I cannot believe how quickly this week has gone by! I also cannot believe I wasn’t able to get to a new post for you to see until now. I honestly thought I would have had a wee-bit more time in the mornings while Graham was feeding his goats. However, Invites by Jen work took up a bit more time than expected, and a couple of mornings I needed to get some kitchen tasks done BEFORE Graham got home.
Anywhoooo, I know you are all just DYING to see what the status of the kitchen is. As of yesterday, we have a functional kitchen again! Our appliances were delivered/installed and we got the sink and dishwasher running {no more brushing my teeth out of the bathtub!!}.
We were actually able to COOK a dinner in the kitchen, rather than hit up the fast food joints around Menards {I am pretty sure they recognize us now}. Although it was only a frozen pizza that was cooked, a frozen pizza has never tasted as good! Given our functionality status, I fully plan to DVR the Opening Day game and enjoy dinner while swooning over the Brewer’s players tonight!
{ the first meal cooked in the new kitchen! }
We were also surprised this week with an extra set of hands, and problem solving mind, when our friend Carl stopped by to help – not only once, but TWICE {yes, he came back to help even after the first day!}. If you know Carl, you know how thrilled he will be when he makes it to the blog {again} soon!
I will have SO MANY updates, and how we DIY’d the different steps of the kitchen, over the next few weeks I have realized. And although I know this will just drive . my . mom bananas {sorry mom}, I am going to be saving the “after” pictures of the entire kitchen for when it is actually done {detail work and all}. Do not fret, though, most of my updates will give you a really good idea of what the kitchen looks like, but the longer I wait to do a “before and after” side-by-side view of the entire kitchen {and only when it is fully done…detail work does make a difference}, the more of an impact it will have. Even when Graham and I looked at some “before” pictures last night, our jaws dropped open {and we have been the ones putting it together}!
So, for today, I would like to share with you the final steps in our attempt to level our kitchen floor.
Remember my previous post when I went through our cement backer board process, which was the first step? Well, once we got to the Saturday morning, a couple weekends ago, for the “Tiling Weekend Extravaganza” we first had to pour some self-leveling concrete.
{ watching the floors become a little more level }
Man, oh man, I developed some buff arms during this process. Self-leveling concrete must be poured very quickly after it is fully mixed {within five minutes}. So, I was in charge of mixing the buckets while Graham poured and smoothed things out.
We used a hammer drill with a spade-like attachment to mix the concrete {sorry, Graham, I cannot remember what that attachment was called}. And when I say “we” used this hammer drill, what I really mean is, “I was the “lucky” one who got to mix”…my arms were Jell-O-like after this process!
To keep the concrete supply constantly flowing for Graham to pour on the floor, we first laid out three five-gallon buckets and pre-measured where the appropriate amount of water would get to in each {then marked this line with a Sharpie}. We had a fourth one available for rinsing off the mixing attachment and such.
In any case, after we got the first bucket mixed, Graham went and poured it, I then filled the next bucket up to our Sharpie line with water, then mixed in the next bag of concrete. It took a good three to five minutes of constant mixing to get the right consistency {our first batch, we found, had a lot of lumps…these would later have to be chipped off the floor in preparation for tiling}.
{ the first batch = too many lumps }
Once the concrete was poured, however, we had to let it sit for at least four hours before we could tile. Luckily, we had a garden meeting to attend that morning anyways! Plus, since we rocked out the concrete so quickly, we even had time to enjoy breakfast at a local diner before the meeting {yes, it was a VERY EARLY morning}.
The only thing we would do differently {if we ever had to use this product again} is find a MUCH better way to prevent it from leaking through any gaps. We thought we had the edge of the stairway {down to the basement} covered enough, but the self leveling concrete actually moved the board and foam edger we nailed to the ridge to allow enough of a gap for some of it to flow down into the basement…this part of our floor was REALLY unleveled, however, so once we saw this had happened, it made sense. Since all . of . it flowed this way at once when we first poured it on the floor, there was a ton of pressure on that board {since the self-leveling concrete is not light}!
{ this little dot on the basement floor was the first of the escaped concrete that we found }
Lucky for us, a lot of it did still stay in place, and the small amount that escaped ended up landing on the freezer monster in our basement {that was going to be replaced anyways}!
{ we looked up from the dot of concrete on the floor to find our freezer monster covered! }
So, how much concrete did we use? You can probably imagine how much we had to use when part of the floor had a two inch thick layer once it was all said and done. Yes, you read that correctly, our floor WAS two inches lower {in some spots} that the highest spot in the kitchen.
{ concrete layer is 2 inches thick in some spots }
Again, gotta love the 100 year old homes! But, after the self-leveling concrete, the floor was 95% level {there are still some spots that are not “perfect”, but overall the floor is MUCH MUCH better}, and we were ready to tile!
Okay, gotta run! Today’s task is to tile the backsplash!! Have a Good Friday everyone.
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