Sealing the Ceiling

"You do understand the urgency of this." our home inspector Brian said as he pointed to a section of sagging ceiling plaster in the corner of the kitchen.  "Yes" I replied, "It will be the first thing we have done."  The leaky section of roof and damaged ceiling may not have been exactly the first item we tackled, but it was handled quickly.

The sagging ceiling and mold

While pulling down the crown molding we noticed that in trying to flip the house for a quick profit, the previous owner did not even attempt to address the source of the problem.  Instead of fixing the leaking roof above this corner, he used silicone around the crown molding to prevent the water from running down the walls.  Not exactly a good long-term solution.  Not even a good short-term solution.  It should not have been a solution at all!

Water damaged ceiling

Although we would have preferred to have the roof taken care of first and then the ceiling, the availability of our contractors was in the reverse order.  Bob from Guns Plastering came to replace and repair our ceiling. We were very impressed with his work and his 20 years of experience was certainly evident in the quality.

New drywall

Since rain of any amount avoided our region for what seemed like months, we did not mind at first that the roofing contractor was not available until the next week.  It was when he did not show up when he indicated that we began to be concerned.  When it rained the next day, we were irate.  Our new plastering that Bob worked so hard on now showed evidence of moisture leaking in through the damaged roof.

Beautiful new plaster!

At this point, we decided that the roof needed to be taken care of immediately.  With some invaluable help from my father (he did most of the work), the leaking roof was removed, repaired, sealed and replaced.  In the end, I was glad to have done the work ourselves.  Although it took the better part of a day, we diligently repaired aging boards and sealed every possible place where water could conceivably find a way into the house.

Shortly after the repairs the drought broke with some heavy rainfall, and I am happy to report that the roof held and our plaster remained dry!

Even the Kitchen Sink!

I think that getting a new sink is a pretty big deal. Especially when the old one looks like this:

The old sink.

Of course, our sink wasn't always on the driveway. It used to be in this space:

Where the sink used to be.

We went online to look at all the different styles of stainless steel sinks that were out there, and we found a few that we liked. I went to a local plumbing company's showroom and I saw the one I wanted.  It's made by Kohler, and it's called the Staccato.  We had a choice to either get one with both bowls of the sink the same size, or to go with a 60/40 option; we went with the 60/40.  I am so excited to be able to wash big pots and pans and have enough room to rinse them!

After deciding on the sink we wanted, we had to look for a faucet.  We wanted to get something that was in a chrome finish; having something that looked somewhat old-fashioned was also important.  We finally found one that we liked, and it's made by Belle Foret.

 

A screenshot of the faucet after we ordered it.

All we had to do then was wait for everything to come in the mail...

A few days later, our sink came! 

A few days after that, our faucet came!

We had a gentleman from Sinclair Plumbing come out to the house to come up with an estimate on a number of plumbing issues in our house, and one of them was to get the sink and faucet installed.  This is what it looks like now!

The sink after installation.  Please ignore the missing trim around the window.  

Watch for a future blog post on window replacement in the kitchen!

 

It sure feels great to have a sink in the kitchen that not only works but looks pretty awesome, too.