Alameda Thrift Haul

Evan and I have a routine most Saturdays that starts with coffee and is followed by a trip to Alameda to do some thrifting. Our favorite place to go is Redux. It's an amazing little shop that is also part art gallery and has incredible salvaged items for insane prices (as seen below...). Today's trip was a grand success; we bought plenty of goods for the house and kept the cost under $50. Here's what we got!

6-pack Mushroom shooters for $2

splattered mixing bowls for $5.50/each

condiment set for $2

embroidered kitchen towels for $2/each

retro "Cooling Dishes" cookbook for $2

pyrex dish with brass stand for $5.50

not even sure what this Planter's Peanuts dish is for but it is awesome and cost $1

(maybe) Moorish brass pitcher ($5) and vase ($4)

cast iron candle holders for $3/each

Cabinet Wood Repair, Old Growth Redwood and Cedar, Clear Grain, and a $50 piece of wood

I needed some pieces of cabinet wood. I took a piece to MacBeath lumber in Berkeley

I thought it was cedar, but the expert there said it was old growth redwood because it was too heavy to be cedar. "If you really want to match this, you need to go to the Lumber Baron in Albany." So it's old growth redwood, and that's hard to find and expensive. I decided to look at their cedar because if the only difference is weight, that won't matter when nailed to the wall. Plus this isn't meant to be a forever fix. In maybe 10 years I want to expand the kitchen and that's going to be super expensive and at that point I'll get some new cabinets made out of clear grain cedar or something for like 35K... Yikes

I looked through their boards and got the brownest one to match the oxidation of the old wood. I had to get "V.G. CLEAR" redwood which means clean, tight grain. At 1x6"x12', it was about $7.50 a board foot. (6" is half a foot so 6"x12' is equal to 1'x6' so 6 board feet). It was $50

$50 but it matches so well! 

I think I can darken it with a yellow stain

Matching the finish will be hard...

It's hard to see but there's a "Mary Kay" white type finish which is a milky finish. 

The milky finish is a closest match to "pickled oak"  which looks like this on pine

FUN FACT: The above finish was used on Fender guitars in the '50s and '60s over Ash under the name "Mary Kay White." 

Fender "Mary Kay White" Stratocaster '57 reissue

But our cabinets are actually a little purple

Back door is very purple. The picture doesn't show it but it looks more like blueberry ice cream

I had to shrink the cabinet up 3" to fit a modern fridge. 

Now I need to cut down the door. 

OK! I got the original cabinet trimmed up about 3" to fit a modern fridge. I'll figure out how to reproduce the milky pink stain in another post. 

Kitchen Sink drain repair and cleanout

The kitchen sink wasn't draining so I went looking for a cleanout - a plug in the drain line you can open to clean out a blockage. The tool used for this is called a snake and if you have a 88 year old house like me then you've probably had to use one. It's a cable that has a coil on the end and it works really well and is cheap. 

To use: Open the cleanout and stick it in as far as you can.  Then tighten down the finger bolt so you can rotate the drum and the spiral at the end will drill into the blockage. Usually this will fix a blocked drain.

Unfortunately, the sink didn't have a cleanout and now I will show you why that sucks so bad... because you can't snake it, you have to cut in a cleanout.

Drain is blocked and no way to clean it... THAT'S WHY YOU ALWAYS PUT IN A CLEANOUT

It was very hard to cut this out with the plumbing and electrical in there

T removed  

1/2" couplings  

I got it in there, opened the cleanout, snaked it, and it drained. Save yourself 4 hours and put in the cleanout to begin with. 

Snakin' it

I hooked up the other sink drain and now I'm done... I hope. 

Range Backsplash

I added a hood above the range. It originally had nothing and then a homemade vent hood and it was greasy and sucky.  

After adding a hood, I needed more backsplash tile up to the hood so that the grease from the cooking surface can be wiped down. I decided to make it match the bathroom tile I extended up when I raised the shower head. 

The tile was sticking out because it was done over the original backsplash which was a weird red painted cement thing

With the old backsplash removed, I can set the tile close to the wall

I put up two different thickness backerboard. 1/2" for the 6x6 because they are thin, about a 1/4". 1/4" hardibacker for the clay tiles since they are about 1/2" thick. This puts the tiles in the same plane.

I did the white tile first so it is parallel with the floor and hood.  

Clay tiles sitting in place for layout to match other side. 

I cut out tile for the wall light fixture because I decided to keep them as a theme like in the bathroom

Set first row. Tiling down is not the natural way

I had to carefully chip out the old mortar bed to reset the corner tiles since I moved the adjacent wall back

Got them all set. Also fixed the plaster.

Here it's grouted.

I used "natural grey" grout so hopefully it'll match the old stuff and look good behind the wedgewood.