Kitchen Remodel

For all those who think we aren't that spontaneous, think again.  We have been working on updating and remodeling the entire house.  The wish list is almost endless.  Our friend, Katy Ellis, has her own design business.  She has a cabinet account with Mastercraft and gets a really good deal on them.  After some other friends have used her to purchase cabinets, we began to seriously think about jumping into remodeling the kitchen.  Katy came over and measured the kitchen and began working on layouts.  She came back with 4 layouts.  The first layout used the existing design.  The second two designs changed the bar into an island.  The forth layout had the existing dinning room converted into the kitchen and the kitchen area turned into the eating area with more cabinets and a pantry.  We thought long and hard about it.  The island was a cool idea but Mike was concerned about spacing with the island.  We continued to talk about it and got opinions from everyone who came over.  We finally decided to keep the original layout and then Mike was looking closer at the cabinet layout and was not happy with it.  We decided that the island layout just made more sense and gave us a more functional kitchen.  We had Katy order the cabinets in early December.  The cabinet style is "Lancaster" (shaker style) on cherry wood with a toffee color stain.  The biggest hurdle was making sure that we really could take out the section of wall that the bar extended from.  We had punched some holes in the sheet rock to see what was inside.  At first Mike thought it would be no problem to remove.  Then we took a closer look to find 3 studs  on the outside corner supporting the beam that carries the upper floor.  We had some guys come and take a look.  They all said no problem, take it out.  Demolition began during the Christmas break.  Mike took some extra time off because his program at work had a stop work order given.  Upper cabinets came down, the soffit box was taken down to reveal a bunch of electrical wires that needed to be moved.  Mike began moving all the electrical wires and fixing the framing on the end of the wall.  At the end of the Christmas break when mike needed to go back to work we hired Wayne to come in and help.  He worked for 4 days and was able to finish the sheet rock, mud and tape, texture, patch the wood flooring, put in the island cabinets and run the plumbing and electrical to the island.  He did a great job and saved Mike a ton of time and stress trying to get things done.  Mike cut some plywood to make a counter top for the island and put in the new sink so we could have a working sink after not having a sink for 4 days.  We painted the ceiling white and painted the walls.  Then the installation of the rest of the cabinets began.  It took basically another week to get all the cabinets installed.  Desi helped Mike, Tom Ashby came over and helped Mike.  We need to back up to Thanksgiving for a moment.  We were planning on keeping our current appliances but Mike was concerned about the wide door on the fridge and the spacing to the island and so after Desi got a hold of the black Friday adds, we ended up going to Lowe's to check out the new appliances.  The black Friday sale continued through the following Monday.  They had a fantastic deal on Samsung appliances.  Desi really liked the stainless steel look and we ended up purchasing a new french door fridge and a new range.  The appliances were on back order not to be delivered until end of January, first part of February.  That was great with the time we knew it would take to complete the kitchen remodel.  Mike was ready to install the microwave and didn't want to install the "white" unit just to take it down at some point to install a matching "stainless steel" unit.  So Desi went out an purchased a new microwave to match.  Mike installed it and it looks great against the new cabinet color.  Mike finally got the all the cabinets installed and we were ready for counter tops.  We found a guy to do our counter tops.  He recommended that we go look at "Stone Collection"  a wholesale granite warehouse.  It was an amazing place.  We picked "new Venetian gold" and were very excited.  Alex came over on a Monday to measure, and had counter tops ready to install by Thursday of that week.  They look fantastic.  The new fridge and range were delivered this week, and the only things left to do are install all the toe kicks, and the side panel of the fridge, and to find and buy a new dishwasher to match our new appliances. We are in love with our new fancy kitchen.