Should I wait until the kitchen remodel is done, or should I share progress as it happens?
Since it probably won't be completely done until the first week of August, I've decided to hold
with my previous renovation progress series, and start sharing today!
Today was Day 1 of the circus that is my Kitchen Renovation Project. I started planning this project back in January, so at times the wait has seemed looooong, but now it's here!
My day started with a meeting at 8 am with 3 people: Paul, the head of Handyman Matters; Don, a supervisor; and Keith the main workman on my project. Paul was very organized with a detailed list of all aspects of the project. He walked us through the list, item by item and we discussed what needed to be discussed as we went. I was very impressed with his organization.
About 8:45ish, the cabinets arrived from Jae Company. My 3 workers then went through the shipping list, and made sure we had what we were supposed to have. We did get everything that was on the delivery list, but later in the day, we realized that the upper cabinets for the sink side were not here. Don is working with Jennifer from Jae to sort that out.
By about 10 or so, it was time to begin actual work. Keith laid plastic and a tarp on the dining room carpet and the kitchen flooring. He also removed the door from the kitchen into the laundry room. Then the stove and refrigerator got moved to their temporary home in the dining room. Next Keith and Don hung a big plastic barrier between the kitchen and the dining room to contain dust because they were going to have to pull off the old backsplash.
They removed the upper cabinets first, and then they did the lowers. Here are some much-awaited photos:
Old cabinets - 1973 builder-grade with very '70s countertop.
The old sink evidently had more than one leak. Hubs and I didn't know this until about 10:30 last night when I opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled up the liner - the plywood underneath was wet. We had no idea we had any leaks. Today the guys told me there was more than one! Good timing to do this!
After the counter trim was removed, the countertop came off fairly easily in one piece, complete with sink, and was carried out the front door, where it relaxed in the sun of the front yard until quitting time. It will sleep in the garage tonight before it is put back on temporarily until the quartz comes in (Aug. 1).
Here we have our (almost) blank slate!
All of this demolition was done by about 12:30ish, then installation began immediately. All of the cabinets were in individual boxes and had to be unpacked. Keith unpacked them and brought them in one at a time, starting at the far right with the tray/cookie sheet cabinet.
Next is the set of drawers that are replacing the dishwasher. Then the sink. The sink needed to be set first so it is centered under the window - then everything else fans out from that.
Next to the sink is the small 15" cab that will hold my silverware, and finally, we have the larger base cabinet. This one shows the pull-out shelves which were the main reason for doing this whole thing in the first place!
Here it is at the end of today's workday:
There seems to have been one little snafu in the design/ordering process. My designer had put one last cabinet at the left that was going to open into the dining room. It was just a 9" wide end-cap that was supposed to take the place of the open shelves that were there before. Well, as they started lining things up, we realized there wasn't room for that last end-cap. Fortunately, everything else works without it, so we can just return it. I am not sure how this error in design and measuring happened, but it probably has something to do with the fact that Designer #1 left the company after about 90% of my design was done, and a new person took over who didn't come out to the house to double check anything. Here is the design where you can see that end cabinet:
We can now use the door from that end cabinet as a decorative piece on the end of the whole line, so all the ends will match.
Work wrapped up today about 4:30 and will begin tomorrow around noon. It will be interesting to learn if the uppers never made it to the warehouse, or if they just didn't make it on the truck this morning.
Stay turned for more in the days ahead!
Thanks for visiting - come back again soon!
We've been through the same ordeal in 2003. It was great when it was finished!
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