Our New Kitchen

It all started with our new slate floor installed by Thurman Flooring. During the install of the floor we met Matthew. Matthew asked if we were going to update the rest of the kitchen and the rest is history.

This was our first major remodeling that we had done to our house. It took 4 weeks to complete. We chose to do business with small local businesses that were either referred to us by Matthew or by a friend. We were very lucky during this process to only have two instances where workers did not show up when they were scheduled to. 

DEMO - No blankets were harmed during this process.

Husband note: Ahh yeah, you can blame me (Ron) for that, things were getting crazy quickly at that moment and I needed something to protect our new stove so I grabbed the first thing I saw available.  Sorry.

When I arrived home from work the first day this is what I found. Our microwave was wrapped in one of my favorite blankets (once again, my fault -Ron) and placed in the dinning room and another favorite blanket was protecting our new oven.

 

New Lighting

"Custom" Cabinets and the 4 Inch Gap

We were not shy about the fact that we knew nothing about purchasing custom cabinets. The good thing was that we knew that we wanted the exact same layout (down to how the doors opened) as the old kitchen which is what we told the cabinet maker when he visited our home. We had to go to the cabinet makers office to choose our type of wood and view his "plans". He did suggest drawers next to the stove instead of cabinets for pot and pan storage which we agreed to. During the office visit the cabinet maker showed us his computer software with the layout of our kitchen cabinets. Since neither of us know anything about his software of his "industry standards" we didn't know what to look for. Well, we do now. 

If you take a look at the cabinets to the left and right of the window you'll notice that they are smaller than our old cabinets. When we inquired about this during the install the cabinet maker (this is where he got "douchey" -Ron) informed us that a 4 inch gap is "industry standard" and that we approved his computer version of our kitchen. Maybe he could have informed us of this prior to looking at his computer software that we are not familiar with. 

There's more to it than this, Ron had a 10 minute conversation over this that was not pleasant that we won't go fully into here.  Long story short, he demanded and received a discount.  Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Staining of Cabinets

This phase nearly killed all of us. The workers that did the staining and lacquer did an outstanding job in 100 degree heat. IF we ever have custom cabinets made again, we will find someone that completes the process at their location instead of inside of our house. The text that I received from Ron at about 2:30 p.m. (work started at 9 a.m.) said something like, wow the fumes are getting strong in here. He had no windows open. The workers had masks on, he did not. When I got home from work I couldn't even believe the fumes. The pups were in our bedroom away from the majority of the fumes. This was hands down the worst part of the process.

I found Ron naked in the driveway trying to feed bird food to a plastic garden gnome ranting about how the government put tracking devices in his tooth fillings.  He got better.

TA-DAAA

This remodeling has been especially difficult on Lucie. She is our sensitive pup and does not like change. Even though Ron, Addie and Hailey were home with her during the remodeling process, she was stressed. She has been scratching, not wanting to eat at times and not sleeping well. Our vet believes that it is due to the stress of having a bunch of strangers in our house. It has been a long 4 weeks for us all. 

Treats from our new kitchen please!