So, I have really been slacking on posts lately, but this is my first post after having moved in. I think Tuesday was the first night I slept in the condo. There are still a bunch of finishing touches to be done, plus I need to get some furniture and stuff, but it is cool to be moved in. The kitchen is still a mess with junk and tools, so I’ll need to clean that up before I can use it. I’m also still waiting on the refrigerator. They’ve attempted to deliver it twice, but keep bringing one that opens the wrong way. I’m starting to think they aren’t going to be able to get it right, and I’m going to have to cancel. Ikea has a rebranded Whirpool refrigerator that can definitely have the door reversed for about $100 more than the one I ordered, so I might just do that if they can’t get it right. I have some more pics, but I need to get to sleep, so perhaps I will add them tomorrow.

This weekend was pretty productive. Friday night was booked for watching the Borat movie, which was hilarious, but a little out of hand. The naked fight scene was a little over the top. Anyway, on Saturday afternoon I started the project of doing the moldings (those little things that go between your walls and floors). I had originally planned on holding off on them until I moved in, then doing them leisurely, but I figured it would be a pain to move furniture to install them, and I’m still waiting on carpet. They were pretty nasty, covered with old caulk, pieces of linoleum and carpet fibers. I used a scraper to get all the pieces of stuff off, then sanded them to smooth them out and prep for painting. By 2 am on Saturday night, they were all cleaned off, and half of them were painted. I had to do the painting in two batches, because there were so many, and I only had so much space to lay them on the dropcloth to dry. My hands were extremely sore from all of the scraping and sanding. I got a call on Saturday night telling me my appliances would come the next morning between 8:15-10:15, so I had to get up early and go wait for them. I painted the rest of the moldings by 9:30, then the guys showed up right at 10:15. The stove looks nice in the kitchen, but they screwed up the refrigerator, and will have to re-deliver on Tuesday. The dishwasher was left in the box, because they charge extra to install them. I went home right after the delivery and took a nap. Mike and I went back over there in the evening, and laid out a bunch of the moldings. About half of them aren’t labeled, but it looks like it won’t be too bad to figure out where they go. We also got the dishwasher mostly hooked up, but the adjustable feet don’t go up high enough, so I think I’m going to buy a board to put under it to boost it up to the right height. I also called up Home Depot today and they have the carpet in, so hopefully they can install it this week. It seems like things should be in pretty good order by the end of the week.

So, the updated checklist…

• Finish bathroom vanities
• Get carpeting installed
• Install laminate moldings
• Sand and paint wall moldings
• Install wall moldings
• Get appliances installed/replaced
• Install kitchen backsplash (low priority)
• Touch up a few paint spots
• Install bar counter
• Get blinds

The carpet is on order, the appliances are on order, and I just ordered blind samples tonight, so I think we are in good shape. I just need to get cracking on the moldings.

I stopped by Ikea tonight to pick up some new handles for the bathroom cabinets, and looked around a bit. I think I might get a kitchen table there, and they had some nice rugs. I’m not that into the whole oriental style, which is cool because those are the expensive ones.

I’m thinking about moving my stuff in this weekend, since I’m going to be in Vegas the next weekend. The carpet won’t be in, though, so I won’t have access to closets or bedrooms, which kind of sucks, particularly for clothes.

Today I took a day off from condo work, aside from stopping by Sears to look at appliances. This weekend we made some good progress. The vanities are almost completely done. I just need to install one more sidesplash and verify the plumbing. We also got the bar counter installed, which I was dreading, and a bunch of the laminate thresholds. I was thinking of finishing up the thresholds and vanities tomorrow, but we’ll see. Here are a few pictures of the vanities going in:

So, it turns out our little problem with the table saw last night was user error. You have to turn the nut backwards to get it off–how stupid. So, I got the blade off pretty easily this evening and replaced it with a 24 tooth blade. That thing ripped right through the wood nicely, and I had a couple of filler pieces in no time. I looked through my screws to find something close to the recommended #8×1.5″ screws, and found some #6×1.5″, but they were definitely too short. Stupid installation instructions. Mike and I went to Home Depot and picked up some #8×2″ screws. Those worked pretty well, although they were pretty tough to screw in all the way. In any case, we got 2/3 of the cabinets installed in the master, but then we ran into a problem for the last one. Apparently one of the 20″ tiles under the cabinet is seriously off level, so it screws up the cabinet level. My plan is to use the circular saw to cut a bit off the cabinet in the back, and it should just chill above the crooked tile. We also attempted to caulk the sinks to the counters, but you know that black caulk is always trouble….

Today, I planned to work on the cabinets some more. I moved the table saw downstairs, and tried to switch the blade. Unfortunately, it was pretty much impossible to get the retaining nut off even with my great strength. John was with me, so he tried too, but wasn’t able to get it. I decided to cut losses and start working on the bar counter instead. That went ok. Everything is cut and fits now, but it is a little weird. The two pieces of counter don’t seem to line up perfectly so the surface isn’t quite level. I stopped by home depot later and got some metal plates to screw them together, so I think I can get that all fixed. While I made some final cuts to the counters, John spotted a mouse running across the garage, apparently scared by the saw. He tried to catch it for a while and it was quite funny to watch. I have caught three mice inside now, although I think they are almost all gone, because the traps haven’t caught anything in a while.

After the counters were in pretty decent shape, we started work on mounting the sinks under the new vanity tops. The mounting system was really weird, and I was about to give up and call tech support tomorrow, but we got it figured out. We got the alignment all set and traced lines, so now we just have to caulk the sinks and remount, which should take about 15 minutes. I didn’t do it tonight because I couldn’t find my spackling knife anywhere.

So, if you are feeling up to a challenge of strength, let me know and you can have a go at removing the table saw blade tomorrow :).

Two more things for the checklist:

• Install bar counter
• Get blinds

I started on the bar counter this evening. I made the tricky diagonal cuts, but got stuck on a weird problem with the bottom of the counters. It is hard to explain, but I think I have a solution, so I should be able to get it fixed tomorrow. I also started working on the thresholds for the wood floor, and all of the brackets are cut to size. I just need to glue them in and snap in the thresholds.

My target for finishing stuff is November 15th, then I will throw a huge party or something for one final massive way to piss off the downstairs neighbors. Here’s what I have left:

• Finish bathroom vanities
• Get carpeting installed
• Install laminate moldings
• Sand and paint wall moldings
• Install wall moldings
• Get appliances installed/replaced
• Install kitchen backsplash (low priority)
• Touch up a few paint spots

It kind of seems like a lot. Really, I think the only actual significant work will be the vanities. Once that and the carpet are done (which just involves waiting for it to be installed), it will be in pretty good shape to move in.

I mean vanities. The bathroom vanities came in the other day, and on Sunday Mike and I got a chance to get started installing them. We started off replacing all the 6 shut-off valves on the water. Everything went off without a hitch, which was pretty awesome, because they usually leak like crazy. We got the first vanity in the small bathroom installed easily. We located two studs right away and screwed it in. Then we started on the master and the stud locations were terrible. We only located one usable stud, and it was on the first of three cabinets. We went to Home Depot and picked up some heavy duty anchors. The first cabinet was a real pain to install, because the anchor wasn’t perfectly centered. At that point we were pretty much out of time.

So, today I went by myself to work on it some more. The first thing I needed to do was install a filler piece between the first two cabinets. I set up the table saw and started to rip the filler to a half inch wide, and things started to smoke up. The blade was burning the wood hardcore. I wasn’t really sure why, so I finished up the floor in the office and headed out. After reading online, it sounds like I should be using a blade with less teeth, and the rip guide might be misaligned.

Here are a couple pictures of the cabinets going in: