Kitchen Cabinets part 5- The Sink Cabinet Continued

Last week felt like a mad-dash to build the kitchen sink cabinet before countertops were installed. This whole process has been a bit "start-and-stop" as we originally thought the counters would be installed two weeks after we bought them (yikes!). We really weren't prepared for that and gave a bit of pushback on the timeline, but it ended being unnecessary because every step of the countertop install (template, template approval, and install) has taken longer than they originally said. To be clear, I'm not complaining, the extra days have given us the time to breathe and process that we really needed to be sure we were building exactly what we wanted. We finally have the install date and WEDNESDAY WE'LL HAVE COUNTERTOPS!

Almost just as exciting is the fact that we'll have our sink back too! We've already been over a week without a kitchen sink, but two days last week Scott worked out of town so I stayed with my parents. The other days I've been using paper plates (not normal for us), and washing dishes in the sink in the bathroom (which is not easy!), so I'm really looking forward to having our sink, garbage disposal, dishwasher, and waterline to the fridge back for ice and cold water.

Last week we ended the weekend by pushing the sink cabinet in place without cutting the holes for the outlet or the pipes, leaving that part for this week.

We started this week right where we left off by pulling out the cabinet, away from the wall, to prepare for cutting holes for the pipes and outlet.

Side note: if you have no peatrap on your drain and just leave your pipe open creepy crawlies can make their way inside from your vent pipe on the roof, and if there's major construction a few doors down that is eliminating the homes of said creepy crawlies they WILL come inside. 😳

Creepy crawlies removed (with much squeeling and zero help from me, I might add), and we could get to work.

Scott had to level the cabinet before we could cut the holes, so we carried it to the garage to cut off the tiniest sliver from one side.

With the cabinet now sitting level, he took measurements of where the outlet is and transferred those measurements to the cabinet.

He used the multitool to cut the hole. This tool is such a lifesaver in so many situations, I highly recommend adding one to your toolbox if you don't have one yet.

Once we knew the outlet would fit we had to cut the hole for the drain pipe, which was a little tough as we wanted as small of a hole as possible around the pipe, plus it's round, so not as easy as just making straight cuts.

Scott put caulk on a piece of pipe he fitted into the drain then pushed the cabinet against the pipe to try to leave a circle. It left a little half moon, but it was enough to start.

He used the drill to cut the hole. We then pushed the cabinet against the pipe, but the hole was just a smidgen too-small so he used the multitool to widen it slightly before it slid right on.

The water pipes actually come from the side, behind the dishwasher, and we chose to leave them that way instead of putting them in the drywall so we could get to them easier if they ever leaked. We don't need those in until we have the sink (Wednesday!).

One part of our projects that I always forget is how much moving/removing there is. We had moved the cabinet 4 or 5 times to get it level and make the holes right, then we moved it again so we could turn our attention to the floor.

We've had the kitchen floor in since January but had left a small piece of underlayment exposed right in front of the sink knowing we'd want to cut that floor piece to fit the new cabinet, not necessarily the old one.

The floor we have is LVP (Luxury Vinyl Plank) and it's a floating floor, so it shouldn't go under permanent fixtures, like cabinets, and needs room for expansion in the heat, so it was important we cut it to fit whatever size cabinet we built, even if that meant stepping on underlayment daily for the last ten months.

Scott proved he's still a pro at cutting and installing the LVP and quickly and easily fitted in the two planks needed to complete in front of the sink and dishwasher:

We moved the cabinet back one final time to officially attach it to the wall.

Mom and Dad had some free time and decided to spend it helping us (how lucky are we???).

We divided and conquered, with Momma and I working on the front door and Scott and Padre tackling the lazy Susans for the corner cabinet.

Padre was kind enough to take photos, so all photography credit goes to him!

Our front door was white when we moved in and I painted it blue many months ago, but I believe the white paint was oil-based as the water-based blue I used just scraped right off. I've tried sanding the door while it's in the jamb, but it's hard work putting pressure and holding the sander upright, my arms don't let me work too long. The blue comes off great, the white is stubborn, and below the white is a dark stain covering the raw wood.

We tried sanding, and even tried a heat gun to remove the paint, but it was slow going, so we turned to the citristrip.

We've attempted to use this one other time (when we redid the dining table and chairs), but I didn't know to wrap it in saran wrap to prevent the citristrip from drying, so it didn't work well.

This time I was armed with saran wrap, so we poured it on thick (too thick, we know that now), and let it sit, covered in saran wrap for about 30 minutes.

Believe it or not, it actually worked! It took it down to the dark stain in most places, really only struggling in the detail of the insets around each "light" in the door. It was seriously messy though. I don't know if there's there's less messy way to remove the stripper, we used scrapers, wire brushes, steel wool, and mineral spirits. We scraped up what we could and then went back with the wire brush in the grooves, then dipped the brush in mineral spirits and brushed more, then did the same with the steel wool. It would cause the stripper to sort if gum up and we could glob it off the brush into the trash. Like I said, messy.

When we got to a place that we felt we were ready for a second coat of citristrip we stopped to eat and Scott powerwashed the door to try to remove more gunk.

It's nowhere near done, and looks ridiculous, but it's looked ridiculous for months, so it's not too bad, at least we have a plan of action to strip/sand the rest.

Scott and Dad made great progress on the lazy susans.

When we built the corner cabinet we knew we wanted a lazy susan in it to store our bottles of alcohol, coffee syrup, and Italian soda syrup which were previously in the upper corner cabinet, which we won't have anymore.

We researched lazy susans and found that "super susans" held the most stuff, so we had our hearts set on them. No, prior to our research I had no clue what a "super susan" was, so if you're like me, here's what I mean:

It sits on the shelf in the cabinet instead of having the pole run up the middle, giving you access to use the whole space, unencumbered by the pole.

Did you see that price? 😳 and we needed two. We actually tried to buy them from another company for slightly less but they were backorder until January.

We knew their had to be a cheaper/faster way.

We watched a ton of YouTube and Scott finally decided we could make them ourselves, but needed something for the sides (the hardest part to make, he said), so he bought these:

These were less than 1/3 of the cost and we just needed to make the bottom, which is basically a circle with a pie-shaped cut out.

We went to Lowe's to buy a bit for the router to cut a circle and ended up with this fancy circle-jig for just a little bit more and it came with the bit we needed.

Scott and Padre cut a practice circle out of OSB to make sure it would work and would fit in the cabinet.

Once they had the circle they mapped out where to drill holes for the little "legs" on the rail, and cut out the pie-piece.

They brought it inside to be sure it fit, and it did!

With the proof of concept out of the way, they used a piece of the 3/4 inch birch plywood we've used for the cabinets to cut the "official" circles.

They completed all of this work while Momma and I sweated and scraped at the door.

We finished in time to grab beers and brats at a local brewery for their Octoberfest. We didn't seek out the Octoberfest, but had been to the brewery a week or two ago and it was almost dead so we thought it had a good shot of not being crowded. It wasn't too bad, the food was good, beer was great, and they had a live band playing makeshift instruments (example: one guy had a washboard attached to a crutch that he scraped a pick on, that also had bells and other things attached) that was really entertaining.

Sunday morning I sanded down the lazy susans, clamping them together so they'd be closer to the same shape, first with 50, then 120, then 220 grit sandpaper.

Scott had Monday off of work so he used his extra time to finish up the lazy susans and install them.

He also cut the holes in the side of the sink cabinet to pull the pipes through and reattached the plumbing bringing in the water.

Unfortunately that small "last task" created quite a mess that involved pulling the sink cabinet back out and drying the concrete and wall under and behind the sink. It was just a minor mishap when trying to turn on *just enough* water to figure out which pipe was hot and which was cold.

All is well now though and we are ready for countertops!