Small Kithen Repair/Remodel
Like so many things, this kitchen repair morphed into a minor kitchen remodel out of necessity. Quite simply, what needed repaired was underneath the kitchen cabinets you see on the left in the photo at right. In fact, the visible part of the problem was right in front of the open dishwasher door, but it also went beneath the cabinet and extended clear to the doorway you see there at the far end, and from there across the kitchen to beneath the refrigerator (which is out of the shot, but just to the right of the door).
That meant, simply to get at the problem, that long cabinet you see there had to go. It was 14 feet long!
Now, this house was built in the 1950s, and the linoleum on the floor looked like it probably dated to the 1970s. In the foyer (through that door you see there) was a beautiful slate floor. Out of the picture (in fact, where I was standing to take the picture) was an equally gorgeous long-board oak floor that was original to the house. So, to line things up, the flooring installer had installed ¾ inch particle board, also called “underlayment”.
For generations particle board was the product of choice for flooring installers. It’s basically sawdust that’s held together by glues called “binders”. Formica® is made the same way. The difference between the two is that the binder used in Formica® is both waterproof and very, very hard! The binder used in particle board is neither waterproof nor as hard as Formica®. So when particle board gets wet it soaks up water like a sponge. And if it stays wet long enough, it reverts back to its original state: Sawdust!
That’s what had happened here. According to the home owner, there had been a pinhole water leak beneath the sink that had gone undiscovered for nobody knows how long. Then, even after the leak had been stopped, walking on the wet particle board compressed the particle board (now sawdust), in front of the high traffic areas in front of the dishwasher and sink.
The leak had apparently gone undetected for some time, because not only was the particle board degraded, but some of the planks that made up the sub-floor were as well. You can see from the photo at left where I’ve replaced a length of sub-flooring plank right in front of the door. Out of the picture at the bottom were two other planks that had to be replaced as well. One was completely rotted away, the others were so far gone there was nothing left to nail to.
On the left hand side of the picture you can see the sink plumbing hanging there, and a new piece of underlayment has already been laid.
Rather than replacing the old particle board with new, which would leave the new floor vulnerable to the same fate as the old, I used AC exterior plywood. It’s a slightly different thickness than particle board. But we knew going in that there was going to be a lot of prep work to ready the new floor for covering.
That gray compound you see in the two photos is “floor leveling compound”. It fills the gaps between pieces of underlayment and raises any low spots there might be so that the floor is level for the new covering.
Because the client chose marmoleum® for the new floor covering, we knew that this floor was going to be difficult. Marmoleum® is a difficult product to install to begin with, and it doesn’t like floors that flex. Because the girders in this house were spaced at 4 feet O.C., there’s a lot of flex! Yet another reason to use plywood underlayment. The to make sure the whole floor worked as one big unit, I glued the underlayment to the subfloor and screwed it down.
These next two pictures show the kitchen with the marmoleum® down. (I took two pictures, one from each end of the kitchen. The color is “cardinal”.) The space you see there at the left in the first picture (that would be on the right in the second) is where the new kitchen cabinet will go. The width of the flooring was just perfect. The amount cut from under the cabinet filled in where the stove and fridge will go with almost no waste.
In fact, that little piece you see on the floor there is all that’s left! How’s that for a tight fit. The only complication to the whole business was the door into the laundry room (not pictured). The client bought extra flooring to put in the laundry room. But the two widths together don’t work as well together as just the kitchen alone. To complicate matters further, the laundry room floor is to be done later — meaning something temporary had to be done in the doorway. In the end, we tacked a bar down over the edge of the new marmoleum® flooring to protect it until the two can be seamed together.
In this last picture you can see we’re almost done. The client decided to have her plumber install the sink rather than us. The chap in the background there is from the cabinet shop. He’s removing the counter tops from the old cabinets. They look so nice the client decided to go ahead and change out all the old ones — including the breakfast bar. And, she wants to paint and do the other finish work herself as well.
All in all it came out rather nice and we were able to keep the cost down to within the client’s budget. Not an easy task at times on older houses. Often times opening things up is like opening a can of worms. One thing leads to another, and another, and another until you’re way over budget projections and nobody (including us contractors) are happy.
Preventing that from happening is something of an art!
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