Starting to look like a kitchen now

Check out the cabinets and hardwood floors!

Lipstick's Adventure Behind the Plastic

Poor baby, this project has been very hard on Lipstick.  She spends her days in a one room prison.  Then, even when she's freed, she'd not permitted free run of HER house.  She's not allowed inside the plastic around the kitchen and the entire master bedroom area is closed off.

Her favorite water source, the bath tub, is completely off limits forcing her to search for water in the shower.  (And for those of you wondering, there is ample water in her bowl, but that's just too EASY!)

So for a special treat, I decided to let her explore the new cabinets that would be her new domain.  She loved it!

Yes she was actually down in the sink cut out, but jumped out before I could get a picture.

And for the reason I don't let her in there -- she's managed to find one, very small opening underneath the corner cabinet and wedged herself in there.  Luckily, she was also able to wedge herself out.  But it was game-over after that!

More cabinets and some trouble

From January 28.  The good news first.  Cabinets are rolling in and they look awesome.

The bad news ... in the livingroom on the other side of the bar (behind the refrigerator), I'm have a single cabinet plus bookshelfs above installed.  I should have noticed this in the rendering (or it should have been pointed out to me), but the bookshelf is cabinet depth.  See below

So if you were seated at the barstool, you'd be smack up against that cabinet.  Plus, it looked weird because the shelves were so deep and books would just be at the very edge.

Not worry, everything can be fixed with money (this thing anyway!).  We're still debating how much because I think I was clear that I wanted a bookshelf like my previous one, which had a deeper cabinet at the bottom with shallower bookshelves on top.

Watch the details folks.  Live and learn.

Things to think about for the Next Remodel

I thought I'd keep a little running list of things to remember for next (as if!).  Who knows.  But there are few things I didn't think through that have caused some consternation.  Remodelers beware.

(1) Location of plugs, especially in areas with decorative tile.  As previously, noted, my team had to lower all my kitchen plugs because they were slotted to interrupt my single row of decorative tile.  Yuck.  I wouldn't have thought to put them there, but my designer says that's how most people do it.

(2) My friend Dana also suggested using a plug strip nestled underneath the upper cabinets.  But it was too late by the time I got that info.  Maybe next time.  The benefit of this technique is that no plugs are visible around the walls -- good for if you have granite or decorative tile that shouldn't be interrupted.

(3) Another note on plugs.  In retrospect, would have been nice to have a few inside cabinets, where I could plug in cell phone charges and thread cord into drawers for charging out of sight.

(4)  Really think through plumbing fixtures and where they will go.  As it turns out, I bought a tub that can't be turned so that I'd be soaking looking outward because you have to be able to access the pump, etc.  If I'd known that limitation, probably would have chosen different tub.  Also, I assumed fixtures would be in same place on the wall, but didn't think through whether they would be difficult to reach because of the shower.  So now we'll put them in the center on the wall...fingers crossed.  I had a similar problem with my sink.  The sink I chose was too deep for the faucet to be mounted in the center.  I'm reconciled with a side mounting but it never occurred to be that would be an issue.

More soon:

(5) Really think about things like how deep shelves will be and how they will look.  I've ended up having to redo my living room shelves.

Ah Cabinets!

Once again, I've fallen a bit behind on my blogging.  Leaving my small, but devoted followers in the lurch. 
I survived the sanding of the sheet rock will minor trauma.  The guys did a great job of keep dust out of my opulent living quarters, but I'm told to expect to be discovering it for months to come.

Last week, the guys starting moved the cabinets from the garage into the kitchen and building out the cabinets.  They are going to be so awesome.  I love the color, plus they have great hinges, smooth pulling features -- everyone one would expect in outrageously expensive cabinetry!  Here's how things are looking:



Yum.  Love the light cherry color.



Nice deep drawers for pots and pans!

And here's the bathroom

Other progress to report:

(1) Selected my granite slabs for the kitchen on Monday so they'll be coming Tuesday, January 25 to measure template for fabrication.  That should take about a week.
(2) I'm still on the search for my bathroom tile, but hope to have that wrapped today.
(3) They are cutting hole in the plywood for the sink today.  Selected location for faucet.

More news as it comes in.

Day MLK Day

I must have hired the only contractor in AMERICA who gives his workers MLK day off.  I mean -- no offense -- but I'm working today.  Everyone I know is working.  Anyway, sheet rock sanding starts tomorrow so I'll be on the look out for that sneaky, super fine dust to permeate through our carefully errected barriers. Wish me luck!!

A watched pot never boils

The daily monitoring of progress has left me somewhat depressed.  Yes, things are happening, but the pace seems very slow.  But I went away for a few days last week on business, and came home to things really starting to cook.

The sheet rock in the kitchen is complete.  and this is going to look awesome

This bar is going to totally transform this condo

You can't really see it, but the plugs have been lowered per my request

Looking into the kitchen from the livingroom

My new plug!  Sheet rock complete

We've also made some great progress in the bathroom!  The code requires contractors to use tar to seal the shower basin, which unfortunately caused some irration for one of my neighbors.  But there's no other way to do this.  Hope this will be the last smelly thing, but the cabinet installation and tile cutting is going to be noisy.  My contractor thinks it will be six more weeks -- so that puts us at the end of February.  Fingers crossed.

The infamous tar....

Bath tub is in and doesn't look too big.  What a relief!

Framing the Shower

So it looks like most of Wednesday, January 12 was devoted to framing the shower.  Here's some signs of progress.  And the sheet rocking continues, of course.

Shower basin

My new fan, hopefully not a  noisy as the 50 year old one just removed.

More sheet rock progress in the bathroom

Let the Sheetrocking begin

Well, we've had a few issues about the location of plugs in the kitchen, which required the electrician to have to move them all in the kitchen.  But the problem is the code requires a plug every 48" so that's a lot of plugs in a tiny kitchen and I'm trying to make them less obtrusive.  To be fair, it never would have occurred to me that you'd actually plan to put plugs in middle of a row of decorative tile.  My decorator didn't think to ask until I asked a question about how high the plugs would be.  Live and learn.  Actually, my friend Dana is the one who tipped me off to this on Sunday.  She suggested solving this with a plug bar anchored just below the bottom of the cabinets.  But that's where the cabinet lights go.  If the lights were on the front, that would leave an expose wire running across the bottom of the cabinet, which we didn't think would look right.

That problem solved, we're moving on with the sheeting rocking.  Tuesday, looks like they finished the ceiling in the living room and the wall, as well as the walls of the bar and the section just under the window.

This is view from the kitchen over the bar to the living room.  The stove will be centered under the opening and the frig goes on the left.

Ceiling in the kitchen

Another angle looking out toward the living room

One of my avid followers asked for more commentary from Lipstick.  You can see her spooky glowing eyes in the bottom middle of this picture.  Clearly, she's wondering, "How did Mom get through that plastic so fast."  That's a game we play where she tries to get in while I'm coming through the zippered opening.  A freedom fighter with unparalleled curiosity, being locked out of the kitchen is almost as bad for her as being in the bedroom prison all day.  But I'd prefer not to have dusty kitty pawprints all over what's left of my home.  So the trick is to use the side kitchen door!  Very sneaky. 

The bathroom is coming along as well.  One wall has been sheet rocked, the electrical is complete and the framing in the shower continues.

One final note of bad news today:  There's not enough room in the wall for the electrical and a medicine cabinet.  That's mostly because of the stupid conduit we have to use in this condo.  I'm pretty disappointed, but as you can see in this picture that from plumbing upstairs that prevents a medicine cabinet placement behind the sink.  And there's too much electrical conduit to put one on the side wall.  Bummer.

Busy busy busy behind the sheet rock!

Light switches galore and the conduit cost me a medicine cabinet. 



Preview of kitchen granite and tile

Here's a look at my kitchen granite -- called Green Peace.  The backspash will be an offwhite/light yellowish plain rectangle tile with a single row of the decorative tile (shown toward the bottom of this sample).  And light cherry cabinets.  Can't wait.

Day 27

Yes, over four weeks since the prep began on December 7 (i.e. since I was evicted from my bedroom and bathroom and reduced to 300 sq. ft. living.  But we are making progress.

We passed the electrical inspection on Friday.  Hurrah!  That was apparently a bear and my contractor informs me that he spent over 100 extra hours on that part of the process because of the difficulty of working with the conduit.  Sorry to be hardhearted, but too bad for him.  Live and learn.

Here are some pictures of our current status.  They start sheet rocking today in the kitchen while they finish up electrical in the bathroom.

These are the can LED lights in the kitchen

Here's the insulation -- ready to go into the wall today.

Lots and lots of light switches

This is the view from the kitchen looking out into the living room.  This will be the bar.

This is the hole for the downdraft from my new oven.

They had to cut a huge swath in my wall just to put in a new plug.  Yuck

This is the new LED can light, with a full double sheetrock "box" to make it fireproof.