Day 26

Baby steps today...baby steps that came in the shape of a microwave oven, and functional outlets, switches and light fixtures. The microwave took a significant amount of time, since the vent going up to the roof had to be re-routed. This is because we wanted the vent to actually vent to the outside, not just re-circle the air.

Not much else to report today, except that the countertop was templeted (I think I just made up a word), so it should be here in about two weeks.

Hello Mr Microwave, I'm pleased to meet you.

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Light fixtures are in. Nice.

Day 25

Things have been a bit slow as of late, due to the Thanksgiving weekend. Still, if you close your eyes and you listen closely, you will hear the sound of cheering and excitement off in the distance, and that's because we're almost on the home stretch.

Today, more small details having to do with trim were done. But that matters little because the oven was put into place, as was the dishwasher. We do not have the cover panel for the dishwasher yet (I hereby officially shake my fist at Ikea in anger). The panel will match the other cabinets, and will thus make the dishwasher hard to find for those unfamiliar with our kitchen layout. This will make for very fun games of "find the dishwasher" during family gatherings. A new family tradition begins. How fun!

This picture will serve as a clue during the fun games of "where is the dishwasher" that we will play from now on. By the way, I fully expect to win a Pulitzer Prize for photo journalism because of this picture.

Dishwasher aside, seeing the oven in place felt like a bit of a milestone, even if we can't use it right now...because it's not plugged in yet. The electrician will be here this week to do his magic (by "magic" I mean making things work), as well as finishing up the outlets, light fixtures, and switches. This will also allow us to move the fridge into is permanent home, and away from the dinning room, where it has been squatting for some time.

It will be in this sacred compartment that many delicious cakes and pies will be baked. Its matching cooktop will be installed very soon. It will be on that sacred cooking surface that many plantains will be burned.

Lastly, it's worth mentioning that the small cubbies of storage space that will sit atop the wall cabinets (instead of a soffit), are being built off-site as I type this. They should be in later this week. Hooray for storage! Woo-hoo!

Said storage compartments will be housed atop these cabinets. Note the artistic qualities and considerations that make up this beautifully framed photograph. Eat your heart out Ansel Adams.

Day 20

Today lots of smaller things were done including trim under our cabinets, side panels on end cabinets, floor trim, etc. One big noticeable change is that our drawers and most of our cabinets have pulls on them now.

A lot of the larger equipment has been moved out of the house and we were able to move our dining room table back to the dining room, hang our curtains, dining room light and some of our pictures again. Things seem a little more normal now despite the fact that our refrigerator is in our dining room and we don't have any other appliances or a sink, and of course nothing is in our cabinets yet.





This is the space where our new dishwasher will go:



About 10% of the reason we did this entire project is that our last dishwasher was awful. I refused to get a new one any sooner because I kept thinking we would eventually get around to remodeling the kitchen, and it would be worth putting it off so that we could get all new appliances at one time and not pay for installation twice. The old dishwasher was not craigslist worthy - it went straight to the dumpster and I cheered as it left! Our appliances get delivered later this week and this space will be filled by early next week. Even if I can't use the new dishwasher for a few weeks, it will be so nice to know that it's there waiting for me.

Day 18 - 19

Yesterday and today the remainder of the cabinets were installed. Some minor adjustments need to be made, and under cabinet light trim needs to be added, but everything is pretty much in place now. Today we had a new window installed, which definitely made a huge difference since the old one was about 60 years old. I'm not a big fan of white vinyl windows, but there just aren't many good options in a normal price range.

I was pretty happy to see this pantry and space for our fridge. Our pantry in the old kitchen was a stand alone cabinet that was meant for clothing, so I felt like this would be a major upgrade!

Still quite a ways to go before we see a countertop, but everyday we're further along!

Day 17: Progress!

So much has happened in just two days. Yesterday the kitchen was fully painted, but today several things happened:

-Corner post was installed
-Flooring was installed
-Some of wall cabinets were hung and the island cabinets were placed

Needless to say, the kitchen is looking quite a bit different today.

The corner post is one of our favorite parts of the kitchen. We saved a few hundred dollars by purchasing a beam that was part of a barn that had recently been dismantled in Leechburg, PA. The barn was built nearly 100 years ago and we felt it would be a nice contrast to the modern look of the rest of the kitchen. For the last few weeks a few 2x4s were holding up our ceiling but now this solid oak beam is doing that job.

The cork flooring is also in (with a few patches of hardwood on the outskirts of the kitchen that still need to be stained to match our other flooring):

Several of the cabinets are in and I'm already dreaming about how I am going to organize the things that will go in them!

Day 15: Plastic comes down!

Today was the big day. The sheets of plastic surrounding the kitchen have been removed and we can now get a real sense of what the new kitchen feels like without two of the four walls that used to surround it. It is pretty great! The ceiling was primed today and since the kitchen ceiling now joins the dining room ceiling, the whole area was done.

Believe it or not, there was still more patching and sanding today as well!

This is what the area looks like now from our living room looking into the kitchen:


From the dining room looking towards the front entrance.

Things are starting to look better but we still have another 3-4 weeks to go!

Goodbye stove

I posted our old stove on Craigslist today. Goodbye old stove, you served us well.


Hello future built-in oven and cooktop! I look forward to working with you!

Day 12: Cabinet assembly

No, the kitchen did not magically get to the point that cabinets can be installed. Unfortunately, we've still had a couple more days of drywall finishing - patching, sanding, then more patching and sanding. So the kitchen itself doesn't look all that different yet.

The big update today is that the Ikea contractor, QWR, sent a guy to our house to assemble the cabinets that were in that large stack of boxes in our garage. Unfortunately, Ikea sent us two wrong cabinets (birch instead of white) but QWR said they haven't had that problem before, and some minor inconveniences are definitely worth the money we saved by going with Ikea cabinets. I would not let it deter any of you that may be considering Ikea cabinets!

We now have a huge pile of empty boxes that will need to be recycled next week, and this lovely string of cabinets.


Tomorrow, there will be more sanding so hopefully I will have a better update later this week!

Day 10: Drywall Mudding

Today the drywall was tapped and mudded. Not sure if that's the right term for it or not.

Days 6-9

Last Thursday, Friday and this Monday the electrician was here to add switches, outlets and recessed lights. The photos aren't too exciting, but you can see some of the changes in the photos I took today. more importantly, today they drywalled over the few areas of the kitchen that needed it. One of the larger areas was the small wall that was built where the entrance to our kitchen used to be (the small white wall in this photo). This area will be mostly hidden when the kitchen is done because a pantry will be placed in the corner, leaving just enough room for the switch. On the grey wall you can see an outlet that will be behind our pantry. We will have rollout shelves so we're planning to put our coffee maker in our pantry and there will be a cutout at the back so that we can plug the coffee maker in.



This is the other side of the small wall:




The ceiling around the beam was also drywalled:




As well as the area on the ceiling where the wall between the dining room and kitchen was:



The plumbing was capped off and new drywall was installed around it:




Last but not least, the subfloor was screwed into our floor joists...not sure why this wasnt done before...it must have been right? I guess our contractor was just making sure it was!

Day 5 and some more history

Today the electrician came to change some of our switches and outlets and add new ones. The job is not done, and not all that exciting.

I mentioned that our new cabinets were delivered yesterday. It's hard to believe that this pile of boxes in our garage will become our future kitchen!


One thing I know is that we will have plenty of Faktum to go around:

Our flooring is also boxed up in our garage. We had heard a lot of great reviews about cork in kitchens (it is resistant to mold and mildew, durable and environmentally friendly), so after some debate, we decided to narrow our search to cork and would up with this choice (APC Cork, "Apollo Brown").



In my search for an old kitchen photo from when we first moved into our home in 2006, I found something even better...a video. Obviously, we have made a lot of changes since then. But this will give you an idea of what we started with, as well as the full layout of the kitchen.



I guess we have come a long way already, but there is still a long way to go!

Day 4

Not much of an update today. The plumber was here to pull out the old sink pipes and install new ones. Somehow all of the piping down to our utility sink was replaced along with it (I guess they don't want to join old pipe to new pipe). They tore out some of the gross drywall around the old pipes. It looks like this now.


Our new cabinets were also delivered by Ikea today. Everything is flat packed like a good Ikea product should be. It was delivered on a large skid, and then everything was moved separately into our garage, where it will wait until it all gets assembled.

Fridge

We bought a new refrigerator before starting the kitchen construction. We are going with Bosh appliances throughout the kitchen but found this Fisher & Paykel fridge at a scratch and dent store in near perfect condition. I thought I would hate having the freezer on the bottom but it's really nice and seems roomier even though it is counter depth.

Day 3

Today the contractor removed the temporary wall that was holding up our kitchen ceiling and installed this large beam.

I have been very impressed with how clean our contractor is! Check out this plastic wall surrounding the construction:

On the right side of the plastic is our dining room. Which now looks like this:


Today we also ordered our new cabinets from Ikea. The Ikea purchase was pretty unceremonious. We printed out a list of what we needed and walked to a register to buy and schedule delivery. The new cabinets are stocked at the store and will arrive tomorrow.

Day 1 and 2

Our contractor and two of his crew members arrived early for the first day of work just as we were heading to the airport for a wedding. We were told that when we returned on Sunday the walls surrounding the kitchen between our living and dining room would be gone, as well as everything in the kitchen.

I should start with some "before" pictures. Eventually I will dig up some true "before" pictures with details on the ivy stenciling and peel and stick tile that were part of the kitchen when we purchased our 1950s split entry. We couldn't live with that kitchen for long and made some minor inexpensive improvements to make it livable for four years. This was the state of the kitchen when we left our house for the airport:

This picture really makes the kitchen look decent. I should explain that we have white cabinets with newer modern looking handles, and a newer faucet. Nothing fancy, but simple measures we took to make our kitchen livable when we first moved in. The peel and stick tiles that were cracking and breaking were replaced about a year ago with inexpensive vinyl "wood like" planks. The dishwasher has been barely usable as seals have broken leaving us with a mold problem inside of it. The cabinets were probably one day beautiful since they are solid wood, but although cabinet materials have gone downhill over time, the construction and use of space within a cabinet has greatly improved making these older cabinets a bit of a bummer. The configuration of the kitchen was the largest problem. It's not a small kitchen but all of the counter space and cabinets are shown in this picture because kitchens of the 50s were designed to have an open area for a large kitchen table. Unfortunately pantries, an area for trash and recyling as well as countertop space didn't seem to be a priority back then.

At the end of day 1, our contractor sent us this picture:

On day 1 and 2 all of the cabinets and appliances were removed along with the soffit and the two walls. Fortunately when we returned to our kitchen on Sunday night, it looked like this:

The walls to the right of the kitchen and at the forefront of this photo were entirely removed, and a temporary wall was created to keep the ceiling from falling in on us (who knew it just took a few strong sticks).

Oddly enough, we thought the space would feel larger but somehow without anything there to remind us of the scale of a kitchen, it felt smaller. I'm sure this will just be temporary perception!

Our old cabinets and our appliances are now stacked up in our dining room.