Seachest Project, Chapter Two

Below is a post about the Seachest Project, a kitchen on Nantucket for Seachest, the house Marcia and Toby's dad built in the 60s, and which Marcia and Toby, along with Marcia's brother Brad, are remodelling now, under the direction of Nantucket Builder Kyle Snell. This post is about taking the delivery and installation. I hope it gives the flavor of how we like to do things.

This first photo gives the general flavor of the renovation, a summer house in the old style

Approaching the new Seachest. The Nantucket Sound is visible in the distance.

 
Our strategy on loading the truck is to put the things we need last in the truck first. The hope is that when we get to the site, our tools, kickspace boxes, and layout templates are near the door. We build the level kicks using the template “sticks” as a guide, then, in theory the cabinets get brought in, one at a time, and just dropped on their marks, bingo! For some mysterious reason, it actually happened almost that way on this project. Here's the kitchen in the truck, at our shop.

Bound for Nantucket: the kitchen loaded in the truck, in the right order we hope!

Those boards on the floor we call “sticks”. The original measurements of the space are on them, as are all the critical dimensions of the cabinets. They get screwed to the floor in the right place, and then we install and level the kickspace boxes. If we get the boxes level, the cabinets will install with little fuss.

     Layout sticks, cabinet boxes in place. Those funny holes in the top of the cabinets are handles that make it easier to move them around.  We have to move each cabinet probably ten or a dozen times, at least.

Those funny holes in the top of the cabinets are handles that make it easier to move them around. We have to move each cabinet probably ten or a dozen times, at least.

Since we're far from home, we'll leave some of the installation for Kyle and his crew, but we'll get as much done as possible in few days. In this case, Toby and Brad worked with me on the installation, which made things both more fun and much quicker.

Toby

Brad

 

 

Once the cabinets are nice and level, we can start putting the drawers in and hanging the doors. We used Valchromat, that blue material, for the doors. The color livens things up and the doors are very easy to make. The wood walls make it very easy to hang the upper shelf units.

I arrived Monday night, built the kicks Tuesday, put in the boxes Wednesday, and then something miraculous happened Thursday. Pat Garrett and Shane Thurston arrived Thursday morning on the early ferry, with 5 soapstone counters. The usual procedure is to put in the cabinets, then have the stone people make a full scale template, then eat pizza for about a month waiting for the counters to be fabricated. As the previous post shows, we assembled the kitchen in the shop. Shane made the template in our shop, and the counters were ready when the cabinets were. So as soon as the cabinets were in, we...went fishing. We don't get to go fishing on every job. In this case our customers treated us to some great fishing with Tom Mlezcko.

Jonathan, with fish

Now back to work.

I don't have a great shot of the counters going in. But this gives a sense of what the soapstone is like.

Soapstone Counter with Built-in Drainboard

Family members Marcia and Eli

Eli is oiling the counter after installation. He caught two bluefish, but the boat was jumping around quite a bit and I didn't get a photo of that.

The cabinets are mostly in, but there is a lot to do yet. We mounted the sink, but there is still plumbing and wiring to do. The stove has to be hooked up. And flooring.

The kitchen is taking shape, but still a lot to do - let's have some wine!