Thanks; no kids are a big part of why this is happening now instead of next year. The lack of a dishwasher is the biggest problem right now. I could probably find a way to rig up something, but the shutoff valves are in bad shape and someone plumbed the thing straight in somehow. I had to cap off the entire thing for the time being.

This weekend I'm hoping to get the barrier in place under the kitchen so that's all sealed off and if I'm lucky, run the power lines for the oven and steam oven, its water supply and drain and the ice maker line. The only thing I have to do after that before the subfloor can start going in permanently is to cut the pieces. It's just in time for jury duty on Monday, then a trip to St Louis the rest of the week for work.

After being out of the state for a week I've been able to work on the place a bit more. Unfortunately it's not that interesting to look at because nearly everything has been either in the walls or under the floor. So far I have...

- Rewired the wall oven circuit (3 wire -> 4 wire)
- Installed the wiring for the combi-steam oven
- Put in a water line and space for a drain line for the steam oven in case we go with Gaggenau instead of Miele, or for future use years from now when more of these things are plumbed in.
- Shimmed the last pier and beam
- Finished the crawlspace encapsulation
- Subfloor is FINALLY installed, but only the first 3 rows for now.

I'm meeting up with the civil engineer across the street soon about removing the wall. Due to the way the roof is shaped it's looking like a 16" LVL will be required to get more than 10 feet of open space but I'm not sure how much farther that will get me. Soon I'll be removing the ceiling in the living room so everything can be finalized and so his construction company can get to work. I'm also starting the overhead lighting design for the kitchen tomorrow.

Fun stuff...

Here's the first version of the kitchen lighting design. The 8 foot ceilings + the modern design have really caused us to focus on recessed LED lighting. I'm thinking 6" cans with an edison base with Cree CR6 bulbs. At 625 lumens each, the huge size of the room brings the total number of lights needed to reach 35 lumens/square foot to 15. I didn't take into account lighting from any adjacent rooms when drawing up the plan. Should I have?

Whoah. Whoah. That is WAY too many lights. Re-visit your calculations or your design problem; there's no reason that you should need that much. You could land airplanes with that setup.

I have 6x 65w incandescent can lights in a 30' x 15' space with a ceiling that angles up to 16', and it's more than bright enough to conduct a white-glove inspection by. If I wanted it brighter, I could probably put in LED lights or brighter fluorescent bulbs. The 12'x24' kitchen at my previous rental place had two can lights and a large over-table pendant fixture. My kitchen, which is about 10'x20', has two pendants for an 8' bar (any more would look WEIRD), a pendant over a desk, and eight small halogen spots on a flexible track for task lighting. In that small amount of space (the track's only about 10' long the way it's set up, and has to hit every area of two sides of a galley kitchen from both the left and right sides), that much light is definitely enough to land planes by.

I think you're only taking into account direct ray exposure when you're considering the calculations. You don't seem to be taking into account reflection off of other surfaces. I could possibly see this much light in a room that was otherwise an absolute cave with heavy paneled ceilings and every surface covered in a dark stained wood and dark carpet, but only in 4" cans.

With 6" cans every other foot, you're going to be able to get a tan in there.

I modified the design some since then... they are now 4" cans at 575 lumen each (Cree LEDs). The row of two x three in the peninsula half is only one row centered in the middle of the room. The rest of the kitchen hasn't changed that much but I am tempted to continue the one row through the middle of the room all the way through, and have another row of 2 or 3 by the two halls in the lower left.

Flooring will be a lighter color wood (maple?), countertops are white quartz and the cabinets amedium/slightly dark wood. I've never done lighting design... at this point i'm tempted to get some cans and bulbs, and just experiment before fully installing anything.

I would do that. I would also find a few homes that have can lighting installed and compare how many lights they have to how many you're planning. One thing that would help in the diagram is indicating where the table would be. Nine lights, 4" or not, is excessive in a 10x12 area (on the left of your diagram). 10x12 is the size of an average to small bedroom.

I know that the 8 35w halogen in my kitchen, which is only a little smaller than your cooking area, is far too much. But due to the directional nature of what I had to do in there, it was the minimum number that worked.

If I was you, I'd run three six inch cans down the middle of the kitchen work area for general lighting and then install some form of task lighting (under cabinet or other) in specific work areas. Then I would hang a larger over-table fixture or a cluster of four can lights over the table area. This is in addition to the pendant lights over the bar top.

How do you currently have this wired? Or is it open? I have my own hassle going on and haven't been paying attention.

[This message has been edited by superspeck (edited 10/17/2013 12:07a).]

I wish there was something we could look at in person, but we know no one that has recessed lighting in their kitchen or one that's anywhere near this large. I made the second drawing below based off input from Gardenweb and spending time on houzz looking at pictures of modern kitchens. There will be no table in the kitchen - the formal dining room is off the right end of the drawing, and an informal/breakfast area will be above the peninsula. We also plan on (however many) stools at the peninsula.

Right now here is nothing at all in the room except for a range where the wall and steam oven will go, a few tools and a trash can. New wiring to the two banks of switches is complete but the lighting is still the plastic tiffany ceiling lamps the previous owners installed in 1979. Can't wait to get those out of there. Switches in both banks are dimmable and are:
- Main Kitchen
- Pendant Lighting
- Toe Kick Lighting
- Main Family Room
With an additional switch by the columns for the accent lights, and one inside the pantry to switch off lighting that turns on when one of the doors is open. I'm not sure if we're going with Adorne or Lutron (Vierti or Maestro) switches. The Adorne ones are wireless and longevity is a bit of a concern.

Engineering is coming by today or tomorrow to have a look at the structure above the wall to be removed. After that I'm adding a door between the master bedroom and family room, then I'm free to experiment with lighting for the next week or 10 days before people come to take out the wall and raise the ceiling in the family room. This is the later design. You can see things spaced out more, and how it may be possible to carry one row of lights through the center of the room with only a couple more at the lower left by the bedroom and entry hall.

I bought 4 can lights and LED bulbs to experiment with and here's how everything came out so far. This is one of the advantages of having no kids.



If it's bright enough at night I'll go ahead and install the things in the attic; since it's late afternoon it's hard to tell at this point. One thing I noticed so far was a pretty good shadow between where someone would stand and the ovens. I may move the pattern over so that it starts 12-18in from the wall instead of 32 inches to try and avoid someone standing directly between a light and an oven and making it dark.

I also have a hole cut where the civil engineer needs to see up into the attic. There's a beam running over the breakfast area table at an angle, so I believe the top of the LVLs that will support the opening will be at this height. The ceiling in the breakfast area will remain its current height while the rest of the family room will go up.



This is the perfect time to add a doorway between the family room and master bedroom, so I also took care of that this weekend. It's in a load bearing wall, but this was still easy to do. All that's left is to find a door and frame. We want to go with a solid core, slab door and everything I've read says to try a lumberyard instead of the nearest big box so I'll need to try and get that going soon.



Up next is getting the engineer/builder over here, permanently installing the ceiling lights once the pattern is set and doing all the drywall work that's possible at this point. My schedule at work is a lot better now so things should be speeding up some.

The meeting with the engineer went well today. The one design dilemma that popped up is that a column will be needed. Luckily it does not have to be big. I was thinking perhaps at the end of the peninsula?

Probably as good a place as any. You could use it as a drop for a power outlet, or even an ethernet connection if you were so inclined.

That's what I was thinking too, perhaps six inches from the end so it won't disrupt the countertop flow. It doesn't need to be big; maybe 3 2x4s and the rest can be hollow for power, LAN or both. That would put it roughly underneath the point load that was discovered. so that's good from an engineering standpoint.

The other thing we've picked up on is that running recessed can lights is nice, but the light doesn't spread enough to the sides of the room. I'll be playing around with that some this week to try and find something that works better.

I'm also working an idea for cove lighting on the family room side and will get a picture or two up this afternoon...

[This message has been edited by The Fife (edited 10/22/2013 8:21a).]

Red Lobster sells their biscuits in a box?

This is my first time posting, but I've been following dilligently. As for the column, have you considered adding some shelving to it, so you can store cookbooks, kitchen gadgets, etc?


As far as the Red Lobster biscuits, it's a mix from Sam's and it's incredible!!

Red Lobster biscuits are awesome, and yes I got them at Sam's.

The column ended up being designed to be small. We were going for as much open space as possible between the two areas and I was able to work something out that puts it roughly 6" from the end of the countertop.

I'm doing demo on the family room side now. Up first is the hardwood flooring in the eat in area. I'm most of the way through with that already and have already fallen through the subfloor a couple of times. It's only 10 years old and completely rotten. The joists are pretty much crap in this area too so I guess they're getting replaced too.

Most of this area used to be a back yard concrete patio. When the previous owners did the addition they only had the top of it taken off so there's about 1/2" between the bottom of the joists and where they stopped digging out the fill material so I have to remove all that and find creative spots in the yard to dump all the sand.

Flooring is out and now I'm excavating. By my estimate I'll be at it for the next 7 days. I need to go down around 18-24 inches for an area of about 108 square feet, so a little over 7 yards of dirt and chunks of concrete to clear out. I guess this the point where the project moves from BSC to psychotic.

The fun continues - more digging out fill material. space between the two joists in the previous picture is now clear. What's really wearing me out is lugging buckets of dirt and 50+ year old debris to some remote corner of the yard where I can dump the stuff.

Then I realized the county has a landfill and I have a truck.

Tomorrow I park the truck next to the deck and I'll be able to dump the stuff directly into the bed and once it's full I can drive off and dump it over there. Once this is done I'll be able to do whatever needs to be done with the joists and move on.

I've made a lot of progress since this mess started. I should finish up sometime Friday since I'm at the triangular part of the old patio. Where I am now each space to clear is only half the width of the room. The crawlspace I'm digging is about 24 inches high, so I'm digging 15-16 inches down. I'll be happy when this part is over. This is what 4-5 hours of digging gets you after 5 days...

Update: the old patio is gone, footings are dug, and 11 new joists are in. I lost some time due to having to stop everything due to sudden issues with the wife's car. She comes before the remodel.

I also have a footing dug under where we'll need to put in a column. There is a point load above roughly the corner if the old doorway that needs to be supported. If I'm able to get that poured and a pier built, then remove the ceiling and drywall on the wall that's being removed there may be people over to do the framing late next week or early the week after that.

I have nothing to add other than the company I work for makes the red lobster biscuits. I saw the picture and came in here to say something about it

quote:

---

I have nothing to add other than the company I work for makes the red lobster biscuits. I saw the picture and came in here to say something about it

---

Awesome! My wife seriously loves those things. Is the stuff in the box really the same thing? Is it going to stay at Sam's club or become available at other stores as well?

I saw it at Walmart

We buy the big box at Sam's and keep them on hand. I add their enclosed packet to the biscuit mix then just use garlic powder and melted butter to the tops when baked.

I enjoy this thread. Here's some lighting info you might find helpful.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lighting/msg010127153310.html

quote:

---

Awesome! My wife seriously loves those things. Is the stuff in the box really the same thing? Is it going to stay at Sam's club or become available at other stores as well?

---

I will check with sales and let you know. I'm 98.2% sure it's just Wal Mart and Sams. Yes, same thing (though the bags that go to RL are 25+ lbs.) A lot of our formulas are the same repackaged in different packaging. For example: we have some gravies we make for major retailers that are the same (just rebranded) as other less known nrands.

We also make waffle house waffle mix, mcgriddle buns, IHOP sweet cream pancake and waffle mix etc.

quote:

---

I enjoy this thread. Here's some lighting info you might find helpful.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lighting/msg010127153310.html

---

Thanks, yeah I got tons of mileage out of that thread. It was the basis behind my original overhead lighting design and what I'm sort of migrating back towards.

quote:

---

We also make waffle house waffle mix, mcgriddle buns, IHOP sweet cream pancake and waffle mix etc.

---

Mind.... blown.... I would be hungry all day long if I worked there.

I'm hoping that we'll have a new car to replace my wife's daily driver within the next couple of days. If so, and if I'm able to hurry through everything this week I'll be able to have framers in next Monday/Tuesday to do the wall and ceiling removal. It would be great too if sheetrockers could have new drywall up and someone could spray foam the ceiling before the Thanksgiving break but I'll take what I can get. Pictures and updates should start getting a little more interesting at least.

I put in some more work yesterday evening. The last four footings for this project are poured - three under the breakfast area and one directly underneath where there will be a column. These are the last footings that I know need to be added until I redo the master bath.

I also removed half the drywall for the wall that will go away soon. I had a feeling there was a window into that part of the kitchen, and there it was. For whatever reason the previous owners decided to fill the opening with radiant barrier, but by the time they did this it was already an interior wall so unless it was just to fill the space while the addition was being built that doesn't really make any sense. This afternoon I'm removing the rest of the drywall and I guess I'll start working on the ceiling.

The electrical utilities are removed from the wall now, except for living room light switches. I also removed the last of the drywall yesterday evening so now we can sort of imagine how the layout will look after the framing is complete.

After work I'm hauling off debris, then building the last 4 piers for this project. Next on the to do list is to start clearing out the family room because I can't take out the ceiling while furniture is in there. We'll have to get a little creative with where we hide everything but I'm sure we can work something out. Once the wall and ceiling are gone I can wrap up the electrical, framing and plumbing for the kitchen area, get flooring, cabinets and appliances ordered, and things will get progressively less crazy around the house.

Looks good.

For a second, I thought your dog was a stuff goat. Odd, I know.

~egon

i think the dog is wondering wtf is going in here

The dog's probably thinking the same thing mine do: "What the hell? And he yells at me for chewing on things besides bones or digging in the yard?!"

What's the final lighting pattern in the kitchen?

My parents had a policy of only really destroying one part of the house at a time, but that's really difficult to do with modern open-concept houses, especially ones like yours. My living room was in about the same condition for a year, but didn't have the "fun" of dealing with crawlspace issues like yours, just grinding a very lumpy slab sort-of-flat.

At this point in the game we're all thinking WTF. Him even more when I pop up through a hole from under the crawlspace. The last kitchen I did was MUCH faster - maybe 6 weeks from start to finish but it was 14 boxes worth of cabinets + flooring including a breakfast area and laundry room/pantry, wallpaper removal and no changes to the utilities except for relocating the microwave. Basically a remove and replace. Materials for this one are also going to run about 3x the cost.

It turns out the lighting in the kitchen wasn't quite bright enough. It is in the center but lighting in the oven area for example or anything to the side like the trash can would be lacking. The room really is wide enough for two rows of lights, but spaced out farther than the original design had them and with the pattern starting closer to the dining room. At full brightness I'm sure it'll be a bit much but the lighting will be on a dimmer anyway.

Today I find out if anyone can come by and handle the framing next week. If so I need to figure out the two a/c returns that will go in the high part of the family room + 3 supply registers that are in the part of the ceiling that's going away, and how we want cove lighting framed in ASAP. If they can't I'll spend my time over Thanksgiving break wrapping up the 1/3 of the family room I've reworked (vapor barrier + put in the center beam), put in the kitchen can lighting, then add switched outlets wherever they're needed for the transformers that will power the undercabinet and toe kick lighting. I'd planned on having them on the same dimmable switch and wanted to go with LEDs. Recommendations on any of this stuff would be great.

[This message has been edited by The Fife (edited 11/22/2013 6:18a).]

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm here alone this year so what better way to spend Thanksgiving than by moving this weekend project forward. Today the goal is to finish putting in the recessed lighting and wire it up, then start cleaning up the kitchen and family room area so I can start removing the ceiling. Hopefully it'll warm up a little as we move into the weekend. It's 32 right now and both heat pumps have been running for a long time.

I'm going with 4" retrofit kits for the recessed lighting. The original roof is still in place above the kitchen with the new roof from the addition however many feet above that, so headroom in the area is a little limited. I was really hoping to put lights in but the shipment of LED bulbs was delayed on its way down from MA. The package is 20 miles from here according to UPS and its estimated delivery date is Monday

I got some bad news from the builder across the street. His mom is in the hospital so removing the wall and ceiling has been postponed. Things like this are more important than work.

While he's out I've been spending my time doing anything else that doesn't require that wall to be gone. The old 1" copper stack is out now because the wall it was in is going away. ran the wiring for a 2 gang wall box for accessory lighting and the circuit for the undercabinet lights. It all amounted to spending a lot of time in here.



This runs diagonally above the kitchen and makes doing anything in that part of the attic all kinds of fun.

A couple of the recessed lighting cans of course had to go underneath this mess. They're all in now but I still have some drywall cleanup to do. The box of 12 LED bulbs will get here tomorrow so I can see how it all comes out. It's much dimmer in person but you can get an idea of what the pattern is. These were all kinds of fun to measure for. They're all on a dimmer. There aren't a lot of options for dimming LEDs and we wound up going with Lutron Maestro switches.





While I was in the attic I also ran the wiring for the Ecobee. I ended up putting the control box in what will be the top of the pantry because getting it to the other location I wanted would have been a nightmare. It's pretty cool and we've been playing around with the app too.

What's on tap for this week is mostly small stuff... running the wiring for the exhaust fan, ordering the whole house dehumidifier and wiring up an outlet for that, hopefully getting Habitat over here to pick up a mountain of stuff they could use and relocating a closet door in the family room about a foot. Hopefully the builder is able to get the framers out here soon because otherwise I'm going to run out of things that I can do.