Monday, February 01, 2010

Kitchen Renovation: First Week Recap

It’s been a very exciting week with the start of kitchen renovations. It’s going rather quickly. There have been a few changes to our original [loose] plans, based on suggestions, which has resulted in additional work we did not factor in initially, but I think we are pretty much on track.


Monday, while it was pouring, we went and picked up the hardwood floors at Lumber Liquidators in San Jose. They are currently sitting in what was my office, acclimating to the house. Tuesday Mr. B took off all the cabinet doors, and deconstruction began. All hands on deck to take out the cabinets, appliances, flooring. On Wednesday walls were ripped into, and we made the first design change. Our refrigerator, which resides next to one run of cabinets, sticks out into the door jamb. It is awkward and a bit unsightly, so we made the decision to move the whole wall back about 3 inches. This will necessitate changing the vent shaft for the hood and moving the gas line for the stove, but I do think it will be worth it.


Thursday a new load-bearing beam was installed in the ceiling, the wall torn out and relocated, and the structural elements to the ceiling, walls and floor were taken care of. More deconstruction ensued on Friday when the wall with the foyer door being relocated to the center of the wall. A heavy duty header was installed all the way across the wall (in case we want to use the barn slider doors), and the old door was framed out. Electrician Son came over and ripped out all the electrical, made some changes on where things would go, and started install. Electrical is about 50-60% done. (New fluorescent cans below - consistent with Title 24 requirements.)



I picked up our backsplash tile. When I got it home I realized they had given me the wrong glass tiles. A quick call to United Tile and they reordered the right sheets and they should be in early next week. Good thing I caught that now, instead of when it was ready for install. I spent an hour looking at knobs and pulls, and am just as confused as when I started. Should I use knobs? Pulls? A combo of both? Should they be silver, brushed, black, rustic? My final decision is to wait until the major items are installed and then bring home samples to decide. In other words, I’m gonna procrastinate on this issue……


On Saturday there was a few hours of work on the kitchen, including new plumbing for the sink, dishwasher, and refrigerator, and then we drove across the Bay to Urban Ore in Berkeley to donate some recyclable kitchen items, like the sink, faucet, cabinet door hinges, etc. We looked at doors to use on the barn slider. Couldn’t come to a consensus.Very overwhelming. We'll have to go back once we have a more concrete idea of what we want.


As an aside, we had a great meal at 900 Grayson while we were in Berkeley. Brilliant Daughter ordered the Demon Lover’s breakfast, spicy buttermilk fried chicken paillard over waffle with lovely real maple syrup. I had The Charlie, a fresh piece of seared ahi, sliced and served on a fresh bun with an Asian slaw and wasabi mayo. Mr. B ordered the Grayson Burger that came with some yummy bacon slices and crisp thin onion strings. Great herbed fries and the ginger Rickey was so refreshing.

1 comment:

Debby S. said...

Use pulls. I ordered the custom pulls, but should have settled for the in stock ones at the big box store. They are just as good. The pulls are better because you can still open a door/drawer even when hands are full. It can't be done with a knob.