We’ve completed basically all of the painting & have received most of the equipment. Still have to put the doors up & finish the counter – plus a couple of other construction projects – but things are progressing nicely. It’s great to be able to finally start assembling the kitchen a bit. Making all of this a bit more real now…

Painting is progressing a bit slowly but progressing nonetheless. We now have two coats on half of the dining room & entrance hallway. Waiting for Ed to finish the final wall in the dining room & then we’ll complete the yellow. Hoping to have the kitchen construction completed & painted by this time next week.

Thanks go out to Terry Doyle for dropping by to lend a painting hand. Made for a quick afternoon of second coating.

We have to wait today while construction in the dining room finishes so we’ll be back over for more painting & work starting on Tuesday 09.21. If you’re in the Andes area, drop in for a sneak peek or perhaps lend a hand. All volunteers get free BBQ.

A few days, a full toolbox, the little tools Ikea provides, much soreness and a bit of help from our friends (thanks Tim & Maggie!), the Cha Cha Hut is finally assembled.

Now all we need to do is decorate…and pass the DOH inspection.

Two days of frenzied shopping leads to the inevitable two days of assembling everything. We started on New Year’s Eve, took New Year’s Day off and finished on January 2nd.

Here is the before gallery:

After taking the day off on Christmas for probably the very last movie marathon day ever, we dove headlong into a week of frenzied activity putting the Hut together. Monday began with our plumber – Jay Gula coming by to install the kitchen and wash room sinks. He did an excellent job – even being cool about my screw-up in having the wrong faucets for the sinks. (I had the wash sink faucet in the kitchen sink…)

While Jay worked on the sinks, we finished painting the prep room. That was the last of the painting needed and set us up nicely for putting the Hut together later in the week.

We left Jay to finish the plumbing job while we headed home to finish putting together the list for the Tuesday Ikea run. The goal was to hit Ikea, a restaurant supply store and Lowes all in one trip. did not turn out that way. Ikea took up most of the day. Then a bit of dinner (and beer to decompress) and a stop at Lowes for more wire shelving and 55 gallon trash cans. Thanks to B & D Rentals in Margeretville, we got a huge cargo van for a great price. Good thing we did as we pretty much packed the van out with Ikea goodies.

As we still needed to get to a supply store and Lowes, we chose to head off to Albany on Wednesday for another round of shopping. Central Restaurant Equipment, Target (for some decorating & cleaning items), Lowes (lighting, hardware & sundries) and Oliver’s Beverage (for sanity preserving foamy beverage) put an end to the two day shopping frenzy. Interesting thing about shopping for a business: it’s work not fun. You’d think shopping all day would be a blast, but it actually wears on you very quickly. Thankfully, the majority of our “set up” shopping is now done.

Now it is time to set up…

With the wall leak fixed, we can finally begin work on painting the final Hut room: the prep room. This is where all the secret BBQ rubs and meat prep will occur. We begin with a round of priming. (Returned the following day to add a second coat of primer just to seal things nicely.)

The original plan had been to re-tile the dining area by laying new tile over the old. For a variety of reasons (mostly having to do with budget) that proves to be impossible. So, we when with Option B and decided to replace the more “worn and damaged” of the tiles. Roxbury flooring guru and friend of the Hut Sean O’Shaughnessy is doing a fabulous job on the project.

Today’s moment of progress comes in the arrival of Keiser Equipment and a delivery of our first round of equipment. A lovely holding unit (to keep the BBQ nice and warm all day long), a used commercial fridge (thanks Tropicana!) and a couple of sinks.

Our floor tiles have also arrived. That means we can pull up and replace the badly damaged tiles on the floor. Those that are not so bad will have to do for now. Planning on placing the order for the rest of the equipment (a couple of fridges, a freeze and a stove) tomorrow.

Oh yes – and work has begun on fixing the major leak in the prep room wall. That should be done by Monday so we can finish off the painting.

We’ve (mostly) finished painting the kitchen and service areas. A bit of touch up to do plus we have to paint the kitchen ceiling. The only major painting now is the prep room. We are having Leprechaun Construction come back to fix the leaking wall in the prep room. Mike says it should only take a day or two, so it looks like we should be finished with painting early next week.

Keiser Equipment will be delivering the sinks, reach-in fridge and holding unit this week. We’re planning a Friday trip to Kingston to order the fridges and freezers plus pick up shelving from Lowe’s. Also on order – replacement tiles for the scratched and broken ones in the dining room.

It’s all coming together nicely…