Friday, September 23, 2011

The things I'll do for an externally venting range hood

We knew that there wasn't an existing exhaust vent in our kitchen when we purchased the house.  It seemed a trivial thing to install--run it between the floors in the ceiling out the back or front of the house (giving us some options!).  Unfortunately, the construction of our townhouse is crazy, and there are random perpendicular, load-bearing joists in all directions from our range, so literally no access between the floors for the exhaust.  Our contractor confirmed this when he opened the ceiling, ending the email with "Guess you'll have to get a recirculating hood".  No!  I will NOT have a recirculating hood!  I had a brilliant (foolish?) idea while in the shower to build a soffit to house the ductwork, but since we already had our cabinets, the ductwork has to make a convoluted path from the hood, up into the ceiling in the kitchen, dropping down into the soffit in the dining room to finally exit the back of our townhouse.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Lights--LEDs in the lead

We are doing our kitchen renovation with permits, which means that the construction has to comply with all the county and state regulations in order to pass inspection.  And California loves their rules and regulations.  Which means that a simple (ha!) kitchen reno involves replacing stuff you didn't anticipate.  Like the lights.  They looked fine to me, but here in California, we have to abide by Title 24.  In effect, 50% of the lighting in a kitchen must be high efficiency, by wattage.  So for a singular 65W incandescent, you need 5-13W CFLs.  Translated into real-world practicality, my whole kitchen was slated to be lit with recessed fluorescent lighting.  Yack!

No, it wasn't this month's article in Wired that convinced us (which I actually only just read), but after poring over the actual regulations in Title 24 and doing some research, we opted to go instead with LED downlights.  For the record, the GU24 socket is what makes it acceptable with Title 24 so don't try to install an Edison-style housing socket--even for an LED lamp--and expect to pass inspection.  The CREE LEDs we're going with seem almost too good to be true--25 year bulb life, dimmable (to 5% with the CR6 model), incandescent-like quality of light (2700K--I know way too much about lighting now), and cool to the touch.  I guess the "too good to be true" resides in the price; at $52 a bulb they are not cheap, but 25 year bulb-life and 80% savings on the electrical bill?  Sign me up.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Kitchen Remodel

I've been resisting the urge to post about our kitchen remodel, since my focus here is more sewing and cooking.  But since all my time is now devoted to the remodel and I haven't had any time to sew, there is a serious dearth of posts lately.  Besides, maybe someone else can benefit from what I've learned!  This has certainly been a crash course in home ownership and renovations, and I've just bought an industrial-sized bottle of acetaminophen to deal with the stress headaches.

So here is the before photo:
I purposely took the photo to illustrate that there was this large wasted space on the right, intended to be a breakfast nook.  But it completely cramped the actual kitchen workspace and I'd rather have a functioning kitchen than an eat-in table (especially when there is an adjacent dining room).  Of course, what I'd REALLY like is both a functional kitchen AND a place where the kids can eat breakfast or do homework, so that is what we strived to accomplish with the reorganization of the space.  Even with the kitchen completely torn-down and cabinets ordered, we still don't have a perfectly clear plan, but there are a few options.  Other things needed for the kitchen: gas line for the stove and exhaust venting.

Yesterday, all of our brand-new appliances arrived (save the hood), and they are sitting in my living room.  Luckily, we don't live there yet!   At the end of Day 1 of renovations, we checked on the kitchen after hours, and they had completely ripped out everything.  Wahoo!