[drtongue96]

Well, lots got done, even though Mr. FixIt was only here about half a day - today, Sunday.

On friday when I got home, there was no electrical or plumbing done, he had half installed the range hood, the hood itself was installed, and the whole out the house, and the vent outside, but the chimney still needs to be done, and a little bit of drywall repair.

So I finally fixed my 12 inch cabinet, but there is still room for improvement. That was it for friday I think.

Saturday, I finished the carousel in the corner cabinet and installed the doors. Fairly easy, and it looks good.

Then I installed one of the rubrik blue-grey doors. I was a little scared of this, because it required 'me' to drill 10 holes in metal, but I managed it. It took me 10 minutes to get the 1st door on. But I got it on. And I found out how to adjust it, it took many many turns of the screw to get it to stay up, but eventually it did, and I put the hinge covers on and the door stops. Looks good, although I had scratched the outer glass a bit moving this around. Be careful with everything from IKEA (or anywhere else). The drawer fronts, doors, glass etc, will damage easily until they are installed. (knock on wood)

Today I finished the other 3 doors, wow I drilled 30 holes today, not bad. Mr. FixIt came and tried to start the plumbing and the faucet. He's about 80% done, has it all worked out, has to make another trip to the plumbing store and then glue it all together. The faucet Alksvik is partially installed. I had ordered the FIXA tool to cut the hole in the Boholmen. He had to drill a small hole 1st to get the FIXA tool on. But when he had it drilled (he burned himself), and then used the FIXA, he was full of praise for it.

Another thing he did with my help (a bit), is get the door frame off of the new Renlig and attach the 24x30 door, he did put it on backwards, which was a humorous few minutes, but yep, it's on. And I put my 1st Lansa handle on it 3 inches down from the top.

I have electical issues with my range, but I'll mention more about this once it is resolved, hoepfully tommorow. Mr. FixIt will be back tommorow, but not till late afternoon, or early evening. Here's some pics from today.

[drtongue96]

When Mr. FixIt first redid the walls, he put my oven electical receptable (the 220v) on the wall where he thought it would be good. Too bad it wasn't, he had to move it, but while he moved it down six inches, he crossed the wires somehow and the stove didn't work. Only the clock came on, and the oven light worked, but no heat.

Yesterday, Tuesday, he fixed that, and now all is well. Although there are some problems. IKEA did not send me any instructions on how to use the oven, I noticed this when it was shipped to me over a month ago, and I called. They don't like mailing things, so they sent me via email a pdf of the installation instructions, which is fine, but I wanted all the documents, including 'care and use' or 'owner's manual'. No such thing for this oven. When I called back the other day about a different issue, I tried to track down this manual. Nobody from IKEA can seem to find a way to get it to me. I even got them to call whirlpool on my behalf, and I did get an email from a Whirlpool person, and they sent me electronically the warranty card, and a wiring diagram. Good grief.

It is the basic electric Framtid Range with ceramic cooktop and stainless steel (and also black) finish. It looks nice, but the knobs feel very cheap. And the door which holds the broiler pan (which was not included) is really crappy, and attached with awful plastic wheels that glide, and come off very easy. I can't get it to close 100% properly. Not all impressed with the range yet, perhaps I should have shopped around a bit, but i was all about the 10% off. But whatever, it's in, looks good, and works!

Mr. FixIt finally finished the plumbing for my kitchen sink yesterday along with the fix for the 220v. I now have running water. Because of this, I can finally say I have a working kitchen. I can cook and wash dishes in the sink.

Still outstanding:

Finish installing Range Hood
Finish electrical
Install Dishwasher
Install a few cover panels
Intall Toe Kick
Install Cabinet Handles

[kisaacs]

Well, you may be in luck. My brother has the Framtid Gas slide in range. But guess what? All the manuals are from the electric version. I can guess that he will not be able to get the gas ones, but I bet I can get them from him and try to mail you the electric version. It might take me some time though because it's unlikely that he can find them right away in his torn apart house and he's getting married in a month, so he's under a bit of stress!

Kristen

[drtongue96]

Not much to report lately. Things have been slow. I've taken a few days off of work to actually travel to an IKEA. Me and the gf are in Calgary , AB visiting her brother. Part of the trip will be to go shopping. I have a $435 gift card, so I can go buy some more stuff at IKEA, which is the plan in the next 20 minutes or so.

Yesterday was spent driving, and Mr. FixIt was supposed to be installing my dishwasher (finishing) and the electrical. I have no status on that. A guy was at my place this morning trying to fix my countertop which was cut incorrectly, i have gotten a report that it's going ok, but he's coming back today at 1pm. Too bad I can't be there to see it.

Will try and blog again tommorow. May visit again tommorow. I think I will be eating swedish meatballs for lunch, and I'll be buying some IKEA chocolate too. Later.

[drtongue96]

Not much has happened. Well, a few things, nothing major.

I got back from my trip on Wednesday. We went to IKEA twice, and spent about 4 hours each day. It was ridiculous, I spent so much money on all kinds of things. I bought a piece of art, tons of Billy shelves for my living room, window treatments for 5 different windows in my house, new kitchen shelving as my original shelving is a little too wide, and won't fit where I thought it would, kitchen lighting, new pots and pans, various knick knacks and patty whacks, duvet, duvet cover, the list goes on. Needless to say I spend close to 2k on all this stuff, maybe 1700 minus the 450 i had in gift cards. ugh. my gf bought a lot of stuff too, about $300 and her car was full. In fact, one of us had to sit in the back on the 13 hour drive home.

While I was gone, Mr. FixIt had been to the house with his countertop fixit guy. He told me that it cost $175 to fix the counter, that'll learn him. I'm pretty sure my standard laminate counterop wasn't even worth that much in the 1st place. This is the price you pay when you don't have an IKEA in your city (at least not yet, they are building one soon), so if you do such a project with no extra materials nearby, don't make any mistakes.

Other things done in this time period:

a) having trouble installing the new dishwasher, the panel is on, but he's having trouble getting it tight to the side of the sink cabinet. There is almost an inch gap and it looked terrible when I got home, and I wasn't too happy with it, so he unscrewed it, and we tried to figure it out, pulled it out, and tried putting it back in. I even called IKEA on saturday when he was over, and he talked to them, but they didn't give very many answers, they always want you to call Whirlpool. They did say they would call me back today (Monday), and of course, they didn't.

Today I tried to take the dishwasher out and fiddle with it myself, i think it's a case of the drain tubes on the left getting kinked and pushed out, which is causing this problem. Another problem I think is he hasn't installed the panel beside the dishwasher yet, so today I called him and told him he should install that exactly 24 inches from the edge of the sink cabinet, and then we'll force that mother in and it won't have a choice to move over to the right, which is what I think is happening. I got it pretty flush and close by pushing on it. He's a handyman, come on Mr. FixIt.

b) my window outside - he filled in a window in my kitchen so I could do the 'L' shape, and we've been taking a piece of my vinyl siding around to lumberyards and siding shops and they laugh when they see it, tell us it's long been discontinued. Basically, the window is all framed in, but needs the siding to be replace where it is missing on the outside. I'm going to try one more place, and then give up, and try a new plan. One idea we have is to just install artificial fake window shutters on the outside as a decoration? Any other idea please let me know.

c) electrical - Mr. FixIt is going to buy a breaker for me and install the wiring into my electrical box soon, and then all the plugs in my kitchen should work.

d) range hood - Mr. FixIt attempted to mud up some parts of my wall high up near the ceiling when he made the hole to put the range hood tubing through. He's having a heck of a time installing it because the chimney part has these 2 brackets and no room to put them, so he's got other plans, installing his own bracket on my ceiling using a small piece of oak he had in his truck. We'll see how that goes.

These are the things still outstanding, and then there's the installation of some trim pieces, then the rest I will do myself, which will be:

toekick,
paint touch-up
backsplash - my gf is going to do it, she says...
wall "art"
trim for door, passthrough, window
baseboards
window blinds - bought recently from a real ikea store!
shelving
rails and hooks and spice racks

I did build all my new dinette set and my 4 new ingolf chairs!

[PepperEvans]

Okay now the old kitchen is undeniably atrocious but I fell in love with your layout for the new kitchen and I can't wait to see it. I myself just availed services from a renovation company in Calgary as our family just moved here.

[quiltmaster]

OK, I can't wait any longer. These cliffhanger endings are nerve wracking... It's like waiting for the start of next season's Mad Men...

When will we see the "completed" pics? And please post a close up of that butt joint between the two countertops.

Thx.

[drtongue96]

Ok. I will! I had only like 3 more entries to write, and then it would have been finished anyways. I need to sit down and do it, and take the final pictures. Kitchen IS 99% finished (I still need to do a paint touch-up). But in July, me and the girlfriend put the backsplash up on the wall, and it turned out quite nice, considering I used cheap tiles and it was DIY .

I made a youtube video of it

YouTube - Time Lapse Backsplash

[NBeth]

Love the tile video! You look like total pros! And the colors are just right....

[quiltmaster]

Ditto! What a great tile workshop! Cheap tile? I don't believe it. They look fabulous! What? Where from?

p.s. I love how your supervisor took time to check out the work...