Kitchen Remodel: At Last! We Have Cabinets! We Have Doors!

Yesterday afternoon we took delivery of our cabinet doors. If you recall, we needed to send them back to the cabinet shop because there were various spots that needed to be filled with putty and sanded and/or needed some extra paint to for cosmetic purposes.

Of course, the process of getting the doors yesterday had its own little bit of drama. We got a call from the cabinet shop yesterday morning requesting us to stop by and take a look at the refinished pieces. Not a problem, especially as we were already in town.

When we arrived at the shop, we went out to the paint area to take a look at the work that had been done. While most of the doors looked okay, there were a few that still had some issues. For instance, on one door you could still see the putty. On others, there were still seams where no paint appeared. Simple enough to fix, but this being the third try to get them corrected, well, it was a little frustrating.

We came to find out that the guy who does all the paint work doesn’t like to be told what to do…by anyone. It wasn’t just our paint job, apparently it’s all paint jobs he works on. Sounds to me like it’s time to get a new paint guy.

However, to save ourselves and the cabinetmaker more frustration and more delays, we asked that the most obvious bits be corrected, then supply us with the paint to do the remaining cosmetic work ourselves. All parties came away reasonably satisfied, and we went home to await the arrival of our doors.

Later that afternoon, the pickup appeared bearing the doors and our two pieces of backsplash for behind the counters. Because all the holes had already been pre-drilled into the cabinets, it took little time to hang the doors. After the wood backsplashes were installed, the job – at this stage – was complete.

This morning David installed the door knobs…

 

…which match in design with the handles he already put on.

 

After that, he spent time using some fine brushes to do the cosmetic paint work.

Tomorrow work is supposed to begin on the building of the shelf that will go over the range and be the mount for the range hood, along with a counter piece that will cover the opening in back of the range. It would be nice to think that we might have these last elements in the next week, but we’ll see how things go. In the meantime, I will be getting to work this week painting the final bits of wall space in the kitchen area, and David will install the task lighting under the upper cabinets.

It’s certainly been an interesting journey getting to this point, but it’s been worth the wait.

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

 

The kitchen area has exactly the open, airy feeling we were shooting for. Now it’s time to start cooking!

Kitchen Remodel: New Cabinets, Counters, Island Update

So on Wednesday I wrote about where we stand with our efforts in our kitchen project and had a bit of a crankypants rant because of not being able to get an update from our contractor. Well lo and behold, we received a call on Thursday from our contractor's partner asking if we could come by the shop on Friday afternoon to take a look at what they've been up to these last several weeks.

The first piece we looked at was the island and its countertop:

Side view of island and counter

This is a seven foot long run, which will provide ample work space. The counter is comprised of various local woods, which when cleaned up and varnished will take on a darker hue than what this shot suggests. The riser you see on the right side is part of the support for the glass bar top that we still need to have made. That is a story unto itself, which I'll share in an upcoming post.

While I couldn't get a good shot of the island from the front, you can see from our design that it will have three cupboard doors, behind which will contain pull out shelves. We also incorporated an open shelving unit on the right side for our cutting boards and baking sheets. Four drawers sit about the cupboards where I can store prep items and gadgets.

The crew also had been working on the cabinets that will run on either side of the range. Here's a shot of the smaller piece:

On both the long and short counters, they had laid out wood strips that were far lighter than what we asked for. There were also a number of very short pieces that broke the flow. Those will be taken out, and the blond pieces will be swapped out for darker ones. 

Another change we made was to rearrange some of the wood pieces on the long counter run. See the black/blond strip here in the middle? In person, it's really very pretty.

Well, apparently it's also very pricey. The way they had laid out the strips on the long counter run, pieces of this wood would be exactly where the sink would be, meaning they would all have to be cut out. Didn't seem to make much sense to us, which is why we asked to have the design rearranged.

In other news, the cupboard doors are in the process of being made:

The only change we made to the overall look was to have the inside edge to the frame be cut with a round edge versus a straight one.

The good news is that work is progressing and there's a possibility that painting the cabinets could start in the next couple of weeks. The bad news is that we still don't have an estimated finish date. We made it clear that we weren't looking for something written in stone, just a ballpark timeframe. Thanksgiving? Christmas? Easter? At least, Easter was taken off the table. But for whatever reason, there seem to be some commitment issues. 

So now we will see what information we can get from the owner, but have already been forewarned that he can be difficult to reach by phone and the times he is actually in the shop are erratic. Great.

In the meantime, we will press ahead and get whatever work we need to do out of the way, except for cutting the sink pipes and doing the cement work to cover the tile voids. I suppose worst case scenario is that the crew doing the cabinet work gets done before we have the plumbing and cement work finished. In that case, they'll just have to keep the cabinets in their shop until we're ready for delivery. One way or another, we'll get it figured out, but jeez, it doesn't seem to have to be this complicated.

Kitchen Remodel: Prep Stage Continues

While we were excited to purchase a new range and refrigerator, those were just baby steps to the prep work ahead of us to remodel our kitchen area.
 
A very big and important element was figuring out what we wanted our new kitchen to look like. We knew we wanted a bit more counter area, an island/bar to provide more prep and storage space, and have all the cabinetry in white to brighten up the room. After a bunch of brainstorming, David went to work designing a layout. 

Here's what we came up with:

Overhead view of new kitchen layout

Upper/lower cabinet specs for run left of the range

Upper/lower cabinet area to the right of the range

Island/bar detail; bar top to be in glass (we hope)

Cabinet door design

The next question was how much of this redesign did we want to tackle versus having someone else do it. We've remodeled two kitchens before this move, so we felt confident that we have the skills. But getting access to the materials we would need, well, that would be a real challenge. You're not going to find a Home Depot here in Belize, and there are few lumber yards in the Corozal area. The places that do sell wood often offer un-planed planks; mostly mahogany. And if you're in need of 2x4's, that is exactly what you will get -- honest to God 2x4's, un-planed. And more than likely, all of the hinges and pull-out extensions would need to be special ordered. Clearly, we needed to work with someone who had the resources and tools to pull this project off.

We heard really good things about Kim Longsworth of Bessa Decor. We got in touch with him and reviewed our plans over a couple of different sessions.  

It was during these discussions that we also needed to figure out what to do about countertops. We knew we didn't want marble, granite, or tile. A suggestion was made about considering concrete. I was initially leery of the idea, but did some research and was amazed at all the different finishes that could be had. Unfortunately, they can't be had here, plus there are no concrete masons in the area skilled to make the molds. We tossed out the idea of stainless steel counters, thinking it would make the area look too industrial.  Friends of ours, who also had their kitchen made by Mr. Kim, have wood counters like this:

We liked the warmth it brings to the white cabinets, so we ended up going down that road. What we ultimately decided to do was eliminate the light and blond wood elements and stick with darker pieces of varying lengths; no shorter than 24 inches, no longer than 40 inches. With a couple of coats of a poly finish, the counters should be uber-durable.

With those big decisions out of the way, we gave Mr. Kim the go-ahead (not to mention a down payment) to start the job. In the meantime, we had our own work to do including finding a single-basin kitchen sink and range hood, removing all the existing cupboards and backsplash tiles, tidying up the kitchen sink plumbing, moving electrical outlets, and the list goes on.

In upcoming posts, we'll provide more details on some of the diagrams you've seen here, the quest for our new sink and range hood, the compromises needed for the glass bar top, plus take you on our journey through semi-organized kitchen chaos.