11: Kitchen, Bath, and Flooring

All along, the main goal was to get the house "finished" enough so that an appraiser would approve a loan.  With that loan we could pay off the money we had borrowed from my parents and grandparents.

By the spring of 1991, one year into this project, we were still living in an apartment not too far away and struggling with money.  I was doing small contracting jobs to bring in a little cash, but still spent forty hours or so every week working on our building with the goal of getting it functional, allowing us to move out of the apartment.  That was about to happen. 

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Once most of the drywall was taped, sanded and primed the dirtiest part of the work was over and we could move in.  This was in May, 1991, fourteen months after we had bought the place.  There were still plywood floors; I came to think of it as an extended camping trip.

(Click on any image for a larger view.)

One of the first new things we bought was a refrigerator.  I was excited.

We bought a used gas stove/range and hauled it up those shaky back stairs.

That range found a temporary home in the laundry closet, which had a gas valve.  Until I could build the kitchen cabinets there was no place to put the gas cooktop we wanted.  We would eventually put the range down in the rental unit.

For our temporary kitchen counters, I put pieces of plywood up against the wall, covered them with polyurethane, and hooked up a sink.

As the summer progressed, I began installing the oak flooring.  About 1500 square feet.  I'm being watched by my friend Luis.

After I got the flooring installed, though not yet sanded and finished, we moved into the front room.

Looking south in the front room.  The dark square opening on the left wall holds our fireplace.  Eventually I'd build a mantel.  Eventually.

These are the kitchen cabinets, still missing their countertops, that I made.  This photo is a little out of sequence.  We would use the temporary kitchen with plywood countertops for about two years.