MelissaH's Kitchen (Renovation) Dreams

[memesuze]

We think we've found our floor.

And then we watched This Old House, and saw the episode on which they were putting in the kitchen floor in the house they're renovating in Washington DC. It was a click-together linoleum floor. And as my husband and I watched them set the floor in place on TV and listened to them talk about it, we just looked at each other, thinking the same thing: "That's our floor!" We liked the overall look, and when they showed us the side view we liked that it looked robust, and we liked their blue color although it probably won't work in our kitchen which will have yellow and red accents. We also liked that the linoleum is considered a much "greener" material than vinyl. So we watched the credits, and saw a line for Marmoleum floor. There are places around here that sell it, and we'll be going to look in person. But this looks like a prime candidate.

In other news, we know about what we'll be looking for in lighting, and we know what we'll need to do for the utilities. My husband has a preliminary calendar of events, and if everything goes as planned, we'd be done by the end of July. Which is good, because we need to be done by the end of August when classes start!

MelissaH

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here's information on maintenance - it takes more care than CVT

marmoleum

[Daddy-A]

Melissa,

As someone who's had a Marmoleum floor for the last 4 years, I give it the big thumbs-up.

There is maintenance to deal with, yes. We damp mop as often as we would with any other floor. We clean/seal (same product) about 3-4 times a year, which takes just as long as the moppig we'd be doin anyway.

We have 2 teenagers, and two Jack Russel Terriers ... it's a well used kitchen. It looks brand-new today ... or at least it will once I sweep it

A.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Melissa,

As someone who's had a Marmoleum floor for the last 4 years, I give it the big thumbs-up.

There is maintenance to deal with, yes.  We damp mop as often as we would with any other floor.  We clean/seal (same product) about 3-4 times a year, which takes just as long as the moppig we'd be doin anyway.

We have 2 teenagers, and two Jack Russel Terriers ... it's a well used kitchen.  It looks brand-new today ... or at least it will once I sweep it

A.

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Okay, this is very interesting. I've got some flooring decisions to make as well. We have two teenagers (and various others in and out), a 15 year old Lab., a Basset puppy, and a cat who stays out of the way except when he's in the way. We have lots of traffic in the kitchen, and I was wanting something durable but beautiful. Tile is in now and it has got to go. I'd never have considered this material before, and it sounds great -- at least for a significant portion of the cooking/cleanup area. And, of course, where the doggies run free.

So, thanky!

[andiesenji]

Check this video on sink selection at the HGTV site.

I like the sink that has a very low divider between the large section and the smaller, garbage disposal section.

The sink I have now has a large section that is quite deep and the smaller section that is shallower to accomodate the garbage disposal and the divider is 2 inches lower than the outer rim, which is handy.

[NancyH]

Melissa - we looked at Marmoleum and rejected it for a couple of reasons:

Very pricey

Very few people really knowledgable about it

Most important - it is fussy - when we finally got the authorized dealer who was knowledgable into our home, he explained that it has to be sealed at insallation and periodically resealed.

We were going to go with ALLOC commerical for our floor, until our contractor convinced us that locking tile products just aren't water tight enough for the way we pound our kitchen. So, we're probably going to go with a sheet good made by Forbo (which makes marmoleum), which is maintenence free and indestructable.

Hope this helps.

Best- NJH

[lcdm]

We have Marmoleum (sheet, not the click). It's a great floor and it works for us (3 kids, a dog and cat).

Didn't want tile - too hard on the feet and glasses

Wood would have been nice but I would have obsessed about the scraches

Vinyl (been there done that, always looked dirty to me)

Cork was an alternate choice, but husband nixed.

So we chose marmoleum, the hardest thing about it was picking the color. If you go with it bring home samples and test in your light, the color is variable.

To clean I vacuum and damp mop, I have not re-sealed the floor yet, but I'm sure it will be no harder than damp mopping. It was a little on the expensive side, but I think that was due to the fact that we had it prof. installed. I think the "click' project can be "DIY".

[MelissaH]

We view a floor the same way we view cabinets: something we don't want to have to replace any time in the near future. Durable is good.

As far as a sink: when we go looking, I'll be bringing my largest roasting pan and a half-sheet pan along, to be sure they can fit inside for easy cleanup!

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Full details forthcoming shortly, after I go out to get fertilizer for the lawn.

But over last weekend, we visited our friends in Connecticut, and paid another visit to the IKEA store in New Haven. We've pretty much finalized our cabinet order, cleared up a few details, AND even visited a flooring store to lay eyes on the Marmoleum click floors. (We still like it.)

We're currently finalizing sinks. We've barely even started to think about paint colors. And the electrician was in to give us some good news about our electrical system: we won't need to replace our whole breaker box!

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Grrr. Just when I thought we had things worked out, including a gorgeous faucet that I adored, a problem surfaced. The issue: our sink will remain in front of the kitchen window. The window is double-hung, and somewhat tough to open or close because of its location behind a counter. We realized that the faucet we liked, with that glorious sprayer arm, would rise so far out of the countertop that it would get even more difficult to open or close the window. So, we need to find a new faucet.

We're also not yet settled on a sink, entirely. We know what we want, but we also don't want to spend $600+ on a sink that we're projecting to last on the order of 10 years, or until we take out the laminate and put in the dream soapstone countertop.

So, last night we went to Syracuse to check out the flooring store down there, visit a Home Depot, stop at BJ's (our warehouse club), and other Big City Errands, of the sort that's easier to do there than here in our small town. I took my largest roaster, a half-sheet pan, my biggest cooling rack, and the tallest pot we own, so we could see how they'll fit into the dishwashers and sinks.

But first I need to back up a little. Over the Easter weekend, we went back to the New Haven IKEA to nail down (no pun intended) our cabinets. While we were there, we were able to figure out the amounts of molding, toekick boards, cover panels, and the like that we'll need to order. We also finally figured out where the microwave oven will go: since it won't fit in the Perfekt shelving unit we were considering for the end of the run, we've instead decided to put it in a cabinet, but not to put the doors on the cabinet so we'll have easy access. This cabinet will go next to the range, and we'll put an outlet on the wall to make it easy to plug in the microwave. (This is the location we considered for a wine fridge, but we decided that we'd be happier with a wine fridge downstairs. With an outlet in place, though, there's nothing to prevent us from changing our minds when we redo the countertop.) We can also install a pull-out shelf in the cabinet directly under the microwave, to give us a landing place for hot nuked dishes. Underneath the microwave, we'll figure out something pretty and cat-proof. Without knowing the exact amount of room the microwave will take up, we can't put a drawer underneath. And knowing that microwave ovens don't last forever, we don't want to be locked into a specific size. So we're keeping our options and the bottom of the cabinet open.

We also looked at countertops while we were there, and realized that since we're looking to save some money on countertops, we could do much worse than the Pragel, in stone effect black color. So that's our plan: everywhere we'd like soapstone in the end, we'll put the Pragel laminate. As far as the other places, we've decided to use the Numerar butcher block next to the stove (instead of stainless) and also in the pastry area (instead of marble). This is in part because it's a much less expensive option than either stainless or marble, and in part for functionality. Wood will be fine as a resting place for hot stuff from the stove. And since I've been rolling my piecrusts on a wooden pastry board for forever now, it won't be much different than having a wooden countertop.

The other advantage to a wood countertop in the pastry area is that we'll be able to fit the pieces together nicely. The laminate we've selected has a rounded edge. And in our kitchen, we'll need to join pieces together in an L, and mitering the joint isn't an option because the two pieces are of different material. IKEA sells a "cover strip" (a metal piece that slips into the gap, to take up the space left by the rounded edge and make a flat surface). But it's ugly! With a wooden pastry area, we should be able to pretty easily use the router to take out just enough material from beneath, so that the rounded area will easily fit into the bottom of the butcher block, on both sides.

We also looked at lights, but ultimately decided that we'd be better off getting our recessed cans and under-cabinet lights locally. Neither of us liked the selection of pendant lights at IKEA, but our Lowe's has some good ones.

After all that, the only purchase we made for the kitchen was from the as-is section: a cabinet door that someone had drilled into for a door pull. It's a big door, but we got it so we'd have something to show us the color of our cabinets.

We were all ready to phone IKEA and place the cabinet order yesterday. But the person we've been working with at IKEA Direct apparently has Friday and Saturday off. So tomorrow morning, we'll make that phone call, and start down the Path of No Return. Once we know what dishwasher we'll be getting we can also order appliances, by Monday morning. And those two items are the two biggest chunks of money we'll be spending---everything else is small in comparison.

So then: With all that taken care of, we've been pinning down the final details. Which brings us to the trip to Syracuse yesterday.

Our first stop: floors. We were originally thinking Serene Grey to go with the Bleecker Street red, but now we're thinking more along the lines of Silver Shadow, because with dark countertops, we're afraid of making the kitchen too dark. We have two options for how to use the red accents. One possibility is to run a border of red just along the edge of the visible portion of the floor. (Because the IKEA cabinets sit on the floor, we'll be flooring the entire area before the cabinets go in.) The other possibility is to use the red to make a series of V shapes down the middle of the floor. Fortunately, we have a little bit of time before we need to make up our minds here, because the lead time on a floor order is only a week or so. Before we put the floors in, we'll need to complete the demolition, take care of the utilities, and paint the walls. We'd brought our Lion of Flanders flag to the store with us, as a color check, and we both liked the lighter Silver Shadow color with the flag. (We'd previously checked them both against the cabinets, and thought either would work well.)

Then, a stop which had nothing at all to do with the kitchen: dinner at the Korean restaurant down that way. We got to introduce our friend Bruce, who accompanied us on the jaunt, to the pleasures of dol sot bi bim bap. He got his with shrimp and I got mine with beef. My husband got kimchi jigae.

Well fed, we headed next to Home Depot. First, we looked at dishwashers, since that's the one appliance we haven't totally settled on. We liked the LG in the display, which is "semi-integrated" but had the adjustable top rack, stainless tub, and fold-down tines on half the bottom rack. Later today, we may go out to Lowes in town here to see what they have, since we haven't actually looked at Bosch yet and Consumer Reports prefers Bosch to LG. (I'm not the only one who complains about the CR rating system, though: my husband was looking through the article this morning, and commented that they came out with numerical ratings that put the LG 17th out of 40-odd dishwashers, despite the fact that in all but one category it got the top rating, and in the one category it got the next-to-top rating. But in the article, they didn't specifically say how they assigned the rating!)

We looked at sinks, and found an Elkay one-tub 20-gauge stainless sink that should be fine as a temporary sink, for less than $200. We know the sink's only going to be in there until we have the funds to redo the countertops, and we really don't want to spend a whole lot of money on a terrific sink that's going to be orphaned before too long.

We also looked at faucets. The Home Depot we went to had mainly Pegasus brand faucets on display, and we didn't care much for them. The big flaw, to us: lack of hose length on the sprayer. That's another item on the Lowe's list.

Next up: tiles for a backsplash. The IKEA countertop we've chosen doesn't have anything integrated, so we wanted to look at what was available with a cove edge to make a bottom, and a bullnose for the top. We found what we were looking for, and it comes in a whole bunch of colors and both matte and shiny finishes. We've decided that we really need to wait to make our selection until we have samples of both flooring and countertop to bring along. This shouldn't be a problem because the backsplash will be one of the last things to get done in the kitchen. I have my eyes on a soft gray color, but until we have the countertop and floor pieces with us, we won't know how well it will work.

We're also holding off on paint colors until we have countertop and flooring in hand. My husband prefers to work with the paint from Home Depot over the paint from Lowe's or anywhere else for that matter, so we'll probably get the paint from Home Depot. And since the floor place isn't far from a Home Depot, we shouldn't have a problem borrowing a floor color sample for a couple of hours to help us find exactly the right color. The countertop should be here early on (more on that later) and we should have enough to be able to bring a piece along with us. Right now, we're thinking something off-white, possibly leaning towards the floor gray color. Unless we do something leaning towards Lion of Flanders yellow.

We didn't buy anything at Home Depot. Bruce got a gallon of paint for his bathroom, and a few things to go along with.

From Home Depot, we headed to BJ's. Our mission: get paper plates, plastic silverware, and the like, to get us through a couple of months without a real kitchen. It's bad enough washing dishes by hand in a kitchen-size sink, but it's going to be even worse washing dishes by hand in a bar sink. Therefore, we've decided to minimize the amount of stuff that will need washing. Ergo, disposables. I also foresee lots of grilling. (During the summer, we tend to bring our trash to the transfer station more frequently anyway, usually before the bag is full, so the increase in volume won't present a problem. With gas prices high and getting worse, we'll probably start combining our dump runs with other east-side-of-town errands more than we already do: the supermarkets, Lowe's, Aldi, BB&B, and Walmart are all out by the transfer station.) Anything left over, we'll probably use at the party that will undoubtedly be thrown in the fall to welcome the new school year and celebrate the new kitchen.

It's really kind of scary. After years of planning, there's very little left to plan, and a whole lot to start doing!

MelissaH

[fou de Bassan]

Melissa,

Since you mentioned This Old House upthread I wondered if you've seen their kitchen book. In one of the reno's the family used a utility sink as an apron front sink. They simply cut the legs off. In stainless it looked pretty good and it would certainly be deep enough for whatever you would wish to wash.

[MelissaH]

Melissa,

Since you mentioned This Old House upthread I wondered if you've seen their kitchen book.  In one of the reno's the family used a utility sink as an apron front sink.  They simply cut the legs off.  In stainless it looked pretty good and it would certainly be deep enough for whatever you would wish to wash.

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Yup, we looked through that book.

We placed the cabinet order this morning. Tomorrow, appliances and sink/faucet/disposal. No turning back now!

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Range (GE Monogram 36-inch, 6-burner), hood (GE Monogram restaurant-style, 36-inch), dishwasher (Bosch Evolution 500, stainless door), sink (Elkay Pacemaker single-bowl 20-gauge stainless with one hole), faucet (Grohe Alira, a style where the head pulls out to be the sprayer, chrome finish because we didn't feel like paying for the brushed finish on a "temporary" faucet), and disposal (Insinkerator 3/4 HP) are ordered.

The only decisions left: how to pattern the floor, what color paint and backsplash, whether the two pendant lights (over the sink and over the baking area) will be incandescent bulb or halogen, and how to switch the disposal. (About that last one: my husband grew up in a house with the switch tucked inside the cabinet under the sink. He loves it. I didn't. It drives me bonkers. It's what we have now. I'm probably going to lose this one, because he's summarily ruled out any thoughts of a switch anywhere else because he doesn't want the disposal being turned on when he has his fingers in it. I just keep telling him to put his fingers elsewhere. )

Our Lowe's had a good selection of pendant lights. If we go halogen, we'll probably go with a conical shade that's got a red swirl in it, from the mix-and-match halogen lights: you choose a hanger and a shade separately. (Sorry, couldn't find a link to that one.) If we go incandescent, I really liked the yellow saturn-shaped shades from the mix-and-match, since they're about the same color as the Lion of Flanders yellow, and I like the idea of bright yellow saturns in the kitchen. Before we make a final decision there, we'll need to investigate dimmers, and decide whether we want them on the pendants.

MelissaH

[coquus]

MelissaH, don't give me that, have confidence in your opinion, you should really fight harder, that switch must stay out of the cabinet.

I like most of your ideas for saving. One thing I had a problem with, during a recent reno, was Marmoleum. I fell in love with the floor early on, I think I knew what it was before anything else in the kitchen, problem was, when it came time to lay the floor, no one here had the thermal seam sealer machine, suddenly the install price shot up about five hundred bucks. We had the worst experience with our local HD trying to sort it all out. In the end, the tile we thought we were saving money by not doing turned out a savings. Plus, it will make for a higher appraisal someday, while the precious marmoleum will be classified as mere vinyl.

[phaelon56]

1) I live in Syracuse and it's downright scary when people refer to it as "the Big City"

2) Which Korean restaurant? Have you tried the little one on East Fayette Street between Walnut and University? The chef at La Cena told me he's been there numerous times, described the food as inexpensive and authentic and said he and his dining partners are usually the only non-Koreans in the joint. I've been meaning to try it as it's only five minutes from my house.

3) Have you considered a wooden bull nose on the front edge of the laminate? I had Onondaga Laminates up on North Salina (near Assumption Church) do the counters for my previous house. They came in, measured, built to order and included a flat maple bull nose with top and bottom bevel.

I was going to pass on the bull nose because it added about $4.50 to $5.00 per linear foot to the price. When he noticed me choking on that price he mentioned that it's costly because they ahve to pay a guy to stay later after the dust int he shop has settled in order to do the finishing on the raw wood. If I bought with the bull nose unfinished it was only $1.25 per linear foot.

After installation I masked off with blue painters tape and did three coats of Minwax Wipe On Polyurethane. It's pretty amazing stuff. A clean piece of cotton cloth, a steel wool rub down and tack cloth between coats and I ended up with a finish that was indistinguishable from the factory satin finish on my maple cabinets.

As a matter of fact - that gave me the confidence to finish an entuire cabinet door. I had a local cabinet maker build me a false door for the back side of a cabinet I put under a peninsula (the cabinet line I used did not have a suitable dual sided base cabinet). I did the entrie door with the wipe on product and it too looked like a factory finish (unlike any other wood finish I've ever used except tung oil).

[C. sapidus]

Owen: agreed on the poly. We did a door threshold and some shelves, and it was much easier than I expected.

Bullnose edges look nice, but they have a potential problem. Depending on the amount of overhang, liquids spilled on the countertop can follow the bullnose and run into your cabinets. We went with a half-bullnose to avoid this in our kitchen (not that we ever spill anything, of course).

Melissa: Isn't the Ikea as-is section great? We bought damaged doors with two different finishes when choosing cabinets, then carried the winner from place to place when choosing everything else. Most stores use fluorescent lights, which have a greener color spectrum (as a chemist, I'm sure you can describe how the electrons get kicked up to higher orbitals and release a characteristic wavelength when returning to resting state, etc.)

When choosing flooring, some big home stores will let you "check out" samples. It may take some persistence to find the right person, because "No, that's not our policy" is much easier for the employees. Again, seeing the material in your kitchen's light can avoid surprises.

Bruce

[Darcie B]

Melissa,

I can see both sides to your switch conundrum. How about adding a safety cover over a backsplash-mounted switch? That way you won't accidentally turn on the switch but you won't have to mess with opening the cupboard door each time you use the disposal.

Like this one.

Edit to add: I don't think this one flips up easily, but I know I've seen them somewhere. Either that, or get a different kind of switch, like a pushbutton switch, to operate the disposal, so you don't get it confused with another switch.

Edited May 4, 2006 by Darcie B (log)

[Smithy]

The only decisions left: ... and how to switch the disposal. (About that last one: my husband grew up in a house with the switch tucked inside the cabinet under the sink. He loves it. I didn't. It drives me bonkers. It's what we have now. I'm probably going to lose this one, because he's summarily ruled out any thoughts of a switch anywhere else because he doesn't want the disposal being turned on when he has his fingers in it. I just keep telling him to put his fingers elsewhere. )

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I guess that lets out the motion-detector switch, then.

I can see both sides to your switch conundrum. How about adding a safety cover over a backsplash-mounted switch? That way you won't accidentally turn on the switch but you won't have to mess with opening the cupboard door each time you use the disposal.

Like this one.

Edit to add: I don't think this one flips up easily, but I know I've seen them somewhere. Either that, or get a different kind of switch, like a pushbutton switch, to operate the disposal, so you don't get it confused with another switch.

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I think using a different switch style makes a lot of sense. I've also seen switches oriented horizontally for the disposal, vertically for everything else. I think having a switch inside a cupboard cabinet would be a major, major PITA, and I think you should use every dirty trick in the book, if necessary, to avoid that. FWIW I can't really see his side of the issue, unless you figure there will be children's hands involved with switches and disposals. In that case, put the switch well out of reach. But not in the cupboard!

[MelissaH]

I like most of your ideas for saving.  One thing I had a problem with, during a recent reno, was Marmoleum.  I fell in love with the floor early on, I think I knew what it was before anything else in the kitchen, problem was, when it came time to lay the floor, no one here had the thermal seam sealer machine, suddenly the install price shot up about five hundred bucks.  We had the worst experience with our local HD trying to sort it all out.  In the end, the tile we thought we were saving money by not doing turned out a savings.  Plus, it will make for a higher appraisal someday, while the precious marmoleum will be classified as mere vinyl.

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Coquus,

That's where the Marmoleum Click comes in. It's snap-together planks, easy to install, no seam sealing needed. We looked at sheet goods, but we couldn't do that ourselves. We'd also need to spend a lot of time working on preparing the surface for the flooring, since it would be glued down. While it might take us a little longer to put down the click floor than it would take a pro to put down a sheet, we won't have to put much time into floor prep, and we won't have to pay an installer.

1) I live in Syracuse and it's downright scary when people refer to it as "the Big City" 

Owen,

It all depends on your perspective. Where my parents live, there are only 2000 people in the entire county. For them, a trip to a town the size of Oswego counts as "going to the city."

2) Which Korean restaurant?  Have you tried the little one on East Fayette Street between Walnut and University?  The chef at La Cena told me he's been there numerous times, described the food as inexpensive and authentic and said he and his dining partners are usually the only non-Koreans in the joint.  I've been meaning to try it as it's only five minutes from my house.

We haven't tried that one, because when we're in that neighborhood we tend to stick only to places betwee Ahn's grocery on Erie Blvd. at Teall and the DeWitt Wegman's (hey, if I'm driving 50 miles to get there, I'm going to make a point of getting some stuff that I can't get in Oswego. Their fish counter is miles better than anything at either of our grocery stores here or the Wegman's in Clay) and not wander too far. We've been relatively happy with the Korean dishes at Tokyo Seoul (can't speak for the Japanese dishes, since we haven't tried them). But if there's another good place in town, we'll have to investigate.

3) Have you considered a wooden bull nose on the front edge of the laminate?  I had Onondaga Laminates up on North Salina (near Assumption Church) do the counters for my previous house. They came in, measured, built to order and included  a flat maple bull nose with top and bottom bevel.

I was going to pass on the bull nose because it added about $4.50 to $5.00 per linear foot to the price.  When he noticed me choking on that price he mentioned that it's costly because they ahve to pay a guy to stay later after the dust int he shop has settled in order to do the finishing on the raw wood. If I bought with the bull nose unfinished it was only $1.25 per linear foot.

We had a wooden bullnose on our Ohio kitchen's countertop. We might have considered something along those lines more, had this particular IKEA countertop not come with a round-over on the front already. Since neither of us sees much sense in running every single piece of countertop to rip off a rounded edge so we could put on something else, we'll just keep the factory round-over on these.

After installation I masked off with blue painters tape and did three coats of Minwax Wipe On Polyurethane.  It's pretty amazing stuff. A clean piece of cotton cloth, a steel wool rub down and tack cloth between coats and I ended up with a finish that was indistinguishable from the factory satin finish on my maple cabinets.

As a matter of fact - that gave me the confidence to finish an entuire cabinet door. I had a local cabinet maker build me a false door for the back side of a cabinet I put under a peninsula (the cabinet line I used did not have a suitable dual sided base cabinet).  I did the entrie door with the wipe on product and it too looked like a factory finish  (unlike any other wood finish I've ever used except tung oil).

←

Sounds nice! We're great fans of polyurethane finishes, and anything more that we need to build or refinish will be getting a few coats. It drives me bonkers when appraisers on the TV antique shows mourn the loss of the original finishes, since someone decided to put something practical like polyurethane on to make the piece more usable. (My in-laws' dining room table and secretary both have a beautiful polyurethane finish now. It might not be original or antique, and the pieces may have lost "value" to an appraiser, but to all of us in the family they're worth far more because they can (and are) used every day.

Once we recover from the kitchen project, we may start thinking about a sideboard. The original motivation was to hold a set of china that my MIL picked up from an estate sale with us in mind, but we'll have tons of cabinet space in the new kitchen and may not need the extra storage, especially for things that we don't necessarily use every day. Then again, is there a such thing as too much storage?

Owen: agreed on the poly. We did a door threshold and some shelves, and it was much easier than I expected.

Bullnose edges look nice, but they have a potential problem. Depending on the amount of overhang, liquids spilled on the countertop can follow the bullnose and run into your cabinets. We went with a half-bullnose to avoid this in our kitchen (not that we ever spill anything, of course).

Bruce,

We didn't have a problem in Ohio with the wooden added-on bullnose there. But that bullnose was well in front of the front edge of the cabinet, so it wouldn't have been an issue as far as liquid getting into the crack. And we never spill anything anyway.

Melissa: Isn't the Ikea as-is section great? We bought damaged doors with two different finishes when choosing cabinets, then carried the winner from place to place when choosing everything else. Most stores use fluorescent lights, which have a greener color spectrum (as a chemist, I'm sure you can describe how the electrons get kicked up to higher orbitals and release a characteristic wavelength when returning to resting state, etc.)

When choosing flooring, some big home stores will let you "check out" samples. It may take some persistence to find the right person, because "No, that's not our policy" is much easier for the employees. Again, seeing the material in your kitchen's light can avoid surprises.

Bruce

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I'd like to be able to check out samples of floor, to see how they'd look in the kitchen. But we'd have to get them back relatively quickly, and each round trip from us to there is about 100 miles. We typically head to the Big City once a month or six weeks, and on every trip we run multiple errands, the things we can't do closer to home. And we won't have the lights in the kitchen until after the floor will need to be ordered.

Fortunately for us, the floor place is close to a Home Depot, so we'll be able to bring our door along, borrow a piece or two of floor, and choose our backsplash and wall colors.

We were really hoping to find a chunk of counter in our pattern waiting in the As-Is section. We struck out on that count. Oh well. I liked As-Is more when it was closer than 5 hours away.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

The faucet and garbage disposal are here!

MelissaH

[Angela Alaimo]

We have Marmoleum (tiles) in our kitchen, and it is as close to vinyl as terrazzo is to asphalt. It is wonderful.

We got ours at a flooring store, so it was installed by a "certified, trained, Marmoleum installer" (yay!), which means it also comes with a lifetime guarantee.

The best part, aside from it's beauty and comfort, is no fumes of any sort, not the material, not the glue, not the finish that goes on afterwards. After several months of being gassed half to death with paint, stain, and poly fumes, it was literally a breath of fresh air.

I liked the Marmoleum Click first, but the kitchen is really too small to do justice to it, as in, you're going to want to make some kind of design. We did do a design with the tiles, 2 colors, but obviously on a smaller scale.

Have fun, all you kitchen renovators! When it looks bleak, just remember it will end eventually.

[MelissaH]

Friday morning, I was getting ready to head out to a conference in DC for the weekend. My husband grabbed me before I headed out the door, to say, "While we were in the faculty meeting, I got a call from the shipping company. I'll let you know what's going to happen."

So, I headed to the airport, and while I waited for my plane, I talked to my mom. While I was talking to my mom, my husband called. The cabinets were due to arrive to them later that day, and they wanted to deliver them on Monday!

Now, this wasn't in our plans: we'd hoped to have the cabinets delivered at the beginning of JUNE, not May! But he decided, and I agreed he was right, that it would be better to have the cabinets in our garage than to have them bouncing around a warehouse for a month. So yesterday morning at 9 AM, a semi backed down our street, and disgorged three pallets of cabinets for us.

Luckily, they had a pallet lifter in the trailer with them. It didn't take long to get everything into the garage. One of the three pallets was obviously countertops. The other two were about waist-high with other stuff.

We immediately noticed that one end of the countertops looked like it had been smashed in a little bit. We opened up the three countertop slabs to check them out, and discovered that a piece of styrofoam had taken the worst of the damage. One of the pieces has a bit of a nick, though. The good news is that we don't think it will be a big problem: we'll need to trim the countertop pieces to fit, and we should be able to cut off that edge without a problem. We didn't have any time to do anything else until after we got home yesterday.

So yesterday evening, I worked on dinner while my husband went through and first compared what actually came to the packing list, and then compared the packing list to what we'd ordered. And out of nearly 200 packages, there was only one thing missing: a 24-inch base cabinet box. We got all the other parts (shelves, door, hinges, etc.) but there's no box to go there. It's not that big a problem, because this is likely to be the last cabinet to go in anyway, since it belongs next to the stove.

The other things we couldn't find were the hinges to go with the two corner base cabinets. This morning, my husband called IKEA, to find out what was up with the hinges (the corner cabinets take different hinges than everything else, and they should be packed in the box), the missing cabinet (one will be on its way), and the nicked countertop (if it's a problem, we let them know and they'll send a new one).

Tonight's a late night on campus for both of us, so nothing more's going to happen until Wednesday. But we still need to open all the boxes and be sure everything's OK. When we do that, we'll probably start grouping things by cabinet. We might even start putting some of the stuff together.

The car's out of the garage until sometime this summer, since it's full of cabinets.

Oh: when I got home on Sunday afternoon, I discovered that my husband had pulled the bar out of the family room! It had been a divider, about chest height, to wall off the sink from the rest of the family room. We still have a counter by the sink, and the whole length of that counter is now usable, even the two feet or so that were previously covered by the bar. We moved a shelving unit down to the end of the counter, and when we start the demo we'll relocate the kitchen cart downstairs, and we have a small table to help with prep space as well. The whole area is near the door to the patio, and we moved the bar itself outside (a little rain won't hurt it any, since we're planning to get rid of it) to help shield the old propane stove from the weather. I really like the more open feel of the family room without the bar!

Tonight, we'll be going to Big Lots to get plastic tubs, to hold the stuff we'll pull out of the kitchen. It's getting much closer!

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Those of you with under-cabinet lighting: what kind of lights do you have? I'm concerned about the heat that a halogen light would generate, but I'm also not thrilled with the color of the fluorescent lights I've seen. I'm hoping that the under-cabinet lighting will be the major source of task lighting, and my husband's put me in charge of choosing the ones we'll use.

Any advice?

MelissaH

[lcdm]

Those of you with under-cabinet lighting: what kind of lights do you have? I'm concerned about the heat that a halogen light would generate, but I'm also not thrilled with the color of the fluorescent lights I've seen. I'm hoping that the under-cabinet lighting will be the major source of task lighting, and my husband's put me in charge of choosing the ones we'll use.

Any advice?

MelissaH

←

I wanted fluorescent (GE makes a very nice slimline that's no-flicker or buzz) but the electrician did me a "favor" and put in Halogen. They are nice but they do get very hot and they heat up the cabinet they are mounted under. I've heard good things about Xenon lights, but have not seen them in person.

[Marlene]

I've had both and I currently have halogen. I never turn them on because they get too hot. In our upcoming reno, we'll be using Xenon. Our friends just had their kitchen redone and that what they've got.

[coquus]

I have recessed lighting everywhere overhead, so I didn't use undercabinet lighting except for a 18" GE Flor over the sink and my hood has two halogen lights (they aren't the diamond backed little hot ones thought, so maybe they aren't halogen but xenon or whatever now that I think about it). This works perfectly for me.