jgarner53's Kitchen Remodel

[LindaK]

And because I'm even more of a freak, all the counter outlets will be laid horizontally, so that they line up with the subway tile. And because I'm a HUGE HUGE freak, they will line up with the second row of tile. 

Genius. I've been imagining my own kitchen reno for some time, and assumed that I'd just have to bear with the visual discord of the vertical outlets against the horizontal tile. Duh. Yet another reminder of why I'll never be an interior designer.

Two questions:

- you said you designed your kitchen yourself. What software did you use to produce such beautiful elevations?

- can you provide a link to the GardenWeb forum with info about your LED lights? They seem like a great idea.

[cats2]

- can you provide a link to the GardenWeb forum with info about your LED lights? They seem like a great idea.

←

I'm not Jennifer, but here's a link to one of those threads.

I spent a lot of time on GardenWeb's kitchen & appliance forums when I was planning my kitchen remodel a year and a half ago. At that time, undercab LED's still weren't that easy to find. As it was, our project began the same month when California enacted Title 24...that meant that we had to scrap our plans for recessed halogen ceiling lights, and instead we installed compact fluorescent bulbs for our overhead lights. Neither our general contractor (nor his electrician) had ever installed those types of light fixtures previously. I had to spend some time, adding up the total wattage of my lights, just to see if I could "afford" to have 2 hanging (non-fluorescent) pendant lights for my island! On the otherhand, if I had used LED's as undercab fixtures, then likely I would not have been able to have gotten my pendants (that stupid 50% of the wattage has to be high efficiency), since my total wattage would be less.

I was just glad that my breakfast nook was not considered to be part of the kitchen (it's on a different switch and it's not directly lit up by the general kitchen lighting), therefore I did not need a "high efficiency" fixture in that section.

Title 24 doesn't consider screw-in fluorescent bulbs to be "high efficiency" (because you just might be tempted to replace those bulbs with regular incandescent!!)...pin-type fluorescent bulbs are the ones they consider to be ok. In reality, our kitchen lighting is ok, but still a little of a "cold" sort of cast. (perhaps I just need to switch out bulbs). Our fluorescent undercab lights, on the other hand, don't bother me in the least (I like them).

It seems like the LED's have improved over time. I hate the cold "arctic blue" sort of cast that is typically seen on outdoor (solar powered) LED garden lights. The photos on the GardenWeb thread actually seemed a bit yellow, if anything.

[jgarner53]

The photos on the GardenWeb thread actually seemed a bit yellow, if anything.

The light from my LEDs definitely tends toward yellow. If you look directly at it, it is yellow, but when you hold the light up, the light reads very close to incandescent (which my brain interprets as neutral, regardless of where it falls on the spectrum).

The thread linked above is indeed the one where I found out about these lights. You'll see my posts if you read through it.

you said you designed your kitchen yourself. What software did you use to produce such beautiful elevations?

I was a graphic designer for 10 years before I decided to throw paychecks to the wind and go into pastry. I used Adobe Illustrator. It took a lot of time. I use a Mac, and there isn't a lot of home design software out there for Macs. If you're on a PC, there are several home design programs which should let you do elevations and 3D perspective drawings, probably with more ease than I had using Illustrator. What I liked about Illustrator was that when I was tweaking things, I could put a new idea on a new layer to get a picture, then turn it off or delete the layer later. It also let me produce prints with or without the electrical (outlets, fixtures, etc). The whole design process took me about 6 months, off and on, trying different ideas, fiddling with the design, enhancing it, refining, etc. But even when I began, I had a basic layout I was starting with that I'd worked out a few years earlier. I'm sure a certified kitchen designer would be a little, uh, faster. A friend (who is an interior designer) said that I'd make a good one because I'm so freakish about the details, but I told her it's only because it's my kitchen. If I had a client being as persnickety as I am, I'd go nuts.

Well, the plumbing inspection went fine, though GC has to add shut-off valves for the wall-mounted faucet inside the cabinet. He also has the flu (or a cold), so went home and to bed as soon as the inspection was over yesterday. He sat in his truck outside for over two hours yesterday rather than come inside and risk infecting me. Hopefully he's feeling better today and things can keep moving along.

[jgarner53]

This week's dinner:

CHICKEN ENCHILADA CASSEROLE

1 1/4 pounds boned chicken breast

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup beer

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and chopped

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

1 (2 1/4-ounce) can sliced ripe olives, drained

2 (4.5-ounce) cans chopped green chiles, drained

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

2 cups 1% low-fat milk

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten or 6 tablespoons egg substitute

3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese

3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

6 (6-inch) corn tortillas, cut in half

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup salsa

Preheat oven to 350°.

Oil a large skillet with cooking spray; place over medium heat until hot. Add chicken; cook 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from skillet; let cool. Remove skin and discard. Shred chicken; set aside.

Reoil skillet; place over medium heat. Sauté onion and garlic 5 minutes or until tender. Add chicken, beer, red pepper, and tomatoes; cook 10 minutes or until most of liquid evaporates. Remove from heat. Reserve 1 tablespoon green onions and 1 tablespoon olives for garnish. Stir remaining green onions, remaining olives, and chiles into chicken mixture; set aside.

Combine flour, salt, cumin, and coriander in a medium saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Place over medium heat; cook 7 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Gradually add hot milk mixture to egg whites, stirring constantly with whisk. Set aside.

Toss cheeses together to combine.

Spread 1/2 cup white sauce in bottom of a 2 1/2-quart round casserole or soufflé dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange 4 tortilla halves over sauce; top with 2 cups chicken mixture, 1/2 cup white sauce, and 1/2 cup cheese mixture. Repeat layers twice, ending with sauce. Set remaining 1/2 cup cheese mixture aside.

Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 40 minutes or until hot. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese mixture, reserved green onions, and reserved olives; bake an additional 5 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

NOTE: You can assemble the casserole ahead of time; cover and chill in the refrigerator overnight, then bake at 350º for 1 hours or until bubbly. Or freeze casserole, thaw in refrigerator 24 hours, then bake for 1 hour or until thoroughly heated. You can also bake, refrigerate, then freeze slices on a sheet pan. When frozen, vacuum seal slices or place in plastic freezer bags. Thaw in refrigerator before heating to eat.

Yield: 8 servings

[Priscilla]

I like that Butter linoleum.

Is Piccolo really piccolo? He'll be glad to get his kittens, I bet, after losing his companion.

[jgarner53]

Genius. I've been imagining my own kitchen reno for some time, and assumed that I'd just have to bear with the visual discord of the vertical outlets against the horizontal tile.

Another solution is to go with plug mold. It's a strip of plugs mounted to the back edge of your upper cabinet. No outlets in your backsplash at all, and you can place your appliances where you want, not just where an outlet happens to be. The downside is that if you leave something plugged in all the time, you'll see the cord "hanging" from the bottom of the upper cabinets.

Is Piccolo really piccolo?

No, but he was when he was a kitten. Friends of ours adopted him 10 years ago from the SPCA, but we took him in when they got skittish about their toddler perhaps letting him outside. We've had him about 6 years now. He's not a huge marmalade cat (they sometimes can be), about 11 pounds.

[andiesenji]

The photos on the GardenWeb thread actually seemed a bit yellow, if anything.

(snip)

If I had a client being as persnickety as I am, I'd go nuts.

Well, the plumbing inspection went fine, though GC has to add shut-off valves for the wall-mounted faucet inside the cabinet. He also has the flu (or a cold), so went home and to bed as soon as the inspection was over yesterday. He sat in his truck outside for over two hours yesterday rather than come inside and risk infecting me. Hopefully he's feeling better today and things can keep moving along.

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I think you are simply being very, very wise and prudent. A well though-out design saves so many headaches down the line. Your design is inspired.

I'm also just a bit persnickety (or as my contractor said, #@%$%$$ obsessed with piddley details!).

Cut-off valves are indeed very important. Because my kitchen is part of the addition I had built in 1994, it is on a slab and as I did not want pipes going through the slab, the pipes run up the walls and over the ceiling, dropping down to the various points of use either inside the walls or columns to the point of use. The cut-off valves to each supply pipe are all located in one place, in the cupboard that also contains the water heater (tankless) for the kitchen and laundry room. We used ball valves instead of gate valves because it is takes less time to grab a lever and turn it 90 degrees. The name of each fixture is clearly marked on each handle. The water supply and water heater (also tankless) for the rest of the house, bathrooms, etc., are in a big "cabinet" that is accessible from outside and also has all the cut-off valves in one place as well as the main which comes out of a whole-house filtering system. Since I am on a well and not a municipal water supply, the back-flow stop valves are on the intake side of the filter. The pipes in the original part of the house are underneath in the crawl space. (I also had the entire house re-piped with copper during the remodel.)

At the well head there is an automatic cut-off valve with TWO battery backups, in case of earthquake causing a rupture of the water tank or pipes. In January 1994 I learned the hard way that even if the tank doesn't rupture, the filler pipe can turn into a geyser if it breaks and with the temps in the 20s, it did not take long for a skating rink to form in my back yard.

I just want to add that I highly recommend the tankless water heaters, which, in my opinion, are one of the greatest inventions to come along in years.

Tank-type water heaters do not have a long service life in this area, even with a good filtering system, because of the high levels of minerals, mostly calcium, in the water. Replacing one, every 4 or 5 years, at a cost ranging from 400 to 700, really adds up.

The tankless heaters were just a bit under 1000. installed and are guaranteed for 15 years, with a filtering system they should last much longer.

I never run out of hot water, can run the dishwasher, washer and shower at the same time.

And even better, it saves a lot of gas. The burners only turn on with demand, not just to reheat the same water in a tank over and over again.

[jgarner53]

I highly recommend the tankless water heaters, which, in my opinion, are one of the greatest inventions to come along in years.

Tank-type water heaters do not have a long service life in this area...The tankless heaters were just a bit under 1000. installed and are guaranteed for 15 years, with a filtering system they should last much longer.

If we hadn't replaced our water heater just a few years ago, I'd definitely be looking at tankless. Probably when this one goes (the last one was at least 15 years old) we'll do that. But I think the next big thing to replace will be the furnace to one that's more efficient. I'm not even sure the energy-star ratings existed when my furnace was installed!

Great tips, too, on the valves. I know that I want to make sure my electrical panel is clearly labeled. Whoever did it originally looked like they were writing with a spider, and it's all but illegible. Pass me the p-touch labelmaker, baby! I'm not anal-retentive for nothin'!

[prasantrin]

Thanks for the enchilada recipe. I think I have almost everything--I just have to defrost some corn tortillas (picked up during my last stop in the US), which are frozen in sets of 5, but I'm sure I'll manage!

Pic is a sweetheart. He always looks like he's fishing for a tummy rub!

[MelissaH]

I highly recommend the tankless water heaters, which, in my opinion, are one of the greatest inventions to come along in years.

Tank-type water heaters do not have a long service life in this area...The tankless heaters were just a bit under 1000. installed and are guaranteed for 15 years, with a filtering system they should last much longer.

If we hadn't replaced our water heater just a few years ago, I'd definitely be looking at tankless. Probably when this one goes (the last one was at least 15 years old) we'll do that. But I think the next big thing to replace will be the furnace to one that's more efficient. I'm not even sure the energy-star ratings existed when my furnace was installed!

Great tips, too, on the valves. I know that I want to make sure my electrical panel is clearly labeled. Whoever did it originally looked like they were writing with a spider, and it's all but illegible. Pass me the p-touch labelmaker, baby! I'm not anal-retentive for nothin'!

←

Are you sure you're not channeling me?

Our "boys" are both orange tabbies, a hair under ten pounds so they're slightly more piccolo than your Piccolo, but they can get the same evil-eye glints and they're also both sun-soakers. And we're definitely planning to replace our hot water heater with an on-demand system when the need arises...although it looks like we're headed for a boiler replacement first, since the one we currently have is original to the house and therefore about 40 years old. Here's hoping that, for both of us, major utility replacement proceeds with less agonizing than kitchen remodeling!

Hope you're staying warm and dry. We're not too bad temp-wise (not quite 20 degrees F at this moment) but I'm getting ready to go out, run the snowblower again, and dig out and haul in some more woodstove fodder. As of this morning, my town had 62 inches of snow this storm, and we're expecting more to come.

MelissaH

[jgarner53]

As of this morning, my town had 62 inches of snow this storm, and we're expecting more to come.

And THAT is reason #492 that I do not live in a snowy climate. California girl, through and through.

[jgarner53]

Oh hallelujia! Hurray hurray hurray! After a week of next to nothing, GC has recovered from the flu. The electrical inspection went fine last week (Thursday), and the framing inspection went equally as well this morning. The best part is that we do not have to have separate insulation and sheetrock inspections as he'd thought. It's pretty much clear sailing now until the end, barring the typical delays. I think insulation starts tomorrow, plus drywall (hurray for heat!), and then next Friday, the flooring guys will put down the underlayment for the linoleum, before the cabinets go in.

You don't know how thrilled I am to be back on track!

I spent the better part of the afternoon today at the Hall of Records downtown, researching the sales records for the house. I'll have to go back to further dig up the sales price. Seems the sale was recorded in one place, while the deeds, etc. were recorded in another. Our humble little home has had 15 owners before us, mostly changing hands a lot in the 20's. After 1929, things settled down a bit, and since 1929, has only had 7 owners before we got our hands on it. The champions were Tessie & Bernie (he was Tessie, she was Bernie), who bought the house in 1960 for $15,000 and sold it for more than 10x that amount in 1992. But my earlier speculation about a late 1940's kitchen remodel seems to be likely. The house was bought in 1948 by a couple who lived there until 1960.

Over the weekend, I started taking pictures and collecting things for the time capsule. I'm putting together a book in iPhoto (gotta love Apple ), and we'll put it in the ceiling before it's closed up this week. Here we are in the kitchen on Saturday, courtesy of the self-timer. (and yes, that's me at age 4 in my avatar)

Edited to fix lazy typing.

Edited February 13, 2007 by jgarner53 (log)

[Jambalyle]

I'm enjoying your thread! The plans look fabulous and I think it's great that you are trying to keep the traditional/original look and feel of the place. Bravo!

-Lyle

PS: a house in Redwood City for $8-$9K... and I thought housing values in my neighborhood had improved.

[jgarner53]

Just a note: if you are remodeling anything, buy lots of plastic sheeting and cover any exposed furniture, etc. before[/] they start putting up the drywall. You'd think that a few cuts & screws wouldn't create much dust. Wrong.

Also, invest in a swiffer sweeper, plenty of cloths, both wet and dry (assuming your floors can take the wet), lots of Endust, and plenty of vacuum bags. You'll need them all. Every day.

I haven't cleaned this much or this often since, well, never. Step 1: Vacuum; 2) dry swiffer; 3) dust; 4) wet swiffer (I have hardwood floors with a poly finish). Repeat as necessary.

[snowangel]

Yep, Jennifer, drywall = dust. Been there, doing that, done that, doing that. It's everywhere. Anyone who is considering a remodel or considering putting their house on the market needs one of these.

Dry or wet. They have a powerful sucker, and can not only rid your house of dust, but get all of the stray noodles, crumbs, etc. off of shelves (and those nooks and cranies and the floor), and are lightweight enough that you can get those damned little bugs that I complained about off of ceilings, etc.

I have devoted what little kitchen space I don't have to the Mighty Might (our term for the mini shop vac). (Note, I'm a power tool junkie)

[BeefCheeks]

Please forgive this late arrival....your proposed kitchen is DROOL-WORTHY. And I say that being the owner of a 1970 center-entry ranch who is ripping out her kitchen bit by bit.

An excellent visual reference tool, FYI, is the Rejuvenation Lighting catalog and website.

[kiliki]

Just a note: if you are remodeling anything, buy lots of plastic sheeting and cover any exposed furniture, etc. before[/] they start putting up the drywall. You'd think that a few cuts & screws wouldn't create much dust. Wrong.

Also, invest in a swiffer sweeper, plenty of cloths, both wet and dry (assuming your floors can take the wet), lots of Endust, and plenty of vacuum bags. You'll need them all. Every day.

I haven't cleaned this much or this often since, well, never. Step 1: Vacuum; 2) dry swiffer; 3) dust; 4) wet swiffer (I have hardwood floors with a poly finish). Repeat as necessary.

Hmmm...you might want to talk to your contractor about this. Or maybe it's too late for you, but for others planning a remodel: Ours installed a metal framed plastic sheeting, with zippered doors, to seal off the kitchen and keep dust out of the rest of our (tiny) house. He also vacuumed the kitchen before he left every day. We had zero dust in the rest of the house.

Edited February 15, 2007 by kiliki (log)

[jgarner53]

Hmmm...you might want to talk to your contractor about this. Or maybe it's too late for you, but for others planning a remodel: Ours installed a metal framed plastic sheeting, with zippered doors, to seal off the kitchen and keep dust out of the rest of our (tiny) house. He also vacuumed the kitchen before he left every day. We had zero dust in the rest of the house.

Well, we're a little far into the process for this. But since we have to go through the kitchen to get from the front (living room/dining room) to the back (bedrooms, garage, laundry, bathroom), I'm not sure how practical that would be.

Would be nice if he vacuumed the kitchen every day. I actually left him kind of a frustrated voice mail today because he'd left before the subs, and there's a big pile of debris in my driveway, they didn't sweep my back stairs (part of their work area), which means that I had to do it so I didn't track dust everywhere, and while they did sweep the main part of the kitchen, they just left the pile in the center of the room. Completely unacceptable in my book. I work hard. I clean up my workspace when I'm done at the end of my work day (and others will be in there after me, but even if they weren't); it shouldn't be my job to clean up after these guys.

Hey, at least the walls and ceilings are all closed up now, and I can turn the heat back on. Now that it's warmer and hardly necessary.

I just try to keep it all in perspective, even as I feel like my beautiful hardwood floors will never, ever be clean again.

[kiliki]

But since we have to go through the kitchen to get from the front (living room/dining room) to the back (bedrooms, garage, laundry, bathroom), I'm not sure how practical that would be.

We did too, and so did the dog and cat (to go outside into the backyard). At night when they were gone we generally kept the zippered doors partway open so we weren't always messing with it, and since they vacuumed every day we didn't track stuff around. Yeah, it's a little late now (frankly, I'm surprised they didn't just do this-we didn't ask for it, they just said hey, this is how we keep the house clean), but maybe someone else can benefit from this. I'd go nuts with dirt and dust everywhere!

[jgarner53]

Drywallers didn't show up on Saturday like they were supposed to, but the weather was so beautiful, it was hard to fault them for that. But they were back today, and GC seems to think they'll be done tomorrow, and that he can start installing cabinets by Friday (paint + floor underlayment Thursday to contend with in the scheduling).

The greatest transformation, though, are the arches. Once they started mudding, the shape of the arch really came through as the "true" bottom of the wall, and you can see much more clearly how the finished walls will look. This is one of those small things that I'm very glad we added on to the project. It makes a huge difference in the appearance of the room, and really creates a better divide between the living room and the dining room that wasn't exactly there before.

Calculating out the progress, and anticipating 3 weeks' wait for the soapstone counters once they've been templated, it looks like we'll be finishing up around the end of March, and that's only if I can get the floor guys in right after the counters go in, and there isn't a scheduling delay. I find it hard to believe that it would actually take 3 weeks to fabricate my counters, but if the fabricator's doing other stone, or there are many people in line ahead of me, that would make sense.

My big question, looking at the end of March for completion, was whether we had enough food in the freezer to last. Totalling up my inventory, I calculated that we have 47 meals left. With us generally eating 7 meals at home per week (Fridays and Saturdays are take out or go out, and Sunday is generally me on my own, and I'll get a burrito or something), that means almost 7 more weeks' worth of food. It's six weeks until the end of March, so we should just squeak by, and I'm kind of amazed that it might work out that perfectly! Right now, Husband is curled up in bed with some kind of bug -- chills, which makes me worry that it's the flu -- so he may not be eating much for a few days.

While I'm not overjoyed that this small little kitchen will take 3 months, it's my hope that after the cabinets are in, we can get the sink and faucet hooked up so I don't have to go down to the garage to wash dishes anymore, or to get water for tea. GC should be able to finish a lot of little things while we wait for the counters, leaving just the backsplash, floors, and appliance install left once the counters are in.

[jgarner53]

So the painting was supposed to start today, and I figured I'd just come home to primed walls. My GC calls me at work at about 1pm, and tells me that they're bringing the cabinets in today because it's supposed to rain Monday, and by the way, the color looks great. "On the cabinets?" I ask. "No, on the walls." Not only that, but he anticipates starting to hang them tomorrow. OK, this was like telling a kid that instead of Christmas being two days away, it's really tomorrow, and look at all the presents Santa dropped by! I really, honestly, clapped and jumped up and down.

They had to bring my corner cabinets in through the kitchen window! Good thing I a) wasn't here - would have FREAKED and b) the sashes are out because we're having them restored. The window guy, who was still here when I got home said that there was maybe 1/8" clearance. Yow.

And, even though I told both the painter AND my GC at least twice that the ceiling should be the same color as the cabinets, they painted it the same green as the walls. So I guess my cabinet install isn't going to start tomorrow because they'll probably want to repaint the ceiling before they start hanging the cabinets (he's going to do uppers first).

But for now I have cabinets in the kitchen, in the dining room (blocking access to my makeshift kitchen), in the living room - just about anywhere there's space. Really, it's sooooo exciting! Finally, something FUN to look at!

click here to see!

[jgarner53]

Oh, what a couple of weeks it's been! Between the seemingly endless drywall mess, the cabinet install, having windows rehabbed in the garage, and being promoted at work (and my boss' back putting her out of commission), it's been quite a ride! But it's starting to come together, just in time for guests to arrive tomorrow! (They do understand that we have no kitchen, the house is dusty and covered in plastic, and nothing is as clean as it could or should be).

For a few days there, my usable, livable space had seriously contracted down to about the absolute minimum it could be and still be quasi-functional. After they brought the cabinets in Friday, I told Husband that we had to eat out. I couldn't even get to my makeshift kitchen! The door between the dining room and kitchen was leaning against my worktable, and there were rollouts and drawers stacked between there and the cat's food dishes. The TV cabinet was pulled out from the window to give the window guys room to get at the window there, which meant that it was now halfway into the floorspace in the living room. The ottoman, which had been sitting below the other window was upturned on one end of the sofa, the coffee table smooshed against the sofa, and the hood pushed in front of the fireplace. Over the weekend, there was also a cabinet sitting in front of the tv cabinet and rollouts on top of the hood box.

And why was none of this in the garage? Well, until last week, my '68 Cougar lived in there. But for now, the garage looked like this:

The door from the house is to the left of where I shot this picture, leaving just a narrow walkway around the stove, past their worktables, over the electrical cords, etc etc to get to the laundry sink (where we wash dishes) the washing machine, and most importantly, the beer fridge! All that said, they have done a great job restoring the original double-hung windows, which are now freshly painted and ready for new life. They still have their original wavy glass (broken panes were replaced with the wavy glass, too) and we saved the cool chrome pulls from the kitchen to reuse.

As it turns out, it's great that the windows are out because Monday, on my way back from the gym, I was wondering just how my big hulk of a stove is going to get into the kitchen. My doorways are 29 inches wide. The stove is 29 inches wide, and the presence of the fridge cabinet just inside the door complicates matters. (This is where a professional kitchen designer would have nailed this problem at the get-go before even a hammer was lifted! Kids, don't try this at home!) I spent about half an hour working on logistics with GC, and we determined that the only way the fridge and stove can come in is through the window! Now, the thought of big, beefy guys manhandling my stove from the back of a truck through the window, which is above the sloped driveway, about 10 or so feet off the ground, makes me, oh, just a weee bit nervous. GC says he knows a guy with a crane, though, so he's going to build a platform on the driveway, and one in the kitchen, and use the crane to muscle the stove through the opening and then said Big Beefy Guys will wrestle it to the floor. Yikes. Remind me not to be here that day.

Of course, for this to happen, we wanted to do this before the countertops go in. But that also means that the floor has to be installed, which I'd been planning for last, to avoid having any damage done to it. A few phone calls got the floor installers here next Thursday and Friday, which will give us plenty of time to get the appliances in before the stone arrives.

At this point, I left GC to go to a meeting at work, where I found out that the promotion I'd merely expressed interest in a few weeks ago had been given to me (kind of without a formal offer, actually, but all that's another matter for another thread over in the Pastry forum), and then, overloaded with work issues, I came home to find out that GC had screwed in sheets of plywood over all the tops of my cabinets. He gave me all kinds of reasons for doing this, but I was kind of - OK, not kind of, REALLY - freaked out about this because 1) the extra height of the plywood would mean the counters would be almost an inch higher than planned 2) the outlets would no longer line up with the second row of tile, as had been meticulously planned from the start, and 3) GC hadn't listened to me when I said early on that soapstone does not NEED plywood underneath it for support and would, in fact, leave an exposed edge of plywood that would need to be covered somehow after the fact. Oy. This is the point in this whole saga where I really, truly wanted to cry. In the end, though, I realized that this is my kitchen, and just because he didn't listen to me is not my problem, so I left him a note (had to be at work at 5 - no way to talk to him face to face) in the morning to fix it.

I came home yesterday to meet the countertop templaters. GC had removed the plywood and set the sink in place. I set up my sample of soapstone and a couple of the tiles to get a feel for how it would look:

I also put down my floor sample by the wall so I could see how that would look, and then expanded it all in Photoshop to see how it will look installed with the feature strip:

Here's the rest of the kitchen installed. I love, love, love my baking center wall. It's the wall that formerly just held the ironing board niche and couldn't have cabinets on it because of a door at the far left end. Now I have a pantry, cabinets with glass uppers (doors yet to come), pan drawers, rollouts, a cutting board and 5 1/2 feet of uninterrupted counter space.

And the wall for the fridge, microwave and open shelving for books:

Lastly, my new arches:

the entry:

and looking from the dining room into the living room:

It's really all coming together now. Just a few more weeks, and a hairraising ride for my appliances through the window, and I'll have a working kitchen!

[ludja]

What an exciting post! Good luck straightening out the snafu and getting the stove in inside! I really like the way the cabinets and your pastry space are looking. The kitchen is giong to be wonderful!

Congrats on your promotion, hope it all works out well!

[demiglace]

Hey congrats on the promotion..loving the kitchen reno! Did you get enough 1$'s for the ceiling? Do you have a completion date? (you didn't get rid of the cougar I hope..nice car..mine really kicked ass)

Bev

[jaschreib]

This remodel of yours is very inspiring. I am about to start one myself.

I really like the idea you have for your flooring. Can you give me more detail about it. What colors you are using? I am assuming you are using Marmoleum. Can you tell me who you are looking to have do it and how much it will cost? I have had a couple of quotes and am amazed at the price of installation. It would be interesting to get your perspective.

thanks