Looking back on the last posting, I see that I had not resolved how the painting would go. This eventuated as a continuation of the basic color I have used on the eastern wall of this extended room...Cloud Burst, a sort of blue/grey that matches the skies we often see here in Corning. It is a very dense color and does well when broken up by other features (vs. and entire wall... which could be very depressing). This brought me to the question of what to do with the floor.
I had thought to use linoleum tiles and muddled along for a while trying various combinations. Then, Daniel (my contractor, who pays me the compliment from time to time that I am a person of vision; ah... flattery, how pleasant it is!) told me I could use a floating vinyl floor that could just sit on the existing floor. As it turned out, this changed the course of history, at least as far as my kitchen remodel was concerned.
Finally I settled on planks in the theme of Vintage Ash. An outrageous color, one might think, but one that maintains the theme of Cloud Burst on the walls and cabinet panels but also picks up the Crushed Orange of the trim. Once the flooring arrived (another story too complicated to tell), it burst on me that I would have to pull up the old linoleum (actually two layers) to avoid too much of a height mismatch between the floor in the living area and this new area. One and a half days of work with the heat gun and I had a heap of old linoleum out on the deck and down to the sub-floor once more. Up till now, there have been three successive layers of floor covering in this room, plus layer of 3/16 in ply, all shoddily done I might say. Hooray for the blessings of heat guns is all I can say of this dreary episode!
To end a possibly exceedingly boring narrative, I revert to a Before and After approach. Here is what we began with. Some things must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but from the moment I set eyes on that peninsula of cabinetry protruding so rudely into the living space, I knew it would have to go. Besides hiding the defunct dishwasher, it just got in the way all the time! This pic was taken February 18, around 2 PM, so you can see how pleasant was the fall of light through the French Doors. That cursed peninsula made it almost impossible to access the cupboards nearest the doors.
When I first began to lay the floor, I thought the color a tad dense and somewhat boring. What could I have been thinking,? I said to myself at the end of the first day's work.With this style of floating floor, the planks stick to each other (the temperature has to be at about 68 deg. F.). One has just one chance to get it right as it sticks better then Tar Baby (see the Uncle Remus story). Once one learns the trick however, it all goes smoothly
As the laying extended across the floor, with the varying light through the day and between days, the wisdom of the choice of this color has become increasingly evident. Much thanks to Uma and Daniel who encouraged me to go boldly with Vintage Ash!
The hardest bit of this was making the small cabinet box that extends the counter top to the doorway. This was challenging and exacting but ended up with the counter levels exactly matching. This is composed entirely of materials recycled from the demolition of that cursed peninsula.
The chronic leak from the old dishwasher led to water egress through the paper underlay of the old linoleum floor from the door jamb to alongside the stove so that, apart from the repair under the dishwasher, the floor, once exposed, needed a good deal of airing to dry out. On this account alone, I am very glad that I took this project on.
Apart from that, the end effect is very pleasing and the kitchen area is now much more ergonomic Some minor trim work is outstanding and I have to mill a joining strip between the two floors. The new floor is 1/8 inch higher than the floor in the living area, so I will have to make this up myself. The table saw will make that easy and I will use timber studs from the earlier demolition.as the stock for this.
1
