I don’t even know where to start with the kitchen; we worked with plumbing, sewer, electric, gas, ducting, framing, stucco, windows, concrete, drywall, paint, cabinets, door pulls, counters, appliances… This was the primary mission of the entire remodel, what didn’t we cover? Day 92 is the day we finalized our cabinet purchase and paid in full, *gulp.*
After removing two walls and the kitchen soffit, we had a blank slate of 13’x26′ to work with. Our goal was to maximize storage and counter space, incorporate a microwave, dual ovens, 36″ range top, and a wine fridge. We would have loved a counter depth fridge, but the cost for one we liked was more than all of the appliances we actually purchased combined.
We tried using a globally known furniture store’s design service, which included a site visit, and up to three change orders on the design and plan. Both Eric and Carol explained in depth to the rep who visited the site what we were looking for. He measured diligently, and wrote copious notes. Our first rendition? The same kitchen we just demolished, just shifted into the corner.
We were miffed. Seriously, a 10’x10′ kitchen with 50+% blank space? The designer we were in touch with was rude to boot, it was a waste of money and time. Our final rendition is above, and the designer thought the island was going to work 🙁 Speaking of time, we were running out of it. We needed a layout and needed to get an order into production pronto. We shifted gears to one of the big box stores, to see what we could put together.
Our kitchen render, finalized to order! Fourth of July weekend saw a myriad of sales, and we had one final day to take advantage of 35% off our cabinet purchase. We spent hours with our rep at the store, going over important details such as crown molding meeting the ceiling with no gaps, end caps on the island, and appliance placement. We opted to go with Thomasville cabinets, we felt they balance features, quality and value well in our application.
Ironically enough, the kitchen we demoed was KraftMaid, unbeknownst to us. We didn’t find out for months, as all of the paperwork left for the home was in the only drawer that had the name branded inside, which was pulled and stacked in the garage.
After a long and granular tabulation of things I didn’t even care to know about cabinets, it was time to calculate the order. We had no clue what the cost was going to look like, but had a ceiling in mind. We both silently prayed a bit. Eric asked if there was a husband area where he could briefly pass out… We had room to omit some pricey items, such as solid maple wood, Blum door slides, sliding spice rack, all lower cabinet pull out shelves, and our fancy SuperCabinet.
The estimate finally rendered, and the discount applied. Our hearts skipped a beat when our dream kitchen was below our max! (For cabinets that was, little did we know what else we were in for.) We exhaled a sigh of relief, and paid the largest single debit transaction in our lives minutes later. When Eric called the bank to raise the spending limit, he had to go through two tiers of service to get the authorization. Thanks to our bank for taking our fund’s security seriously.
Facing the long wall. Lots of finagling was done to make sure everything would line up exactly as needed. This came together perfectly in the build out.
The short wall. We made some course corrections here once we were in the appliance install phase. We ordered a drawer below the oven set to match the height of the adjacent cabinet, and trimmed out the refrigerator opening.
Full overview, we were excited to start this process!
Day of delivery! We were nervous about missing items in this order, due to how many items there were. This delivery filled the entire box truck, and it took us hours to inventory and stack boxes in the house. Every item on the bill of lading was accounted for.
Boxes filled our entire work space. These laid in wait until the kitchen was prepped for installation. To be continued…