Kitchens

The K Word

Shall we talk kitchens? I've been promising you that we will make real kitchens for the Momplex, and blogging the tutorials and plans.  Every since the day I spent $7000 on cabinets for a 10x10 kitchen, I've been tossing and turning at nights, thinking, I could have made my own cabinets.  I've been thinking I could have made my own cabinets much easier, much simpler ... because it was quite a chore just installing the cabinets.On the Momplex, we have two kitchens, and we will be bui

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Vote: Big L or Little L

Mom, we love you, but not this much.  There are trusses delivered and sitting up at the Momplex right now.  And nobody wants to see that roof go up more than me, but with temperatures in the heat of the day rising to "extreme cold" with a feels like temperature of -26 degrees below zero, even if we did love our Mom's enough to work regardless of the weather, our tools don't love Mom that much.  At these temperatures, air compressors act funny, nailers don't nail, drill batterie

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Kitchen Cabinet Doors

I remember back when we used our Get Out of Jail Free card on the Momplex, and I dreaded receiving comments about hiring help and taking a step off from DIY.

But you totally suprised me.

Instead, many of you commented that a good DIYer knows when to DIY, and when to seek help.

The primary reason we hired out the drywall finishing is tool investment.  In order to tool up to do two homes worth of drywall, we'd be into it about as much as the cost of hiring

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Four Washing Machines Closer

I wish I could say we are one roof closer to Mom moving into the Momplex. But we are instead dealing with record smashing cold in Interior Alaska, according to the Washington Post, my toes, and any other exposed skin as I run from the house to the garage.And we are not one roof closer to building two homes for our Moms.  Not today.  But we are also NOT $2000 closer to being out of money to keep working on the Momplex.  You know this crazy Momplex dream is what keeps me driving

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Hanging Kitchen Cabinet Doors with Concealed Euro Hinges - Momplex Vanilla Kitchen

With the doors painted, it's time to take this -

And turn it into this -

Pretty crazy how just installing doors over cabinets can do that, isn't it?

The doors we ordered are measured for full overlay, and will require a Euro Style Concealed Hinge, 1-1/4" (sometimes referred to as Full Overlay), Face Frame.  

Full Overlay means the doors pretty much cover the entire cabinet - there's a 1/2" gap between all doors and

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What Next?

I've been dreading writing this post. This is not easy.I hope you understand that we are real people, working with real limitations on a budget, and there is no midnight crew making things happen magically. It's just us, one family, trying to build two houses in one for our Moms. We have been waiting and waiting for a break in the weather to put the roof on the Momplex. The trusses are sitting there, ready to shed snow, if we could just get a week of no snow, no wind, and decent temperatu

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Operation Microhood

It took us two tries to get you all the deets on installing the Microhood ... good thing we got two moms and two Momplex units to finish up!

Microhoods to me are like toilets or power lines or my big toes....  function over form here, especially when space is at a premium.

The good news about every microhood I've been a part of installing is they come with pretty darn good instructions and hanging hardware.

The tem

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Back Burner

You know how you sometimes get that super annoying feeling that you are forgetting something? Well, it's been nagging on us for a while now. What have we forgotten? There's something that's been put on the back burner and forgotten about, and it's about to boil over.

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