The electric in the kitchen/dining room has been, well, a larger project than I expected.

Going into this kitchen project, I knew there would be some electrical work to do but I completely underestimated just how much it would be. Par for the course, with this house.

Before I can tell you about the electric, I need to back up for a minute and talk about the island.

This is how the kitchen looked before demo (and the plan).

There was a fixed, permanent island separating the kitchen from the dining room. I originally planned to keep the island (basically) because the layout honestly wasn’t that bad, even though it was a little tight.

The whole house only 18′ wide – on the outside. Using 2′ of that width for an island and allowing for easy passage around it didn’t seem worth is. After demo and seeing how open everything was with no island, I decided to ditch the concept of a permanent island and go for a more flexible rolling island.

You’re aware of the Domino Affect right? One change causes another, which causes another, and so on.

This kitchen project has been FULL of them. The island was only the start.

The original, permanent island was home to several different switches and outlets.

• The ceiling fixture for the kitchen was operated by a switch located on one side of the island.
• The light for the back porch was on the other side.
• Three sets of outlets for small appliances were located inside the island and on the back.

These were all functions I needed to keep but, obviously, they couldn’t stay in the island.

And while I was on the topic of changing the electric, I decided to add some recessed cans in the dining room & kitchen. Because:

1. Why not?
2. More light is ALWAYS good!
3. Lets just do it while everything is all open
4. How hard can it be?

First off, next time I say, “How hard can it be?” just punch me in the face.

“How hard can it be?” ALWAYS takes forever and ALWAYS is way more challenging than it initially seems.

Installing typical retrofit cans in a typical house where you could easily run wires through an attic would probably be relatively easy.

Installing retrofit cans in 130-ish year old row home is a PITA. And I’ll tell you why.

1. None of the joists are evenly spaced.
   I spent a good 2.5 hours mapping out where each of the cans would be. Making sure they were centered evenly around the dining room chandelier and relatively evenly spaced. My existing joists, however, had other plans. Now they’re not perfectly spaced. It’s not SO bad that most people would notice but you & I will know.
2. Plasterboard + Lath = Hard as hell & thick too
   Retrofit cans are made to go in normal drywall.

After it was all said and done, I’ve ended up with a plan that looks something like this:

Clearly I didn’t go into this with a professional electrical wiring diagram or help with a professional lighting designer. If I had, you’d have something more fancy than Word AutoShapes to convey my plan. {Nothing but the best here in Brick City!} You might also have had a more accurate floor plan to work with too but I’m making do with what I’ve got.

Things to keep in mind when looking at this diagram:

1. It’s not actually to scale.
   I don’t know who did these blueprints but they’re not 100% accurate. More of an idea than something to actually make hard plans by.
2. It doesn’t show the blind.
   To the left of the kitchen sink the wall actually recesses into the closet about 14″. The switches & outlets and the under cabinet lighting that will be there will be in that blind.
3. The kitchen wall (where the sink & stove are drawn) is bigger than drawn.
   Either it’s bigger than these plans show or I’m just cramming more stuff in. On that one LONG kitchen wall will go (from left to right):
   SINK > DISHWASHER > STOVE > 15″ CABINET > FRIDGE > SKINNY STORAGE
4. There will be no fixed island.
   Cause, remember, I’m going with a smaller rolling island instead.

While the kitchen & dining room are really the whole back half of the house, it’s important to me that they be two separate spaces.

I want a kitchen & a dining room.

I don’t plan on painting the two areas different colors or anything crazy but I wanted there to be a distinction between the spaces. I felt the best way to do that would be with lighting, specifically the recessed cans.

I’ll have the kitchen cans & dining room cans.

They’re controlled separately. The kitchen cans are controlled above the dishwasher (eventually, speaking). The dining room cans are controlled over by the fireplace. They’re all on dimmers. The chandelier is already controlled by a switch on the left wall of the pocket door.

The cans are actually already in but the installation deserves it’s own post. They add SO much light and were – in the end – very much worth it.

Before:

After:

Now, if I could just pick which light bulb I like best, we’d really be in business.

Before demoing, you never really know what you’ll find. Will you uncover a giant headache or complete awesomeness?

This house tends to favor the “giant headache” side of those odds but that’s probably pretty typical for a house pushing 130ish years old. Certainly the whittled joist I uncovered in the bathroom fell in the “giant headache” category. The stupid pipe ended up only being a minor headache but I certainly waffled my way through that decision. Sort through the archives, I could go on & on.

One thing that this house really delivers complete awesomeness on though is some exposed brick. It’s really super good at it.

Being that it’s an interior home in the row (I have houses on both sides), the only windows are on the front & rear of the home. The 2 side walls top to bottom & front to back are 100% old school brick with plaster parged on top.

The only room that came with exposed brick was the back room on the 2nd floor. Here’s how it looked at inspection:

The previous owner told the tale of exposing the brick like it was the most arduous thing he had ever done. THE MESS! THE DUST! SCRUBBING IT WITH ACID! I stared wide-eyed at the horrid undertaking exposing brick must be and thought exposing any more maybe just wasn’t worth it.

And then I actually tried it.

And wondered what the EFFHOLE (sorry Mom) he was talking about.

Mess? Absolutely!

Dust? WITHOUT QUESTION!

Acid? Completely unnecessary.

Worst, hardest project ever? Not even a little.

My first go at exposing brick was cleaning up the back of the closet I made for my roommate last year. The room had no closet and we all know girls need closet space. So with 3.5 weeks before she moved in, Dad & I built her a closet. It didn’t get blogged. She’s since moved out and half my kitchen has since moved into that space, so no photos.

My second try was in the 2nd floor bathroom. The plaster parged on that wall was too bad to bother repairing and – let’s be honest – an exposed brick wall in a bathroom is kind of awesome. Down came that plaster.

It’s not rocket science folks. Here’s basically how it goes:

1. Scrape plaster off wall. I find a floor scraper or spackle knives and a hammer for gentle encouragement work well.
2. Bag plaster (in lots of small batches, practically using an entire box of heavyweight construction bags. Sh*t is heavy).
3. Scrub the brick. I like a combination of grill brush & drill attachment (see below).
4. Vacuum & clean the brick (and everything else; you’ve made quite the mess by now).
5. Seal the brick. I prefer a low lustre sealer like the one by Behr in the paint section at Home Depot.

Here’s the bathroom wall after it’s been scrubbed & sealed:

On Repointing:

I haven’t bothered to repoint anything thus far. You certainly could, if you cared to. The walls under the plaster were never meant to be exposed. The joints are often uneven, with gaps & holes. Bricks are various sizes; some are cracked. None of my walls look perfect but they weren’t also ever supposed to see the light of day. I like this look. You might not. Personal preference.

If you’re curious about what repointed brick looks like, Wendy & Alex at Old Town Home did it when they exposed the brick in their home office.

In the kitchen, most of the plaster was already gone, with the previously framed wall sitting right against it.

While not scrubbed or clean, it was definitely one of the more awesome demo discoveries. It’s in solid shape, no cracks from settling or gaping holes. Instead of reframing the kitchen, I’m going to reclaim that 4″ (2×4’s studs + 1/2″ drywall of a framed wall) and mount my upper cabinets directly to the brick.

This also gives me an exposed brick wall in my kitchen. Which is kind of totally awesome.

The old framed wall came down easily. I saved the 2×4’s to repurpose.

And I was left with one very dusty (& blurry) brick wall.

After scrubbing though, it looked pretty good!

To clean up the face of the brick, I used a combination of wire brushes.

I find the traditional wire brushes are too stiff for my unfired brick. They leave scratches & gouges in the face which I find unsightly. A grill brush, however, works great! The bristles are thinner & softer and the big square face covers a decent amount of space (as far as wire brushes go).

I also like the wire brush attachment for my drill. It’s much faster & easier than scrubbing by hand and VERY thorough. You have to be a bit careful though! While these bristles aren’t as stiff as my traditional wire brushes, I find they do mar the face of the brick a little.

Sometimes I would get all the heavy stuff off with my drill brush and go back over everything with the grill brush to smooth out any swirl marks left by the drill brush.

After scrubbing, vacuum the ENTIRE WALL and the floor. And yourself.

You have to get off all the dust & debris you just created, otherwise it’ll be sealed to the brick forever and all your elbow grease will be for naught.

And because it was there, I also used the compressor with the compressed air attachment to blow off the wall. That worked great! I’m not saying you should run out & buy a compressor just for this project. But, if you own one, it’s probably worth dragging it up from the basement for this.

After sucking & blowing (that’s what she said) all the dust I sprayed the entire wall down with water and let it dry.

The I filled the garden sprayer with some low lustre sealer.

Sealing the brick is crucial.

Is the natural texture of the unsealed brick awesome? Yes.

Do you want to be cleaning up crumbling mortar & brick-dust every day from now until eternity? NO.

Unless you do. In which case, by all means stop right here and go grab yourself a cocktail with one of them little umbrellas. But I, personally, don’t enjoy cleaning so I’ll be using the sealer thankyouverymuch.

Sealing the brick will also make it easier to clean splatters off of. It is a kitchen, after all. Sure the nooks & crannies will always be there but at least they’ll be more wipeable.

And while you’re at it, grab yourself one of these little garden sprayers. They’re not expensive and they make sealing the brick pretty painless.

I tried using a brush for the sealer up in the bathroom. That wall was about 8.5′ x 9′. It took me 3 hours to do HALF of it (so roughly a 8.5′ x 4.5′ area). I wanted to kill myself (hyperbolically speaking of course).

It took me 20 minutes to spray this entire kitchen wall. The spray gets in an all the nooks & crannies. If there’s a deep hole you can shoot it right in there. The sealer absorbs into the brick & mortar and dries very hard. While not structural, it completely stops all of the crumbling that tends to happen with old mortar.

As I spray, I use a paint brush to even things out and spread the drips so nothing dries blotchy or drippy. The process typically goes:

1. Spray a section
2. Use paint brush to back brush
3. Repeat

Seriously, that easy. I did 2 coats, although I’m not sure I really needed the 2nd one. Better safe than sorry. I used less than 2 gallons of sealer on the kitchen wall.

After you’re done spraying, you can pour the excess sealer back into the jug to reuse. Remember to flush the sprayer out with water right away. Dried sealer would ruin it.

To clean, I fill the sprayer up with water, pressurize it, and spray through all the water. My sprayer has a lock on it so you can set it up to continuous spray. I set it up in the bathtub and let it continuous spray while I clean my paint brush. Just SET IT and FORGET IT! You only have to repressurize it a few times for the whole jug. I run 2 full sprayers of water through it before leaving it disassembled to dry. Turn the shower for a few minutes on after you’re done to rinse any residual sealer out of the tub.

Tools I used:

• Garden sprayer, similar to this one (for sealer & water – for the pre-sealing wash-down)
• Low Lustre Sealer
• My favorite paint brush (although any paint brush would be totally fine)
• Grill brush (I think mine was $2 at the grocery store.)
• Drill attachment brush
• Shop vac & compressed air

Here’s a pic of the sealed brick vs. unsealed brick:

The sealed brick looks a little glossy up close but overall, it reads as a very matte finish.

{Sealed brick wall; all ready to go!}

I should note that this is what I do on interior walls only. Exterior walls are completely different and should be handled differently.

The wall is ready! Consider my backsplash officially complete. CHECK!

Now I just have to, oh…I don’t know, build the kitchen.

What your thoughts on exposed brick? Love it? Hate it? Classic look or too played out? Ever expose a wall of your own? I’d love to hear!

Before demo, I knew there was a pipe in the back right corner of my kitchen. There was a little hole in the drywall of the useless nook that was previously here and I could see it running vertically up the chase. I gave myself a couple extra inches from the edge of this pipe and planned out my cabinetry from there.

HA.

hahahahahahahahahaha!

Here’s the thing about my house –

Nothing is EVER as it seems and nothing will ever go smoothly or according to plan. Ever. Ever.ever.

See that little T juts out about 6″ into what would begin the main wall of my kitchen.

In some spaces, 6″ may not seem like much or could easily be absorbed in other places. This space? NotSoMuch.

In this space, that T affects – oh, everything:

• overall cabinet placement
• electric – outlet placement and circuit load distribution
• storage & cabinetry (which is actually different from overall cabinet placement)
• fridge height & placement
• how much counter I need
• how many pieces of kitchen hardware I need
• traffic flow in the kitchen

That’s basically everything in my kitchen except paint colors & the island. And here I thought I had everything figured out and ready to go.

NOPE.

As I see it, I have 3 choices:

1. Leave the pipe where it is. Keep everything shifted to the left 6″. Lose the 6″ of counter space and gain the 6″ here for other storage. {This choice also puts the edge of my sink right up against the arched opening for the front hallway. Cozy.}
   
2. Build a platform over the T, thus raising the floor up 4″ under the fridge only. This would make my 80″ fridge now 84″ tall {I’m 5’3″ – who needs that top shelf anyway?!}. A platform/ramp would also have to be built for whenever I needed to clean behind the fridge {almost never}. Hope that any future tenants/roommates {if this place becomes a full rental} don’t yank the fridge off said platform.
3. Pay the plumber $500 to remove the pipe and replace with PVC. This gains the maximum sqft and counter space. It also inconveniences my current garden unit tenant, as I will have to open a wall in her closet so the plumber can get far enough down the pipe to create a clean break {my kitchen is directly over her unit}.

So that’s where I’m at.

6″ of cast iron pipe is ruling my world.

So I took a trip over to the stone yard to finalize my soapstone plans this past weekend and walked out empty-handed.

They accidentally got some slate mixed in with a shipment of soapstone from India and are selling it for 50% off. Being soapstone experts, not slate, they weren’t able to tell me much about it except it’s incredibly hard (harder than granite).

It does have a completely different texture than soapstone. The slate felt hard and smooth, like granite. It didn’t mark when scratched at. Soapstone, to me, almost feels leathery (which I really like).

I’m still researching, as there seems to be a lot of misinformation out there. But am curious – do any of you have slab slate countertops? What do you think about it?

For those curious about slate counters, I found this post is helpful.

They say one of the fastest ways to blow your budget & timeline in a renovation is to change the design midstream.

I would say those people would be correct. At least when it comes to the timeline part.

This past weekend, very little happened to move the kitchen forward. The whole – Hey lets totally change-up every single cabinet from the original plan and do it differently! Oh and you need to figure it out before the end of June because the counters are only on sale in June! Have fun!! – thing.

Well I did find floor.

You may have noticed that, while most of the kitchen has the original hardwood, there is a giant gaping hole.

It would seem that this area used to be the old staircase down to the basement (back when the real kitchen would have been down there). You can see the old joists frame out what would have been the stairwell. You can even see a gap in the brick wall where a support would have been and the dark shading on the brick where an old wall used to be.

While cool, it doesn’t do much in the way of providing a solid surface to sit my stove on. Need. Floor.

I’m ok with putting plywood under the sink cabinet but the appliances could – theoretically – be moved out to clean under them. Or so I hear. I’ve never actually moved an appliance to clean behind it but my mother has, so I know it can be done. If I were to (hypothetically, of course) move said appliances, wouldn’t plank wood floor look nicer than plywood? I think so.

One can’t just run to the Depot and grab a box of 100 year plank flooring though.

Where to find it??

Why a house slated for demolition, of course. {enter craigslist, stage left}

Funny story.

Turns out, “salvaged” flooring is really just code for “come demo my house for free and you can have whatever you want.”

{Hey, if it works for getting people to come take giant bushes off  your yard, why wouldn’t it work for demoing your house?}

Saturday, as we roll into this very neat, well-kept neighborhood, the bright noon sun shining, I kept my eyes peeled, counting the house numbers so I don’t accidentally drive by. Well it rapidly becomes obvious that there is no possible way I could miss this house.

The hole in the house where the front door would have been is sealed up with a piece of mint green wood paneling from the den. Leading up to the house, every single one of what were likely brick pavers have been taken. The walkway and sidewalk have been reduced to a 4″ deep moat of dirt that surround the house. The porch is held up by 2×4’s, which look more like toothpicks compared to the stately pillars that once would have stood there.

The 100+ year house looks more like carrion than home.

The earlier text conversation with the property’s owner prepared me a little for what I’d find:

• Me: Sorry for all the back & forth. Coming down from Newark is just a hassle. Saturday good for you?
• Owner: Fine. I won’t be there.
• Me: Ok. Just help myself?
• Owner: Yep. Be careful.

I think the “be careful” was the tip-off.

So by “I salvaged some floor this weekend…”

I should really continue saying – by entering an abandoned house, ripped up the foyer flooring – leaving massive holes & the joists completely exposed – and peaced out.

It kind of felt like breaking & entering, theft and vandalism… 

But I totally had the owner’s permission, so it was ok.

I found it interesting though that no one in the large, rather expensive-looking neighborhood said anything. Not a sideways glance. Not a curious, “Hey whatcha doing?” No slow drivebys from the cops. “Don’t mind us! Just helping myself to these fine-looking 100-year-old floors! Bang! bang! bang! bang!! Nothing to see here!”

Oh the things I’ll do for free floor.

Speaking of which, hope I took enough! (I might not have.) (Old tongue & groove is a real PITA to take up, by the way.)