Flow's Fantastic Fixer-Upper

So, part of buying an old farm is you get to do the upkeep on said farm. There are three wells on the property, two of which need to get working, stat. We're in a drought, so we've been pushing the first one pretty hard. Things started to fail last weekend when the previous landowner was up for the closing. This turned out to be advantageous as he took pity on me and cut me a deal on the remaining contents of the barn.

This well is the oldest construction on the property, only 35' deep, but hand dug with a diameter of roughly 4'. Goddamn those oldtimers were hardcore. The well house itself is about 20 years old but the well underneath it, 100 years old. It had a worn out jet pump. I hate jet pumps, and in this situation there's no need for it, it's a pretty shallow well. So, I replaced everything. New pressure switch, tank, pump, plumbing, everything.

I get everything in today, I'm ready to go, I tighten the 1" union, and... spray. Spray, spray fucking spray, the fucking brand new galvanized union won't seal.

In desperation I dug through my grandpa's old pipe fitting box, oh look, a worn the fuck out 1" union! Sealed perfectly.

Helps if you don't cross thread the nut on the union.

The 12 foot ceilings in the winery were easier than that garage.

In the garage I just scraped and painted as we wanted to get it done but didn't really care how it looked. Left the paper up just took off the popcorn. All I used was Kilz as the paint as we weren't looking to totally finish it off. We will in the rest of the house though.

We need to start moving stuff from the house into the garage so we can start tearing it out.

Question. Can you spray a popcorn ceiling with more popcorn stuff then knock that down a bit so you still have some texture but it's not popcorn texture?

Ahhh, don't know exactly what you're asking. Do you mean blow on more popcorn stuff and hit it with a trowel to flatten it out?

I suppose you could.

If you remove as much of it as you can you can either take drywall mud that has been prepped to shoot through a texture gun and knock that down or you can do a stomp and drag with a ceiling brush and drywall mud, and take a 12" trowel and knock down the tips of what the brush leaves. You have to do it in one shot though while the stuff is wet or that is a can of worms best not opened.

Or you can stomp it on and leave the tips but that looks tacky and tends to be a bitch to clean of that tomato paste volcano project the youngins and flow do in the future explodes.

I can give you a step by step on what you need and how to do it once you decide what look you want. You can practice on a piece of sheetrock till you are comfortable tackling it.

If you try to roll on the popcorn there will likely be visable tracks from the edges of the roller. Just a warning on that, even with a cross hatch pattern it tends to show.

You could get flow to break out his compressor and you can rent a texture hopper at HD or the rental place or if you do a stomp and drag you wouldn't need that.

Either way with the mud you can maniulate it and cover any remnants of popcorn bumpage/craters of old paint and the stuff. You can probably blow on some mud and make it smooth provided all the spongy pieces are gone.

They've also got this "orange peel" texture. Not as aggressive as popcorn, but still hides imperfections. Not sure what it would cost in bulk.

That's kinda where I was going frontline. Caboose I really was wondering if new compound could.be put on and trowled over to knock it down.

Or I may just cover what is there with bead board and tin ceiling look alike as well. Hmmm.

Ah. Interesting. There is a very good chance that I have a second layer of drywall on my living room ceiling. Maybe you could do like Caboose suggested for the walls with the ceiling--just zap some fresh drywall over it?

Ehh we'll see with the walls. Hopefully we can salvage them from the glue of the panelling if not we will deal. My worry at the moment is the ceiling. It's incredibly hot when you have to tape off all the vents and close all doors, and so on.

My ceilings in the den downstairs at the house were so bad with stomped mud sans drag that I knocked as many of the tits off as I could and put another layer of 5/8" rock I had laying around up.

Added to the fire rating in the process.

The tin ceiling sounds very interesting...

Yea, nothing like having to mud an entire wall smooth to make the wrist ache.

While these aren't the best images they do, I think give an idea of what the dimensions are. I would much prefer to keep the sink under the window out of convenience sake (slab floor). And the second picture is of the north wall and what I kinda want there.

The main thing about the north wall that I'm tied to is that in the middle I want full depth cabinets that all my appliances go on. I want something like a roll top desk to come down and cover them all so I don't have to see them. But I don't want a roll top, those are annoying, I want it to be like the IKEA cabinets that lift from the bottom and open up not out. Then I would like for them to go back into the cabinet. I do know this will be custom but I think it is worth it. I'm game for any other idea ya'll might have. Maybe the big pull cabinets on the left and who knows what everywhere else. I'm open there.



The North wall for this house is at the far end of the kitchen from the utility room.

What you may want to do for a roll top type deal is to have one constructed using a tambour material specifically sized for the countertop area you want to put them on. Simple enough to make really once you have decided on a style and color for the cabinets.

You can buy tambour in different styles and profiles as well. A quick search found this shot.



You can use this stuff easily by making a pair of tracks for it to run in on each side and an easily made roller assembly at the top for it to roll up into.

I can come up with a lot more on this if interested. Wilsonart made this stuff in sheets iIrc and you could get it with colored laminate sections instead of wood.
Neat stuff to work with.


I agree about the sink staying centered with the window. That is a must for any of the kitchens I have ever designed.

I mean, who wants to stare at the wall while you're doing the dishes, right?

edit: Sorry the pic is so big, I can spoiler it if you like.

My Kitchen aid appliances, Blender, Food Processor, and Mixer.

Swing up 90 degrees. I want it to open like this but after it opens I want it to slide back into the cabinet and mostly out of the way.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99893384/

The 143 is the width of the North wall. On the right side is carpet to the living room but there is a 2 foot wall giving the illusion of a separation between the living room and the kitchen.

I have more pics to upload in a bit.

Ahh, that works too, just limited to the size of the uppers and the distance between the uppers and tops if you want it to dissapear entirely.

Before







During

Peninsula, not island.

So you did have the furniture too! Yup, I think Flow should've just grew a big moustache & sideburns and y'all should've gotten period-appropriate clothing from Goodwill. You could've charged people admission. It would be like Historic Jamestown or something.

It's too bad you'll be getting rid of the dining room lamp. I had one like that in my 1920s Portland studio apartment and my friend in Minneapolis has one in his kitchen. The retractable spool in the bulb that lets you vary the height is kind of neat.

I mean the whole thing is gawdawful ugly, but neat.

There will be no carpet in the kitchen. That whole area is now the kitchen.

We are going to put in a table for the moment with the possibility of an island later on if we want to go permanent. But keep it changeable for now. We have some Walnut boards roughly 8-12 ft long that still have the bark edge in some places. We would like to find someone who can work wood and have them make the table.

If it doesn't come out like this farm house you should consider yourselves failures.

http://freshome.com/2012/09/09/cozy-modern-farmhouse-set-in-a-blooming-orchard/

I'm gonna be looking at some cabinet makers work over the next couple weeks, I'm reasonably handy, but what should I be looking for?

This. Can't be said enough. ASB or particleboard will NOT stand up to any kind of moisture.

Design, materials used, warranties, and serviceability.

Paint? Stain? Clear coat? What are you thinking of when you consider the finish?

Prefab? Custom? Some prefabs can be customized in the field. I do it all the time.

Prefabs have a wide array of components that can be assembled to make damned near anything you want with bread boxes, wine bottle/glass racks, appliance storage, underlighting, overlighting, trim up the wazoo, all kinds of stuff.

If your're going to keep the place then by all means choose a cabinet and door style that will be something that you won't grow tired of. You can get glass doors, reeded, arched, cathedral topped, a plethora of designs are out there.

Also I'd consider something that will accept paint in the future should you want to change that.

Wood type is another thing for consideration. Oak, maple, and cherry are the most previlent but there are other options dependent on if you want them prefinished or want to paint them yourself like poplar and some imported pines from Brazil and other types like mahogany and ash for stains/clearcoats.

Plywood sides and backs on the boxes cost a bit more but in the long run they will last considerably longer than their particle board and mdf counterparts.

Hinges are another thing. Visable, concieled, some open further than others on the concieled types. Visable types can accent the look you're going for as well.
There are litterally hundreds of types out there.

Some door designs use a vacuum formed pvc over a mdf shaped door, avoid these unless you want to have to change them in the future. You can change out the doors with something else provided you maintain a standard sized cabinet though. They are easy to clean granted but will likely yellow over time. I've used them but years later they look like shit and the "thermofoil" lets go of the formed board and will have a noticable space between them and the core.

Nautica mentioned frameless which is a european design that uses melamine which is a thinly laminated particle/mdf board. Ok for some designs but I rarely use melemine cabinets in any of my kitchen jobs. Personally, and no offense intended to nautica, they are cheap and really intended for short term applications where you toss them to remodel. I use the stuff for office and commercial applications mostly. Think Ikea self assembled units. Ok if that is what you want though, just realize the life expectancy is much less than the wooden conterparts.

Hell, one could order face frames with the doors and trim for them in a particular style and type and have someone make the boxes for them to avoid the particle board and thin back boxes that are the standard. I've done that more than once.

You could even go stainless.


Give us an idea of what you guys have in mind.

If you have a floor plan with measurements I could put that to use figuring what would fit where as well.