Truly A Work in Progress...

Progress is being made...slowly.

When we ordered the cabinets and all their component pieces John and I considered putting the unit on legs making them look more like furniture but this created a whole new can of worms. How do you brace the bottom? How big should the legs be? How far in should the legs go?
Our design consultant, Coby, thought he had the answer, instead of legs how about using a component piece called a pilaster. A pilaster is a flat piece of finished wood, about 3" wide by 3/4" thick and comes in 8 foot lengths. The pilaster that we ordered has a slightly rounded front edge to it. It arrived with our shipment and all that was required was to figure out how to attach it to the base of the cabinets.

Photo above...One of the tall end cabinets with the crown molding attached. If you look at the crown, you may see that there is a bit of a profile that juts out just a little from the molding and the cabinet top, this is the front of the pilaster...which was suppose to have gone on the bottom of the cabinet.

How to install never entered our minds while we talked with Coby but when the cabinets got to the stage where the pilaster came into the picture John and I were baffled. If we attached them to the front and side bottoms of the cabinet what happens to the back end of the cabinets ? How would you possibly be able to shim the back of the units to keep them from rocking backwards ? How do you support the interior cabinets ? Without support wouldn't the two inner cabinets tend to droop like a sway backed horse ? Then there were all those angle cuts that would have to be made to fit the pilaster neatly and attractively around all the zig-ins and zag-outs of the cabinet bases. After many hours of brainstorming we reluctantly decided to ditched the idea of using the pilasters and sat them aside to be returned.

Photo above...Close up of mitered corner of crown molding...it still needs to be caulked.

Then we got to the crown molding. It was not like the previous crown that we installed at the top of our dinning room cabinets; this crown looked identical to the crown molding you would use between wall and ceiling. A cabinet is not designed the same way nor has the same angles that you would find between a wall and ceiling. So, how to attach ? Again much brainstorming ensued. Seems the last crown we had ordered came with a flat base attached to it, making the job of installing it to the tops of the cabinets much easier. Finally we decided to attach the crown molding to that rejected pilaster that we had not yet returned. The pilaster would act as a base for the molding and would be far simpler to attach to then the narrow edges of the cabinet tops.

Photo above...taken of the top of the cabinet, a place that no one sees and is very seldom dusted. Notice the larger flat board ? That is the pilaster to which the crown molding is attached by way of tiny custom made angle brackets. I think my hubby is incredibly ingenuous, yeah I know, I'm rather biased.

Photo below...It's a bit fuzzy but you can see the profile that the pilaster added to the simple crown. The pilaster is the piece below the crown that juts out a little and transitions from the crown to the top of the cabinet. I really like this added detail.

This did work, though it required the addition of some very small angle brackets, which John had to custom make as there was nothing available in the tiny size that was necessary. Nothing is ever as easy as you think it's going to be and if it is...well it's not nearly as interesting.

Photo below...And this is what it looks like with its crowning glory...no drawers or doors yet and the base cabinet still needs its top put on. But it's progressing...

Boxed In...

The truck load of cabinets that we ordered to construct our media center with have arrived. In reality they arrived a few days ago but my postings tend to lag behind the actual course of events.

Photo above...Boxes of cabinets, shelves and drawers

Photo below...More of the same...

Photo below...The small shelving unit is not part of the entertainment center, it will end up in our master bath. The tall thin boxes leaning against the wall contain doors.

Photo below...Looking across our living room into our dinning nook, at a sea of boxes

Photo below...Another perspective of the above photo...lots of boxes...Notice how we left just enough space to create a path so we can negotiate around the boxes and access our dinning nook...got to eat sometime !

Photo below...The wide thin boxes contain the wood "skins" that will be glued to the unfinished sides of the cabinets; the long square shaped boxes house crown moulding to finish off the tops of the 2 tower end cabinets.

Okay now all we have to do is put it altogether. Stay tuned.

On The Drawing Board...

Going Through Money Like Water part II

John and I had discussed what we needed and wanted in an entertainment center. First priority was for storage, unless I can come up with some crafty way to use old VHS video tapes...make them into tables...bookcases? If I were Hildi, (Santo-Tomas) of Trading Spaces fame, I'd probably just glue them to the wall.

Photo above...Papa's brand new toy, temporarily housed on our folding buffet/banquet table. Cable black box, video recorder and DVD player keep it company.

Hildi had a penchant for gluing or stapling anything that didn't move or breath to hapless walls and I think that's only because she just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Certainly she had a list of things like; Styrofoam restaurant doggie boxes, abandoned old tires, empty beer cans, small automobiles, somewhere on that list she must have had, dogs, cats, pet goldfish, etc. I always felt sorry for those poor souls that ended up "Hildi-ized" and even now I wonder about the lady who had straw glued to her walls, since she had small children I'm sure she ended up with straw strewn from one end of her home to the other. How long before she freaked out and called her Trading Spaces buddy to say; "Get your arse over here and help me get this _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mess off the walls." Yes, that was definitely THE reason I never considered auditioning for Trading Spaces...my luck I would have gotten Hildie !!!

But I digress ! Boy did I ever digress ! Back to the media center...

John and I probably drew up dozens of different designs, most of which just didn't fit our requirements, which were:

1. It had to be able to store ALL our "media" stuff
2. It had to fit within the space of the wall, and
3. It could not cost more than what we spent on building our house.

photo above...unfortunately Coby tossed out all the designs that were nixed so we'll just have to envision them on the final draft. Our 1st draft had banks of drawers across all 4 of the lower cabinet boxes. Yes it looked nice but...

Ultimately we came up with a plan, albeit a rough plan but it was a start. Thinking it would be fun to be different I designed the whole base of the unit with drawers instead of doors, however once we got to the home improvement center and sat down with Coby, the Home Improvement Center's design consultant, things changed.

Coby really liked the idea and thought it was great to have all the drawers on the bottom and perhaps it was, it looked good but...oh yes that awful contradiction...but where were we going to put John's record album collection ? The drawers weren't really deep enough and it would be an inconvenient way to access our albums . We decided to remove the section of drawers on the two end units and replace them with door cabinets, thereby giving us space for John's records.

Picture above...Imagine the drawers on the 2 bottom end units being replaced with doors.

Deftly, uncomplainingly, Coby drafts this change on his computer cad program and as I watch the units dropping into place on the PC screen, it dawns on me. NO, it's all wrong! Now the unit looks like it is flanked on each side by two overly tall, overly thin towers; an illusion caused by the vertical lines of doors above doors and no space between them to break up this tall linear effect.

photo above...Imagine this end unit with a set of doors on the bottom and then picture the top cabinet with another door cabinet mounted above it, making the upper cabinet 48". Now close your eyes and try to imagine one on each end !

STOP! Coby stop! Don't click finish, don't finalize it, don't pass go and don't collect $200; just give me a moment to rethink this. Okay, how about drawers on the bottom units of each end tower and doors on the middle unit ?

Patently Coby complied and deleted the drawer units. This is much more involved than simply highlighting, clicking delete and then typing in a new word as virtual upper cabinets have to be lifted and moved out of the way in order to remove the ones on the bottom, then the new lower cabinets have to be set into placed and finally the upper cabinets can be replaced above them; exactly the way you'd have to do it real life. It's most difficult, more like impossible, to place a wall cabinet in the air and expect it to stay there without responding to a force we call gravity.

The next draft was better, much better but...well you get the picture, this went on for quite some time. I decided to have decorative glass doors on the flanking end cabinets and we tweaked this and modified that until finally John and I agreed it was the way we wanted. So now Coby begins printing out what must have the 8th or 9th version of our media center design but this time he prints out the sheet with its estimated cost as well. Both John and I concur, the design looks great...the cost however is another story. Waaaay more than we anticipated!

Picture above...yes this is the finale draft of our media center but we really weren't done re-designing. Though we had added drawers the upper cabinets on the rough draft were still a combo of 4 cabinet boxes; two boxes on each side one measuring 30" and the other 18" in height to total 48".

After John and I returned home we sat and studied the plan, went over all the many components, itemized each unit's cost and tried to rationalize some means of cutting it down; getting the dollar signs back into our ballpark instead of the ballpark in Donald Trump's neighborhood. It was agonizing but I decided to forgo the lovely, carved glass doors that were about $200 extra per cabinet and we decided it wasn't necessary to have the 2 end towers be so tall. So instead of having two wall cabinet boxes, one above the other on each side, we could replace the 4 units with two 40" units and save a few dollars.

I was sure that when Coby saw us returning he would probably want to duck inside a tall display pantry and hide, I could even imagine him cowering in the dark, whimpering like a frightened puppy but for some reason he stood his ground and greeted us warmly. Maybe he's used to it? He listened to our requested modifications and began the redesigning process. With time we managed to scratch off a few hundred dollars, however the total was still mind boggling and the dilemma was; do we do it or do without? We decided to take the plunge, to go ahead and order the cabinets and all those little bits and pieces that are needed to put it all together and finish it off. Had we a crystal ball we might not have committed ourselves to this project but one can never tell what tomorrow will bring. And believe me, tomorrow had something in store.

TO BE CONTINUED...

John's Quick Stop Mini Mart...

Tuesday I got side tracked with my blog award and managed to get little else accomplished. Well yes, it’s not like an academy award but to me it’s a big deal and hey it is my very first award, I think I should be allowed to revel in it. Phoned everyone in my family to inform them, sent out e-mail announcements...odd though that the newspaper declined to do an article about it...perhaps they didn’t have the column space...or maybe they thought I said I got a Log Award?

John is making progress on the UFO cabinet...either that or he’s going to open a micro mini hardware/grocery store. He needed weight to keep the plywood skins in place until the adhesive cured.

If Wal Mart can do it on a colossal scale, maybe we can do it
on a microscopic one ?


Mmmmm, stick to your ribs spaghetti sauce and nuts and bolts...yum !


above: hardware and paint section


above: what can you make with mayo, spaghetti sauce and rock salt...tomato-mayo ice cream?

Here we have spaghetti sauce on aisle one, plumbing and paint on the end aisle and mayo on aisle two...I’ll be fine unless the loud speakers blare "Clean up on aisle one !"

First skin is down and dry.

above : one skin down three to go...then add feet...sand...attach doors...paint or maybe stain...

Another skin going down and a new configuration for John’s Quick Stop Mini Mart.


above - sales have been slow, anybody care to buy a box of rock salt ?


Don't need rock salt ? How about a jar of metal pipe parts ?


Groceries to the right...hardware to the left...sort of artistic, no ?

UFO cabinet...

We have in our possession a unique piece of "Trash" or "Treasure", depending upon one’s view point. It’s a remnant left over from a past kitchen renovation.


In our last home we had gone through the mayhem of remodeling our kitchen. We wanted to keep as much of the existing cabinetry as possible so there were only a couple of cabinets that absolutely had to be removed and replaced with new units to fit the new configuration. One was an over the fridge cabinet, those shallow units that fill the space above the refrigerator.
Somehow during this remolding the removed cabinets were stashed in our family room, guess the garage was too full of "stuff"...that reads all our junk, plus the materials and equipment needed for the construction. However when the dust settled and we removed the plastic traps covering everything I noticed the fridge cabinet sitting on the floor in front of our family room sofa. It looked rather nice there, in a strange sort of way. Sure it was a little low at 12" but if you added some chunky legs to it...oh yes then there's the 3 unfinished sides...well that could be covered with something. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. Think of all the storage space inside that cabinet ! What a great space to hide magazines, books, games, toys, endless possibilities. So it was salvaged.

Not too far down the time line, we sold our home, that was before the real estate market crashed. The strange cabinet came with us and spent time in our rental house while we looked at homes in our area. I did place a couple of wood, plant dollies under it to raise it to a more suitable height but its sides were still unfinished and, well there’s no way to be nice, the unit was homely, unattractive...no, it was ugly ! Two of its sides had been marked with installation information. Written in black grease pencil and basically irremovable were the large letters "UFO" doubt that stands for unidentified flying object, maybe unfinished overhead cabinets ? Doesn’t quite fit does it ? Upper Fridge something or other? Also the numbers 92 , 28 x 64 were scrawled on both sides of the cabinet...unique but can’t say it adds to the cabinet’s charm.

Photo below shows work in process: cabinet is front side down on floor, the front is the side that has the doors, only here the doors have been removed. John had been trying to fit a 1/4" skin of plywood to one side so the yet to be attached skin is sitting on the cabinet along with his drawings, calculations and tape measure.

At one time we consulted a carpenter/cabinet maker to see about having it made into a coffee table, seemed like an easy enough task as it was already a box and had 2 nice, solid wood doors. All it needed was to finish the 3 sides and put some squat little bun legs on it, however the shop wanted $400...we could buy a brand new coffee table for that and have change left over ! So ugly Betty returned home and sat around for another couple of years.
Now John has decided he’s going to tackle this heirloom, finish off the sides, add some legs and paint or stain it for me. Should have taken a "before" photo but just didn’t think about it soon enough. Right now he has removed the doors and the unit is sitting on its front side (the side where the doors go). I will try to chronicle its progress. Wish it luck !