Spending Time in Amish Country and The AC Gets Installed
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 9)
Making Kitchen Decisions!
Our kitchen planning has been starting to get really involved, with decision after decision coming down the pipeline rapidly. Electrical needs plans for lighting and switches, plumbing needs plans for sinks, etc. We need to figure out what’s happening in our kitchen ASAP.
Our appliance search has begun. We went to a Sears Outlet in Livonia for appliances and finally came to a decision on an Electrolux Duel Fuel Range from the “scratch and dent” section for over 60% off. On a duel fuel range, the cook top is gas while the interior oven is electric for maximum cooking efficiency, consistency, and overall ease of use. We also were gifted a wonderful Whirlpool Refrigerator from Brandon’s parents, so we finally were getting closer to dimensions to work with for our layout.
Brandon came up with our finalized kitchen room dimensions and a plan of what we think we wanted and where, using AutoCAD. Finally, we feel like we’re getting close to what we want to end up with.
We had planned on using an Amish cabinet maker for our kitchen, but after receiving our first estimate, we had some doubts and so before we pulled the trigger, we decided to check out a more traditional cabinet shop to compare price and quality. After going to KSI Kitchen Designs and receiving a quote, we quickly realized that we would get much more for our money by going with the Amish family that we had found. We could pick every single door, cabinet, feature, stain, and detail we wanted for our space, including some really interesting features like having secret drawers underneath our toe kicks for things like footstools or plastic wrap. Our same ideal kitchen from a place like KSI was more limited by their abilities and available features and far more expensive.
The Schlabach’s Shop
On MLK day, Brandon and I both had the day off work and drove into Amish Country near where Brandon grew up to meet the cabinet builders and start to plan out our kitchen in more detail. We met with Michael, one of the sons of the family operation, and immediately fell in love with him. Michael was extremely patient and helpful with us making proper plans on dimensions of cabinets, proper sizing of drawers and doors, and our biggest hurdle was planning our corner “pantry” space. While he couldn’t give us his personal opinion on things like placement of a microwave, which he obviously doesn’t use himself, he was able to give us great suggestions based on the 70+ kitchen designs they do each year for their customers.
Brandon’s family had used the Schlabach’s for their recent kitchen renovation and were extremely happy. We quickly could see why, because Michael was a joy to work with in planning our space.
Designing our pantry ended up turning into a wonderful experience designing what will end up being a sort of baking station for myself, as well as storage of some of our dry foods, which I am now extremely excited to use. Because Schlabach Wood could essentially build whatever I wanted, I could give it just the right amount of 1920s flair I felt it needed to fit in with the home. I wanted it to look almost like a piece of antique furniture rather than a cabinet built into the wall, so Michael allowed me to add details like a wrap-around counter top, flip up doors, and leg details. It will be very large, compared to an antique baking station, with the main pantry running from floor to our 8' 8" ceiling and 4' across and then counter tops and cabinets extending under our large kitchen window.
Michael then invited us to come inside the cabinet shop and check out their awesome facility. I was really impressed with the cleanliness, organization, and overall function of their shop. The entire shop is run off of a diesel generator and air compressor, which meant all of their tools and equipment were either hydraulic or pneumatic. There were some really amazing tools I had never seen before inside this shop that Michael and his family had even invented or designed themselves in some cases.
Michael then walked us through their paint shop. The homemade, chain connected assembly line they had created was incredibly impressive. Each cart held a single piece of cabinetry and would be moved around the line from a painting station to baking and then to sanding before it goes all the way around again. The baking station for the paint was heated by the excess heat from the diesel generators which power their shop. The efficient use of their technology coupled with a desire to conserve energy and reuse it for other purposes was really admirable.
Finally, the last station Michael showed us was where his two daughters write various Amish proverbs on the bottom of each drawer. It was an endearing thing they did every once and a while when they first started, but they got such a positive response, that they started to do it more and more for customers. Now, Michael’s daughters take the time to write a different Amish saying on the underside of every drawer that the Schlabach cabinet shop makes.
We still have some small decisions here and there to make, but overall we are extremely close to a final design for our kitchen and we’re excited to work with the Schlabachs in Belle Center, Ohio.
Christian and Chad Finish Our Final Archways
We have officially now converted all doorways on the first floor, other than the bathroom door, into archways. Christian and Chad worked extremely hard together to get the geometry of each one perfect for the scale of each opening so that they flow together as well as possible.
HVAC!
Now a 1927 home in Detroit would obviously have been built with heat. Our Tudor home is heated by a steam boiler and radiators in each room.
Steam heat has a few advantages to modern heating systems:
1. Maintenance. With little to no moving parts like fans, steam heat is often very low maintenance.
2. Noise. A properly maintained system can be quieter than a forced air heat.
3. Moisture. Steam heat does not involve blowing scorched air, which tends to be dry. This means that in the winter months, you’ll find things like that your skin isn’t as dry due to the overall moisture content in the air.
4. Heat control. Because you can turn each individual radiator on and off, you can control exactly which rooms you’d like to heat.
5. No forced air movement. Because you aren’t blowing heat around the home with a steam system, we’ve read that radiant systems are often better for things like allergies since pollen and allergens are less likely to be blown around the entire home.
There is no best heating system, all systems have their advantages and disadvantages. But since we had a perfectly functioning steam heat system in the home, with a fairly new boiler, we decided to keep it in place.
High Velocity Mini-Duct Air Conditioning
Air conditioning however, is another concern. In the summertime, we found that while the first floor stayed relatively comfortable, our upper two floors could easily reach above 80 degrees on a hot day. We knew that part of the process of bringing this home into the 21st century would be to install an AC system.
We want to avoid tearing into as much of our plaster walls and ceilings as possible. With the plaster detailing as well as the home’s age, (asbestos in plaster) the easier the installation labor of a system into our home, the better. Installing traditional duct work isn’t an option in our home due to cavities in walls not being large enough.
It was suggested to us that a high velocity mini duct system would be the perfect solution for our home… the system was actually invented for homes in situations like ours. We decided on the Unico mini duct system, and instead of our initial plan being a normal HVAC unit in the basement and a Unico unit in the attic, we opted to go with a single larger Unico unit in the attic to save on costs. The roughly $7,000 cost savings of going with a single larger Unico unit system will allow us to use that extra money to repair and powdercoat all of our home’s radiators so that they work like new and look gorgeous.
Our Unico System installers have been working hard all week to run all of the lines through the home from the attic to the 1st floor. The results are pretty impressive as you can see with how small the vents in our ceilings end up being. Each room has anywhere from 2 to 4 vents in the ceiling that carry our new air conditioning. Since it’s 30 degrees here in Detroit, we wont be using the AC for a while, but we’re happy to have all of this installation 90% to completion this week so that focus can return to our plumbing and electrical.
Enlarging our Kitchen Window
One decision we made on the kitchen this week is to replace and enlarge our smallest window on the 1st floor which just happens to be in the kitchen above our sink. The window is old, has two broken panes, and is the only non-leaded glass window on the 1st floor. This window also happens to be high off the ground and has a large spacing in between its two double hung windows, so that it’s hard and uncomfortable to look out of.
We found a mason who will be removing brick below the window so we can reach the window to more of a counter top height and the window we are having made will be a modern lead replica window to match the other windows in the house.
Our Journey isn’t over! We’ve been working hard since we purchased the home in November 2016 and are writing updates on our progress roughly every week. Make sure to check out our latest updates on our homepage!
