Countertops Part I - The Dude Abides

A couple weeks ago, Curt found a guy selling used wooden bowling lanes on craigslist. Now, we had already agreed on a different countertop, but after seeing these bowling lanes, I immediately wanted to buy all four of the lanes this guy had at $400 apiece and do our entire kitchen. After seeing them in person, I was even more convinced, especially the one that had been sanded and lacquered. I was not happy that Curt didn't love them as much as I did. Bowling lanes are so freaking cool, and even in a few of my favorite restaurants in Denver. Lanes in bigger cities can go for much higher than this guy was charging and I knew it was a steal, not to mention cheaper than any other countertop option we looked at. And green! Recycled! When sanded down, they look a lot like butcher block (these lanes don't have the markers, which I preferred). And in person, the sanded lane looked a lot like the exposed wooden beam running through our kitchen. I thought they would be the perfect contrast to everything else in the kitchen that would be new and modern. Curt was not convinced, but we mulled it over and after a week, came to a compromise: we would buy a single lane and use half for the island (we'd already planned on using butcherblock there anyway) and half on the part of the counter that forms the peninsula dividing the kitchen from the dining area. Back we went to meet this guy and pick up our lane.


Curt and I have encountered plenty of interesting, unique and downright bizarre people during this year-plus-long house project. That's to be expected when buying things used, discounted, online or otherwise a little out of the ordinary. So far, I can easily say Tom has taken the cake. He was, however, extremely cool. He lives in the building situated right next to the yards for the annual Denver Stock Show. Inside the building, it looked like an episode of Hoarders, but even weirder. After we looked at his sanded lane inside, he walked us outside and around the building where he had piles and piles of wood, scrap metal, carts, kitchen equipment, old cars, school buses and other oddities. While we were eyeing everything, he told us how he came to live in the building and how he wants to start a commune. Tom told us he's having a party this summer to showcase his wife's art so I hope we get to go back. I'm interested in more of his treasures.


He and Curt uncovered one of his bowling lanes and Curt used a saw to cut it in half so we could get it home (they came 22 feet long and 42 inches wide). Tom used his forklift to haul both halves onto our trailer and home with us they went. They made it up to Breck, but they were too heavy for Curt and another guy to carry up our stairs. Curt put one across some sawhorses and on Sunday I painted a chemical solvent on them to remove some of the glue that was used to hold down the durable surface on top of the lane that Curt peeled off. They've also been sanded now and you can see how much they look like beautiful butcherblock. I'm beyond excited to put them in. This weekend, Curt is going to load it back on the trailer and drive it out of the garage, around the back of the house and up an incline so they can walk it through the back patio doors and into the kitchen. 

Makeshift firepits

This is with the outer plastic layer peeled off - the white stuff is glue

A lot less glue after slathering it with an adhesive remover

After sanding, no glue! So pretty. We have to cut a bit of length off so we will remove that damaged portion in the lower right corner.

Kitchen Progress Part I

Last Saturday we finally got to see our first room take shape. The most important room - the kitchen! The base for the cabinets was put back in all around the room, and then cabinet boxes started going up all around the walls. IKEA has a great rail system for installation that made the process much easier. Everything about their kitchen products has been incredibly smart and well designed and I would buy another kitchen from them in a heart beat. We even dropped one of the upper cabinets off the rail during hanging (jury is still out on whether it was my fault for being handed the wrong bolts for the job, or Curt for putting a heavy drill in the cabinet before checking to see if it was hung...) and it left nary a scratch or dent on the thing. 


Once all the uppers were hung, the base boxes could be put in place and straightened. By Saturday night, it was amazing how different the room, and the whole house, felt to us. We had plywood over the tops as makeshift counters and all of the sudden, our paper plates were in a cabinet right next to a microwave sitting in the counter. We weren't moving our food and makeshift cooking tools and clothing and tools from room to room. Things started to have a home in a place that made sense and was finally somewhat convenient. It may have just been the dusty paper plates, plastic cups, plastic silverware and hoarded condiments we'd been moving around from room to room over the past year, but it was still like night and day. 


We had a spot where our measurements were off. By some miracle, two cabinets were left unopened and unassembled, and one of those was the incorrect size, meaning we can return it. Other than that, everything came out looking straight, level, flush where it needed to be flush, and all around pretty freaking exciting.

Dark Saturday morning from rain and hail storms outside

The first cabinets went up in the right corner (fridge will be on the right wall and the oven will be on the left wall)

The cabinet in the left corner is the one we dropped and the open spot to the left of it is where our missing cabinet will go

The white upper cabinets to the far right will have metal and glass front doors that open horizontally with gas lifts (the hole is for the 2nd dishwasher)

The base cabinets look wood toned, but everything on the bottom will be black once the doors, drawer fronts and trim are put on

Tiling's my favorite!

Finally, yesterday I got to lay tile! In comparison to many of the projects we have done in the last year, tile is one thing I have done a few times and love. First, we tiled the living and dining area in my condo which everyone told me not to do, and I loooooved it. I wished I had done it way sooner. We tiled bathroom countertops in our last house in Washington, as well as the entry way and kitchen there too. I also did the tile floor in the basement bathroom in our previous house in Denver and helped Curt grout and finish the tile he put up in the shower. Tile is fun.

We have gone back and forth, back and forth over all sorts of ideas with the tile in the different rooms, from the floors to the tub surrounds to our shower. While I had some lofty thoughts originally, last week I really just wanted to buy some damn tile and get it on the floor. So on Saturday morning, we bought an entire crate - 160 tiles of 18"x18" travertine - and hauled it up to our house, all 1,800 pounds of it. The benefit of buying the crate was that Floor & Decor loaded it into our trailer using their forklift, unlike our previous experiences of loading our own car with many boxes of tile at the store, and then unloading it at our house. Not a fun chore when planning on spending the next day or so on hands and knees laying tile. We had Sam unload it all, over two days, which is one of the best things I've ever paid $12 per hour for. He had to go up two flights of stairs for most of it, and I didn't! We have used travertine before and it's oddly one of the cheapest options for something commonly used in renovations and high-end homes, and one of our favorites. There were cheaper options than what we bought, and more expensive too, but we went with the largest tile size available with a higher quality rating, which means less fill and holes and variation in color.

We spent Saturday on a different project (photos of that to come) but Sunday out came the tile saw, spacers, trowel and mortar. Curt was convinced I could use the tile saw and cut and lay the tile at the same time, but in the end we worked together most of the day. We were much faster because I could lay mortar, tile and spacers while Curt cut the tiles. We started with the floor in the upstairs bathroom, and the first row of tile on the tub surround, which was my least favorite. I've never put up tile on the wall and it was nothing like laying it on the floor, but I managed to get a level row up before we moved downstairs to our master bathroom. With a much larger room, I was able to lay a lot more whole tiles and moved a lot faster. We've never done an offset pattern but it worked out pretty well in spite of not a whole lot of forethought, planning or paying attention to the laser level lines.

The upstairs bathroom - the tile looks a LOT darker than it did in the store, especially on the wall, and those aren't wet, so who knows how it'll all come out!

Master bathroom - my excitement for tile was officially dead after this part, we finished up around 6pm

Paint is done!

Instead of doing tile last weekend like we wanted to do, we ended up spending all day Sunday taping and prepping to paint, and then 9 hours Monday painting our entire house - all three floors - except the two garages. We couldn't haul all of the tile up at once, and the paint was delivered and therefore already at our house, so we changed our plans to work with what we had. Since Curt used a sprayer, it was easier to paint everything the same color, including the ceilings, which is why we ordered 75 gallons. We used about 50 gallons (paint and primer were combined which saved us a lot of trouble). Three of us followed Curt around with rollers and brushes to touch up spots and make sure there were no drips. It was a long, messy, but very exciting day. A little nerve-wracking about the color, but there's no going back now! We will probably add different colors on a few walls down the road but I'm in no rush to blow paint out my nose again anytime soon. Now that the walls are painted, this weekend we can put in our kitchen cabinets that were assembled two weekends ago! And hang a few more lights. Hopefully lay some tile too.

Saturday, we taped all the windows, doors and exposed wood and steel beams (this is in our master bathroom looking into the bedroom)

Sunday, paint was sprayed. LOTS of paint. 

Hello, Roman Plaster. Please look good!

Kitchen