Chris is Awesome

Chris had the day off on Wednesday. When I left for work I took this picture

I knew he'd be working on the cabinet while I was at work, so I set the camera down and said, "You can take pictures, but don't feel obligated..." I secretly meant, "PLEASE TAKE PICTURES!" Chris indulges my constant picture taking mostly by rolling his eyes

(you like Chris' stained finger from our flooring adventures?)

Or by making funny faces

But mostly it's the back of his head

Or even just his back

So I wasn't really expecting Chris to take too many pictures because the man finds actually working more important (the nerve!) But when I got a text while at work of his amazing project, I was even more dumbfounded to come home to a camera of photos of his handiwork.

As he finished laying down all the herringbone he set up the level to make a perfect cut on the front


He did the same thing for the sides, and had to cut them on a more detailed angle to match the open shelves on the sides of the cabinet

Then he had to cut the interior angle that will allow the counter to slip inside the alcove


Look at that beautiful curved corner

To conceal the small gaps here and there Chris slipped a little wood glue into the cracks

Then he sanded and brushed the dust into the cracks


Would you like to now see its amazing-ness? This is the text I got while I was at work

With Chris saying, "Still needs some work."

HOLY CRAP THAT'S AMAZING!

When I came home from work (my 3rd extra innings game already this year) I saw this madness

That's the beautiful herringbone all done and the face frames starting to get installed

Even though you can't see it all clearly with the clamping madness (Chris likes to make sure those face frames are there to stay), I LOVE THE HERRINGBONE

I'm telling you, I'm a lucky girl that I've got that Christopher :) He builds an amazingly awesome counter and he takes pictures of it :)

This weekend we'll be working on doing a final sand down to make sure it's all nice and smooth. Then we'll install it. After, I'll stain and poly the face frames and then apply several layers of tung oil to the top. But this weekend we're spending a day helping out a friend, we've got family visits, and I've got a race on Memorial Day so we're jam packed. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we get everything done to share with you by Tuesday morning!

The Countertop has Begun

Since figuring out the wood we wanted to use for the hutch countertop we've been working on building the actual hutch. And now that the carcass is built, face frames installed, doors and drawers installed and the side shelves are installed, we've finally come down to the homestretch of assembly. That doesn't mean it'll go really fast, it just means the to do list is shorter.

We bought the countertop wood about a month ago and set up a jig and I cut everything down


As I was cutting all the pieces down I tossed them into buckets to keep the two species of wood separate and organized

And then they sat there for several weeks until we finally caught up and got to working on the counter this past weekend.

First up, Chris made a template

Then he cut down a piece of plywood that fit the space exactly (that took a while) that the herringbone will be attached to

Then we had to figure out which way we were going to alternate the two species of the wood for the herringbone pattern

Option 1

or Option 2

Chris preferred Option 1, but I liked Option 2 better. He didn't really care too much either way, so he let me pick. Option 2 it is!

Then we had to figure out how the hell we were going to attach it all to the plywood. This sounds like a simple decision, but we wanted to make sure things were level, even, strong and simple. After much deliberation we decided we would build V's in each species of wood, then attach those V's piece by piece to the plywood - gluing them down, then nailing them to the plywood from the bottom.

To build the V's we went through all the wood to make sure we had square cuts. We had a few that were rejects

Then I went through the wood and picked the "bad" side (maybe grain that wasn't as attractive or there were markings on the wood) placed those face up to indicate that would be the bottom side where we would drill the pocket screw...

Then Chris pre-drilled for the pocket screw

Next, I put some wood glue on the end (avoiding the part close to what would be the eventual top of the counter top) and then screwed them together

Our assembly line worked really well, but when we got to the Chechen, things didn't go as well. Chechen is SUPER dense and so pre-drilling and then drilling for the pocket screw was really difficult and didn't look very good because things got a little wonky. So we scraped the pocket screw plan for the Chechen

We had all the Sapele done

So we figured having 1/2 the wood in V's would make it go fast enough, then we would just place the Chechen in one by one.

The next step was laying out the pattern. Like we did with the fireplace, we placed the point at the very front so we knew the pattern was in a straight line and even

We made sure to line up the first point with the center of the counter so that the over hang was even on each side and then Chris started assembling.

First, he slathered on wood glue

Then he put the wood in place and sometimes had to shimmy things around to make sure it all lined up even

Then he clamped it down and nailed it in place

And he just kept repeating the process

In hindsight we shouldn't have built the V's because it actually made things more difficult. If they weren't 100% perfect they threw off the pattern by hairlines of an inch. That sounds like we're being crazy, but with a pattern like this every slight imperfection adds up to bigger gaps


When we sand it all down, we'll put in some wood glue in the bigger gaps and try to fill it with the sanding dust to conceal the gaps as best we can.

Chris worked on it for several hours on Sunday and made some great progress

But the tiny gaps started adding up, and all of our "perfect" 2" x 8" pieces weren't going to do the trick to fill them, so we need to purchase more of the wood so we can cut it down to a slightly larger size to make up the difference.

It's looking great though!

Cooking Particles

Our pretty painted pass through looks like a disaster

If anyone needs information for voting in California, we've got you covered


The problem (besides the clear disorganization) are these two bottles

I'm keeping it real here: we've got the unfortunate circumstance of cooking particles. No matter how many times I wipe those damn bottles after I use them, they get shit all over the pass through

Let's all say it together: gross. I set about un-grossifying it.

In came the sand paper


After I sanded (100 then 220 - I skipped the 150 out of laziness) I went outside to get the paint. We mixed in Floetrol


Floetrol helps level the paint out to "eliminate" brush and roller marks. It doesn't eliminate them, but it makes it better. For paint I used Kelly-Moore water/oil hybrid, which has quickly become a new favorite. We've used it on lots of projects (my parent's built ins, our front room chairs, the inside of the hutch). It's great because it's got the durability of oil-based paint with the ease of use and clean-up of water based. It's a dream.

ANYWAY, the Floetrol and white water/oil hybrid got mixed together and I brought it inside to paint the pass through

I didn't want to destroy the new beautiful paint with more eventual stupid veggie oil drips so I went out to Marshall's and spent $10 on a nice little tray

I ripped off the sticker, cleaned up the residue with goo gone, gave it a quick wash and tossed our cooking paraphernalia on top

It looks a lot better (more organized and less haphazard) and now we'll be able to clean the tray by tossing it in the dishwasher when veggie oil inevitably gets on it

You like our tupperware of Kosher salt? We're classy over here.