December 17th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink
Well, who’da thunk it!
Brian and Kevin came in at 8:30 this morning…. worked through the day, the new counters arrived at about 3:30pm… they installed the faucets and the on-demand hot water system… reinstalled the cabinet doors..and breezed out.
We put the kitchen back in the kitchen (all the stuff that was sitting in the living room) and tidied up. And here we are at 8pm just about to have dinner. Our kitchen is fully functional and all the plumbing is done.
Man, does it ever pay to have friends who know their business.
The tiling still needs to be done and he says he’ll pick it up the next time he’s out in that area, probably sometime next week. The tiling isn’t a lot, only a six inch strip that goes around the kitchen and it’s to be freeform pebbles. It won’t take long and doesn’t need to be perfectly aligned, the less perfect it is, the happier I’ll be.
Then we just have a cool bit of art work to go above the range, an electrical wire for the under cupboard lighting to be hidden…and it’s done!
Amazing!!!
December 17th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink
Here they come!
And there they are!
Next step…tiling, the pass-through, and get the plumbing, faucets etc in….
December 17th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink
OK, so the kitchen renovation is finally and fully underway. We got the new appliances a few weeks ago and have been waiting for the sink to arrive. Now that it showed up, the granite guy was able to come in and do measurements and they should arrive shortly…like in the next hour. Our builder has been here today tearing out the old counters and sink and the two of them are currently trying to puzzle their way through obscure directions on how to install our filtered hot and cold water on demand system.
In the meantime, the cats have been having a hey-day when they are freed from the confines of the bedroom.
And so here it goes…..
Before we begin….here is the old kitchen with the old appliances. The old stove that had developed an alarming tendency to turn itself on at random moments, and strangely had no window in the door. Our fridge was making noises and the freezer section softened ice cream when you put it in! Bye bye!
And our lovely old sink. I really do love it, which is why we are replacing it with one that is virtually identical, only an under counter mount.
OK, old appliances gone, new fridge in (the range is currently in the living room). Counters torn out and backsplash ripped off.
Sink gone…. pass through torn out.
Builders out for lunch and cats freed. Loki is checking out the new sink, which is temporarily mounted until the counters arrive.
Brian is back and fighting with the new on-demand filtered boiling and cold water unit. Loki is quite fascinated that he can interact with Brian through the drain! Milo being a bit more reserved but keeping a close eye on things….
Counters should be here soon!
October 27th, 2009, posted in That's Life
We decided last night to forgo the floors. Only because we can’t find anything we like more than what we have. None of the vinyl flooring is white enough to stand up to the glossy white of the cupboards and it ends up looking like what it is….plastic. I found a nice cork flooring, but it would add significant height and also isn’t white enough. In both cases the floorings are too pink or too yellow. To replace the tile would require a jackhammer to remove it. Our floor below the tile is concrete which means that the tile is as good as welded onto it…. to put down new tile we would be looking at about $5 per square foot to remove it, another $5-$10 per square foot to buy new tile, and another $5 per square foot to lay it. For that cost, we can fill the 20 chips in the existing floor and go back to loving it.
I found a couple of backsplash tile ideas that I like. One is a small pebble sheet that would look fabulous cut in a 6″ wave running above the granite. Unfortunately, we’d be doing it ourselves if we go that route….Brian basically said “have fun with that” so we have a plan B. A gunmetal grey 4″ square tile in a single row topped with a 2″ stainless steel thickness of mini tiles. It would tie in with the new appliances and pull the kitchen together nicely. So I think we will go that route. It’s funky and industrial.
Unfortunately the sink and faucet are backordered! So this won’t start as soon as we thought.
Gives me time to mull over that bathroom that I hate so much…..
October 26th, 2009, posted in That's Life
About six years ago I decided I hated our bathroom faucet.
That started a bit of a snowball effect and we ended up ripping out our carpet and putting in wood laminate floors, crown moulding, casing in the windows and closets.
We painted the place full of colour.
We put a sound system in the bedroom, bought a cool new platform storage bed and a gorgeous computer cabinet to replace the desk.
We bought a new washer/dryer and reclaimed storage space in the laundry closet.
This weekend we were shocked when a friend of ours (who is a General Contractor) said he could do our kitchen. Brian has never had the time to do anything for us and usually just tells us how to do it and sends us on our way to do it ourselves (like the flooring and the crown moulding). But suddenly he’s offered to do our kitchen! And we are jumping on it!
So over the weekend we chose a new fridge and stove and range hood, picked out a sink and new faucet and chose a hardwired filtered hot & cool water on demand system for under the sink. That will free up space on the counter (and get rid of our thermal pot) and in the fridge (bye bye Brita). We picked out granite counter tops. I’m off today to take a look at a place he recommended for backsplash tiles and potentially to find some flooring.
We are going to be without a kitchen for two weeks…but I am very excited.
And six years later…I still hate my bathroom faucet!
