today. Also, planted three varieties of lettuce (buttercrunch, Parris Island, and Grand Rapids), Swiss chard (Bright Lights), and kale. Twelve cells each. Good Maude.

20 April 2017

Dollarama has the worst seed selection this year. Planted twelve cells of cucumber and filled the second set of herb jars.

Of my two new garden boxes, one of which is built and ready to put in place, one will be filled with bigass beefsteak tomatoes with peas at the centre (still contemplating adding another veggie), and the other will be a Three Sisters box (corn, beans, and squash – in this case, zucchini). Just gotta get those suckers built and filled!

21 April 2017

Spent a couple of hours working on the veggie planter. Dug the anchor holes, set it in, and started filling it from the front garden bed, where we plan to grow blueberries.

23 April 2017

The first veggie box is now just about half full of old dirt, gravel, and assorted yard organics. It’s ready to be topped up with fresh soil. Now I just need to get my hands on a lot of fresh soil. :)

24 April 2017

Holy crapspackle, what a day. I dumped 140L of soil (all I had) into the tomato box, and need about the same again to top it up. I pulled the frame from the 8’ front bed, but failed to extract the screws, which are stripped or stuck or both. Then I sat down on the sidewalk (howdy, neighbours!) and pulled the rest of the gravel from the 18’ bed, then bagged up the dead lavender from last year. Oh, and a bird pooped on me in hunger protest or something, so I refilled the feeder.

29 April 2017

So after being sidelined by the plague for a few days, I finished filling the tomato box today. It took another 180L, which brings us to a grand total of 320 L to fill basically the top half of the box. I also took off the needly bits of the fallen pine branch out back.

3 May 2017

The second box is built. That is all.

4 May 2017

Sunk posts and started filling the Three Sisters box base with old dirt and organic matter. Got about 1/3 finished. Digging makes me tired.

5 May 2017

Dragged out the lawn edging today. It is REALLY hard to straighten it when it’s been coiled for basically ever. Dug, edged, and filled the nasturtium beds and blueberry bed, except for one more piece I still need to cut. Killed two birds with one stone by getting fresh dirt for the nasturtiums from the 18’ bed, since it’s above grade.and the dirt we added last year didn’t do any actual work. But in other parts of that bed, the lilies are coming up! They’ll make nice placeholders while we acquire the blueberry bushes for that bed.

Also, I filled the bird feeder. Little winged piggies.

10 May 2017

The Three Sisters box is filling at a pretty good rate, now that I’m using the wheelbarrow to move dirt from the front of the 28’ garden to the box. I’ve got it nearly, if not all of, 2/3 full, and I still have some more digging to do. I should be able to get it to ¾ full before I have to buy more fresh soil.

I have sproutlings! My kale and chard are coming up beautifully, and the lettuces aren’t far behind. A little bit of zucchini and kohlrabi action is underway. One little cucumber shoot! The corn I planted is doing precisely nothing, but that’s why I bought more, so I can replant once I get the box filled and ready.

I gave the peas some diluted coffee. Can’t hurt!

12 May 2017

I had a busy day. Filled the second box to the top, put in my tomato plants, levelled the front strip, saturated it, and laid down a thick covering of grass seed (then layered fresher dirt on top). Then I prepped the 18’ front strip for grassing (well, I’m almost finished), put a couple of whimsical pinwheels into the veggie boxes, and marked out where things will go in the front bed.

13 May 2017

It is GORGEOUS out. This morning, we got the hose up and running, then went outside, soaked the crap out of the boxes and the 8’ front bed, transplanted the hosta and blueberries (note to self: east Chippewa, west Northland), and put greenhouse domes over the blueberries. We also cleaned up the yard for reseeding, planted more peas, planted corn, and stripped the dead foliage off the hanging pot of woodruff.

14 May 2017

Today, we cut enough extraneous branches from the trees at the southwest corner of the house that I’ll no longer be disturbed by knocking at my bathroom window in the middle of the night. Then we swung around to the east side of the house and got really crazy. With a combination of my new pole saw (😍), K’s recip saw, and my hand pruners, we tidied up and/or eliminated the trees between our house and our neighbour Dan, who was out hanging with us for a while. There were a couple of maples WAY too close to the foundation, so those have been eliminated.

15 May 2017

Today I bought and transplanted a jalapeño plant. His name is Juan, as in “they had lots of plants, but I only wanted Juan.”

I also planted the first of my nasturtiums, in the strip between the two planter boxes. Packet says 7-21 days for them to sprout, so we’ll have plenty of time to attach the lattice before they need to start climbing. Perhaps sometime this week I’ll fill the strip between the Three Sisters box and the blueberry hedge and plant a row there, too.

Big weekend!

20 May 2017

Weeekend! We got up and went outside to get some work done. We put up the lattice fence against the west side of the veggie boxes. It really ties the whole area together, both physically and metaphorically. I filled and planted the nasturtium trench, and we watered everything. K seeded the east front lawn and watered it in. Also, because our birds are little piggies, we refilled both feeders.

21 May 2017

Rain. And then more rain. But we did get to Home Depot to pick up zucchini, a jalapeño, and a ew bags of mulch. Yay sale! I put in the plants, and they look pretty cheerful. 22 May 2017 It took two bags of mulch to do the blueberry patch, meaning we have two left. Then it was transplant time! I now have three pots of kale ready to go out back, my parsley and rosemary are now in their jars, and I have a loaf tin of leftover herbs to give away (chives, cilantro, and dill). Also, two more of my mint pods finally sprouted, so when they’ve grown a little more, I can transplant those, too.

25 May 2017

I can’t quite believe phase one of the front yard is done. It doesn’t feel real, but it sure does look good.

In phase F1, we built, filled, and planted the two veggie boxes, attached a lattice fence, planted nasturtiums to climbit, added some potted plants, planted a 12" wide strip of grass as sidewalk plow insurance, planted two blueberry bushes, and laid down mulch around them.

In phase F2, we’re planting a matching 12" grass strip, bringing the 18’ garden bed down to grade, reseeding the grass on the main lawn (first seeding complete), and possibly starting to replace stands of lilies with blueberry bushes, as our budget permits.

Phase F3 is the replacement of the somewhat wobbly front steps and the construction of a garden box around the lilac tree. K wants to put in some grapevines. Also, painting the damned porch. WHY brick red and grey? We hate the colours, and plan to go to white and green.

Phase E1’ on the east side of the house, is kind of a mini-phase that’s just about done. We took down the two maples that were menacing the house by being too close, and trimmed back the one that’s on the property line we share with Dan.

Phase R1 is very straightforward: leafy greens in planters, times about a gazillion. So far, only the kale is transplanted and in place.

Phase R2 will involve measuring out a space for the driveway, putting in some edging, and planting grass on the rest. Then a load of gravel should finish it up.

Phase W1 is our lowest priority: the strip of yard between us and the corner house is just mossy. Some other ground cover seems called for. It doesn’t have to be grass, it just has to contribute to soil retention.

So F1 and E1 are done, and F2 and R1 are in progress. Pretty impressive, given our circumstances.

In ongoing garden work news, I’ve transplanted the Swiss chard, and after it rides out a little transplant fatigue, it’ll go out front.

27 May 2017

Ugh. Well, there’s an arduous, annoying task out of the way. There was WAY too much gravel in the bottom of last year’s tomato pots (this year’s lettuce). I reclaimed a 27" windowbox full of gravel while still leaving plenty of gravel for drainage. And then I filled four planters from the 18’ garden. We still have a ton of reasonably fresh soil we can reclaim before getting the garden down below grade for mulching. Whether I have enough planters, on the other hand, is a whole other question.

Have you ever been glared at and scolded by a teensy little bird? They’ve figured out I’m the sucker who fills the bird feeder. Last fill was a week ago. Anyone who uses the phrase “eats like a bird” has never seen how those little bastards can put it away! Also, I really need to get more seed. I have less than a feeder-fill left, and I didn’t check the backyard feeder on my way to the garage. The kale, however, is really happy outside!

I got the mower out and the first pass done, and I took my sad little chardlings outside to get some sun and fresh air and whatnot. Looking forward to the grass growing in, ‘cause I pretty much just beheaded the dandelions and forget-me-nots.

29 May 2017

I now have a large pot each of Parris Island Romaine (rooted really, really poorly, but it’s in), Buttercrunch lettuce (rooted beautifully), and Grand Rapids leaf lettuce (most sprouts came up, but not impressively rooted). We’ll see how the remaining sprouts do before I xplant any more.

K pulled out the whippersnipper and tidied things up. I need to rake the snippy bits off the nasturtium bed, but I’m kinda tired. Oh! And since yesterday, our corn sprout count is up to five! The one we saw yesterday must have put on a whole cm overnight.

30 May 2017

My cucumber sproutlings are finally growing! Yay!

Reseeded and watered-in more grass JUST before the rain started, ‘cause that’s how I roll, apparently.

[mrstevenbushus]

Kitchen Process: The Holy Shit Edition

Yeah. That’s all I have to say about the 22 hours of counter-installation I did this past weekend. Holy. Shit.

Looking back on it, it’s funny to think that I was under the impression I was “really close” to being doing a week ago. (Ha.) I mean, I thought I had one cut straight cut left to do, trim the sink hole, join everything together, and that would be it. I was sure I’d have it done Saturday, with Sunday left for clean up.

That face says it all.

The awesome part about Saturday was that my mom came up to the farm to help out with odds and ends (and help me move pieces of counter around as needed) and it was SIXTY DEGREES OUT. In February. In MICHIGAN. (This is literally unheard of… as in it has never been this warm on that particular day in February in all of recorded history.)

That was such a blessing because not only was it just plain awesome to be outside, it also meant I could work on the counter right out on the porch instead of hauling all of the pieces in and out of the garage.

The chickens also thought this was an awesome arrangement.

So the first challenge of the weekend was joining two sections of board together to make one fifteen foot long section. The sink hole is roughly in the middle of that section, and I debated for a long time about either putting the seam behind the sink (where it would be less noticeable) or just down somewhere near the end of the counter where it would run the full width of the counter.

I decided on putting it behind the sink… and I’m still debating on whether or not that was the right call, but it is what it is.

So, first step, glue these together…

Except I decided not to use the exact right tool for this job–a biscuit joiner–even though I’d already purchased one and was sitting in its box in the back of my car.

I don’t… I mean… guys. I’ve been doing this shit for over a decade. I know how this goes, and it is always, always harder and more frustrating if 1.) you don’t have the right tools, 2.) you don’t have good quality tools that can handle the job, and 3.) you don’t take the time to learn how to use those tools. I know this, like, intrinsically, deep down in the depths of my soul, and yet sometimes I still fall into the trap of not wanting to pay the money for the tool, or not wanting to take the time to figure out how to use it correctly, and guess what? That shit goes horribly wrong every time.

Here’s the conversation that happened between me and my mom to illustrate how this went down.

11:10 AM

Me: Mom, what time is it too early for happy hour to start on the farm again?

Mom: Well, the farm has special rules but we should probably wait until afternoon?

11:58AM – After the first failed glue-up attempt

Mom: Is it afternoon yet?

Me: Holy shit, close enough.

I did eventually manage to get the board glued up (and held in place with some clamps and pocket screws while the glue dried) and, in the meantime, my mom and I rode around on the golf cart and staked some of the cages around the fruit trees that had blown over recently….

And then I got to work cutting out the template for the sink hole.

I’d already had enough success with a cobbled-together jig for the stove hole that I wasn’t super nervous about this, I just really wanted to do it right. (I actually started a template a week ago and it broke in half while I was cutting it, so this was my second attempt.)

I know some people cut out the paper template (or glue the template directly to the board with a photomount spray) but I usually have a roll of graphite paper on hand, and I find that it’s the best way to transfer a template pattern without ruining the original. (You can get it for under $10 on Amazon… so worth it.)

With the original template transferred on to the board I then had to add 3-1/8″ to accommodate my  my router guard (which was easier on the straight lines than on the radius corners.)  I used to make sarcastic comments back in elementary school math classes about “never actually using this in real life.” Ha. I hope all my old math teachers get some satisfaction out of this…

I used a scrap piece of plywood for the template and cut the two straight “sides” with the circular saw, and using a jigsaw for the curves. My very favorite part of this process was when I was debating how to cut the straight line that would end up behind the sink… the easiest thing would have been to continue cutting with the jigsaw, but I know from years of experience that won’t give me an actual straight line, so I said out loud to myself “I really should just make a plunge cut with the circular saw to do this right…” (Even though that’s not at all what I really wanted to do because I hate making plunge cuts with the circular saw.)

And my mom standing four feet behind me– doing something else entirely– was like, “WELL JUST DO IT THEN.”

I’m still laughing just typing that. It was exactly the thing I needed to hear, so I picked up the saw and got to it…

And ended up with a really good template.

The next step, of course, was clamping this to the 15′ piece of counter and then using the router to cut it out, but there were a lot of challenges that came into play with this step as well.

The first was placement of the template. I spent a lot of time like this…

Because unlike most sinks that will be dropped in or mounted below a sink hole after it’s cut, my gazillion pound cast iron sink is already in place on a base in the cabinet. And also, nothing in my 160 year old house is square, so measuring from the only wall that was a viable measuring-point (and, of course, not square) left me with more questions than confidence in where the template should be placed.

At some point I gave up measuring, re-measuring, drinking more, and measuring again, and just said, “fuck it, I’m cutting this hole.”

Like the stove top, I did multiple passes with the router (this time, four passes) and the cut turned out beautifully.

Of course, now I had a 15′ piece of butcher block with a bigass hole in it that was tenuously held together by some un-cured wood glue and a couple of undersized screws on a 5″ section of board.

In other words, moving this without breaking it was going to be a bitch.

I braced the shit out of both the joint and the board, and then my boyfriend came over and the three of us attempted to move the piece of counter in the kitchen.

And of course the glued seam cracked right before we got it in place. I was 50% livid and 50% resigned because I knew this was going to happen the moment I put that seam on the smallest section of wood behind the sink. But the real reason I was disappointed was because my sink hole was about 1/4″ off.

The cracked seam wasn’t so much of an issue as was the fact that I was potentially going to have to lift that 15′ piece of counter up again and move it outside to trim the hole to the right size AND join this board to shorter board that makes the “L” of the counter. I was sure that picking that piece up again would cause the screws that were in it (and unable to be removed in its current position) to crack and split the wood beyond repair.

I’d just like to take this time to point out that if I’d used the biscuit joiner that I currently owned and was sitting in its box in my car and had also just glued/clamped that section in my house and let it cure 24 hours, it would have been fine. All of my frustration at that point in time was due to 1.) not using the proper tool, and 2.) rushing the project and not taking the time to do things right.

Those are rookie mistakes, and there’s no excuse for them. I know better. But, you know, I’m still human… a particularly impatient one when I don’t have a working kitchen sink (which is weird because we all know I’m not in some huge rush to do my dishes, but still) and I did a lot of mental gymnastics on Saturday to convince myself that I didn’t have any other option but to make those less-than-stellar choices.

Listen, a lot of this stemmed from the fact that I am really bad at asking for help, and this was a particularly awkward situation where I really needed someone on-hand for 8-10 hours, but actually only really needed them for maybe 15 minutes of real work at random times throughout the day. Also I’m really easily distracted so when I’m doing a lot of measuring and holding numbers in my head– or just mentally planning out the next steps of a project– I can’t entertain or chat (or sometimes even talk civilly) to other people when I’m working. So basically I needed to ask someone to spend their whole day on the farm not talking to me except for the half a dozen random times I needed help lifting or moving a piece of counter? That’s awesome.

And it’s exactly what I asked my boyfriend to do the weekend prior (and he was super gracious about it) and then asked my mom to do Saturday (and she was also awesome about it), but come Saturday evening when I had an off-center sink hole, a cracked seam, and no help lined up for Sunday? I’m not going to claim that was one of my most shining moments as a human.

But…

I obsessed about it for the rest of the night, slept on it, woke up bright and early Sunday, and had nearly convinced myself to leave the off-center sink hole as is (I even posted about it to Facebook and very much appreciated all of the comments voting yea or nay on trying to fix it) and then I did a thing I almost never do mid-project and called my dad. This is how the conversation went:

Me: I don’t know if I should try to fix it or just leave it as is…

Dad:  Fix it.

Me: …

Dad: I feel like you just want someone to give you permission not to fix it, but you need to do it.

Me: Okay, fair. But what if I fuck it up?

Dad: Honey… it’s already fucked up.

Ha. Dads. If I’d decided to call literally any other person in my life– any person– they would have told me to leave it, but I called my dad and I think it’s because subconsciously I wanted someone to call me on my shit and tell me to fix it. I mean, in the moment I was like 45 seconds away from an emotional breakdown, but after I talked to him I was like, well, yeah, that’s exactly what I needed to hear, and now how the fuck am I going to fix this by myself?

I had two choices: 1.) Use the router to make the sink hole bigger on one side, or 2.) Use the circular saw to trim a 1/4″ off the end of the counter and shift the whole thing over.

I decided the second option was going to be easier and less risky, but it was also going to create some complications for the 45-degree cuts I’d already made for the L shaped part of the counter. Also, I had to just mentally get over the fact that I didn’t want to cut in the kitchen and create a shit-ton of sawdust inside the house, because no way I was going to be able to move that 15′ counter out of the house by myself.

So I did what any reasonable person would do at a time like this, and taped my shopvac hose to my counters and basically cut the boards in place on top of my cabinets…

(I managed to get some plywood under them so I wasn’t cutting directly on top of the cabs.)

Which– holy shit– actually worked!

Then I had a little more confidence to tackle the issue with the 45’s I’d just created, and I’m telling you, I basically winged it. I was able to move the 6′ piece of counter in and out of the house, and I had to trim 3 sides of it to make it work. And, even then, the 45’s I’d cut (and recut) with the circular saw weren’t fitting tightly. But at this point I was actually super confident in my ability to cut and use the router “in place” without damaging anything, so I trimmed 1/16 of an inch off the angles to square everything up.

Earlier in the day my dad bragged about his router with the attached dust collection system and asked why mine didn’t have one (and the answer is because I stole this router from him ten years ago, obviously, so it’s way older than his) but his fancy newer model has nothing on my shopvac/painters tape dust collection system…

This is what happened…

Holy shit, you guys, do you see that fit?

There was maybe 1/16″ gap between those boards, where there’d been 1/4″ or more before. I know in my last post I said I didn’t love using the router to trim up those straight cuts, but I very much changed my mind.

Okay, so there was only really one big challenge left at this point. I needed to attach the 15′ piece of counter (with a cracked seam) to this shorter piece to make the L, and in my mind that had to be done from underneath, either with pocket screws or some temporary boards screwed in to brace the clamps with. But that would also mean somehow lifting up both sections of board and then attaching them and then putting them back in place 1.) by myself, and 2.) without breaking anything.

And then I realized I was being an idiot.

Well, not as big of an idiot as I’d been about other things in this process, but I was stuck on this idea that I had to attach the boards from underneath. Just like earlier in the day I was stuck on the idea that I had to move the counters out of the house to cut them.

Those are actually not real obstacles.

This time, I’m happy to say, I learned my lesson. I broke out my newest tool–the biscuit joiner– and made some practice cuts.

Then I made the actual cuts in my two counter pieces, glued them together, and…

I screwed two boards right into the fucking top of those things to clamp it together.

Yeah, you might be horrified by that (I kind of was) but I realized that the only thing keeping me from getting the counters finished was four tiny screw holes that could easily be filled with some wood filler. So I screwed those bitches in and then, using another tip from my dad, and just emptied some of the sawdust out of the sander I’d been using on the counters…

And mixed it in with with the wood glue that was compressed out of the seam, to make my own wood filler.

Which worked fucking beautifully. I also used it on the screw holes once I removed those blocks for clamping and on the seam behind the sink.

I also drilled the holes for the faucet…

(That’s a new 1-3/8″ forstner bit I bought specifically for this job, and it worked beautifully.)

And caulked along the sink…

And then, then, late Sunday night, after a 14 hour day working by myself on these counters, I finally put the first coat of oil on them and…

HOLY. SHIT.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

Remember what it used to look like?

I’ve been continuing to oil the counters every night this week, and it’s just now starting to look like a functional kitchen again…

Still pretty far from being done, but it’s looking just a little different than it did on the day I bought this place five years ago.

I’m really happy about all the decisions I’ve made so far, from removing the pantry and wall oven, to painting everything white, extending the bar area another foot, and adding that little bookshelf. And definitely– even though they were a pain in the ass to install– those beautiful walnut counters.

It certainly wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s definitely the most difficult thing I’ve done in a while. And the challenge of it reminded me of things I might have been taking for granted, like how to do things correctly (don’t rush and always use the right tools), and what great advice both of my parents give when I’m least expecting it (and definitely don’t think I’m asking for it), and, frankly, that there’s always a way to solve the problem. Sometimes you have to be willing to modify, adjust expectations, cover your kitchen in sawdust, and drill right into the top of that beautiful fucking counter, but, by god, you can do the damn thing. 

If nothing else, this counter will always be a beautiful reminder of that.

And now, I need to go sleep for a week and let all of my muscles heal. Because, holy shit.

Article reference Kitchen Process: The Holy Shit Edition

[cessanderson]

Kitchen Process: The Holy Shit Edition http://ift.tt/2mmqhsz

Yeah. That’s all I have to say about the 22 hours of counter-installation I did this past weekend. Holy. Shit.

Looking back on it, it’s funny to think that I was under the impression I was “really close” to being doing a week ago. (Ha.) I mean, I thought I had one cut straight cut left to do, trim the sink hole, join everything together, and that would be it. I was sure I’d have it done Saturday, with Sunday left for clean up.

That face says it all.

The awesome part about Saturday was that my mom came up to the farm to help out with odds and ends (and help me move pieces of counter around as needed) and it was SIXTY DEGREES OUT. In February. In MICHIGAN. (This is literally unheard of… as in it has never been this warm on that particular day in February in all of recorded history.)

That was such a blessing because not only was it just plain awesome to be outside, it also meant I could work on the counter right out on the porch instead of hauling all of the pieces in and out of the garage.

The chickens also thought this was an awesome arrangement.

So the first challenge of the weekend was joining two sections of board together to make one fifteen foot long section. The sink hole is roughly in the middle of that section, and I debated for a long time about either putting the seam behind the sink (where it would be less noticeable) or just down somewhere near the end of the counter where it would run the full width of the counter.

I decided on putting it behind the sink… and I’m still debating on whether or not that was the right call, but it is what it is.

So, first step, glue these together…

Except I decided not to use the exact right tool for this job–a biscuit joiner–even though I’d already purchased one and was sitting in its box in the back of my car.

I don’t… I mean… guys. I’ve been doing this shit for over a decade. I know how this goes, and it is always, always harder and more frustrating if 1.) you don’t have the right tools, 2.) you don’t have good quality tools that can handle the job, and 3.) you don’t take the time to learn how to use those tools. I know this, like, intrinsically, deep down in the depths of my soul, and yet sometimes I still fall into the trap of not wanting to pay the money for the tool, or not wanting to take the time to figure out how to use it correctly, and guess what? That shit goes horribly wrong every time.

Here’s the conversation that happened between me and my mom to illustrate how this went down.

11:10 AM

Me: Mom, what time is it too early for happy hour to start on the farm again?

Mom: Well, the farm has special rules but we should probably wait until afternoon?

11:58AM – After the first failed glue-up attempt

Mom: Is it afternoon yet?

Me: Holy shit, close enough.

I did eventually manage to get the board glued up (and held in place with some clamps and pocket screws while the glue dried) and, in the meantime, my mom and I rode around on the golf cart and staked some of the cages around the fruit trees that had blown over recently….

And then I got to work cutting out the template for the sink hole.

I’d already had enough success with a cobbled-together jig for the stove hole that I wasn’t super nervous about this, I just really wanted to do it right. (I actually started a template a week ago and it broke in half while I was cutting it, so this was my second attempt.)

I know some people cut out the paper template (or glue the template directly to the board with a photomount spray) but I usually have a roll of graphite paper on hand, and I find that it’s the best way to transfer a template pattern without ruining the original. (You can get it for under $10 on Amazon… so worth it.)

With the original template transferred on to the board I then had to add 3-1/8″ to accommodate my  my router guard (which was easier on the straight lines than on the radius corners.)  I used to make sarcastic comments back in elementary school math classes about “never actually using this in real life.” Ha. I hope all my old math teachers get some satisfaction out of this…

I used a scrap piece of plywood for the template and cut the two straight “sides” with the circular saw, and using a jigsaw for the curves. My very favorite part of this process was when I was debating how to cut the straight line that would end up behind the sink… the easiest thing would have been to continue cutting with the jigsaw, but I know from years of experience that won’t give me an actual straight line, so I said out loud to myself “I really should just make a plunge cut with the circular saw to do this right…” (Even though that’s not at all what I really wanted to do because I hate making plunge cuts with the circular saw.)

And my mom standing four feet behind me– doing something else entirely– was like, “WELL JUST DO IT THEN.”

I’m still laughing just typing that. It was exactly the thing I needed to hear, so I picked up the saw and got to it…

And ended up with a really good template.

The next step, of course, was clamping this to the 15′ piece of counter and then using the router to cut it out, but there were a lot of challenges that came into play with this step as well.

The first was placement of the template. I spent a lot of time like this…

Because unlike most sinks that will be dropped in or mounted below a sink hole after it’s cut, my gazillion pound cast iron sink is already in place on a base in the cabinet. And also, nothing in my 160 year old house is square, so measuring from the only wall that was a viable measuring-point (and, of course, not square) left me with more questions than confidence in where the template should be placed.

At some point I gave up measuring, re-measuring, drinking more, and measuring again, and just said, “fuck it, I’m cutting this hole.”

Like the stove top, I did multiple passes with the router (this time, four passes) and the cut turned out beautifully.

Of course, now I had a 15′ piece of butcher block with a bigass hole in it that was tenuously held together by some un-cured wood glue and a couple of undersized screws on a 5″ section of board.

In other words, moving this without breaking it was going to be a bitch.

I braced the shit out of both the joint and the board, and then my boyfriend came over and the three of us attempted to move the piece of counter in the kitchen.

And of course the glued seam cracked right before we got it in place. I was 50% livid and 50% resigned because I knew this was going to happen the moment I put that seam on the smallest section of wood behind the sink. But the real reason I was disappointed was because my sink hole was about 1/4″ off.

The cracked seam wasn’t so much of an issue as was the fact that I was potentially going to have to lift that 15′ piece of counter up again and move it outside to trim the hole to the right size AND join this board to shorter board that makes the “L” of the counter. I was sure that picking that piece up again would cause the screws that were in it (and unable to be removed in its current position) to crack and split the wood beyond repair.

I’d just like to take this time to point out that if I’d used the biscuit joiner that I currently owned and was sitting in its box in my car and had also just glued/clamped that section in my house and let it cure 24 hours, it would have been fine. All of my frustration at that point in time was due to 1.) not using the proper tool, and 2.) rushing the project and not taking the time to do things right.

Those are rookie mistakes, and there’s no excuse for them. I know better. But, you know, I’m still human… a particularly impatient one when I don’t have a working kitchen sink (which is weird because we all know I’m not in some huge rush to do my dishes, but still) and I did a lot of mental gymnastics on Saturday to convince myself that I didn’t have any other option but to make those less-than-stellar choices.

Listen, a lot of this stemmed from the fact that I am really bad at asking for help, and this was a particularly awkward situation where I really needed someone on-hand for 8-10 hours, but actually only really needed them for maybe 15 minutes of real work at random times throughout the day. Also I’m really easily distracted so when I’m doing a lot of measuring and holding numbers in my head– or just mentally planning out the next steps of a project– I can’t entertain or chat (or sometimes even talk civilly) to other people when I’m working. So basically I needed to ask someone to spend their whole day on the farm not talking to me except for the half a dozen random times I needed help lifting or moving a piece of counter? That’s awesome.

And it’s exactly what I asked my boyfriend to do the weekend prior (and he was super gracious about it) and then asked my mom to do Saturday (and she was also awesome about it), but come Saturday evening when I had an off-center sink hole, a cracked seam, and no help lined up for Sunday? I’m not going to claim that was one of my most shining moments as a human.

But…

I obsessed about it for the rest of the night, slept on it, woke up bright and early Sunday, and had nearly convinced myself to leave the off-center sink hole as is (I even posted about it to Facebook and very much appreciated all of the comments voting yea or nay on trying to fix it) and then I did a thing I almost never do mid-project and called my dad. This is how the conversation went:

Me: I don’t know if I should try to fix it or just leave it as is…

Dad:  Fix it.

Me: …

Dad: I feel like you just want someone to give you permission not to fix it, but you need to do it.

Me: Okay, fair. But what if I fuck it up?

Dad: Honey… it’s already fucked up.

Ha. Dads. If I’d decided to call literally any other person in my life– any person– they would have told me to leave it, but I called my dad and I think it’s because subconsciously I wanted someone to call me on my shit and tell me to fix it. I mean, in the moment I was like 45 seconds away from an emotional breakdown, but after I talked to him I was like, well, yeah, that’s exactly what I needed to hear, and now how the fuck am I going to fix this by myself?

I had two choices: 1.) Use the router to make the sink hole bigger on one side, or 2.) Use the circular saw to trim a 1/4″ off the end of the counter and shift the whole thing over.

I decided the second option was going to be easier and less risky, but it was also going to create some complications for the 45-degree cuts I’d already made for the L shaped part of the counter. Also, I had to just mentally get over the fact that I didn’t want to cut in the kitchen and create a shit-ton of sawdust inside the house, because no way I was going to be able to move that 15′ counter out of the house by myself.

So I did what any reasonable person would do at a time like this, and taped my shopvac hose to my counters and basically cut the boards in place on top of my cabinets…

(I managed to get some plywood under them so I wasn’t cutting directly on top of the cabs.)

Which– holy shit– actually worked!

Then I had a little more confidence to tackle the issue with the 45’s I’d just created, and I’m telling you, I basically winged it. I was able to move the 6′ piece of counter in and out of the house, and I had to trim 3 sides of it to make it work. And, even then, the 45’s I’d cut (and recut) with the circular saw weren’t fitting tightly. But at this point I was actually super confident in my ability to cut and use the router “in place” without damaging anything, so I trimmed 1/16 of an inch off the angles to square everything up.

Earlier in the day my dad bragged about his router with the attached dust collection system and asked why mine didn’t have one (and the answer is because I stole this router from him ten years ago, obviously, so it’s way older than his) but his fancy newer model has nothing on my shopvac/painters tape dust collection system…

This is what happened…

Holy shit, you guys, do you see that fit?

There was maybe 1/16″ gap between those boards, where there’d been 1/4″ or more before. I know in my last post I said I didn’t love using the router to trim up those straight cuts, but I very much changed my mind.

Okay, so there was only really one big challenge left at this point. I needed to attach the 15′ piece of counter (with a cracked seam) to this shorter piece to make the L, and in my mind that had to be done from underneath, either with pocket screws or some temporary boards screwed in to brace the clamps with. But that would also mean somehow lifting up both sections of board and then attaching them and then putting them back in place 1.) by myself, and 2.) without breaking anything.

And then I realized I was being an idiot.

Well, not as big of an idiot as I’d been about other things in this process, but I was stuck on this idea that I had to attach the boards from underneath. Just like earlier in the day I was stuck on the idea that I had to move the counters out of the house to cut them.

Those are actually not real obstacles.

This time, I’m happy to say, I learned my lesson. I broke out my newest tool–the biscuit joiner– and made some practice cuts.

Then I made the actual cuts in my two counter pieces, glued them together, and…

I screwed two boards right into the fucking top of those things to clamp it together.

Yeah, you might be horrified by that (I kind of was) but I realized that the only thing keeping me from getting the counters finished was four tiny screw holes that could easily be filled with some wood filler. So I screwed those bitches in and then, using another tip from my dad, and just emptied some of the sawdust out of the sander I’d been using on the counters…

And mixed it in with with the wood glue that was compressed out of the seam, to make my own wood filler.

Which worked fucking beautifully. I also used it on the screw holes once I removed those blocks for clamping and on the seam behind the sink.

I also drilled the holes for the faucet…

(That’s a new 1-3/8″ forstner bit I bought specifically for this job, and it worked beautifully.)

And caulked along the sink…

And then, then, late Sunday night, after a 14 hour day working by myself on these counters, I finally put the first coat of oil on them and…

HOLY. SHIT.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

Remember what it used to look like?

I’ve been continuing to oil the counters every night this week, and it’s just now starting to look like a functional kitchen again…

Still pretty far from being done, but it’s looking just a little different than it did on the day I bought this place five years ago.

I’m really happy about all the decisions I’ve made so far, from removing the pantry and wall oven, to painting everything white, extending the bar area another foot, and adding that little bookshelf. And definitely– even though they were a pain in the ass to install– those beautiful walnut counters.

It certainly wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’c definitely the most difficult thing I’ve done in a while. And the challenge of it reminded me of things I might have been taking for granted, like how to do things correctly (don’t rush and always use the right tools), and what great advice both of my parents give when I’m least expecting it (and definitely don’t think I’m asking for it), and, frankly, that there’s always a way to solve the problem. Sometimes you have to be willing to modify, adjust expectations, cover your kitchen in sawdust, and drill right into the top of that beautiful fucking counter, but, by god, you can do the damn thing. 

If nothing else, this counter will always be a beautiful reminder of that.

And now, I need to go sleep for a week and let all of my muscles heal. Because, holy shit.

Kit

[thomasrush851]

Kitchen Process: The Holy Shit Edition

Yeah. That’s all I have to say about the 22 hours of counter-installation I did this past weekend. Holy. Shit.

Looking back on it, it’s funny to think that I was under the impression I was “really close” to being doing a week ago. (Ha.) I mean, I thought I had one cut straight cut left to do, trim the sink hole, join everything together, and that would be it. I was sure I’d have it done Saturday, with Sunday left for clean up.

That face says it all.

The awesome part about Saturday was that my mom came up to the farm to help out with odds and ends (and help me move pieces of counter around as needed) and it was SIXTY DEGREES OUT. In February. In MICHIGAN. (This is literally unheard of… as in it has never been this warm on that particular day in February in all of recorded history.)

That was such a blessing because not only was it just plain awesome to be outside, it also meant I could work on the counter right out on the porch instead of hauling all of the pieces in and out of the garage.

The chickens also thought this was an awesome arrangement.

So the first challenge of the weekend was joining two sections of board together to make one fifteen foot long section. The sink hole is roughly in the middle of that section, and I debated for a long time about either putting the seam behind the sink (where it would be less noticeable) or just down somewhere near the end of the counter where it would run the full width of the counter.

I decided on putting it behind the sink… and I’m still debating on whether or not that was the right call, but it is what it is.

So, first step, glue these together…

Except I decided not to use the exact right tool for this job–a biscuit joiner–even though I’d already purchased one and was sitting in its box in the back of my car.

I don’t… I mean… guys. I’ve been doing this shit for over a decade. I know how this goes, and it is always, always harder and more frustrating if 1.) you don’t have the right tools, 2.) you don’t have good quality tools that can handle the job, and 3.) you don’t take the time to learn how to use those tools. I know this, like, intrinsically, deep down in the depths of my soul, and yet sometimes I still fall into the trap of not wanting to pay the money for the tool, or not wanting to take the time to figure out how to use it correctly, and guess what? That shit goes horribly wrong every time.

Here’s the conversation that happened between me and my mom to illustrate how this went down.

11:10 AM

Me: Mom, what time is it too early for happy hour to start on the farm again?

Mom: Well, the farm has special rules but we should probably wait until afternoon?

11:58AM – After the first failed glue-up attempt

Mom: Is it afternoon yet?

Me: Holy shit, close enough.

I did eventually manage to get the board glued up (and held in place with some clamps and pocket screws while the glue dried) and, in the meantime, my mom and I rode around on the golf cart and staked some of the cages around the fruit trees that had blown over recently….

And then I got to work cutting out the template for the sink hole.

I’d already had enough success with a cobbled-together jig for the stove hole that I wasn’t super nervous about this, I just really wanted to do it right. (I actually started a template a week ago and it broke in half while I was cutting it, so this was my second attempt.)

I know some people cut out the paper template (or glue the template directly to the board with a photomount spray) but I usually have a roll of graphite paper on hand, and I find that it’s the best way to transfer a template pattern without ruining the original. (You can get it for under $10 on Amazon… so worth it.)

With the original template transferred on to the board I then had to add 3-1/8″ to accommodate my  my router guard (which was easier on the straight lines than on the radius corners.)  I used to make sarcastic comments back in elementary school math classes about “never actually using this in real life.” Ha. I hope all my old math teachers get some satisfaction out of this…

I used a scrap piece of plywood for the template and cut the two straight “sides” with the circular saw, and using a jigsaw for the curves. My very favorite part of this process was when I was debating how to cut the straight line that would end up behind the sink… the easiest thing would have been to continue cutting with the jigsaw, but I know from years of experience that won’t give me an actual straight line, so I said out loud to myself “I really should just make a plunge cut with the circular saw to do this right…” (Even though that’s not at all what I really wanted to do because I hate making plunge cuts with the circular saw.)

And my mom standing four feet behind me– doing something else entirely– was like, “WELL JUST DO IT THEN.”

I’m still laughing just typing that. It was exactly the thing I needed to hear, so I picked up the saw and got to it…

And ended up with a really good template.

The next step, of course, was clamping this to the 15′ piece of counter and then using the router to cut it out, but there were a lot of challenges that came into play with this step as well.

The first was placement of the template. I spent a lot of time like this…

Because unlike most sinks that will be dropped in or mounted below a sink hole after it’s cut, my gazillion pound cast iron sink is already in place on a base in the cabinet. And also, nothing in my 160 year old house is square, so measuring from the only wall that was a viable measuring-point (and, of course, not square) left me with more questions than confidence in where the template should be placed.

At some point I gave up measuring, re-measuring, drinking more, and measuring again, and just said, “fuck it, I’m cutting this hole.”

Like the stove top, I did multiple passes with the router (this time, four passes) and the cut turned out beautifully.

Of course, now I had a 15′ piece of butcher block with a bigass hole in it that was tenuously held together by some un-cured wood glue and a couple of undersized screws on a 5″ section of board.

In other words, moving this without breaking it was going to be a bitch.

I braced the shit out of both the joint and the board, and then my boyfriend came over and the three of us attempted to move the piece of counter in the kitchen.

And of course the glued seam cracked right before we got it in place. I was 50% livid and 50% resigned because I knew this was going to happen the moment I put that seam on the smallest section of wood behind the sink. But the real reason I was disappointed was because my sink hole was about 1/4″ off.

The cracked seam wasn’t so much of an issue as was the fact that I was potentially going to have to lift that 15′ piece of counter up again and move it outside to trim the hole to the right size AND join this board to shorter board that makes the “L” of the counter. I was sure that picking that piece up again would cause the screws that were in it (and unable to be removed in its current position) to crack and split the wood beyond repair.

I’d just like to take this time to point out that if I’d used the biscuit joiner that I currently owned and was sitting in its box in my car and had also just glued/clamped that section in my house and let it cure 24 hours, it would have been fine. All of my frustration at that point in time was due to 1.) not using the proper tool, and 2.) rushing the project and not taking the time to do things right.

Those are rookie mistakes, and there’s no excuse for them. I know better. But, you know, I’m still human… a particularly impatient one when I don’t have a working kitchen sink (which is weird because we all know I’m not in some huge rush to do my dishes, but still) and I did a lot of mental gymnastics on Saturday to convince myself that I didn’t have any other option but to make those less-than-stellar choices.

Listen, a lot of this stemmed from the fact that I am really bad at asking for help, and this was a particularly awkward situation where I really needed someone on-hand for 8-10 hours, but actually only really needed them for maybe 15 minutes of real work at random times throughout the day. Also I’m really easily distracted so when I’m doing a lot of measuring and holding numbers in my head– or just mentally planning out the next steps of a project– I can’t entertain or chat (or sometimes even talk civilly) to other people when I’m working. So basically I needed to ask someone to spend their whole day on the farm not talking to me except for the half a dozen random times I needed help lifting or moving a piece of counter? That’s awesome.

And it’s exactly what I asked my boyfriend to do the weekend prior (and he was super gracious about it) and then asked my mom to do Saturday (and she was also awesome about it), but come Saturday evening when I had an off-center sink hole, a cracked seam, and no help lined up for Sunday? I’m not going to claim that was one of my most shining moments as a human.

But…

I obsessed about it for the rest of the night, slept on it, woke up bright and early Sunday, and had nearly convinced myself to leave the off-center sink hole as is (I even posted about it to Facebook and very much appreciated all of the comments voting yea or nay on trying to fix it) and then I did a thing I almost never do mid-project and called my dad. This is how the conversation went:

Me: I don’t know if I should try to fix it or just leave it as is…

Dad:  Fix it.

Me: …

Dad: I feel like you just want someone to give you permission not to fix it, but you need to do it.

Me: Okay, fair. But what if I fuck it up?

Dad: Honey… it’s already fucked up.

Ha. Dads. If I’d decided to call literally any other person in my life– any person– they would have told me to leave it, but I called my dad and I think it’s because subconsciously I wanted someone to call me on my shit and tell me to fix it. I mean, in the moment I was like 45 seconds away from an emotional breakdown, but after I talked to him I was like, well, yeah, that’s exactly what I needed to hear, and now how the fuck am I going to fix this by myself?

I had two choices: 1.) Use the router to make the sink hole bigger on one side, or 2.) Use the circular saw to trim a 1/4″ off the end of the counter and shift the whole thing over.

I decided the second option was going to be easier and less risky, but it was also going to create some complications for the 45-degree cuts I’d already made for the L shaped part of the counter. Also, I had to just mentally get over the fact that I didn’t want to cut in the kitchen and create a shit-ton of sawdust inside the house, because no way I was going to be able to move that 15′ counter out of the house by myself.

So I did what any reasonable person would do at a time like this, and taped my shopvac hose to my counters and basically cut the boards in place on top of my cabinets…

(I managed to get some plywood under them so I wasn’t cutting directly on top of the cabs.)

Which– holy shit– actually worked!

Then I had a little more confidence to tackle the issue with the 45’s I’d just created, and I’m telling you, I basically winged it. I was able to move the 6′ piece of counter in and out of the house, and I had to trim 3 sides of it to make it work. And, even then, the 45’s I’d cut (and recut) with the circular saw weren’t fitting tightly. But at this point I was actually super confident in my ability to cut and use the router “in place” without damaging anything, so I trimmed 1/16 of an inch off the angles to square everything up.

Earlier in the day my dad bragged about his router with the attached dust collection system and asked why mine didn’t have one (and the answer is because I stole this router from him ten years ago, obviously, so it’s way older than his) but his fancy newer model has nothing on my shopvac/painters tape dust collection system…

This is what happened…

Holy shit, you guys, do you see that fit?

There was maybe 1/16″ gap between those boards, where there’d been 1/4″ or more before. I know in my last post I said I didn’t love using the router to trim up those straight cuts, but I very much changed my mind.

Okay, so there was only really one big challenge left at this point. I needed to attach the 15′ piece of counter (with a cracked seam) to this shorter piece to make the L, and in my mind that had to be done from underneath, either with pocket screws or some temporary boards screwed in to brace the clamps with. But that would also mean somehow lifting up both sections of board and then attaching them and then putting them back in place 1.) by myself, and 2.) without breaking anything.

And then I realized I was being an idiot.

Well, not as big of an idiot as I’d been about other things in this process, but I was stuck on this idea that I had to attach the boards from underneath. Just like earlier in the day I was stuck on the idea that I had to move the counters out of the house to cut them.

Those are actually not real obstacles.

This time, I’m happy to say, I learned my lesson. I broke out my newest tool–the biscuit joiner– and made some practice cuts.

Then I made the actual cuts in my two counter pieces, glued them together, and…

I screwed two boards right into the fucking top of those things to clamp it together.

Yeah, you might be horrified by that (I kind of was) but I realized that the only thing keeping me from getting the counters finished was four tiny screw holes that could easily be filled with some wood filler. So I screwed those bitches in and then, using another tip from my dad, and just emptied some of the sawdust out of the sander I’d been using on the counters…

And mixed it in with with the wood glue that was compressed out of the seam, to make my own wood filler.

Which worked fucking beautifully. I also used it on the screw holes once I removed those blocks for clamping and on the seam behind the sink.

I also drilled the holes for the faucet…

(That’s a new 1-3/8″ forstner bit I bought specifically for this job, and it worked beautifully for this job.)

And caulked along the sink…

And then, then, late Sunday night, after a 14 hour day working by myself on these counters, I finally put the first coat of oil on them and…

<img class=" aligncenter" src="https://c1.staticf

from Bathroom & Home http://diydiva.net/2017/02/kitchen-process-the-holy-shit-edition/

from Kitchen Process: The Holy Shit Edition