let's travel back in time a few weeks, shall we?

because I am lazy and it takes me weeks to upload pictures, I never was able to fully explain the kitcheny chaos that was the weeks before Thanksgiving.

First off, JBB had a bizness trip the week before thanksgiving. a week-long bizness trip. To europe. the week before thanksgiving. yeah. fun times.

So the weekend before he left, he and Dad hung the boxes on the wall and screwed the suckers together. the ikea cabinets hang on a rail, not unlike a french cleat, but a little niftier.


course JBB and dad had to hang the rail twice because the first time it felt too low. alas.


and there was much discussion. and sweating.

et voila:



then they had to bolt the suckers together:



and of course they still had to do the lower cabinets, and thanks to our wildly uneven floor, parts of which had multiple layers of flooring, this was no easy task. I believe JBB is trying to level the back legs on the sink cabinet:


we had had to have the plumbers back in to move the rough in, because it was off by about an inch or so. and then rather than cut a new piece of drywall, I suggested we just flip the patch over and cut one extra hole. Worked pretty well, if I do say so myself:


I left it to dad and JBB to mark and cut the actual holes in the cabinet for the plumbing though. dad did a nice job, and rather than sign his work, he did this:


did it work?



thank god, yes.

apparently the corner cabinet was also a bitch to get in. but i wasn't there for the making of that

just saw the end result.

note ikea's handy dandy poster instructions:





But then JBB took off, and left me and Dad to do the countertops, cut the sink hole, install the sink, and the doors/drawers.

there was naturally some minor panic, since the electricians were coming to do the undercounter lights and the finish work like the next day. which they did, and oooooh:

shiny!


gfci!


lights! and fan! and did I mention recessed lights? (the fan shade was cracked, we need a new one, but still with the pretty pretty)

But more importantly, the plumbers were coming to connect the sink and faucet that friday--then revised to thursday. so counters HAD to be done by then. oy.

So we got cracking. The ikea birch butcherblock is pretty nice, and damn heavy. luckily, JBB had drawn the outline of the sink where the cutout should be before he left. it's pretty big, since we got the drainboard attached sink from elkay, so there was some debate as to whether we cut out the WHOLE hole, or just the sink part. After some checking of interwebs and sinkage, turns out I was right--whole hole. Dad did the actual cutting in several sections with his jigsaw to keep the big piece from dropping and splitting.

the leftover cutout


ta dah!


once that was done, it was all about getting the suckers into place. I sealed the cut edges in the hole with spar varnish, and then screwed the counter to the boxes and to the cover panel that is screwed to the wall to the left of the dishwasher to support the counter edge. then, dropped the sink in, using a shitload of clear silicone caulk.
.
looks pretty good, no?

Dad took the two pieces of countertop for the other side of the run back with him to attach them invisibly in a right angle, and brought them back the next day for installation. I got to do that part, mainly because I can haul myself inside that corner cabinet without busting my spine. sadly, we did not get any pictures of the beautiful join dad did.

What did we learn? Ikea instructions are good, but sometimes leave things out. Dad and JBB work very well together. Dad and I work well too, but with a whole lot more cursing and a lot of "stop being so damn whiny and just do it right" and "quit being a baby!" on both our parts. Poor mom. She avoids it as best she can, usually by volunteering to finish painting the trim elsewhere in the house.

next up?
hanging the doors, where we learn that I can understand ikea instructions quite well, and no one wants to believe me when I explain how they even give instructions on how to take things apart when you screw up. and dad has an excellent vocabulary of curses and likes to direct them at inanimate swedish objects.