This Lo Life

Today was our last day together because Clement and Mr. Gee were going to head home the next day. Knowing this, I asked them to work on the installation of the three pantries in the family room area. By now, all of the kitchen cabinets were completed. All it needed were some small details...and one thing. We discovered the microwave and the stove openings did not line up directly over each other. The offset was small, only 3/4". If you didn't know about it, you probably wouldn't have noticed it. However, we did and we weren't sure what to do about it. We could either detach and move the wall cabinets over and insert a filler strip to make it all flush or we could move the base cabinets. We were not excited about moving the base cabinets because we were concerned with what would happen to the counter top height we had established and the possibility of having to unfasten some large and cumbersome base cabinets. I decided to leave it alone for now and think about what...

We continued to work on the base cabinet installation, which included a corner base cabinet, some drawers, the fridge enclosure and cutting holes out in the sink base for the water valve connections. The biggest challenge of the day was trying to level the corner lazy susan base cabinet. We could not get the thing to level and then one of the EZ Level feet broke so we had to shim that corner with traditional wood shims. I referred to the EZ Level website and found they had specific instructions and tips on how to install such cabinets. It helped to explain the challenges with the corner cabinet but it didn't give us much direction on how to fix it. In the end, we got it level and secured it to the wall so it wouldn't go anywhere. Brian cutting out access holes in the sink base The sink base with access holes Allison helped us get organized While we were installing the cabinet located above the fridge enclosure, the cabinet somehow got loose and hit me in the ...

Today was a little slower going than yesterday. We finished completing the EZ Level installations. I discovered the $30 boring bit I bought from them was pretty much useless because it wasn't long enough to bore a complete hole through the toe kick. This was a major disappointment so I turned to the good 'ole spade bit which did the job. We also worked on finding the high point on the floor of the kitchen to find the standard height at which all of the base cabinets should follow. Otherwise, we'd have base cabinets that rose and fell with the height of the floor. Then it was time to address the middle wall cabinets and the issue of not being flush. I think it was Clement's idea to take down the right hand and the middle wall cabinets and then add shims to the back of the cabinets in order to make the entire cabinet run align together. I agreed and that evening, there were five of us guys together at the condo. Earlier that evening, I wondered to myself, "How ...

I want to begin by giving thanks God for those who helped me. Specifically, my friend Clement and his father-in-law, Mr. Gee for coming down from northern California. In addition, I want to thank Joel and Nate helping out on Saturday night. This job could not have been accomplished with so much help, support, perspectives and labor. All of these guys were an answer to prayer... This is it! Showtime! The moment that I'd been waiting for all of these months, installing the kitchen cabinets. I did tons of reading, watching YouTube videos, asking people for advice and now it's time to actually do the install. I was really nervous because I'd never tried such a project and all of my knowledge was book knowledge, nothing experiential. But I think I had a good idea about the process (I pretty much followed the video tutorial featured on the  EZ Level  website) and the things to keep in mind. We decided to use GRK fasteners with the star bit because they were the right length a...

We took a few weeks off from the condo after finishing up the door frames because we needed a break, my streak of Thursdays off came to an end and the holiday season began. We got started back up last week by prepping for the upcoming kitchen install on Dec 15-18. A dear friend is bringing his relative who has many decades of experience doing DIY projects and he graciously agreed to help install our kitchen cabinets. Joel and I cleared out the kitchen area and arranged the cabinets to be installed and began marking out the positions of the cabinets. Allison and I went back and took all of the doors off of the cabinets and labelled them and the cabinets they are associated with. We did this because the cabinets will now be lighter and easier to move and not have free swinging doors to bang us up with while we do the install. I also marked the positions of all of studs with my new stud finder, the Stud Finder-Pro from EZ Level. I highly recommend this product because it use magn...