HFM

Hello Mars fans! I am here, guest blogger #1, to serve you, loyal readers. I am here at the behest of our mutual friend Bob the Builder, a.k.a Doozer, a.k.a. Oscar the Grouch, who has asked me to keep you well informed of all the goings on here on Mars while she is back east. The story of this week was waiting. Waiting and waiting around. Tuesday I waited around for 3 folks we hired for a couple hours to carry heavy things. We actually couldn't figure any better way to get the heaviest stove ever created up into the house. 2 of 3 men showed up so I ended up gloving up and helping lug that gigantic beast up our stairs and into the house. It was touch & go for a bit, but we got it in. Here it is - stripped of anything we could get out or off of it to make it lighter. We'll soon move it back and into that left corner, but we needed access for the repairs and to move the wall mounted heat shield up a wee bit. On Wednesday I waited around for a man that does rebuilding and repai...

We came home from our relaxing vacation to find this wonderful sight: The vent hood! Look, it's a thing of beauty: There has never been a more exciting machine in this house. Except for Mars Master Tile Setter, AJ: The grout came out very well:  Still weird looking, but well installed. After we finished the tile, we hung a heat shield for the new (old) stove, to protect the wall: And then finished painting the walls: We decided to bring the red walls on that side of the kitchen down to two stripes and the inside of the window as an experiment. Might do the cabinet doors red, too. We'll see. The rails we'll hang the pots and pans on will probably go to the left of the window. Maybe with shelves, as well. We're waiting to get the new (old) stove in there, to see how it will all look together. We'll figure out what to put to the right of the sink in a couple weeks, as well -- we know that, whatever it is, it has to be tall enough for the dish drain to sit on top of, bu...

This week, the big news is that we set the tile. Master Tile Cutter AJ ran the Mars wet saw operation: All told, she cut and trimmed about 40 tiles over the course of three days. They came out beautifully! Yesterday was the big day. We mixed up the thinset (the mortar that sticks the tiles down) and laid everything out: Here is the north side (china cabinet side), all set and getting itself ready for a light gray grout: That side was easy. Weird looking because of the tile mismatch, but easy. The furniture will hide some of the weirdness. The south side (sink side) was a lot trickier because of the cramped space and because we were using a mix of tiles (with different thicknesses) left over from The Big Project of 2013-2014. I always like to reuse materials instead of buying new, but the main reason we wanted to reuse these tiles is the manufacturer has discontinued them, and we wanted to try to avoid a mismatch in the area next to the sink that won't have any furniture over it. We...

Last week, we finally got rid of the old sink, and installed the new one! Thursday night, we disconnected the plumbing: And then started smashing up the cabinet: Because of the plumbing and vents, we had to remove the cabinet piece by piece: "Not this again. Come on, you guys." It was a tough one to get out, but eventually we succeeded: On Friday, Mr. Bunkport came & put new plywood subfloors in: As well as concrete board over the plywood, to prepare for the tile. Here's AJ, wielding a screw gun like a pro: Mr. Bunkport used sleepers under the plywood to level the worst-sloped parts, and used a think layer of self-leveling concrete to deal with the less-sloped parts: He wrote his name in the concrete for fun: And AJ signed for us: When we disconnected the plumbing the night before, we discovered that the stop valve on the wall for the hot water was leaking, so he helped us with that, as well: Even though these are standard valves, inexplicably, it took two trips to tw...