It's Done!

Believe it or not, the project is finally complete! We are thrilled to have it behind us and to finally have a clean house and kitchen again. I waited a few days to post pictures because I wanted to make sure the house was clean first (well that and I procrastinated pretty badly)...

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So now that it is all done, we cannot wait to entertain anyone we can convince to come see us! Zack and Laura Jane joined us for dinner last night, and we had a great time. It was so fun to put the new kitchen to use. The big sink was great for clean up too. 

As for the future of the blog, we'll just have to wait and see....

Nearing the end...

Sorry for the lack of posting the last few days. The project is ALMOST done, so we've decided to wait until it is totally done to post pictures. The house is an absolute wreck, and we cannot wait to have our sanity back. Just a few more days....

TILE!

The tile man showed up bright and early this morning, and what a huge difference it was to come home to! We decided to go with the white subway tile with a matte finish, and I think it is safe to say we are very happy with our choice. We picked the grout this morning from the color chart the tile man brought, and we decided on a light gray color. He has to come back tomorrow to do the grout, so the pictures below show the tile without grout. I don't think the color will look drastically different though...

If you look closely under the hood, you can see how crooked our house is! The tile is lined up straight on the bottom but on a diagonal by the time you get to the top of the hood.

So now the big decision is what color to paint the little bit of visible wall remaining - leave it blue or paint it white. We are leaning towards blue to bring a little color into the room, and besides I LOVE that color blue. It doesn't hurt that it matches some of our china!

So, there is a chance that they may wrap up tomorrow but my guess is on early next week. We will have a list of final touch ups that will have to next week at the very least. I CANNOT WAIT to be able to cook in our kitchen again and for our house to be clean! The dust is about to do me in - but we have a deep clean schedule for next week! Don't worry Mom, Dad, and Xan it will be all clean by the time you come stay with us for Christmas.

First Day of the Last Week*

*Note, this is the forecast by the contractor...it may even be done AHEAD of schedule at the rate he's going!

Anyway, here's the latest photos. Carolyn is in London and has entrusted me with her blog. Hope I can do it justice by adding lots of pictures.

Today they made a lot of progress. The installed the new appliances, ran wire for the under cabinet lights, and finished the trim work around the bar cut-out. We still have to vent the hood out the roof and do the tile backsplash, but the rest is pretty small stuff.

 New view with the granite, sink, appliances

 New view of the bar with the extension and without the wall

 We've doubled the width of the bar so we can actually put a plate on it now.

 The trim work is all done around the new opening and it looks much better now that its trimmed and sheet rocked.

 New stove, gas top and electric oven plus warming drawer

 tiny new microwave, but we rarely use it anwyay

 check out the hood

 these bad boys will be installed on all the cabinet doors...yes all 31 of them

 under cabinet lights are coming in too

 new sink and faucet mounts

oh, and we now have gas burners!

I expect the drawers will be finished up maybe tomorrow and then they will start working on venting the hood and doing the tile backsplash. After that, its just little items and a final cleaning and then we have our kitchen back!

Evan is so excited to come have a meal at his favorite aunt & uncle's house, he doesnt even know what to say (he is in deep thought about pureed carrots right about now)

Granite is in!

I got in from New York late last night, and what a fun surprise to walk into the granite being down! I'm really excited about the way it turned out, and I can't wait to use the new bar. Pardon the picture quality below - Andy is on a fishing trip this weekend, so he has the nice camera with him. (I'm definitely not a great photographer to begin with but the good camera/lens seems to at least give me a little boost).

Sink is in  - I'm excited about having one large bowl for easily cleaning big pots and pans. To stay within our budget, this was the only single bowl option. It has the option to be an undermount or an overmount, which leaves it looking a little odd with the exposed lip. It will still work great though I'm sure!

Drawer faces are off as they working on shaving them down so that they can open without hitting the knobs/pulls of the other cabinets in the corner. 

And finally, our appliances are here! They delivered them in the boxes today so obviously we can't tell much yet, but I am definitely looking forward to having an stove again.

I'm headed to London for a few days tomorrow, so it will be up to Andy to post some updates. Somebody push him to update because I'm anxious to see pictures of the progress too! Fingers crossed the project may actually finish next week. It is still kind of hard to imagine in our minds, but the contractor still thinks he is on track. That would be great news for us because it would mean we have 2 weekends to move back into the kitchen and clean up before Christmas. I can't believe that Christmas is so close!

Details

Well, the project continues to roll along, and it is fun to come home every day and see what has changed since we walked out the door to go to work. Overall we are thrilled with how it is looking, and I really can't wait to cook a new meal in there. There have been a couple of things pop up along the way that aren't quite right though, and that is frustrating. So far the contractor has been really responsive and good about correcting them though, so hopefully that will continue. The devil is in the details though so we have to keep a close eye on things! 

Here is the view from the back entry now - much more open than it used to be!

Good news is the cabinets are straight now! And they re-caulked around the ceiling, making it look much more even.

Problem of the day: cutting the corners to close makes it difficult to open the drawers!

 Paint is in - hopefully going up soon! (color is Popcorn by Martha Stewart)

And here is the hardware we picked out last night...