Rude Mechanicals Press Blog

After 100+ years, the floors in my house have settled to a series of gentle (and a few not-so-gentle) undulations. So when I built and installed the kitchen cabinets, I set each on a separate base to make it easier to level the run. It still wasn’t easy; one base had a 1/2″ differential from side to side.

The time has now come to cover up my “cheat” with a proper-looking toe kick. While the construction will be a snap (3/4″ poplar with mitered corners, simply nailed to the plywood bases), I can’t decide if it should be black or white – and I have to paint before the install.

I’m leaning toward black, not only to match the bases of the refrigerator, stove and dishwasher, but to better blend with the dust and cat hair that inevitably collects beneath the cabinets.

But I wonder if a dark band will pull the eye down too much…thereby drawing more notice to said dust.

All but one of the many images in my “inspiration kitchens” folder, however, show a white toe kick when the base cabinets – like mine – don’t feature furniture-style feet. All of the many images in my “inspiration kitchens” folder, however, look as if they’re from from houses where there might well be live-in help with the cleaning.

So: Black or white? If you have white kitchen cabinets (and like me clean your floors no more than twice a month), do me a favor and take a look at your baseboards. Then let me know what you think.

Raney Nelson was at my house a month or so ago, and mentioned that, while the kitchen looked nice, I could use more storage. I’m loathe to admit it, but he was right. I had no good place to hide a box of kitty litter, extra paper towels, tertiary pots and pans, and the like.

So today, I built what I swear on a stack of Shakespeares is the last kitchen cabinet – though it’s not technically in the kitchen; it’s in the tiny hall that leads to it from the living room. (Perfect – the litter box is in the half-bath off that hallway…I had to stand in it to take the picture.)

Hauling home from the shop a 35″-wide, 85″-tall cabinet in a Subaru is stupid. I had the driver’s seat pulled all the way forward and sat legs akimbo with my knees jammed into the dashboard, the top of the cabinet basically resting on my shoulder blades. I had to use bungee cords to keep the hatch closed. (And have I mentioned I drive a manual shift?) Had I been hit from behind, I’d have been decapitated by a cabinet. It would have be an undignified death indeed. (I do have bruises on both shoulders from a too-sudden stop, but there’s been no bloodletting.)

So now I have plenty of storage (the center shelf is fixed, the rest are adjustable). But there’s still a face frame and double doors to make – and won’t that be fun! Notice the uneven gap down the left side? The cabinet is straight, level and square. The wall (actually, it’s ductwork there to the left) is not, nor is the door frame to which I’ll need to scribe a wide face frame. There’s a 5/8″ differential between the widest and narrowest points…not that they’re points in a straight line, mind you – it’s more of a gentle wave pattern. But if I can get the face frame scribed and installed correctly, that will (obviously) make fitting the doors a far simpler process.

Oh – and there are two doors still to make for the cabinet I made last weekend…which I vowed, as I installed it, was the last kitchen cabinet.

I guess technically it was.

So no more cabinets – if for no other reason than I’m finally out of the eight sheets of 3/4″ plywood I had delivered lo these many months ago. And no matter how idiotic the driving risks I’m willing to take, a 4’x8′ sheet simply will not fit in my car. But that’s a problem; I need one last sheet of 1/4″ for the doors. Maybe it will bend enough…

While I still have a few things to finish, my stove is once again hooked up, and the refrigerator is no longer in the living room.

I’d celebrate by using the appliances for the first time in almost three weeks by cooking a fancy meal…but that would require a trip to the grocery (the refrigerator is damn near empty; can I make anything out of hard cider, a bottle of wine, mayonnaise, milk and mustard? Oh – and a paintbrush wrapped in a damp cloth inside a plastic bag; I’m sure that would be tasty addition to any repast.)

Plus, it would require putting away all the crap that’s on the counters – and most of it is crap I still need.

Although I painted the baseboards last night and got most of them installed this morning (before my neighbor, Brian, helped me move the appliances back in place – thanks Brian!), the one on the back wall is going to need a few kerf cuts on the backside to more easily follow the serpentine plaster. While I might be able to force it in place with masonry nails, I’m worried the nails will eventually pop out of the soft brick…or pop out at one end as I drive the nails in at the other (as evidenced by that occurring on the sink wall behind the stove). So that piece will just have to wait until tomorrow. I’m not making a special trip out to the PWM shop for 5-10 kerfs (though I would were that run holding up real progress).

After that, there’s some paintable caulk to run at the top, a few small gaps to fill and sand at the corners and scarf joints, and plinth blocks to make and nail in place before a final touch-up with paint.

I also need to make transition strips for the three doorways, make and install the toe kick/feet under the cabinets, surface and install the beech I bought for the backsplash on the counters opposite the sink, make the island and come up with a plan for a narrow table with a top that follows the curve of the wall to the left of the stove (under which will be the cat-feeding station).

Ugh. Still a lot to do, actually. But at least I can boil the kettle for tea.

Oh, and I’ve decided to not sell just yet. I have too much else to do and don’t have time to deal with that on top of everything else. So I’ll get to enjoy my work for a while.

p.s. I harbor longstanding enormous dislike of my refrigerator – it’s too big, plus the black sides and plastic handles are, to me, heinous (when I bought it 7 or 8 years ago, I thought the $450 I saved over the one I liked would render it acceptable. It has not.) Is it crazy to get a new, European counter-depth one (they’re narrower than the typical U.S. counter-depth models). I’m thinking the one at left (because the one I really want is three times as much…and that is indeed crazy). I’d get the somewhat reasonably priced one below, but apparently, I’d have to live in England to do so…which would be just dandy, actually.

Oh Ikea…why do you not sell this in the U.S.?

Since installing the cork tiles two weeks ago, my refrigerator has been in the living room (it’s a look), plugged in to a heavy-duty extension cord (I know, I know; it’s temporary). The stove is in the dining room, and useless without a gas hookup. I am tired of eating cheese and crackers, and have yet to find a frozen microwaveable meal that I like (to be fair, I’ve stopped looking). But there was one more step to complete before I can put the appliances back in place.

The cork manufacturer, APC cork, recommends that tiles in high-traffic areas, or in kitchens where wet things are likely to get dropped, get at least two top coats of Bona Traffic waterborne. Not only does the additional finish more fully protect the cork tiles, it helps to alleviate any “fullness” (tiles that are a couple thou thicker at the edges due to said factory finish) and to fill in any small gaps, thus keeping water, coffee or anything else from seeping in between. I’m a bit clumsy; it seemed like a good idea.

So last Friday night, in a probably vain attempt to get my life back together (for now, I’d settle for the kitchen being fully functional) I stayed up late to get both coats on, with three hours’ dry time in between. (Once the hardener is added, you have only four hours’ shelf life before it starts to degrade).

After cutting a couple pieces of cardboard to serve as doors/cat barriers, I did my best to get everything out of the kitchen I thought I’d need for the next several days. Ideally, one should stay off the fresh finish for at least 48 hours, and walk on it only in socks for five days longer. I stashed everything I thought I’d need in the dining room.

I didn’t occur to me that I’d need my prescription pain meds; I take them rarely indeed. When I do need those pills, it’s because a) my knees hurt (too many years of soccer) or b) my shoulder(s) hurt (tendinitis following several surgeries to address multiple dislocations).

Then, I spent the next three hours on my knees while sanding and slinging poly. Oops. (I resorted to Irish medication; the liquor cabinet is in the dining room.)

The first thing was to ruin (temporarily, I hoped), the perfectly nice factory finish that was already on the cork tiles by scuffing it all up with a #150-grit sanding block.

Then, I mixed the hardener into the finish, gave it a thorough shaking and let it sit the requisite 10 minutes. When I opener the bottle back up to insert the “supplied strainer,” I discovered that it was not, in fact, supplied.

So I panicked for about 10 seconds, until I remembered the wire mesh filter I’ve never used that came with my coffee maker eight years ago. (No idea why I kept it, but glad I did.) The mesh was a little small and clogged easily, but I just kept swishing things around and got it to work. (Really, the most amazing thing is that I was able to quickly find it in the pandemonium that is my dining room.)

I used a painting pad to apply the finish; there are enough cabinet toe kicks to get under and edges with which to deal that it wasn’t worth buying a proper finish roller setup (though my knees might say otherwise).

I’ve not yet been in the kitchen; I’m waiting as long as possible (we’ll see if I can make it to Saturday…), in large part because I know the cats will run in as soon as I move the cardboard “doors”…and I can’t get the cats to wear socks. But I did stick my phone around the cardboard to take the shot below. You can see a little telegraphing from an uneven join in the underlayment; I expected that. It’s an old house, and some things, you just have to get over – or never let them bother you in the first place.

So right now, as I wait to install baseboard then put back the appliances, I’m playing with ideas for an island/table/place to stash a microwave for in between the door and window. (Note that I’ve looked everywhere for one to buy, but nothing commercially available fits.)

Here are the challenges: it has to be no more than 22-1/2″ wide, and the legs have to clear the window trim that juts 2″ into the available space. The top can be no longer than 48″ (so as not to impede traffic flow). It must be 35″-36″ high. I want a table look (mostly because I prefer it, but also because of the heat vent), and it has to be on fairly thick legs to spread the load and thus not leave dents in the cork. The area for the microwave (a small one) has to be at least 25″ w x 15″ h x 20″ deep, and I don’t want to be able to see the back of the microwave. For the table part, I want to be able to slide two narrow barstools underneath when they’re not in use, and user legs need to fit under the table comfortably. Not that I’m picky.

Below is what I’ve been noodling with, but it needs work. There’s a drawer across the front…in my head, if not in the SketchUp file. I’m toying with slats rather than a solid shelf and solid back. And the legs need a bit of flair. At the moment, I’m thinking the same 1-1/2″-thick butcher block countertop as in the rest of the joint for the top, and a slight taper on the legs to pick up on the Shaker-style cabinets…but I might decide on contrasting stock in 3/4″-thick something or other for the top, and I might go crazy and do through-tenons or something on the shelf or aprons or both. While I like the concept of everything matching in style, materials and color, I’m leery of having it it feel a little too “Garanimals-like” in reality.

Last night, after completing various neighborhood pet-sitting duties and setting the backsplash tiles, I decided to get over my first-timer’s fear and start in on the cork tiles. That was at 10 p.m. I got as far as you see above by about 1 a.m., and called it a night.

I was cutting it close on my tile supply from the get-go, because I didn’t want to pay for another entire box. But by my triple-checked calculations, as long as I made no more than a couple mistakes, I’d still have 15 or so 12 x 12 tiles left over. I did not, however, remember my daring tile order when I decided against a cabinet to the left of the stove.

This curved corner was fun. I cut paper templates, then traced around them onto the cork with a sharp utility knife.

At 1 a.m. Saturday morning, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough. And the store where I got my supplies is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m.-1 p.m…plus the tiles would have to be ordered, and it’s a holiday weekend. So at 6 a.m., I was back at it; I wanted to know quickly how pissed off I was going to be at myself for the next several days. (And I wanted to get my order in ASAP, if needed.)

Luckily, in large part because of the square footage not being evenly divisible 12, I had a fair number of rip cuts to make that resulted in scraps that were large enough to use against other walls/doorways/bases/etc. (Except is it really lucky to have had to fiddle so much? No. No it is not.) When all was said and done, I had four full tiles remaining – a very close call.

Cork is easy to cut; a sharp utility knife can make it through in three to four passes – which is good, because I’ve a pesky curved corner that no table saw could handle. For the many straight cuts, the table saw works like a charm. As much as I hate going up and down to the scary basement and as bad as the light is at my saw, that little Bosch saved me a lot of time.

Got a small gap? Think string inlay (in the same species, color and pattern).

It also came in handy in helping me to fix a wee problem. Somehow, I got a little off on a few tiles, which resulted in having to fill narrow gaps in a few places at the staggered joints. On the table saw, I was able to rip 1/16″-wide strips off the springy cork (I backed it with 1/4″ ply so I didn’t lose the tiny offcut), and tap them down into place. It’s rather like string inlay – with the notable exception that I don’t want the strips to stand out. And they don’t. After two coats of waterborne poly (Bona “Traffic”), they’ll not show even less.

Cork is also pretty easy to install. The adhesive I used has a three-hour open time (if you coat the floor and the tiles at around the same time; if you pre-coat the tiles, the working time drops to an hour with the floor’s adhesive). I rolled the stuff on both (working with about 12-15 tiles at a time, and coating the appropriate area of underlayment), waited for it to turn clear(ish) and dry to the touch, then defended the prep against cats while the adhesive flashed. Then, it was just a matter of aligning the first one with the chalk lines I’d dropped near the sink, and working my way out, pounding each in place with a rubber mallet. Each row is staggered 3-1/2″ from the previous one. (No real reason other than it looked good to select 3-1/2″.) After every 12-square-feet or so, I used a J-roller on the joint lines.

Other than those few aforementioned gaps (an easy fix), I’m pleased with how it turned out. And delighted to not have to wait for another box of cork tiles to arrive. But I do still have to screen it and apply the two poly coats (a 2-day process).

The sticks to the right of the window denote the corner of the stove; the center ones denote the proposed island location relative to the wall and stove.

And that got me thinking about everything else that’s left to do…so I had three drinks with dinner, in an effort to make myself take a break, because I’ve been working on the kitchen almost non-stop (but for work) for weeks…months. I just need a few hours of not working. (Though I’m pretty sure I could grout whilst tipsy.)

There’s still a minor wall repair to make where my neighbor moved an outlet up above the baseboard line (thank you neighbor…I just didn’t have the time), baseboards to run and install (including a kerf bend around the curve), a countertop-height table with a curved top to fit in to the left of the stove (I hate that curve), three drawers still to paint and their hardware to install, the backsplash tile to grout and a kitchen island to make. It’s that last one that has me thinking Ikea. I can only assume it’s the alcohol talking. I might just listen.