Tag: kitchen remodel

Today was Day 23 of the kitchen remodel. The job was estimated at 3 weeks and it looks like it will be pretty close. As of today, the bulk of the work is finished. The backsplash has been installed, lots of additional odds and ends were completed. The appliances were moved back into place. The crew will be back tomorrow to finish up those odds and ends (which mostly involves painting and replacing outlet covers). But here is what the kitchen looks like as of a few minutes ago.

I am blown away by what a difference the backsplash makes. Just take a look at Day 18 for comparison. It was totally worth the cost for the backsplash. I’m also glad we decided to extend the backsplash to the end of the breakfast bar.

We have handles for the drawers that are backordered, so we picked new ones today, and those should be installed in couple of days. That will probably be the very last thing. But as of today, the kitchen is usable once again. It will be wonderful start using it, and moving all of the stuff out of the living room and guest room.

The granite countertops were installed this afternoon, and I think the granite looks very good with both the floors and the wall color. The new sink was also installed. There is still work to be done. The next big thing is the backsplash, which I think will really clean the room up. Then there are just minor things, touchups, running through the punch list, and we’re done. So without further delay, here’s the kitchen with the new countertops.

The last few days have been relatively quiet as far as the kitchen remodel goes. On Tuesday, the granite crew was here to do the final measurements for the counters. The counters are (theoretically) being installed today. Yesterday, the painters were here and got started on repainting the kitchen with the color we selected. I think we both like how it turned out, and I think the color will go very good with the countertops and the darker backsplash that we’ve chosen. I took pictures after the painting, and here is how things looked at the end of Day 17 of the remodel.

At this point, I suspect the job will be finished early next week, Monday or Tuesday maybe, and we will have our kitchen back.

The crew did not come by on Friday so there were no changes. But they did come by this morning to build the wall for the breakfast bar, and in preparation for installing the granite countertops next week.

We also have to finalize our paint colors on Monday. You can see two of the possibilities on the wall behind where the breakfast bar will be. We are going to look at a few more options over the weekend before settling on a final choice.

Gloomy day here today, and about 25 degrees cooler than yesterday. Rainy, too. Fortunately, rain doesn’t affect work indoors. The crew showed up late in the morning and began installing the cabinets. And so, for the first time since the old cabinets were ripped out, the pictures today look very different from yesterday.

I love the 42″ cabinets on top. Without the soffits there, it adds so much more space. For comparison, see the pre-construction shots of the kitchen. There is so much more cabinet space in the new version, I don’t know what we’ll do with it all!

The crew showed up around 8 am, and since I was working from home today (mostly because I had a dentist appointment this morning) I could hear them working away downstairs while I worked away upstairs. They finished the floors today, including the grouting between the tiles, which I think made a very big difference in how they look. They also finished prepping the walls for the new cabinets. And, those new cabinets were delivered today, so that they can be installed tomorrow.

I suspect tomorrow’s photos will bring big changes since, in theory, the cabinets will be installed and that will make the room look a lot different than it does today.

We were out of town for the long holiday weekend, so I don’t have pictures from the intervening days, but that is okay, because it turns out no work was done while we were gone. However, the crew was back today. They finished laying the tiles on the floor of the kitchen, and also started on the backing walls for the cabinets. They also fed the new exhaust through the ceiling, instead of through the top shelf of the cabinets, as we thought they were going to do, which was a nice little bonus. The floors themselves are not entirely done. They still need the caulking between the tiles. To see how the walls are different, compare them to the Day 4 photos.

The tile crew was here for most of the day today (about 9 am – 3 pm) and completing the initial tile installation for about 75% of the kitchen. Because there is still work to be done, and certain parts of the kitchen are inaccessible, I wasn’t able to get all of the usual angles today. But you can still see the progress from these photos.

The crew is going to finish up the tile work tomorrow, but we won’t be around to see it. We’ll be heading out of town for Memorial Day weekend, and so it will be interesting to see what it looks like when we get back home on Monday.

Progress on a couple of fronts today, although the photos look much the same as yesterday. The electrician came by today to install GFI outlets and switches into the kitchen. Our house was originally built in 1980 and so it didn’t have GFI in the kitchen, but now it does! Tomorrow, the tile guys are supposed to be back to continue work on the kitchen floor.

And here are sample close-ups of the new GFI outlets:

In addition to that stuff, we selected the hardware for the cabinets today, and Kelly went to the shop to pick out the paint color. Actually, she narrowed it down to two possibilities and our contractor will put samples on the wall so that we can decide which looks best with the cabinets, countertops, backsplash and floors.

There is a certain excitement coming home each day when you know the crew has been to the house to do some work. As the workday drew to a close, I kept wondering what progress they made throughout the day. We arrived home to find some progress indeed! The bulk of the subflooring for the new floor was installed. There’s a small section on the east side of the kitchen where it still needs to be installed, but it was a vast improvement over yesterday.

And here’s what our floor tile looks like:

Beyond the obvious, one noticeable difference is far less dust today than yesterday or the day before. That in itself is a relief.

Yesterday was the first official day of the remodel. The crew came by to demolish the old kitchen and did a pretty good job of it. It only took them about 3 hours! The photos below were taken after the first crew left, but before the second crew¹ came by to haul away all of the trash.

The crew was supposed to come back today to install the floor tile, but there was an emergency and they couldn’t make it. They’ll be back tomorrow to proceed as normal. They offered to come over the weekend to make up for the lost day, but I saw no reason to bring the crew in on the weekend to make up one day.

The dust on the main floor is palpable. It’s not too bad upstairs, where we’ve been spending most of our time. Not having a kitchen is a little tough for things like washing dishes and preparing food, but we’re managing.

A process note: each day I post progress pictures will be from the previous day’s work, so today I posted yesterday’s (Day 1) pictures. Eventually, I’ll collect all of the pictures on Flickr, but I thought seeing the progress might help others who are thinking about doing a remodel and looking to see what it is like.