I knew we'd lose the use of the kitchen during the remodel, but I didn't realize that we'd also lose most of the rest of the house to
storage. Everything that was in the kitchen, family room and dining room filled the rest of the house.Having the job done (okay, started) in summer was a good move because we had the
makeshift dining area out back, Erik's room as the "kitchen" and a sink in the garage.Erik and I did the
demolition, which was hard work, but chucking the lousy drawers and old appliances into the dumpster was rewarding. The old counters were tile laid on poured-in-place cement, over 3/4 inch plywood. It was heavy and a bear to remove.Kathy, painstakingly, removed the back splash tile, being careful not to damage the sheetrock underneath, only to come home the next day to find a
3 foot section removed for the new electrical outlets! Even though we already had several outlets in the backsplash the code required them to be moved a few inches closer to the corners?When the delivery guy showed up with a flatbed truck full of cabinet boxes I asked "is all that for us?" He replied "No, the rest will come in the next load.".
The boxes filled the dining room and family room. And the cardboard took several trips to the recycling with Erik's truck.Everyday we came home anxious to see that days progress, one day we found that Steve Abbot, our one man contracting staff, had
installed nearly all the cabinets that day, by himself. I have no idea how he did that!Annie was away a school for most of the project but on one visit home, around this time, she looked at the pantry cabinets and said, "those are the wrong doors". She was right, they were pretty close, and none of the rest of us had caught it, including our designer/sales person Mary. The trim was just a bit different, so Mary ordered new ones and I still have the old ones in the garage. (I don't know why?)
The floor was another story. We elected to go with "pergo-esque" Willsonart flooring. The entire downstairs with the exception of the living room and Erik's bedroom were
re-floored. Love the floor, the installers were great, but the contractor/salesperson was a flake. Took forever to get material and it was invariably, somehow, wrong?By now Kathy had become quite the general contractor, coordinating deliveries, running samples to other shops, picking up materials and planning when floor, counter and Steve could work.
The counters are Corian®, this was another, come home and be surprised effort. I really wanted to see how they did the install, but I missed it. We're
about done at this point.A little side note here- we were cooking some waffles with our 30+ year-old waffle iron, many months later, when we heard this loud shot. I thought something had hit the window and cracked it but we could find nothing. Then we saw the counter, in the front corner by the sink, under the waffle iron. A 3 inches crack starting at about a half inch wide, in our (still new to us) counter! Corian® doesn't handle temperature changes very well, expanding something like 25%! I called around that day to see about repairs (Corian® is very repairable) but when we came home... could not find the crack! Can't even catch a fingernail on a rough surface, amazing! So it stays un-repaired, and unnoticeable!
We went with a Dacor gas cook top, but an electric
convection oven.It took about 5 months to complete the remodel (over a year if you count how long it took me to finally move the old fridge off the back deck) but we really
love the new kitchen. Great for the holidays.
More nonsense?
