Saturday, December 31, 2011

New year, new walls

This week saw completion of the first quarter of our kitchen reno:  electrical and drywall are done and done. This was Wednesday morning: 
Friday night my sweet hubby primed the entire room with a high-quality primer (220 Wall Prep) from Hallman Lindsay.  It was a fabulous product, went on very smooth and covered the wallboard in one coat. 
Here's where it's at today!
Doesn't it look HUGE in there?  Also, these pics were taken with my favorite Christmas present:
The Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Ultra-Wide Angle Lens for my Canon Rebel!  This lens is so fabulous, it almost makes me angry.  We can all thank my wonderful mom for the improved pictures on the blog, ok?  In other news, I'm thickening up at an alarming rate....
This was taken at 17 weeks (I'm currently 18) and I've gained 12 pounds so far....yikes!  I'm finally giving in to the maternity clothes at work because regular pants were just killing my belly while sitting all day.  I'm feeling ok, just crying over still-horrible acne and a general feeling of not wanting to do anything.  Wah wah. 
Next week is the big ultrasound....my vote is GIRL, and hopefully she stops messing with my hormones very soon!  Have a great New Year's Eve, everyone!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Progress

This was the kitchen last night: 
 Today, the kitchen looks like this:
We still don't have electrical turned on in the kitchen, so it's quite dark in there with our constant overcast days. 
This is the beauty of hiring people to do the work for you.  We did put all the plywood strips on the studs ourselves, but our wonderful drywall guy is rocking out this job.  He just has the window alcove to do, then he starts the mudding next Monday.  Here is our new ductwork for the range hood:
And here is the new and improved toe-kick heat vent that was cut down from a wall vent:
They also put another floor heat vent in the window alcove.  It will be so warm in there with all the insulation and ACTUAL heat!   So far, our contractor cost is:

Electrician and rough supplies: $2400
HVAC work:  $325
Drywall and insulation, installation:  $1150

And we've only been without a kitchen for three weeks, so it's worth every penny to be at this stage already.  I will go into more detail about what was covered in the costs in future posts, we completely lucked out with our fabulous contractors!  Hopefully next week our floor guy will be able to start ripping out the old flooring.  YAY! 

Monday, December 12, 2011

It's electric!

Boogie oogie oogie.  Behold my fabulous rough electrical, for can lights, main lights, and many many outlets. 
The wires were looking pretty crazy before they all got corralled into the receptacles.  Our previous wiring was all running through conduit, it was a pain to get rid of all that old pipe.  Our electrician was amazing!
I had mentioned before that our doors and windows stuck out too far from the studs, so our drywall guy recommended we fur out the studs with 1/4 inch plywood strips on the two main walls.  A nice Home Depot guy ripped a full sheet down into 1 1/2 inch strips for us, what a guy!
This week is plumbing and HVAC!
Hopefully these walls get closed up next week.   

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Just.....whoa.

Last Thursday:
Last Friday night:
Here is the heat vent to the kitchen.  Which the previous owners (BOOZIE??) covered with cabinets. 
How about a nice home cooked meal?
Last Saturday:
Even though we succeeded in destroying the kitchen ourselves last weekend, we are a little worried about how the drywall will go on.  All the windows and doors stick out from the studs by 7/8" so I have no idea how that is going to work. 
Drywall Tom is coming tomorrow, electrician Terry is working daily, and HVAC Andy is going to try to figure out how to vent my fabulous range hood out with double joists, conduit and filler wood crowding the available space between the floor joists....it just never ends!
Even though I haven't picked my exact slabs of granite yet, I have purchased my faucet, and it is gorgeous!  I was so excited to see this baby in the mail today. 
This faucet has a 'new' model out now, so you can get the 'old' one for under $100!  YES, I got his fabulous faucet for $85 from Plumbersurplus.com.  Rush over there and get it before they are gone...it is a solid, heavy, brass faucet with ceramic discs, not plastic.  Love it.
I hate remodeling my kitchen, but I love buying the 'jewelry!'

ps - thank you all for your sweet comments on my little spawn.  I'm 15 weeks and feeling pretty good, if my face clears up soon I will be the happiest pregnant chick around!  Ok, that's pushing it...

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I'm totally pregnant

Yeah, I couldn't come up with a cute way of saying it, so BOOM there it is.  And here is my 13-week-old spawn waving to you all with a monstrous mitt:
Hello, fetus!  I'm 14 weeks tomorrow and I'm just starting to feel human again.  Although I still can't poop, but manage to pee about 80 times a day.  I also had to do some serious editing on my awful acne in this picture:
I got pregnant the very first time we tried (thank you, Clearblue Easy Ovulation testers!) and I was definitely not expecting that.  While I didn't have any sickness, my allergies were unbearable and I was just depressed that I was tired all the time and didn't want to leave the house.  This may change going forward, but I really hate being pregnant!  Good thing there is a prize at the end :)

Oh yeah, the kitchen.  We are in the process of removing all the contents of the cabinets and are ripping them out this weekend. 
The cats don't like the noise, but they sure do love climbing into those empty cabinets.  
We have chosen a granite called 'Phantom Green' in a sueded finish.  I LOVE IT!  It looks like soapstone but isn't soft and doesn't require all that oiling. 
By the way, we are going with the new oak flooring in the kitchen that I posted about before.  This weekend is demo, then electrical, then drywall, then flooring, then I have a headache for New Years.  And then, our cabinets arrive and I go into labor!  Just kidding.  I hope.     

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Cabinet time

Well, the cabinets are ordered!  We went with a local kitchen place to order and install the cabinets, we chose Koch Cabinets, a family company in Kansas.  I chose the Savannah door, a simple shaker style, in a white painted birch finish. 
They will look similar to this, only without the fancy glass doors on the left. 
I've scanned in the plan from our kitchen designer, these are a little rough but you get the idea.  We are not changing the layout of the kitchen.  Here is the sink wall:
Don't mind the floating sink, that is supposed to be a regular undermount stainless sink, not sure why it's like that!  The cabinet to the right of the dishwasher is a waste bin cabinet with two large cans behind a tall single door.  Range wall with huge cookware drawers:
The refrigerator wall will have the biggest changes, with a tall broom closet on the left of the frig, and the microwave in a cabinet under the counter.  There is a panel enclosing the right side of the frig, that is not pictured.  The counter on this wall will be 42 inches to make using the microwave easier and make it more like a bar height.  That micro cabinet is seriously not to scale, the drawer will be a nice big 15" high one and the microwave will fit perfectly in the upper cabinet.   
All the base cabinets (except the sink base) are drawers or roller pullouts behind doors.  I wanted lots of places to put heavy cookware, so I'm thrilled with this setup!  The space above the microwave will be open shelves that I have yet to dream up.  I'm might try to find some cool reclaimed wood rather than match them to the cabinets.  Maybe rustic like this:
Or more modern with a natural wood tone.
I also love this DIY pot rack shelving, how cool!
I've made some simple shelves for the art room, so I'm hoping to find some thicker wood to do something similar in the kitchen. 
I can't wait to have all our dishes out in the open, we literally go through all our bowls and plates over the span of a couple days, so they will have no time to get dusty, and they are already white so they will look right at home. 

Our cabinet cost includes: full-overlay doors, dovetail drawers, full extension drawers and roller trays, softclose drawers, crown molding, light rail molding, toe kick, shoe molding, and shaker side panels for refrigerator surround. 

Total:  $10,238.00 ($8,438 for cabinets and $1800 for installation)

Considering the installation involves lots of trim and should take the professionals about 3 days, I'm more than willing to pay for it!  This total price is pretty much what Lowes wanted for installation of some Kraftmaid cabinets, and I like that we're going with a smaller family-owned cabinet maker instead.  One thing down, about a million to go.....