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Kitchen Remodel Extravaganza

The Great Kitchen Remodel was originally going to start next Monday, giving us all of this week to empty the kitchen of our extreme collection of junk, and then Saturday we were going to tear out the cabinets and remove the appliances (we decided to save a bit of money and do that part ourselves). Monday afternoon we got a call from our contractor saying they had a hole open up in their schedule and could they start on Wednesday? And since this was moving the schedule up quite a bit, they’d go ahead and do the tear out for us at no extra charge. Bonus!

Except, of course, that it gave us pretty much a day and a half to empty everything out. Yikes! We managed it, but only with the help of some great friends (thanks Ed, Justin, Mike and Rob!!!) and by staying up way too late… especially since we needed to be awake fairly early for the construction crew this morning.

Tonight we ran out to our new favorite store, Home Depot, and picked up a new garbage disposal and faucet, as well as deciding on a paint color and buying that as well as the primer, since it looks like we’ll likely be painting this weekend.

Before

Old oven Tuesday (30 November): The Harvest Gold fridge is already gone, but there’s the horrible old oven (original to the house), with only one working burner. Note the lovely linoleum and countertop, and the ultra-icky press-board cabinets with fake dark-woodgrain paper veneer. The scariest part is that someone, once upon a time, chose this color combination of their own free will. Kitchen corner Here’s a shot of the main corner of the kitchen. Notice the green backboard? Yellow is my least favorite color, so right after we first moved in, I put contact paper down over the entire countertop… it looked pretty good for about six months and I eventually pulled it off, well, most of it anyway. We’ve been wanting to remodel since we moved in, and I procrastinated taking off the rest of the green paper, assuming it wouldn’t be necessary. Well, leave things as they are for long enough, and eventually it works out. :-) Old sink The old sink! Which is actually still in pretty decent shape, considering it’s 25 years old. We’re not keeping it, though. Other end of counter And the other end of the counter area. The opposite corner had nothing built in… just an open space that we figure was probably meant to be a “breakfast nook” of some sort. We stuck in some bookcases from Dania and called it a pantry… oh, and we used to also have a desk from Ikea there, originally to hold our servers, and eventually just to hold the kitchen computer.

Tearout

And now some shots of the gutted kitchen:

Gutted kitchen Wednesday (1 December): And here’s a shot of the currently gutted kitchen. I’m actually kind of glad things worked out the way they did. Yeah, it was a lot of work getting all of our stuff out of there yesterday, on fairly short notice, but the construction crew did an incredibly quick job in taking out the old cabinets and appliances. Gutted kitchen, new subfloor More of the gutted kitchen, this time with a shot of some of the new subflooring and plywood sheeting, put in to replace the stuff that had gotten damaged by an old leaking dishwasher before we ever bought the place.

Week One

New ceiling Thursday’s Progress — Look! Ceiling! It’s even got lights! Fridge corner with new ceiling More Thursday: The corner for the fridge. I love looking at the new sheetrock at the top of the wall… that’s how much higher our ceiling is now. Mudded walls Friday’s Progress — They’ve started mudding and the lights are working! Neat! Gas pipe hole in bathroom ceiling More Friday: They’ve run the piping for natural gas up to the kitchen. Now we have a big gaping hole in the ceiling of the bathroom in the basement. Gas line hooked up Saturday’s Progress — The gas line is all hooked up, even if there’s still a hole in the ceiling. And, even better, Mitch pulled out the old, failing bathroom fan and installed a new one. Typical of the sort of work done by the people who used to live here, the old fan had been wedged up into the ceiling and was being held up entirely by drywall tape. Gas line in kitchen Here’s a picture of the gas line in the kitchen, before it gets walled up. Heater vent installed Monday’s Progress — Heater Vent!!! Yes!!! (Or AC vent, depending on the time of year.) Believe it or not, there was no vent in the kitchen. None. This one will eventually be under the new cabinets and vent out through the kickboard at the bottom. No more sweltering in the kitchen in the summer and getting chilly in the winter. Textured ceiling The texturing is done… now we just have to wait for it to dry. Looks like we won’t be painting until Tuesday night.

Painting

Once this is all finished, I think I may have to whip up a page that puts some of the photos side-by-side so it’s easier to compare the progress. It also makes me wish I’d been a bit smarter and taken some “progress” shots every day from the same locations. Ah, well.

Bathroom ceiling repaired Tuesday’s Progress — The ceiling in the bathroom is now all sheetrocked, taped and mudded… It’s going to dry overnight and they’ll work on sanding it down tomorrow. Floor prepared Because of the type of flooring we’re getting, they didn’t need to pull up all the old linoleum (something that apparently saved quite a bit of time). So, they’ve gone through and sanded down the floor in some areas and put in some leveler in others. Walls primed There’s now a coat of primer on the walls and ceiling… at least the areas that are going to be visible above and around the cabinets and appliances. I think we may look at putting some primer on the other areas as well, before we paint tonight… it’s mildew resistant, and in this climate we can use all the help with that we can get. Notice the dimly glowing lightbulb halfway up the wall — that’s the wiring for our future under-cabinet lights (on a dimmer). Painted ceiling Our friend Rob came over this evening to lend us his 1337 painting skillz, for which we are very, very grateful (since I suspect it would have taken us a whole lot longer if we’d been left to our own devices). I don’t know whether it’s easy to tell, but here’s a pic of our lovely painted ceiling. Mitch painting There’s Mitch (or at least his back) busy painting the last bit of the kitchen. You can also see a bit of the line of demarcation between the paint and the primer on the wall behind him. Painted wall The difference is a little more obvious here, since I managed to snap a shot while Mitch was getting more paint. And look! It’s the heater vent again! (Yes, I’m more than a bit happy about that.)

Cabinets Arrive

Delivery truck Wednesday’s Progress — The truck arrives at the ungodly hour of 7:00am. Cabinets in garage Here’s half the cabinets, still in their boxes in the garage. First new cabinet And here it is! The first pic of the new cabinets… the guys had to wrestle with it for a bit, and in the end wound up shaving a tiny bit off the back just so they could get it to stand up without taking out the ceiling. I have a pantry!!!!!! (Trust me, there aren’t enough exclamation points in the world to encompass my joy.) First cabinet from dining room And a shot of the first new cabinet from the dining room. I was really relieved to discover that I loved the cabinets as much as I thought I would. It’s always tough to judge this sort of thing from small samples… sure those look good, but how will it look when there’s a LOT of it. I’m also really glad we wound up being in Utah for the last few days of the Parade of Homes this year (on the way to WriterCon), since that’s where we discovered knotty alder even existed. New fridge and dishwasher Busy day! The new fridge and dishwasher are now sitting in the living/dining room area… not terribly impressive looking at the moment because they still have all the protective plastic on them (plus the fridge is turned so the front is against the wall). New oven in living room The oven sitting in our living room. Once again, it’s still got that protective coating plastic stuff on all the metallic and glass parts. The microwave is still in the box you can just barely see in the bottom corner of the photo.

Cabinets Installed

Cabinets installed More from Wednesday — The cabinets are in!! The cabinets are in! Well, mostly. Pantry cabinet Pantry pantry pantry pantry… I love my pantry. The dishwasher looks white right now, due to the protective coating stuff, but will actually match the rest of the appliances in stainless steel splendor when they’re done installing it. Corner cabinet And the previously empty, wasted space corner. Now, cabinet space… with drawers! *happy sigh* I can’t wait to see it with the upper corner unit and the bookcases installed. Countertop sample Here’s a picture of the material and color (Silestone in “Absolute Green”) we’ve picked for the countertops. Sink area progress Thursday’s progress: Things are really humming along… after a bit of confusion earlier today as to who was supposed to be providing the sink, everything got straightened out, the sink was installed and the counter-top guy just finished creating the counter-top template. It should be done in another week and a half or so. Pantry with dishwasher The cabinet next to the pantry is in, and they’ve set the dishwasher in its eventual spot, to help with the templating for the countertop. My fingers are positively itching to pull that white plasticy coating off.

Nearly Done

It’s so close to being done! Click the photos to view larger versions.

Fridge installed 10 December, Friday’s Progress — Turns out there was a measurement error with the small drawer unit next to the fridge, it should be here in a week or so. We’ve got stuff in the fridge now, and I’ve even had a chance to use the oven! Shiny dishwasher Shiny dishwasher!! Unfortunately, you can’t actually see the crown moulding that’s been installed at the top of the pantry. Far corner with bookcases The far corner… with bookcases installed! Countertop installation 17 December, Friday’s Progress — It’s only been a week, but the countertops are here! Mitch snapped a shot this morning right after they set down the first bit of countertop in the corner. More pictures later!

Countertops

I figured I’d give the countertops their own section. Click photos to view larger versions.

Under-mount sink More of Friday’s Progress — And here is our lovely under-mount sink. This picture is the best one for seeing the “grain” of the counter-top… all the rest of them pretty much just look dark green. Oven corner The countertop people moved the oven out a bit to install the countertop and didn’t move it back *grumble*grumble*. Pantry countertop Here’s a wider shot of the sink. Pictures really don’t do this justice. Corner countertop And the future home of the kitchen computer.

Final Details

Click photos to view larger versions.

New faucet Monday’s progress (20 December) — We have a faucet!! Yay!! Even better, we have a working dishwasher (and yes, we did in fact allow our dishes to stack up over the weekend in anticipation). Sink and faucet Another shot of the sink and faucet from a bit further back. Cookbooks on shelves Color me stunned… all of my cookbooks fit on the shelves, with room to spare! I’ve actually started weeding through them a bit, now that I’ve got them out where they’re easy to see. There are definitely a few I’m never going to use again and don’t really have any sentimental value (unlike the Prudence Penny cookbooks I got from my grandmother… probably never going to use them, but they’re very cool to have). Kitchen at Christmas They’re supposed to be doing some work on the kitchen while we’re gone for the holidays, but there won’t be any updates until we get back (and by then it should be completely finished!).