Not Asbestos!

Yes, asbestos.

As I was continuing the demolition to put up some drywall, I encountered some strange fluffy grey bits. I wondered to myself, half joking, "what if this is asbestos?". I have absolutely no idea what asbestos looks like, but I do know that it is a dangerous substance often found in old houses. So I googled it. Thank God for google. It WAS asbestos! I thought I was just being paranoid.

Look at it all! It's like a deranged asbestos nest. The first thing I wondered about was my health. I might have inhaled it, which is extremely lethal (eventually) and can cause the worst kind of lung cancer. I wasn't wearing a mask when I pulled off the quarter round, but I don't think I inhaled much...who knows though with invisible particles...my doctor friends told me these things become lethal over time (i.e. years of exposure) but it's still a serious concern.

I also had to alert Steph that her house is contaminated with asbestos. It's kind of like telling your friend she has herpes. I must say, it's a stigmatized household condition and it can be pretty serious; but at the same time, it is completely manageable, and a lot of people live with asbestos in their homes.

When I called, Steph was in the Peak Chair line-up at Whistler watching skiers huck Air Jordan. I don't think she was too bothered, but she offered her support. Of course we all know what she was really thinking: "Holy shit, I get to ski Peak and it's been closed for 3 days! VD is going to be waist deep!"

By the way, I'd WAY rather be dealing with asbestos than skiing (not)...my decision.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I called the asbestos removal and abatement people and they said that if it wasn't really disturbed, then just cover it up. It's not hazardous if it's not exposed. Make you feel better?  Not really.

So, using protection, I covered it up...

I was scared, but I had to get the job done. Then I installed some cabinets, FINALLY!

That's it for the day. Super slow day. Maybe tomorrow will be more fruitful, but who knows!?

Breaking Stuff!

But first...

Steph has an incredible espresso machine. I don't usually drink lattes, but for some reason homemade lattes are a novelty.

Today I didn't do that much work on the kitchen; I had to stay home to wait for the electrician, but I did demolish one of the cabinets. The electrician was pretty confused. I told him I was building the kitchen yesterday, but I don't think he really believed it until he saw me wielding a crowbar and a hammer. I broke the hammer.

Luckily, Steph has another one. The thing about old kitchens is that they are really well built. These cabinets are made out of solid pine and everything is nailed in, so it's bomb-proof. New kitchens, on the other hand, are really cheap. They are made of particle board and screws. They're still good enough, but just. I'm not ashamed of this. In fact, it turns into a fun sort of game. What corners can I cut? Where is the threshold between structurally sound and falling apart? I want to be there!

The nerdiest thing to do these days is overbuild. That's what old guys do. The electrician (who is more old than young) told me I wouldn't be able to hang doors on the base cabinets I built (I used 5/8" not the old standard 3/4" - living on the edge!). I was like "where the hell have you been?" I still have no idea what he's talking about. I told him I do this for a living (intermittently) and he still shook his head (invariably ignoring what I just told him) and laughed. As my good friend Mike said, if you couldn't hang doors on 5/8" melamine then why the hell would they make the stuff? What the hell else would you use it for?

Here's the beginning of the demo.

And after much prying...

That was fun. The walls are stripped to the bones now, so I think I have to drywall. I was going to try to go without (obviously, remember corner-cutting), but the space between the window and the (recently) existing cabinets is smaller than the space in the new plans. That means I have to tear out the pine siding and put up some proper walls.

Base Cabinets In

As the title of this post suggests, the base cabinets are all in the kitchen. Not installed.

Look at them all!

More props to Amira for helping me...

Using the boot to prop open the gate. Genius.

Steph's car holds a lot.

The end.

Boxes

Today I finally created a structure that will eventually exist as part of the new kitchen. In other words, the kitchen is actually taking shape!

The shop, on the other hand, is unravelling.

Oh well. I'm just trying to get all of the base cabinets out of here, and then I can tidy up. My new favourite workhorse, Amira, is going to help me move them out at 7am tomorrow morning. You see, I didn't really consider the fact that I would need help moving obscenely large objects around for this project. But I definitely do. Amira has been really helpful. Not only does she help me move materials and boxes, but she also brought me to the best bakery in town this morning!

I'll be sad to see Amira leave tomorrow. Mostly because she is really fun to hang out with...but also because I can't do any heavy lifting without her. There has been a lot of strategizing involved to get this stuff out of the way before I'm all alone for 5 days. Did I mention that I can't have more than 4 full sheets of material in the basement at a time?

So I've been pre-cutting it, which is always a bit dangerous (figuratively, for those of you obsessed with the notion of me cutting my hands off).

Hopefully this crap will all be in the kitchen soon. And hopefully there will be more interesting pictures soon...I'm guessing sheets of melamine are not even interesting the first time. By the way, melamine is the shittiest material I have ever worked with. I feel like I'm screwing together garbage to give to Steph.

Cutting MelaMINE

Today was not very exciting, so I will open this post with a shot of the morning view on my walk from Steph's house to the shop.

Classic!

When I got to the shop, I cut up a bunch of melamine - which the Newfies pronounce "mela-mine". Makes sense, but for some reason everyone west of here says "mela-mean". Now I just say it like they say it. It's easier that way.

MelaMINE.

So check out the shittiest way of cutting a sheet of melamine. I have to prop it up on sawhorses and clamp a straightedge to it and then cut it with the skill saw, which generally produces a rough and inaccurate cut.  I would love to do it on the tablesaw, but obviously there isn't enough room to cross-cut an 8- foot sheet. I'm surprised any of my pieces are coming out square, but luckily they are.

Those are some of the gables that got edge-taped today. See! Exciting!

The Shop

Ok, so I should probably talk about the kitchen and not icebergs.

Steph is letting me use her friend's shop, which is an absolute necessity. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I got here, but I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when I saw it...

To be fair, Steph's friend is in the midst of moving across the country, so I don't blame him for having a lot of crap in his basement, but I was not feeling very optimistic at the time this picture was taken.

This was the devastating table saw area. It's like one of those classic moments on reality TV when the music indicates there is an unexpected disaster that might bring the entire project to a halt. But then I remembered that the projects on reality TV always move forward NO MATTER WHAT, so I was really inspired by that...

So I built an outfeed table...

And I organized the shop and built some saw horses...

Steph's Kitchen

This is Steph's OLD/present kitchen. Some people thought that this picture depicted Steph's NEW kitchen. Wrong. I have not yet built Steph's new kitchen. Will it ever exist? We hope so. The plan is to get it done in 5 weeks, since that is the amount of time that I will be living in St. John's. The good news is the kitchen looks so crappy now, that I almost can't possibly make it worse.

I (also Steph, hence the confusing possessives) arrived on Wednesday evening in this cold and lovely city. I thought some of you might like to see how this adventurous project unfolds, so I'm documenting it. It might not seem that adventurous to most, but I've never built a kitchen, so it's adventurous to me. 

Here is what I've been doing...

Looking for icebergs! We got word from the local CBC report that there were early icebergs spotted on the coast. If you look VERY closely, you just might be able to see it. This one was almost real iceberg size, not just a "bergy bit" (which is what they call the bits of berg that aren't quite large enough to be full bergs, obviously).

That was yesterday. We saw some more today! They are a bit bigger...

Can you see them? They are long and thin and on the horizon.