Light Fixtures are in...

We are getting to the point where just a few things are done each day, but happy they are getting done. Over the last two days the flight fixtures were hung and the trim was stained.

New, Shiny Appliances!!

We were happy to come home to appliances this week. They had been sitting in our garage for several months and now they are finally installed.

Here is the fridge! Although it already made a debut in the living room when the old one died!
The stove and vent!

The fabulous dishwasher, sink, faucet and garbage disposal. It will be so nice not to wash dishes in a bar sink in the basement any longer!

And last but not least - our bargain of the weekend - bar stools! We found these at Hom on clearance for a steal.

I don't think we will see any more work this week but hopefully by next week they will be done. Items outstanding include a few cabinet shops items, installing 2 lights, staining the new trim and a final sand/stain on the floors.

And then there were countertops!

We are excited to see the space coming together. This week they sanded and stained the floors(no pictures as they are covered up again until all the work is done), installed the sink and installed the counter top.

This is the china cabinet (glass still coming) and the high bar. We envision using this space for working on the laptop, eating breakfast and as a buffet area when entertaining. Note from Tom - and as a bar:)

You can kind of see the under mounted sink in this picture - the open space is for the new dishwasher (thanks to our wonderful aunt).

Here is where the fridge will go and the microwave on the shelf. Funny note on the fridge, which is currently in the living room. Our nephew was over yesterday and asked why we had a fridge in the living room - really there is no good answer to that which wouldn't produce another why question by a 3 year old.
The final spot for the stove and hood. We are quite excited about the granite - it looks great. We selected this slab because we liked it but also because it called Mesabi black and is from our very own Lake Superior region (maybe Ely).

Trim and crowns

There hasn't been much to update lately from the kitchen. An odd bit of trim gets placed here and there which didn't deserve a post. However, the cabinet folks were back again today and installed the crown trim around the cabinets. I think it turned out quite nicely.

Also, you can see in the third picture that the doorjam around what were the doors to the entryway has been removed and some trim boards were added to cover up where the jams had been. Once the countertop is in, a painter will come and stain the trim to match the rest.

Cabinets!

Boyd's Custom Cabinets came out today and installed their work. It was quite a shock walking in to the room! They look very nice to me and I can finally envision what our kitchen may look like!

Paint, paint everywhere!

We're back home from a nice trip to Colorado. The biggest thing that has happened to the house since the last post has been painting (and more painting). Dad came up on Saturday (the last in May) and helped tremendously with getting paint on the wall after it had been primed on Friday.

Kristin and I primed the ceiling over the knockdown texture once Dad left with good old Kilz. Yesterday and today I used paint on the ceiling in anticipation of our cabinets being installed tomorrow. It makes it easier to paint without them there :).

Hopefully more pictures tomorrow with the new cabinets!

Picture note: Most of the lights are not working yet in the kitchen, so painting in the evening is difficult especially when it is cloudy. This is the lamp that lit the way. ( Much as I did with my toys as a kid, the lamp is actually a combination of two laps, one of which broke.)

We're on a roll here

More work was done today at the house. The drywall was taped and mudded(?) and the ceiling textures were taken off and smoothed down. We don't keep our house very warm during the day when we are at work, so we got scolded by the builder that it had to stay at 72 to help dry the walls!

Now we need the stuff to dry for them to sand and for the ceiling to be finished for a marathon painting day on Saturday. Kristin and I are going to Estes Park, CO with the Woods family on their quasi-annual trip there for a week. That week happens to be the same week that our builders wanted us to do the base coat of paint before the cabinets are put in.

Dad will be coming up to help and Kristin and I have already primed one wall with a number of coats (the wall was red before, so we needed a few layers). If all goes as planned, we'll be painting the walls behind where the cabinets will go and the ceiling on Saturday.

(The purple stuff in the floor is a protective covering).

This ist he ceiling with the texture removed and the gaps filled in.

This is the kitchen facing south. The far was used to be RED!

This is the other kitchen wall, again facing south where the china cabinet will be.

Progress on two fronts!

More comments to come later, but there was a flurry of activity today. We had a framing inspection, drywall installation, and hardwood floor placement!

Electric work progress

It looks like a lot of the electrical work is wrapping up with the boxes and wires placed in the walls. The recessed lights on the ceiling are also in place but they don't have bulbs in yet. We hope the sheetrocking can be done next week so we can get to put a base coat of paint on before they come in with the cabinets and other stuff.

No progress on the floor yet.

Progress - slow but real

The floor folks were supposed to be in on Monday since the flooring was delivered on Friday. Lo and behold, Kristin and I came home from work on Monday to find the floor in about the same condition as before with a few boards up on one side of the room.

We heard from our contractor on Tuesday AM (for an electrical walk-through) and he said that the flooring people had been working all day on Monday. It turns out that in the 40 years of hardwood flooring work the floor sub had been doing, he'd never encountered this problem. The hardwood planks were glued together (in the tongue and groove) and also glued to the subfloor.

The floor sub had worked all day an only got those few boards up. We discussed with the general contractor and rather than feather in the new floor with the existing floor we will now have a board running perpendicular as a transition between the two floor areas. This board should be the same color and width as the others, just turned 90 degrees.

The electrician did some work today and you can see the new electrical boxes temporarily placed and the fluorescent ceiling lights have been taken down. We hope to have more electrical and floor work done tomorrow.
This is the boards that took a whole day to remove. You can probably also see where the subfloor is scarred from the removal.

Here are some of the electrical workings.
Finally, here are the downed ceiling lights and big new pile of hardwood floor planks. The blue paint on the wall is what we are thinking about using in the entryway (not in the dining room).

All quiet on the home front

I guess the demolition and framing went ahead of schedule because very little if anything happened at the house this week. If I understand correctly, the GC is trying to get the floor people to move up a bit and the cabinet people are going as fast as they can. Kristin came up with some good ideas for another post showing the dust abatement measures along with our basement kitchen!

In the meantime, here's a picture of the framing they did to fill in the recess the refrigerator sat in.

Demolition day 3

From Kristin: Not much progress from the last post, besides the mounting dust of demolition! This used to be the kitchen sink - now the walls are down to the studs. We have a small bar sink in the basement that is working just great for a kitchen.

If you were wondering what the top of our stairway looked like - wait no longer. This was the wall where the fridge and stove previously lived. Now the fridge is in the living room and the stove - the garage!

There has been a bit more work around the china cabinet today.

If the drawings don't give the China Cabinet justice - our goal is to create the cabinet over the stairwell. Eventually there will be a high countertop/bar looking into the kitchen and china cabinet.

Demolition day 2

Demolition continued to a second day where the walls between the formal dining room and the kitchen were removed, parts of the ceiling were taken away, and there was even some construction(!) where they widened the entrance to the kitchen from the front door. Also, you can see in some places where the drywall is off and the wall is down to studs.

There are now no walls between old kitchen and old formal dining room, also the 'boxy' ceiling areas were removed.Entryway to the kitchen from the front door widened. You can see in the pictures where the wall used to be due to the blue tape.

Demolition day 1

We came home to a house that didn't look like our own. The first day of demolition went well and the appliances and salvageable cabinets were out in the garage. The walls were still mostly in place, but we could see on the floor where the previous owner did not place the hardwood floor under the cabinets. (Also, the china cabinet in the DR was removed this same day).

The demo guys said that it appeared that the cabinets were built on-site (the owner talked about a carpenter friend) and were attached with nails rather than screws (?). Anyway, the project is now well underway.

First post!

Welcome to this blog devoted to keeping friends and family up to date with the the remodeling of our kitchen.

First, we'll start with the 'before' pictures.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the demolition so far!