The End is Near! (Countertop Installation)

Finally we are coming very very close to being done with our kitchen! The last BIG piece to this project was getting our countertop installed and getting water back in the main floor! Below are the steps in the process as they assembled the different pieces to pull it all together!

The main countertop area came in two pieces - one short one (above) and a longer one with the sink cutout (below). They had to take the cabinet faces off to properly set the granite tops on.

Below you can see the (easiest) part of the job, since there was no backsplash to attach - and some more of the woodworking done to make the new half wall nice and even with the cabinets.

Finally - the most important part - the sink!!!! The piece we had been waiting and waiting and waiting for!  :)   (The backsplash was also put on by this time)

(Looks are deceiving though - the water isn't hooked up quite yet - that comes with the plumber!)

Finally, our kitchen is nearly complete!! With countertops, we could really get everything back into the kitchen area without worrying about everything getting dusty and dirty anymore. Still need to add some finishing touches (move the fridge back in, hang some lights, finish electrical outlet work, etc.) - but the biggest piece was done!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I know it's a little late, but there's a story behind this as well! :)  I'm taking a quick break from the house developments to share our holiday story with you. But don't worry, next week I'll finish the kitchen saga and unveil the finished product!

This year Robbie and I hosted the Schmidtberger family thanksgiving at our house. Since there are now at least 3 separate family thanksgiving celebrations to coordinate within the family, we decided to host Thanksgiving dinner on Friday instead of Thursday. This turned out well for several reasons - we had more time to prepare for the big meal (especially since it was my first time cooking the turkey!), we were able to relax and take it easy on Thursday, and we didn't feel pressured to participate in the Black Friday craziness on Friday!

So Thursday when we rolled out of bed around 10am and Robbie cooked us breakfast a little before 11, it felt a little weird not going anywhere for the day. It was almost like a "snow day" because everything was closed. For once the phone did not ring at all with telemarketers (because it did again today at 9am to wake us up!). And the "only" things we had to worry about were inside the house.

Thanksgiving night was time for me to start baking our desserts - traditional pumpkin pie, apple crumb pie, and my family's special cream cheese pumpkin pie. Friday morning Robbie and I both got up early to start the cooking festivities, but I also couldn't resist throwing together some monkey bread for breakfast (cinnamon pull aparts for those of you who don't know what that is).

Robbie and I couldn't resist long - so it's already missing some pieces! :)

We finally pulled out our china for the first time, and I had fun decorating the table for fall. The turkey went in the oven around 9:30am (after spending an hour in a couple cold baths to make sure it wasn't frozen!), so then we could relax for a little while until our guests arrived.

Finally it was time for dinner and everything was becoming ready at the same time - craziness! Robbie cut the turkey, his mom mashed the potatoes, and I pulled all the side dishes out of the oven to put on the "buffet" table. Below you can see a few shapshots of our feast - a great combination of foods and efforts from the family!

And, of course, the star of the show this year - our new niece! She didn't get to share in the joy of eating with us, but she did look very interested in participating - hopefully next year! :)

Finally, I thought I'd end the day in a little reflection of a few things I am very thankful for this year. First, I am very thankful for my Savior, who never leaves us nor forsakes us, despite our own failings. I am very thankful for my husband, who also stands by my side in the good and the not so good times. This year I am also very thankful for our new home, which, despite the large amount of work it has added to our busy lives, we hope it will be a source of blessing for more than just ourselves in the years to come.

There are so many other things I am thankful for and truly blessed by. I hope you too have found or will find joy in spending just a moment to reflect on God's many blessings. Happy Thanksgiving!

Moving in to the Kitchen - Getting Excited!

Now that we had all of our cabinets in, I decided that it was finally time to get the kitchen stuff back into the kitchen!! (Previously, it was in the dining, living and family rooms - some in boxes, some in crates from college!)

Since we moved all of the stuff out of the kitchen in August, this was huge (for me at least)! Figuring out where everything would go, trying to determine how I would use the space and cabinets...

...unpacking dishes that hadn't been used since before we moved...

...finding places for all that stuff that gets used, but not that often...

...and, of course - stashing food in the pantry! My favorite part are the roll-out tray on the bottom part of the pantry - space for everything, and I don't have to pull everything out to get to that item at the back!

Finally lots of boxes were unpacked, kitchen utensils and appliances were found (another reason it's hard to do much when you're living out of boxes in the kitchen), and space was created in other rooms. We took all of the flattened boxes (acting as paint and dust protectors) off the floors, polished the wood floors that were covered in plastering dust, and moved the dining room table out of the living room and back into the dining room!

It was a little weird at first not to be eating in the living room (as that was the main area everything was located during the remodeling), but finally things were coming together, and our kitchen felt more like a kitchen. Only 2 weeks to wait for a countertop (and water)!!!

Kitchen Remodel - Almost Done!

After another month of waiting, our cabinet installer came back to finish the project that they started. With most of our cabinets in and ready to go, they brought back the right size pantry cabinet, worked on the bar wrap around, and installed our microwave over the stove. We were very pleased to finally have the cabinets all in, and amazed by the difference the pantry made in looking like a kitchen!

Below are the semi-finished products after our installer left!

Now that our cabinets were all in place where they should be, we called the countertop people to come and measure / template for our countertop. With time escaping us and November fast approaching, we knew we needed to get things rolling if we were going to have people over for Thanksgiving.

Thankfully they were able to come the next week to measure (way cool to see - all kinds of software and advanced tools to create a virtual replica of our kitchen measurements), and I was able to go the next couple of days to see the granite slab. We didn't want to slow down the process, but our designer kept telling us that we should go see it in case it wasn't the same as in the store. Here I thought that we'd be picking one from several slabs in our pattern of choice.

So I had to arrange work to leave early, travel an hour away to the granite site, and once I got there to view the slab, realized that I really didn't need to come out. I took one look at the only slab of granite they had in our color choice, said it looked good, and went back on my way! Here, I guess if you don't like the color choice they have, you have to pick another color (which also impacts the price!). I guess at least my concerns were put to ease.

So then we began the last part of our waiting - waiting for the countertop to come in and be installed (along with water!) in our kitchen!

Kitchen Bar (Redesign)

When the 2nd day of installation was done, we realized that there was a miscommunication between our designer and us. We're certain that we explained we wanted the cabinets to be at 40 inches above the floor, where the wall was currently cut, but when they were installed, they sat a good 4 inches below the wall height. So we had a couple of options:

1. Keep the cabinets at the height they were at, and install the countertop lower than we originally intended (normal counter height). This also would involve cutting the wall down more.
2. Keep the cabinets at the height they were at, and have the countertop be two-tiered (i.e. a lower and upper countertop - one on the cabinets, one on the wall)
3. Order new cabinets at the correct height and lose the ones already installed (lose as in lose the money paid for the cabinets, as they won't take them back).
4. Take the cabinets off the wall and have the installer build up underneath them so there is a taller toe kick. 

None of those options were very appealing to us, so we talked with our expert carpenter friend, who gave us this idea:

• Build on top of the current cabinets to raise the counter height to the wall height, and create a wrap around the wall to ensure the height is even all the way around.

Perfect! This, in our minds, was actually better than the original idea of having cabinets all the way to the bottom of the counter, because it would be easier to get into the cabinets with an overhang above it.

So while we waited another month for our pantry, we also had them order two 1x8 pieces of lumber to match the cabinets so they could construct the build up. (Lucky you don't have to wait a month for the conclusion to this post!)

In the meantime, we managed to finish painting the kitchen and dining room in new colors - warm stone (brownish gray) for the kitchen cabinet area and backside of the bar, and agreeable gray (light gray) for the dining room and part of the kitchen wall that was shared with the dining room.

Finally, the day arrived, and the installer came back on a Friday afternoon to put in our pantry and build up our bar. Below is the finished project of the bar area.

They had to take off the countertop supports and move them up to meet the build up, but they did such a great job that you can't even tell it wasn't like this in the first place!

So with this key component of the kitchen done, we were ready to move onto the countertop (mostly) ! We still needed to do some cleanup and putting stuff back together before then (you might notice the outlets and vents exposed, and the fact that our fridge is still in the living room!).

Cabinet Installation - Day 2!

Our installers came back the 2nd day to finish as much as they could at that time. Unfortunately what we found out was that we had the wrong size pantry, so we had to order another size - which also means that we had to wait another 3+ weeks for it to come in. We also did not have our over the range microwave yet because it was out of stock all over pittsburgh, so the installer was going to come back later to do the finishing work.

So they basically were able to finish the cabinetry work that they had left (some cabinets on the wall between the kitchen & dining room) and install our gas range and dishwasher that were just delivered the day before! Since the gas line was moved, the stove worked (yay! we can cook!), but because the water wasn't hooked up, we couldn't use the dishwasher.

Our gas stove came from Sears, and has 5 burners (one extra in the middle) - something I hadn't seen before :)

Our dishwasher also came from Sears, which we found & decided on through Consumer Reports

One of the last things the installers did before they left for the day was put on our cabinet hardware. I had to come home over my lunch break because they told me that there were different "placements" of the handles and I had to decide where to put them. I'm thinking, "Can it really be that difficult?" And it did seem kind of silly, but I guess they didn't want to be liable for me not liking it when they were done. Below are the doors with the handles installed, and the glass door put on the corner cabinet.

 Now it was time to wait and wait and wait until our pantry came in, and because of that and the cabinets over the bar area not being quite how we wanted them, we couldn't have the countertop people come yet. So the kitchen got put on hold for a little while and we continued to eat off of paper and plastic! :)

The Cabinets are Here! Installation - Day 1

We ordered the cabinets towards the end of July, and they came in around the middle of August, but because we still had some work to do on the floor and walls, we had delayed the installation until the end of August. But the cabinets were delivered to our house, so we lost half of the garage to all the cabinets (plus some of the old ones we still had around).

Finally, the day was here and it was time for our installer to give us some storage space back in our kitchen, and make it look a little more like a kitchen! They set up shop on our back porch and went to town cutting and fitting everything so that it was just right. As you can see below, they did the top part of the cabinets first before moving to the bottom ones.

These pictures were taken at lunchtime on day 1 of cabinet installation. You can see that we chose a darker oak wood, with partial overlay doors. The cabinet in the corner will get a glass door frame.

We had to repair the drywall / plaster above the window where the old light receptacle was, so we didn't get a chance to paint it before the cabinets were installed. We're also hoping to replace that window (and a couple other broken ones around the house) before winter comes, so we didn't worry too much about it being completely finished.

By the end of the first day, they had the bottom cabinets in, the doors on, and moved the gas line for our stove. They had to move the gas line about a foot since we slightly changed the layout, so they were drilling holes through our garage and the tile to do that, but in the end it looked great!

I didn't get pictures at the end of the day, so you'll just have to use your imagination and wait to see the finished product...coming soon!