Wrapping Up the Kitchen...Not Soon Enough

So it's been a month and change since I last posted, and we've (contractor) covered a lot of ground since then. We're both kind of annoyed things aren't done yet, since we're approaching two and a half months and things were supposed to be wrapped up by now, but we love the shape it's taking. Let's have a look, shall we?

First, from the living room/entry looking into the kitchen. No more plastic! We did come home from two weeks in Chicago with my family to find our house covered (for a third time) with a thin layer of grit and dust. Who doesn't like to end their travels (delayed travels, with an impromptu overnight in the cheapest hotel United could find in the vicinity of SFO, I might add) by coming home to clean their house? Gak. Anyway, looks good, hmm?

 From the dining room, same view. Having the wall gone is AMAZING.

 It completely changes both the kitchen and the dining room. Both feel huge, and it's so much lighter and brighter. Very pleased with that choice.

 And how great do those cabinets look?

This is the looking at the eating area and bar counter. I'm still looking for furniture, but the plan is for a round pedestal table and two wingback chairs in front of the window on the right.

This is standing in the kitchen looking at the rest of the house. Disastrous as it is at the moment, I still love the view.

This is the bar counter and west side of the kitchen from the eating area. Obviously still unfinished. It'll be topped with the same slate as the rest of the counters. The wood still needs to be painted.

 Looking into the rest of the kitchen from the eating area. Trevor and Todd's dad were here putting in floors yesterday. Not finished yet, but they made a lot of headway.

We moved the fridge into its spot this morning. I need to measure for furniture and have also been antsy to make any progress that I can. Putting the fridge away felt like progress. Also, it opened up the kitchen a lot so we can actually get a feel for the space.

 Here's the window over the sink. Despite having to be kind of cobbled together by our contractor, it came out looking really nice. Or will, once it's all caulked and finished. The counter extends all the way out to the windows.

Looking through both pocket doors, so from the kitchen into the mudroom and laundry/powder beyond that.

Another shot back into the rest of the house. Note the giant drawers for pots and pans and whatever else. Much more convenient than cabinets.

Looking back the opposite direction, from the mudroom into the eating area.

West side of the kitchen.

The sink is kind of like a coffin. It's really big. But I think I'm going to love it.

 

And lastly, we had a pretty decent little snowfall yesterday and last night. Enough so that everyone apparently forgot how to drive, and there were cars parked up and down our street that people just left. Most of them are gone now, but based on the behavior, you'd have thought there was a solid four feet of snow on the ground. I'm just glad nobody drove into our yard and over the laurels. And the snow is beautiful.

Things are coming along really well. The only thing I'm a bit disappointed about is that I have zero interest in decorating for Christmas. The idea of bringing something like a tree into my house right now and taking up even more space is physically painful. There is just so much crap everywhere that I want to make it all go away before taking anything out of storage. 

By next weekend it should be ok to start putting stuff away in the kitchen, and I will happily strangle anyone who says otherwise with one of the orange construction extension cords I keep tripping over. Maybe once kitchen stuff is put away I'll be able to start decorating for Christmas. And on that cheerful note, hopefully the next time I post will be to announce this whole miserable little experience will be over.

Drywall + Door Knobs

Drywall and a coat or two of mud went up this week, so here are a bunch of pictures of that ...Sherisa :).

From the kitchen into the laundry room/powder room

 Looking at the half wall into the dining room

 And the rest of the kitchen

 That thing on the right is the recessed area where the fridge will go

 Left side, the washer/dryer side of the addition

 Right side, the bathroom side of the addition

 And I installed deadbolts!

And here's a sample of the wood that we picked for the floor. It's handscraped, which I'm not totally crazy about because I think it's too trendy, and it's engineered hardwood. Still wood, but an eighth-inch thick veneer of acacia over HDF (high-density fiberboard). 

Although, as Todd accurately surmised, I am opposed engineered hardwood as opposed to solid on principle, I had to admit that its purported better durability, thinner construction and lower price tag made sense for our setup. Thin is nice because we're going to have a height difference between the dining room and kitchen, and solid wood is 3/4 in thick. This is about a half, so there'll be less of a difference. Also, it was about $4/sf and not $7 like my other choice. It's also acacia, the grain of which I've loved for forever. So we all win. 

Big Fat Kitchen Update

It's been a bit slow in the last week or so, but a flurry of activity yesterday has made up for it with the walls and doors going up. Here's the latest.

Earlier this week, this was the view from our kitchen looking into the garage. Literally. Into the garage. That's the laundry room/powder room, with the frame for the pocket door on the left.

 This was our exterior "door" for about five days. We're not altogether sure why the exterior door to the street was removed that far in advance of putting in the new door, but we have one now, so whatever.

 Speaking of the old doors, bye-bye! They were thin, breakable (obviously) and in really, really bad shape. Plus I always thought they were ugly. Not a fan of those half-light doors.

 This is our garage right now. That box in the back left is the addition.

 This is the new door into the garage. It feels so solid, probably because it's made of steel. Instead of matchstick wood and glass. Thinking of painting it a bright spunky color out here. Orange? Coral? Not sure.

 This is the exterior door to the street/circular drive. It has built-in blinds so they don't get dusty and don't smack all over when you move the door. LOVE.

 Here's the door to the garage from the inside. Pictured again is the pocket door frame (inside which the pocket door will be hung).

 Here's the addition from the kitchen. It's so great not having a huge hole in the back of our house.

And moving again to the right, here's the other corner of the former laundry room. I am so looking forward to having a mudroom and a space that can function as an entryway. I'm thinking I will put a dresser in that corner.

Not a great pic, but you can kind of see the recessed lights in the kitchen. It's hard to tell though, because there are a bunch of holes that will be patched soon. They were used to fish the wire through the ceiling. I'm a little nervous about the layout of the lights, and I'm hoping it won't end up looking really weird and random. We didn't plan it out very carefully and I was running late for a meeting when the electrician was trying to finalize things, so it wasn't exactly ideal. Fingers crossed.

 Pocket door frame also in kitchen. Two pocket doors are going in.

 Here's another shot of the door. See the blinds inside? So great! Also, yes, we are currently missing deadbolts on the doors.

 From outside... We'll be adding a new porch light. Yesterday the reason for the malfunction of the old one was identified: the wire had been cut. Helpful.

Once the remodel is done, I'll be motivated to spiff up the outside and use this more as our main entryway. It's stupid to walk all the way around to the front of the house to use the front door, and now using the side will be even more convenient.

Oh, and lastly we picked out counters. Our plan had been to use dark gray porcelain tile that mimicked soapstone (which was out of budget). However, we couldn't find anything that we liked in the way of porcelain tile and ended up deciding on slate. I had no idea slate could be honed. It comes in lots of colors (almost all of which I dislike). Among the colors is dark gray with minimal variation and no random purple or orange mixed in. 

We both really liked how it looked, and the price is the same as what tile would be. Sold. Here's a really bad picture.

Fresh Coat of White

With the exception of some details, the house is mostly painted outside. The gutter guys came earlier this week and put up new seamless gutters, which make a surprising difference. That's an un-fun way to spend your money. I'm glad they look good.

The following picture is the back of the house, featuring not-falling-off gutters and the shake dormer which I'm not sure I've ever mentioned. When we did the bathroom upstairs, the windows were replaced, which meant ripping up the siding, which meant replacing it. And since said siding is not readily available, we went with a shake accent. It turned out pretty cute. It still looks like kind of a mess back there, but it's so much better than it was. Todd worked hard at getting all the wood stacked last weekend, so we don't have a pile of oak logs in the back anymore.

And here's around front. It looks better in person, but not having the shutters up is taking away some of its charm right now. I'm not sure when we're planning on getting shutters back in place, what with money's unfortunate habit of not growing on trees, but the new paint looks lovely.

 Front-ish, from the side. Taken from the "orchard."

And here's a before. this is actually from five and a half years ago, before we bought the house. The paint had gotten progressively grungier since then.

And a before close-up of the door. Also taken several years ago. Bleh. We are so glad that project is done and are enjoying not looking like the grimiest house on the block.

Life With No Kitchen, Week 2

This is kind of cheating; it's really only closing in on a week without a kitchen because we were in Bend for the first week. Still though, two weeks since demo. And let me tell you, it's a bit messy. We returned home to find our kitchen looking like this.

 Wall is gone, and the dining room is on the other side of the black plastic. The 2x4s standing there in the middle of the room were just for support between when they took out the studs and put in the header. The beam is a bit lower than what I'd hoped for, but it's even with other doorways in the house and also accommodates the air supply vent.

 One more...  to the left of the doorway you can see where the pocket door will be hung.

 And here's the laundry room and powder room! Well, use your imagination...

 Framed in, as of Tuesday. The toilet will go in the left corner and the sink on the other side of that. In the part closest to me, the washer and dryer will tuck in behind bifold doors. Technically it will all be one room, but at least the W&D will be hidden.

It wasn't the original plan, but the spacing got too tight. This will leave the existing "laundry room" completely clear. A pocket door will separate that passthrough area from the new powder room/laundry room.

And here's where I now make my coffee and morning smoothies. Having a coffeepot in my office is pretty nice.

 

Not exactly wild about our kitchen setup though. Range isn't functional at the moment and we've been eating dinner at Todd's parents' house and Chipotle. Never thought I'd say it, but I'm starting to get sick of Chipotle.

And the spillover of the dining room and the kitchen has made its way into the living room and my office. Just six more weeks of chaos, and then... :)