The Kitchen Remodel, Cont'd

As my die hard readers know (ha, 'cause I have SO many of you), we've been picking away at a kitchen remodel in our 100-yr old home since we moved in, ten years this Christmas.When I say "picking away" I'm really not kidding. It went something like this...

2001: Bought the house, started and finished major rehabilitation work just in time to move in for Christmas: plastering, plumbing, flooring, carpeting, painting, and basically bringing everything up to code, inside and out, and making the place habitable.

2002 to 2004: OMG, what the hell are we going to do with the kitchen?! So exhausted and distracted by teenage boys and dealing with their problems that it was all we could do to make it through the day.

2005: Started drafting the kitchen plan. The kids become a little more independent, DH begins his work with FIRST Robotics, and we start to feel a little more relaxed, less exhausted, and a little motivated. Replaced and enlarged the electrical panel to make sure we could add the appropriate outlets in the kitchen, which has three really inconveniently placed outlets which had a tendency to trip the breaker.

2006: DH ripped out an entire wall of cabinets and built a beautiful wall of open shelving while I was on vacation for ten days in Scotland with my mother and grandmother. Boy howdy was I surprised when I got home. I think my exact words were "holy shit."

2007: Inspired by his success in the kitchen, DH took a break and constructed built-in cabinets in the living room (but the molding and the doors on the bottom still haven't been added, even though I bought him a NEW compound miter saw the previous Christmas because our garage had been burgled). Again, he started this while I was on a two-week business trip to India. Perhaps I need to go on another long vacation...

2008: Kitchen windows shortened. A little like a boob lift. We were having all the windows replaced (all as in 30 of them, yes, and well worth it, although to be honest there are still 8 more that could stand to be replaced) and had the guys order shorter windows for the kitchen. They still hit at the same height at the top, but the bottom was filled in so we could run counter in front of the window. Even then we knew where certain elements would reside.

2009: Moved the kitchen door three feet left of it's original position. We have always known where we would move the fridge, so this was an easy thing to add to the deck work we were doing.  I think we replaced the dishwasher during this year, too.

2010: finalized the kitchen design - FINALLY! In Fall of 2010, I said to DH: just do it. I trust you, tell me when you are done. We've been futzing with the kitchen design for years, and had settled on certain things but there were details that were incomplete.

2011: This year, we replaced our gawd-awful glass-top freestanding range, whose oven thermostat ran 100 degrees too hot, with a wonderful freestanding gas range (from Craig's List!) which we just love. Of course, this also involved getting gas piped in from the street, having the gas plumbing done, etc. We also replaced the vent hood, which didn't work anyway. 

Most of the electrical is complete, and the majority of the dry-walling and misc plastering is done. We'd hoped that would all be done a little earlier so we could be done with the painting by Labor Day Weekend but you know how these things go...they had to start a day late, then ran into some old-house-wiring challenges...it happens and it's no big deal.What counts is that the work is done.

The cabinets arrived today at 6pm, and we'll hold them in the foyer and living room and wherever we can find room for them until the painting and floor is done and then we can begin hanging the uppers. 

13x13 Ferroker Floor Tiles

Backsplash - glass tile in "Arctic Ice." Ours are a little less saturated.

We haven't picked out the counter tiles yet but they'll be white, hopefully something with a little variation and interest, as in not just plain old white. In a couple of years, when we can afford it again, we'll replace it with solid surface Staron in Pebble Frost (probably, because it goes well with the floor, cabinets, and the glass tiles).

So there we are. The work commences at a roaring pace. The kitchen is barely habitable right now only because it's complete chaos and objects are continually changing places, like old base cabinets that still house flatware and pans. There is dust everywhere. 

Pictures to come...really. They are in my camera.