Monday, February 28, 2011

Baby It's Cold Outside...

LIKE FREEZING.  LITERALLY.  UGH.

The blustery snow from my window at work...


So we went to our frozen little cart this weekend and honestly, couldn't get much done.  It was 25 degrees and there is NO WHERE to warm up.  We were able to get all the counters RE-painted (story of my life), and they are ready for sinks and plumbing.

Hand washing sink to the right, double basin sinks on the left.

Because it was so cold, we decided to do some much needed appliance shopping.  We were fortunate enough to get a refrigerator donated (thanks, Joey!), so that's good, but we still need the necessities.  Grill, Fryer and Hood.  Yikes.

Fryers.

This stuff is NOT cheap.  In staying with our mission to get most of our materials donated or use recycled stuff, we are quickly realizing that we DON'T want to go that route with our appliances.  We've done an excellent job staying in line with that mission for our building materials (over 90% donated or from Rebuilding Center), but because we want things to LAST and OPERATE, we are purchasing our appliances new.  HELLO WARRANTY!  Shopping for these things, however, is sort of like shopping for a car.  So many options, so many different features, all of 'em shiny and new.... IT'S HARD TO DECIDE!

One thing is for sure, I'm loving the chef hat!

Travis is good at keeping things interesting as well.

Once we get these things purchased...(this week in fact)...the cart is going to move at a rapid pace.  We will be able to complete the entire front of the cart and the "kitchen."  Then on to the exciting stuff...like painting the outside and completing the menu...

Stay tuned!!







Thursday, February 17, 2011

Slow and Steady Wins the Race, huh?


Sorry for the delay in posts...

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a TON of progress since the tile extravaganza....but we have been plugging away.  This week we moved on to the ceiling...which, along with the rest of the cart, was just the tin exterior and the insulation we added at the beginning of the project.

Here's my attempt at a "before" picture (laying on my back)

We bought Pressure Treaded Hardboard to cover the insulation, and painted it white for a clean, crisp look.


After an amazing impromptu shoulder workout trying to fit these panels in the grooves, we had a bit of success.

Then we nailed them up with a compressor nail gun...
(SO FUN!)

We will now get all the panels up and have a brand new look inside the cart!  

Up next...PLUMBING!  We will have 3 sinks total, and of course, we'll be up to code when it comes to the health department.  The plumbing (like everything else) is tricky because of the limited space and amount of h2o, power and resources we'll have in the cart.

Hand Washing Sink

The larger sinks will be across the back wall adjacent to this little sink.  We still need to get a small water heater, water pump, fresh water tank, grey water tank and all of the hardware to go with our sinks.  If anyone has any brilliant plumbing advice, please send it our way!  As always, we appreciate the help and any of the aforementioned materials you may have laying around is always accepted as well!

Travis has a hammer and a tool belt and he's not afraid to use 'em!