Kitchen Reno 2013: Day 15 and a few days after - DONE

Well, we were basically done on Day 14, which was a Friday.
However, we still needed some final electrical work, and that got done last Monday (apparently, Rob's golf game was rained out, so he acquiesced to come finish up).

In a mere 2 hours, Rob put together, and put up, the (if I say so myself) really nice ceiling fan.  We managed to closely match the floor color, and the metal matches our metals in the kitchen really well too.

We also got the pendants put up, and after only 3 different hardware stores, I found all the right dimmable LED bulbs (Note: not all LED bulbs are dimmable. When a bulb will last almost 20 years, you should make sure you have the right one).

There are some verrrrrry minor details that got touched up during the week, but nothing I'll call out here.

Now, the hard work, for us at least, began... cleaning and moving stuff back in, and finding the right place for everything, and more cleaning.

The cleaners came on Wednesday, and did a great job... returned the carpet on the stairs to pre-reno condition.  Cleaned the windows, the screens, mopped the floors two more times... we feel so light and clean again, I can't tell you how much better I feel about the house (and, well, everything), now that things are dust-less.

Thursday morning, the movers came to move the giant china cabinet back, as well as the boxes of dishes and cupboard items, and the tv and the cabinet upon which it sits.

They didn't send the same 2 guys as the first day, so they were SURPRISED at how heavy the cabinet was, but they didn't drop it, and after that, things rolled quite smoothly.

One weird thing-- while we were in the midst of moving, the neighbors (not the ones we share a wall with, but the ones on the other side-- they asked to see the house while the movers were here.
Well, ok... seemed like a harmless idea to me.

They were polite and took off their shoes, and then wandered around the first floor with me, commenting on how lovely everything was, and how EXPENSIVE it must be.

?

Did they think I was going to respond to that? Oh, why, yes, strangers, we spend X dollars on this renovation; I'm happy to share that personal information with you, of course.

They didn't just hint at wanting to know the price, they pretty much asked... I think I just smiled and nodded and said something like, Yep.  But I did NOT disclose.
Seriously... what nerve.

Anyway, when the lookie-loos were gone, the couch company called to schedule a delivery of the new sectional-- between 3 and 6pm (they called at 8:50am).  I said, No, I have to be downtown AT 6pm, and that just won't do. Is there anything you can do?
No.
How about tomorrow?
No, we can't guarantee that.
Well, we have a problem then, don't we.
Yes, well, ma'am, I'll call dispatch and see what I can do.

That long story somewhat shorter, when I called the dispatch a 1/2hr later, they had indeed moved our couch to the "express" truck, and it would arrive between 1pm and 4pm.

Guess when it showed up?
4:05pm.
Sigh.

And when they had it unpacked and in place, I had my only meltdown of this entire process.

Our plan was to have a compact sectional, and so we bought a 2 seat loveseat, then a rounded corner piece, and then this interesting angled piece, like a seat-and-a-half, called a "cuddler". 
When it was all put together (which we couldn't see in the store), it was like a very tight J.

I snapped.  You couldn't get into the seats, you couldn't put a coffee table anywhere, the whole thing looked too big, and I just freaked out.

Couch in the original configuration.  My friend David says it looks introverted, needs to come out of its shell

Also, it was REALLY hot out, I hadn't walked the dog yet (and he was having a pretty hard day, which is another story), I had spent the entire day unpacking the boxes (almost everything except the formal china) and didn't have a place for everything (which was upsetting me) AND we had to go this group dinner thing downtown AT 6:15pm, wearing all white and schlepping our own table/chairs/tablecloth/cutlery/wine glasses/food... and I just had HAD IT.

So, I called my darling hubby, asked him to come home asap, we were NOT going to the dinner in white, and we needed to solve this couch thing.

While he was coming home and I was walking the dog and feeling a bit relieved of the pressure of the whole white dinner silliness, I thought of a solution to the couch thing...
We do have enough space to unfurl the sofa by adding a couple of single-seat sections, and we were able to really test this out by taking the sections apart, and not only measuring for the new pieces, but our coffee tables fit in those slots just right (in the end, we just kept one spot open with the coffee table for now, and put the other coffee table at the end... guess that makes it an end table, eh?).

Imagine a seat where the table is, and another seat on the other side of the corner piece, and no end table on the left

 

Note, the rugs are for Haka. He's hating the floors, has wiped out (full Bambi) on them already. He did ok when they were dirty, guess he got some traction. Anyway, it's liveable for everyone now.

Over the course of the next few days and the weekend, and with hubby's help, we found spots for just about everything that matters (and I'm contemplating what to put in the less-reachable spots... things I don't use that often? why even give kitchen space to those things? hmmm...), and we hosted our first guest on Friday night!

So, our kitchen renovation is at a close.  Next week, I'll drop some gifts off for the contractors with thank-you notes. I thought they did a great job, stuck to their timelines, were respectful of our choices and requests, and kept the job momentum going right through the end.

Thank you for following our saga-- your reward is below, our final, picture perfect (before I moved stuff back in) pictures!

Powder room, before (you can't see the epically bumpy walls and paint errors on the ceiling):

Powder room - before

Powder room - after. You can't see it, but the walls are waaaaaaay smooth, and the ceiling doesn't look like a 5yr old painted it (no offense to 5yr olds)

Dining room, sort of before:

Sorry I didn't grab a full-length view of the room, but you see the color and the floor

View of the same wall, from further back

View from the window

I don't have before shots of these angles...so these next few are just "after":

Kitchen as seen from the French doors

Doors as seen from the kitchen

And the money shot:  my view every day when I work from home:

My view from the couch - before

Now, the plan for the new kitchen:

And, the final end result. Love it!

Trying to recreate the angle from the conceptual plan - the stool doesn't live there

And finally, my new work-from-home view:



Done!



Kitchen Reno 2013: The not-so-great flood, aka making lemonade from life-lemons

Sorry I've been absent... my day job gets in the way of my blogging habit!

While I was working out of town the other week, our dishwasher decided to have a minor meltdown.  Minor, to the tune of having to remove ALL of the kitchen flooring, and all of the attatched living room floor as well.

Also, it was raining in the basement! NOT as much fun as it might sound.

The net result is that I need to have our dining room chairs fixed/refinished, since those were in the basement and took the brunt of the water damage (well, the dog beds stored on top of the pile of chairs took the BRUNT of the damage, but the chairs suffered mightily).

Also, as I mentioned, the kitchen and open-to-the-kitchen living room had to have their floors removed so that we could prevent mold, fungus, decay, whatever it is you get when wet things sit for a long time.

the floor in front and to the left of the dishwasher

 

around the edge and front of the peninsula

 

in front of the peninsula, aka the living room

 

living room from the other angle

So, my darling husband and I decided, since we have been contemplating kitchen updates forEVER, to take this giant life-lemon and make some lemonaid.  Expensive lemonaid. eesh.

We have contracted with renovators, highly recommended by almost everyone I work with (and those who didn't recommend them just didn't have any work done) to totally redo the kitchen.

Kitchen-- pre-flood, pre-reno.  You can't see the wall of pantry cabinets over --> there

New cabinets, new countertops, new floors (in the kitchen, living room AND dining room). New paint (and in the powder room too, where our last do-it-yourself project had mixed results), new faucet, new range hood, new pulls... no new appliances.
Yes, the offending dishwasher gets a 2nd chance at life (as it's only 6yrs old) with a new intake valve.  Sigh.

I thought I'd track the progress of the project here-- pictures, commentary, any tips I run into along the way.

Tip 1: if your floors get wet, you DO need to pull them up, all the way to the subfloor, and the sooner the better.  The emergency services folks wanted to pull them up on the Sunday when this flooding occurred, but it wasn't good timing, so we did have them come back just a week later.

We've had industrial fans (to kick up the surface moisture) and a dehumidifyer running for 5 days now-- most of the floor is acceptably dry, and the section just in front of the dishwasher is still at 30% and needs to be at 12-16%, so we'll keep going until we get to that number.

Tip 2: when you have an industrial dehumidifyer running, move the dog's water away from it.
Far, far away.

Back to the reno.  Our selected contractors came by the same day the floors were removed, and listened carefully to all of our ideas. 
We wanted to see 2 versions of whatever plan-- one with as many of our original cabinets (just replacing door/drawer fronts) and one with everything new.
That was a Thursday.  By Friday night, they had the plans ready for us to look at, and when we choose one (guess which one? seriously... all new with nifty inserts and widgets, vs. 20yr old insides... ugh), we were ready to choose finishes:

• pseudo Shaker cabinets, in Cloud White (I say pseudo, since there is a small round bead on the inside of the panel)
• dark floors-- we're looking at bamboo, just need to source them
• keeping the appliances
• new sink (33" very big, square, 2 bowls)
• new faucet (Kohler Sensate-- look it up, it's awesome!)
• new range hood (less awesome than the faucet, but necessary)
• a shelf where I can grow gourmet herbs indoors, some wine storage (we have plenty elsewhere) and book/collection shelving.
• knobs and half-moon drawer pulls (brushed nickel, very simple)

Here's the 3D rendering of the proposed kitchen:

You still can't see the pantry/broom closet, to the right of the peninsula. Also, floating shelves on that wall above the peninsula

So, that's all the news to date.  Measurements have been finalized, the order placed, and other details, like packing EVERYTHING and moving it either to the basement or upstairs, are being taken care of.

Stay tuned for updates!