Kitchen Remodel: Cabinet/Counter Finale

 

Hooray - Our final cabinet and counter pieces were delivered and installed!

Counter piece behind the range. We affectionately refer to it as "home plate"

 

Home plate, range hood and its shelf

I’m going to spare you the details of what it took to take delivery. Suffice it to say, there were delays, rework that needed to be done on the shelf, a mini-meltdown on my part, and more than a few four-letter words uttered. But by early afternoon on December 31, we were in business, including a working range hood.

We’ve installed hoods in the past without much trouble, but this one was a challenge. The biggest issue was its weight. After feeding the vent tubing up through the new shelf and installing the one end to the range hood, we used jacks to lift the hood up to the bottom of the shelf.

 

After that, David had to twist like a pretzel (again) to screw the back end in (whoever invented back belts should be canonized). The holes are tucked away in such a fashion that you really needed to be like Gumby to get at them. Once the hood was secure, we removed the jacks, and David secured the top of the vent tube to the exhaust pipe that he had previously installed. These three sentences make the whole job sound pretty easy, but it really took some time and energy to get this piece finished, not to mention dosing ourselves with a few Advil later in the day.

But finished it is and we couldn’t be happier. I know I’ve shown before and after shots before, but bear with me one final time.

We went from this…

 

…to this:

 

It's taken almost three months, but it's hard to believe it’s the same kitchen! Hopefully by the end of this month, we’ll have the glass bar top for the island and call this whole project a wrap. In the meantime, I've been cooking up a storm and will share pics and recipes really soon.