Kitchen Remodel and DIY Large-Format Porcelain Sheet Tile Countertops

After years of small tweaks and updates, our last major house project -- the Kitchen -- finally got a little love.  

For a myriad of reasons, this is something we were determined to handle ourselves.  Notably, we wanted to DIY everything, including the countertops, and had a very unconventional idea for how we could pull it off.

Over the years, we'd done some painting, upgraded some appliances, and updates some lights, but held off on doing more until other projects were done with other tasks.

The biggest pain were the existing tile countertops and backsplash, which were laid on a 1-inch bed of concrete and chicken wire that had to be painstakingly broken up and carried away.

Other than the look, however, we found the tile to be durable and convenient, qualities we wanted to keep in our new counters.

The old cabinets weren't the best quality, howeveer, and had a failing finish that required their replacement.

The layout would largely stay the same, but cabinets would be upgraded to higher quality plywood construction, faceless semi-custom ones with soft closing drawers and better hardware.

For countertops, we weren't happy with typical DIY options like laminate, or butcher block, or even concrete(!).  Instead, we chose to go with large format (2ft x 4ft) porcelain tile sheets.  This wasn't an option I found a lot of info about online, but as tile, it seemed like it should be relatively DIY friendly if kept to a size I thought I could reasonably handle myself.

While we would still have grout lines, we could mostly place them strategically between work areas and use black epoxy grout, making them maintenance free.

For edging, I didn't think I could reasonably miter the tiles myself, and this would make them prone to chipping.

Instead, we wanted metal edging.  Schluter countertop products don't come in black, so we used 1.5" black anodized aluminum angle iron, fastened flush from below in a routed channel.

Unlike the previous countertops, the supporting plywood would all be fastened from below, making them easy to remove without damaging the cabinets, keeping future upgrade possibilities open should our tastes change or if our countertop experiment didn't work out.

On top of the plywood, we laid 1/4" hardibacker, coated with redgard.

To cut the tile, I used a Ryobi portable wet tile saw ($99) mounted onto a Kreg Accu-cut rail saw guide ($60).  Together, they did a fantastic job making clean, straight cuts on a budget.

Cutting out the sink openings was a task I was dreading, but it ended up being fairly simple to do with simple woodworking tools.  After drilling out corner holes with a diamond hole saw and initial plunge cuts with the wet saw, I was able to clean up the opening with a variable speed router ($99) and 1/2" diamond grinding bit.

Pro-tip: run router from below to avoid marring surface.

Once placed, the island started to come together, consisting of four total tile pieces.

A little tile colorant helped darken the edges around the sink opening.

After the island, it was largely a case of rinse and repeat with the rest of the kitchen.

Though of course in other parts there was a backsplash to tear out and replace.

We chose small mosiac tiles with stainless steel pieces.  Word of warning: it took half a day to peel off all the plastic off the metal tiles.

And another, larger sink.  This time, I was able to surround the opening with a single tile.

For a built-in hidden freezer, the cabinetmaker didn't sell custom-made doors, so I was able to use a pocket jig and brackets to make a large door from four smaller ones.

Look for it in the final photos.

The final task was the flooring, which involved breaking up and removing the old tile...

 laying down its replacement (faux wood plank tile),

And  grouting with epoxy grout.  As we learned from our previous remodels, it's worth taping off every grout line befordhand since the grout would get stuck in the tiny wood grain text of this particular tile.  

Taping alone took seven hours to do, but made grouting and cleanup a relative breeze. 

And the final product...

After adding some LED lighting...

and some also some automatic blinds

and crown moulding on the cabinets and ceiling....

and for fun the LED lighting is fully programmable too

A Big Window and the Heartbreak of Low-E Coatings

Home ownership is full of little gotchas that they don't tell your about, but should.  Here's an unpopular opinion: avoid windows with low-e coatings.

Window manufacturers love low-e coatings.  Why? In part, because they give them an extra selling point, some minor energy savings that fill out another bullet point in their sales brochure.  Also, it means they can sell you that same window again within a decade.

Why?  You see, the seals in windows are only airtight for seven years or so.  After that, they can start to leak, and you might ordinarily get a little condensation inside from time-to-time depending on its location, but not much more serious than that.

Unless, of course, you have a low-e coating.  Then, any moisture that gets inside can oxidize the coating, leaving the window permanently damaged, requiring immediate repair or replacement.  And then, good luck finding the former as everyone we contacted only wanted to do the latter.

For a long time, we didn't know what to do, and endured living in a house with a half-dozen failing vinyl windows.  Eventually, however we figured out a bit about how our windows are constructed.  Underneath some removable vinyl trim trim strips, a double-paned sealed-glass unit (two sheets of glass around a border spacer piece also known as an SGu) are simply adhered to the window with special double-sided foam tape (glazing tape).  The whole window didn't need to be replaced, just the SGU.

Fortunately, we found a company online (onedayglass.com) that sells sealed glass units in custom sizes and options and ships nationwide.  We ordered replacements, specifically avoiding any internal coatings.

Using them, it was fairly simple to cut away the old foam tape with a special glazing knife tool, clean the surface, then apply new tape and pull the new window glass in place... at least for most of the windows.

The exception and head-scratcher was this one large picture window at the top of a two-story room.  

How could we remove the old glass and install its replacement when each unit weighed almost 300 pounds?  We thought about renting a scissors lift, but the planting area outside wouldn't have made a stable base for it.

The answer kind of started as a half-hearted joke... "Can't you make some sort of pulley thing to lift it up?"  

The more we thought about it, the more we thought it might be possible.  I rigged up a carrier from the wood of the box the window units came in, and fastened it to two compound pulleys anchored in the eaves.  Fortunately, at some point in the past, either the roofers or solar installers had added a climbing anchor on the roof, so it was possible to rig things up in relative safety.

Then, it was just a matter of lifting the hoist in place, lifting the old glass unit into the carrier (with another pulley anchored in the window opening)....

Then pulling up the replacement glass and pulling it into place with new glazing tape.

It's so nice to have clear windows again.