Kitchen Update - April 11

The kitchen is 99% complete. We're currently waiting for the pendant lamps that will be installed above the peninsula (two blue holes in the ceiling). The transformation has been amazing. We have been thrilled with our contractors including Kitchens By Design, Bender Electric, Joe Pietkiwicz Plumbing, and Eisenhard's Decorating Center.

You can see the pictures:

Before: very 80's salmon walls, light blue Formica counter tops, beige cabinets with oak trim, Pergo laminate flooring, and fluorescent lighting.




After: deep orange walls, cinnamon spice Zodiaq quartz counter tops, extra-deep maple cabinets to the ceiling, Armstrong laminate flooring, and recessed (dimmable) lighting with low-voltage under-cabinet accent lighting.




The pantry area has also been transformed.

Before: panel bi-fold doors (not seen here) with full-depth shelves and a divider down the front of the pantry.





After: dual custom pantry cabinets with five roll-out drawers each. The center area allows for staging of groceries and a handy place for the drop-down LCD TV.




Finally, the powder room that previously had the same beige cabinetry with the light blue counter top has been transformed to match the kitchen's decor.




After: glass vessel sink, oil rubbed bronze faucet, same cabinet and counter top materials as the kitchen. Not shown here are the new lamp, toilet, and floor, which will be featured on a future blog entry once the grout has been finished and the baseboard tile installed.

Kitchen Destruction: Accomplished

With the help of my parents and Kate's colleague, Rob, the kitchen was basically disassembled on Sunday afternoon. While the removal of the upper cabinets a couple weekends ago was relatively clean, the removal of the base cabinets and countertops was messy and noisy.



As you can see from the picture, the only cabinet in place is the sink base. The other cabinet in the center of the floor is acting as a temporary island since there's no place to put anything down. The dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator are still in place.

The next task will be pulling up the rest of the floor. While Kate and I had really wanted to keep the Pergo floor since it was in decent shape, its age (approximately 13 years) combined with the changing footprint of the cabinets necessitated its removal. As a result, we selected our flooring today. Though it was a tough debate between a lighter and darker finish, the darker one won out. We picked Armstrong's Origins Merbau, which has a rich color and interesting grain.

In other news... our vessel sink arrived today. It is beautiful and will look great against the Zodiaq countertop in the powder room.

Kitchen Update - February 15

The kitchen demolition continues. It was amazingly easy to remove the wall cabinets on the stove side of the kitchen. On Sunday night we tackled them, and are very pleased with the results. The most difficult part was hauling the cabinets to the basement for temporary storage.

Before upper cabinet removal:



After upper cabinet removal:

The Kitchen Demolition Has Begun

In preparation for our new kitchen early next month, Kate and I started demolishing the old kitchen tonight. We started small with the removal of some of the wall cabinets. You'll be happy to know that these cabinets will find a new home in our garage or my basement work room.

Before:


After:


We've picked out and purchased new cabinets and appliances. Our big debate now is what to do with the floor. We had hoped to save it since it's in good shape. Unfortunately, we're told that with the slight change in the footprint, we'll have to replace the entire floor since replacement boards for 13-year-old Pergo aren't easy to come by. Note to self: buy a few extra boxes of whatever new floor we go with.