Renocation Report - Kitchen Progress

I wanted to start this week off with a bang, but instead it is a bit of a "blah". I'm sure it has everything to do with just being plain bone tired. 

I wanted to write this post with a sunny attitude of "everything is super awesome you guys!", I just can't conjure up the strength or the optimism, it is simply not happening. What I do have are photos of our very slow progress with a few disjointed comments here and there. 

These few photos have been taken at night. I actually really love the soft glow from the potlights. I chose to have only three along the back wall right above the sink/stove area. The lighting plan was to have multi level lighting using pendants over the island, potlights, light from the range hood, and under cabinet lighting. 

The potlighst were installed centred over the window and the range hood. 13" inches away from the wall. This way the cone of light hits the counters (and I"m not blocking the source of light with my big head :).

While I sure could have used more potlights, the kitchen gets an incredible amount of light during the day, and at night I like things cozy and romantic.

I chose birch cabinets. Notice how I'm the one making all the choices. Hubby has surrendered his veto powers for the time being. It is a bit scary flying as a solo decision maker. Seriously scary.

Anyway, I chose birch cabinets. Yes, you can see the birch peaking out from behind the white doors. No, I don't care. I actually quite like it. The doors are glossy white and can feel a bit cold. I thought that birch cabinets will warm up the entire set up. (thinking that we see the insides of our cabinets all the time and their colour does add to the ambiance of the room).

Also, I thought that birch would be easier to keep clean looking and not discolour as much with time.

In lieu of having our sink perfectly centred on the window (see picture above), I chose to centre the range hood and the range between the window and the right wall. 

I'm still not sure what will happen with the sink/faucet situation, but I'm leaving that decision for later.

Here's where my grumpiness comes in. While the contractors did a great framing job, their drywalling sucked. Maybe it had a lot to do with the fact that they showed up 2 days late and had to catch up, or whatever. 

See that unevenness under the hood?? well, this photo was taken Sunday night and Monday morning hubby took a sander to that wall. Delaying the entire install (and not for the first time).

These two photos are of the left side of the kitchen. Something that we think is finished. Unless hubby decides to centre the over the fridge cabinet. We are looking to bring the filler piece in line with the cabinet doors, but that would mean that we magically find the perfect filler piece, finished on all three sides. And I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

Great news is that the fridge is working, it is perfectly counter depth. And the white of the fridge is only a smudge gray-er than the cabinet doors. 

The pantry is incredible. A dream come true.

If you will notice, the above fridge cabinet and the above pantry cabinet doors match in size and are level with each other. This was completely intentional and I take full credit for it! :) We did have to play around with the height of the pantry a bit (due to our extremely low ceilings), but hubby can move mountains and he did this no problem.

You can also see a little bit of how the entire left side of the kitchen tucks behind one side of the arc between the kitchen and dining room. It is as I hoped and dreamed. And this makes me very happy.

Sunny morning photo. Dishwasher is plugged in and we're no longer eating off paper plates. Which makes me incredibly happy.

All in all this week has been about a lot of patience. The walls are not straight, the floors are not level. My husband is a perfectionist who has been driving himself and myself crazy trying to make everything work.

The worst part is that we are only now ordering the counters. Which means that they are at least 3 weeks away from being installed. Which means no sink, for what feels like EVER.


Tomorrow it is back to work for hubby while I paint a few rooms. Renocation is over. We didn't deliver on our imaginary schedule. But that's ok. I'm determined to not panic. After all, we are ordering counters and that's a huge thing. A few more months and we'll have our main floor put back together. I can't wait!