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The kitchen remodel is underway ... Let's start from the beginning. There was a loud bang, or at least I'm told it was loud - I was not around 2.6 billion years ago. OK, that's too far back. Let's start..Wednesday 12/17
The "before" pictures...
Got it? OK, here comes Thursday... Our kitchen. Shrouded in secrecy.
Behind the shroud, we see that the kitchen has been fairly well emptied.
Count the layers of floor!!
And notice how far off the floor removing those layers leaves the door hanging...
The view from the door...
A 209stonecrest.com exclusive - a look behind the drywall of our kitchen addition...
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!
As long as I was standing there, I thought I'd take a picture from the vantage point of the doorway
Onward to day 2... Interesting wall configuration, no? Perhaps an old door, or an old window, or shoddy construction ...
The bookcase is gone. And that is actually a problem - it was all that's holding up that left-most piece of sheet rock.
Here's a good look at the old floor. Actually, not awful, but a little destroyed from time.
Day 3 ... The cabinets arrive, and they look lovely as they start to accumulate in our living room...
The guy in the red jacket and the guy in the orange jacket did a great job bringing them in.
We bought the cabinets from Jay-K. They deliver windows and doors.
Phil, our contractor surveys and assists with the delivery.
OH, notice that wallpaper in the upper-left corner of the doorway? Isn't it awesome?
Boxes, boxes, and more boxes... and the refrigerator in the living room. I sort of like it there, I must admit.
I only buy cabinets that are larger than my wife. Oh yeah, by the way, it's Phil writing this.
So where's all of our kitchen stuff? On the porch. Getting chilled.
Hey, it's me, with my hand on a cabinet. The corner base cabinet, to be precise.
Did I mention we bought a LOT of cabinets?
Day 4 ... The inside wall is being rebuilt, so here it is one last time.
Oh yeah, the ceiling insulation? Apparently they didn't notice the ceiling covered the entire room.
Looking west...
This is a straight look into the garage. This part of the kitchen is an addition - the last 3-4 feet just sort of sticks out into the garage. Perhaps they wanted a window.
Insulation works well in areas it covers. I'm guessing in this particular spot, not so much.
OK, fine, ONE LAST LOOK at the wall.
And one more look at all those cabinets. The appliances arrived today, but Alicia forgot to take pictures of the delivery. We got them from Sears. Back to the cabinets. Note that the boxes hide the refrigerator from view.
Remember that wall? Nice, huh?
We enjoy taking last looks at this things. All those cabinets need wall space. This might just be one of the last pictures of this window.
Day 5...More demolition ... the window, gone!
A look at the new wall...
The kitchen entrance - with new light sockets in the ceiling - and our crazy number of cabinets, stage right.
A view of the kitchen entrance from the other side. A new power receptacle!
Here's the window from the outside of the house.
Need a window?
Might be one of the last pictures with shutters by the old window... Maybe we can take one and put it on the right side.
Day 6...No mo do.
What's this? A new light switch below the key holder in the shape of a key? I am still on the hunt for a hat holder in the shape of a hat...
The new home of the thermostat - it has moved from right of the kitchen to left of the kitchen. I was not here, but I am told that for several hours during its move, the house became quite cold.
A bird's eye view of the new arch/thermostat/switch. Actually, it's me - if it was a bird, instead of taking a picture, I'd be chasing it around with a broom. Or cowering in fear.
No mo do. From the other side - the switches have been relocated. Phil was NOT happy with the wiring. It is still not done - one of those switches controls the garage light, which controls the outside light. That's right - the outside light, which is on a motion sensor, will not work unless the garage light is on.
Our new appliances co-mingling with one of our old appliances.
On to day 7 ... Note that sometimes days are not consecutive on the calendar. One of the unique features of our new kitchen is the ladder on the west wall.
Fresh insulation on the ceiling - and in the walls... some sound-dampening.
Another look at the insulation, and the new east wall.
Perhaps I misunderstood, and the ladder actually is a movable feature.
Day 8.
Holy cow, we actually missed a layer of floor in our earlier count. After 4, who'd've thought there would be more...
The completed drywall on the east (garage) wall, formerly the exit.
Fresh drywall on the reinforced section of wall - the other side still needs to be repaired.
Day 9 featured a visit from UFPO. Completely unrelated to the kitchen remodel - they were checking for buried lines in preparation for the foundation repair crew coming Monday... Nothing like getting everything out of the way.
Spray-painting the snow, while fun, is not much more than an exercise in futility in this climate, as the words and spray lines they left behind have already been covered by a fresh 2" of snow.
Day 10 ... Finally seeing the cabinets out of the boxes. Well, some of them.
...and yes, they're empty. Like the spot on the top of my head.
Day 11 Like the rock and roll super-group Cream, we now have a White Room
and a LOT of plaster dust.
Day 12... and welcome to day 12. Some things seem to be missing... where could they be?
Oh my, they're in the kitchen??!
Sadly, too much dust so the fish can't watch, although I'm sure they'd enjoy the construction. Then they'd forget. Then they'd notice it and be fascinated. Then they'd forget.
So where have we been eating while this is going on? Well, what more do we need than a microwave, toaster oven, coffee pot, and jug of clean water? And honey-nut cheerios!
Day 13 ... THE CABINETS ARE IN Well, they're started, anyway.
Having a shop-vac and a plastic covered dishwasher installed cost a little extra, but well worth it.
Note the transparent countertop
So, uh, the kitchen isn't level. That's a lotta shims.
Sometimes you have to just be thankful that work is getting done, and look the other way when your contractor finds interesting places to store his tools. He's doing a good job, so we'll let this one slide
DAY 14 ... Holy cow, it's a kitchen! Well, sort of.
Some of the cabinets are a little tall, so we ordered the ladder option.
I never saw the crescents actually in place. I assumed they were on the camera screen when I first saw this.
This is where the bar will be. It may be a piece of lumber.
Cool sink - it looks like a double, but it's only kind of a double.
You can't imagine how long I've waited for this opportunity ... THIS IS NOTHING BUT A HOLE IN THE WALL!! It's actually a moved hole in the wall - the original hole was slightly too high
How's that for a lot of cabinets?!
How many contractors would pre-load the pantry?
Our kitchen was expensive enough - we had to
go with a cheaper counter top option --
Holy cow, a new door! Too bad it doesn't open ...
I've lost track. Day 15, I think? Why on this night do we have 2 refrigerators in our living room, but on other nights not one? If you're not Jewish, don't even try to get the reference.
LIGHTS!
CAMERA!
Nope, you guessed wrong. Back to LIGHTS, but from a different angle.
2 refrigerators AND a stove in the living room? Yada, yada... Check out those icicles!
Standing in front of the door (next to where the table used to be), looking at the oven and the table. No, we do not know who the topless surfer is in the picture.
It's hard to focus the camera when you're hanging off a staircase to take a picture. So I'M SORRY!! OK??
I was trying to get a picture of the door handle.
Looking into the kitchen...
Dimmer. As a noun.
Dimmer, as an adjective. It's hard to tell, but the lights really are dimmer in this picture.
Let's just go ahead and call this Day 16 ... And let's open this new door and look out across the dark garage...
Standing in the new doorway
Tough to tell from the picture, but we're looking up - into the ceiling in the basement. New plumbing and shut-offs for the kitchen, with a few dead-end T's in the line ... what could they be for? Possible FUTURE plumbing projects? In this very area??
And now, behold. The under-cabinet lights. All 6000 of them.
Here's how the kitchen looks when you use the flash and have some other ambient light in the shot.
When I saw what Phil was working on today, I was absolutely floored.
So is our floor.
Day ... pssh, I don't know. 17? So we measured out 73 square feet or so of flooring, and bought 94.5. We'd've bought 105.9, but that would've required opening another box. As it turned out, 94.5 square feet was not quite enough. Store open until 7:00. I work until 7:00... I called them and they had the extra box waiting for me when I got there at 6:57. For the record, I could not see out of my car windows until 7:13.
But here's a look with MOST of the floor down...
Note the missing spot near the cabinets. I don't know why this picture is smaller than the rest. Probably because I suck at picture taking.
The stove corner was done, but I couldn't bear the thought of covering the nice new floor with a big bulky appliance, so we compromised.
and put it here... Alicia pretends to pose for the camera while taking her "first steps" on the new floor. In actuality, she had walked back and forth across the kitchen about 7 times already, but don't tell her I told you. Here's Alicia taking her first steps on the kitchen floor. Also note the wood back up on the wall. Wow, I guess this would be Day 18. Or day 17B.
I dub this Day 19. Light fixtures that are designed for halogen bulbs just look odd when you put a different bulb in them. Honestly, I think this looks cool, and I'll bet nobody else has anything that looks quite like this. After today, nor will we.
THE REFRIGERATOR ... IN THE KITCHEN !!!
We are a little bit over budget for the project. So instead of nice door handles, we've opted for pieces of blue masking tape.
...and not even on every door.
This piece of cardboard was serving as the counter. But Contractor Phil decided it could be better used as a runner. So now we have no counter.
I just felt like taking a picture into the garage. Note that if so desired, it could fit a car.
Day 20...ironically also the 20th of January, and of 2009. Woah. The sink was in our kitchen ... it's moved into the living room. There's much more room for it there, so I support this move.
However, living in the suburbs, you have to be careful because you never know what could crawl in.
Get a handle on things, will ya?
More handles...
Vanna, I'd like to buy a soup can.
I'm sorry, there are no soup cans. Spin the wheel.
The ladder has been downgraded to a step-stool, but that's ok - as long as there's something vertical in the kitchen. It's horizontal surfaces a certain someone seems to have problems keeping clear... Sorry dear.
Our new door has new trim. And our new trim has new stain. And our new stain needs to be scrubbed. No, it's permanent.
That way... (think about it)
Let's go outside, shall we? Put on a coat, it's cold out...
But you won't fall! Note that I was still safely near the house while Alicia was outside freezing and taking the picture. Oh, and our camera has the world's BRIGHTEST flash -- the garage was completely dark in this picture:
The best way to see what's left on top of the cabinets is to climb up and take a picture. Oh, good, this one's got nothing on top of it.
But, what have we here ...
Good thing I took that picture from there, since there's no way we'd've seen those boxes from below.
Get it? Because you can see it! HA HA HA. Here's the microwave.
If I was a stove, this is what I'd see.
Phil (contractor) told us the water line to the refrigerator
doesn't work yet. I can't imagine why. Let's look under the
That's salada cord. Yes, but what cord is it?
Our runner now runs parallel to the floor boards, AND has been decorated with an orange sticker. Go SU
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Last time I let her pump gas into my car for me ... Wow. OK, Day 21 ... Work is pretty well wrapped up, until:
But, a few more pictures while we wait ... Here's one of the ceiling lights.
The temporary countertop - not even close in color to the permanent one.
The railing on the garage landing
The garage door opener is moved closer to the door - instead of having to walk all the way across the garage to close it.
Alicia goes to work... 109.2" of snow has fallen so far this season.
Until we meet again... Thanks for reading! |
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