It's done! Here's our new kitchen!

After two weeks of dust, broken water pipes, many dinners out and general upheaval, our kitchen is done. And we love it!

New kitchen

Old kitchen

Moving back in has been interesting. We discovered that the bottom cabinets are taller than the old ones and the quartz counter top is thicker than the old laminate which is about an inch too much to allow me to keep my big Kitchen Aid mixer on the counter. My older one is able to sit up there though. And drawers that are not as deep as the old ones mean finding new places to keep some of our utensils and other ccoking gadgets. But it's still a great kitchen.

New corner area

Old corner area

Having the extra cabinet space in the corner has been nice and we're just about done unpacking. Now if can just remember where things are!

New Fridge

Old Fridge

We love having an icemaker and a water dispenser in the Fridge! No more ice trays! woot

Bring on the holidays! I'm ready to get baking!

Kitchen Renovation - Part 3

Friday's work was much less exciting (and much drier) than the day before. The contractors reinstalled all of the bottom cabinets then began working on the upper ones. Just as they were finishing the installation of the cabinets over the fridge are, the appliances arrived! Woot!

The fridge went straight into the kitchen while the stove, dishwasher and microwave were left out on the porch. Once the upper cabinets over the sink and stove area were leveled and firmly in place, the rest of the appliances were put in place. It was beginning to look like a kitchen again!We had a list of things we needed to get this weekend like the cabinet hardware, lights, and a new garbage disposal so we schlepped between Home Depot and Lowes to get everything we need. But at least the fridge is plugged and the stove is hooked up. Things are slowly get back to normal.My sister asked me what we planned for our inaugural dinner for the new stove and after a little bit of thought we decided that it had to be one of Jim's pizzas. And as I type this, Jim is busy in the kitchen putting the pizza together.

Coming up next week: The contractors will install the upper cabinets on the other side of the kitchen, finish up the electrical work (replacing the plugs and light switches, installing the under cabinet lights, and the new ceiling light), paint, and install the sink and countertop. They hope they can get it all done by Wednesday. Jim and I are looking forward to that.

Kitchen renovation - part 2 - Water, water everywhere

Day three of the renovation was supposed to be the day all the cabinets would be installed. And it almost happened.

By the afternoon, all the lower cabinets were in and leveled. They looked great!Then the electricians came to put in some wiring for under the counter lights, add an outlet and move a light switch. This should have been an easy task and it started out just that way, until one of the electricians was under the sink trying to pull some electric lines down through the wall when he hit a blockage. Seeing some foam insulation in the area of the upper cabinet space, he assumed the blockage was more insulation. Uh, no. It was the cold water line for the kitchen. A geyser of water erupted from the wall and sprayed all the way across the kitchen soaking not only the contractors and electricians but our new cabinets!!!
OMG!!! OMG!!! OMG!!! I just about freaked out.

While we were trying to get the water turned off, the contractor stuck his finger in the wall and did his best to plug up the hole in the pipe while the other contractor broke open the wall to get to the pipe and put a clamp on it. They successfully got it clamped but not before a ton of water covered the floor.The rest of the crew was busily using two shop vacs and every bath towel we own to soak up the water. They also took out all the cabinets they had just finished leveling and attaching to the wall and dried them off out on our patio. Thank goodness we paid more for all wood cabinets. If they had been made from particleboard like our old ones were, they would have been destroyed.

So now, just over five hours later, the pipe is fixed, all the cabinets survived, the electrical work got done and Jim is out getting us some dinner. We briefly contemplated an all-liquor meal but thought a real meal would be better. And my nerves are just about back to normal.

Tomorrow will hopefully be much less eventful. The cabinets will be reinstalled and the appliances will arrive and be installed as well. We hope.

Out with the old.....

Our kitchen renovation is finally underway. We got the kitchen emptied out completely on Sunday night and the contractors came in yesterday morning to start tearing out the cabinets and floors. All the appliances were removed too.

So why did we jump into this venture? I'll tell you why...our dishwasher betrayed us. For months, it had been stealthily leaking into our subflooring which didn't extend under the dishwasher. So rather than having the water leak out onto the floor where we could see it, all of the water stayed below floor level, seeping further and further into the subfloor until we began to notice soft spots here and there. A quick check under the running dishwasher revealed what we didn't want to see. Water flowing out during the rinse cycle.

After much discussion, we decided that a full renovation was what we would do. We'd been contemplating it anyway but didn't feel the need to jump in right now to do it. But that all changed.

And after nearly three months of shopping, comparing products, picking a contractor and signing on the dotted line, the kitchen begins it's transformation.

This is the old kitchen. The patch of red, ironically called Library Red, is a test patch we did for the back splash. The rest if the kitchen will be painted a very faint peach which you can see a patch of in this picture.
And much to our surprise, the cabinets came out relatively easily. All but two bottom cabinets were donated to Habitat For Humanity. The two bottom cabinets bore the brunt of the water damage and weren't able to be salvaged. The fridge and stove were donated to another charity and the dishwasher and microwave went to appliance heaven.

When everything was removed, the room looks quite big and your voice echos.

Today, the floor was torn out. It was like opening a time capsule. First the old linoleum floor came up to reveal the heavily water damaged subfloor. But wait! What is this? Why it's another linoleum floor. A lovely 1970's vintage brick pattern. This was peeled away to reveal yet another floor which looked like it could have been the original tile. And finally one last plywood subfloor which was mostly in good shape despite it's years. Once the old tile was scraped up and removed the contractor was able to then lay down new plywood and begin putting in the new floor.Tomorrow the cabinets start to get installed. We can't wait.