On Sunday we spent time putting the 3rd and 4th coat of Varathane onto the shelves for the upper cabinets. As well we spent time preparing the drawer fronts for the upper set of drawers on the lower cabinets. These were easy to do as they could be made up with the leftover cherry I had on site. As for the remainder I needed to buy some more cherry which would occur on Tuesday.
On Tuesday we installed the shelves for the upper cabinets and then also installed the small trim piece where the cabinets met the bulkhead. This was just a small piece of cherry cut down to a 3/4 by 1/4 inch size. Here are two photos showing the upper cabinets and then a close up of the trim.
We then spent some time finish sanding the base unit and cleaned it up before proceeding to give it its first coat of varathane. Once this was done we spent some time varathaning the bottom of all 12 drawers. Nice thing with this varathane and the temp in the house was that once the first coat was done I could start all over and proceed to paint the second coat of varathane on the bottoms of the drawers. This will be all the varathane the bottoms will get. Here's a picture of the drawers spread out over the kitchen upside down drying after their second coat of varathane.
I the moved on to preparing the Ditra heat membrane for installation in the second bathroom. Essentially this was cutting and dry fitting the pieces on the floor prior to installing them permanently with modified thinset mortar. Once that was done we could go back to the drawers and start varathaning the inside of the drawers before we called it quits for the night. So here's a picture showing the Ditra membrane trial fitted and then a picture showing the drawers drying after their first interior coat.
So on Wednesday we started by mixing up a 22kg bag of mortar mix and then installing the Ditra heat membrane using a 1/4 by 1/4inch notched trowel. After about 30 minutes the installation was complete. And with the exception of about 3-5 ounces of mortar that ended up on my jeans the installation went quite smoothly. We only had about 1 cup of mortar left over at the end of the job. Once we'd cleaned up from this job we then proceeded to lightly sand the insides of the drawers and give them their second coat of varathane. While the drawers were drying we proceeded to cut the boards of cherry down to the size required for the remaining drawer fronts. My drawer fronts are 14in 10in and 7in. As I was using 1by5 or 1by6 cherry, this required laminating multiple pieces together for the drawer fronts. Using the clamps at my disposal I could glue up 2 drawers at a time. Once the pieces were all cut out we glued up the first pair of drawer fronts and then proceeded to give the cabinet frame its second coat of varathane. Once that was all done we actually still had time to give the drawers their third coat of varathane on the insides only. Hence the comment I'm getting tired of all this varathaning. Here are a couple of shots showing the glue up of the drawer fronts.
I did take the time to glue up two more sets of drawer fronts over the next two days after I got home from work.
On Saturday we first took the time to lightly sand and then varathane the cabinets with their 3rd coat. After that was done we gave the drawers their 4th coat of varathane on the interior sides. This hopefully will be the last coat for the drawers. I'll decide once they are fully dried. We then spent some time showing the house to the brother and his family as they came down for 24 hrs to visit with Mom and the rest of the family. After the visit was over we spent some time sanding down the laminated drawer fronts. When gluing them up I wiped off most of the glue squeeze out however we still needed to sand some of the glue away as well I needed to smooth down the panels. Unfortuantely I did not see this until I'd glued them up but one of the boards was a 1/16 of an inch thinner than the rest for there was a height difference that I needed to smooth down. Since I don't have a thickness planer this required me to spend some time working on them with a belt sander and a fairly coarse grade of sanding belt. Although they are now smooth I'm not entirely happy with the finish so I might break down and buy a thickness planer to plane them down to a uniform thickness. I'll also check with a co-worker to see if he has a planer I might be able to borrow. Later in the afternoon just prior to writing this up we spent some time down on hands and knees installing more screws in the floor in the kitchen area and then lightly sanding the plywood in that area as well. This is in preparation for installing the flooring at a later date. I plan on rescrewing the entire floor and ensuring the floor is smooth with not bumps or lumps from paint of drywall mud before laying down the engineered Bamboo flooring.
Well that's it for this week. Tomorrow I have a Christmas party from work to attend and then we'll see what we do for the remainder of the week. If I decide the drawers do not need more varathane then I will start to install them on Sunday and finish this job off on Tuesday. Once they are installed and the upper drawer fronts are installed I'll be able to get the counter top installed. The tiles for the bathroom will show up on Friday so we'll most likely install them on Saturday. In between this all I'll be cleaning up the house moving stuff to the garage and preparing the floor for flooring. With luck the furniture will be in by Christmas.
Well until next week " See Ya"
Harold
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