Neat Solutions for Kitchen Remodel- #10

Entry #10 ... a nice round number to end our kitchen adventure on. Some math... Our final tally came out to 10% over budget. Not too bad. We forgot to budget for the sink and faucet ...somewhat necessary for a kitchen. We upgraded the floor tile a bit  so we went over there. The biggest unknown was the plumber. We hadn't budgeted for him at all. We thought that between the carpenter and Super Jim all of the plumbing would be covered. It was more complicated than we thought. Of the 10% overage here is the breakdown:
24% sink and faucet
22% plumber
20% floor upgrade
19% additional lighting/electrical
 5% demo
 4% outlet and switch covers
 1% dishwasher part

The cabinetmaker (Brown Woodworking) did a wonderful job. His quote was really a final price and he made sure every detail was complete and up to par. The cabinets were about 60% of the overall total price so it is your most important decision in the process. Let us know if you have specific questions that we can answer.  Enjoy the photos....



Photos here if cannot see: http://picasaweb.google.com/beaty4nc/KitchenRemodel?feat=directlinkhttp://picasaweb.google.com/beaty4nc/KitchenRemodel?feat=directlink

Neat Solutions for Kitchen Remodel- #9

Yesterday was the 3 week anniversary of starting the remodel project. We are feeling confident that by the end of this week all work will be complete. When last we posted, there were many loose ends. Today we tied up a bunch. The glass panels went into the doors. We love the "seeded" glass that we chose. The lights shine beautifully through them. The other cabinets that had to be placed on top of the granite went in. The baseboards were finished and we began painting them. All pulls and door knobs were installed .... correctly. The plumber returned to finish "plumbing" the sink, dish washer and ice maker. We have water! 

The electrician continued his work ...installing outlets in the island, under and in cabinet lights, and work on the appliances. What's left? Installing my special spice cabinets, adding trim around the appliances, installing doors on the laundry closet, clean-up and returning all of the kitchen items to their new and improved homes.What amazes us is the huge amount of the minutia that is involved. Tiny details that add up to a lot of work from a lot of people.But it is those same details that make your space special for you....

and makes your space YOURS. When all of our details are complete we will post the finished photos.


Here is a recap of the subs:

• Brown Woodworking-Cannot recommend after he did not come back with a few minor fixes after 4 months of calling him :(.
• Dugan Electric - 704-256-4234
• Ciccone Tile -704-881-3438
• Heel Stone Granite Works- 704-985-2546
• Alltech Plumbing- 877-576-6408

Neat Solutions for Kitchen Remodel- #8

After several slow days, Thursday was unbelievably action-packed. Suffice it to say .... It did not all go smoothly ... I spoke too soon when I said "Once in a great while a plan comes together BETTER than you expect it will." HA!! After expecting the granite to be installed Monday or Tuesday.  It finally arrived Wednesday late afternoon. "Mr. Granite" FORGOT several sections and had to return very early Thursday morning to finish. The cabinets and walls took a small beating with the 1000 lb rock that had to fit snugly between the wall, the fridge and the Viking. I couldn't watch and asked Jim to "help" them. We were thankful no one had to be hospitalized. Not long

after the granite guys left, the cabinets guys entered, followed by the electrician and then the plumber. Each of these professionals faced challenges ...none ever gave up on finding a solution. The result is that everything took longer than expected.... but we should expect that, right? The lighting went in with the least number of  problems. The plumber, however,  encountered several challenges...would my perfect faucet fit in the space between the sink and the back splash? Would  the pipes fit to the new sink?

Several door pulls were not put on correctly, so new doors will need to replace them. One whole set of doors were made to hold glass panels but we wanted solid doors. There were questions about baseboards, trim, light switches and on and on.......All problems will be solved. Next week we look forward to water actually running in the sink, the dishwasher hooked up, the last cabinet installed, glass panes and shelves installed. We are about 90% complete. The  fun starts after all of the workers are done .... painting the baseboards, placing all of the food, pots, pans, and dishes back in the cabinets and cleaning the layers of dust from entire house.

Neat Solutions for Kitchen Remodel- #7

Cabinets are in... well most of them. Brian and his crew showed up and like a well oiled machine placed and installed the base cabinets, the pantry, the bar and the hanging cabinets. Four guys and several hours later the empty room began to take on the appearance of a kitchen once again. Next week when the granite counters are installed, the finishing of the cabinets will take place... molding, hardware, glass doors. At that point we will be ready for Jesse, the electrician, to come back to install under and in cabinet lighting, room fixtures and outlets. Ed, the plumber, will come back to install the ice maker and Jim, the husband, will install the trash compactor, dishwasher and sink and faucets. As we said in a previous entry, once we came to the tough decision about the lighting, it really helped to narrow down the sink, hardware and faucet choices. Bronze accessories will tie everything together nicely. So this is how to shop....image -google sinks to see whats out there, narrow down to the size shape,

and material (stainless steel, composite, porcelain) and color. Who sells it online? how much? free shipping? how about no taxes? Then find out who sells it near you and GO SEE IT! If you can negotiate a comparable price to buy local... do it. It will eliminate the hassle of shipping a 75 lb. sink if you don't like it, it doesn't fit or if it's defective. We were interested in this cafe brown colored    Blanco sink that is a granite composite, but , having never seen one we were apprehensive. We went to our local high priced kitchen supply store in town and took a look ...Nice.... We got the best price from the local store and while there we took  a look at the high priced faucets, noted the one or two that we liked, got prices, and zipped out of there to price these items online. Once you know the manufacturer and style name  

or number you can look that up on any search engine (we prefer Google). Check out at least 20 sites that sell the item you want to comparison shop.You can also look at sites that will do comparison shopping for you like www.nextag.com , www.shopping.com , or www.bizrate.com. Don't forget to check www.ebay.com, too...you never know what you will find there. We found a site that carried both the sink and faucet we had liked. The price was less by about 30%, free shipping, and best of all NO TAX. This is a New Jersey company so unless they are shipping in NJ they do not charge tax. The site is www.homeperfect.com . We came across this site in my search and had not ever heard of them. If you are apprehensive about giving your credit card info over the internet...call and order. Once you speak with a human you can decide if you get a warm and fuzzy ...or not. Another choice...pay with Paypal. You do get some consumer protection with Paypal and you don't have to run to find your credit card every time you order online. The items were received with no

problems and we are excited to see them installed. We followed the same procedure for the cabinet pulls and found lovely pulls at www.knobs4less.com ... goofy name, huh? Should be a busy week. Next week we will unveil the new kitchen and also show you what we have been busy doing the the garage. Hint: it involves the old kitchen cabinets ....

Neat Solutions for Kitchen Remodel- #6

Once in a great while a plan comes together BETTER than you expect it will. So far that is how it seems with this project. The cabinet maker is on his way here right now. He says he will have the cabinets 80% installed by the end of the day. Next week he will finish the installation, replace the baseboards and  the granite will be installed (more on granite later in the entry). It is possible we could be done AHEAD OF SCHEDULE?!?!? The guys from Mr. Appliance showed up on time and very professional.  As you can see from the photo they did a great job. Some of the enamel is scratched and chipping so they could not do anything about that. But they cleaned it to a sparkle and checked and cleaned all of the parts. 

 Now a bit about counter tops. Our previous kitchen had Corian, a man-made material that is very durable and easy to care for. We really liked the Corian and if the color had been nicer we may have tried to figure out a way to reuse it in the remodel. In our area Granite is actually cheaper than Corian or other engineered materials. It appears there is a glut of granite so it became a good economical choice. Resale being of concern...we know it is desirable by the buying public. There are many different colors and patterns so it is good to go to a showroom and look at the entire slab. A friend had recently built a new home and installed a light color granite. To her disappointment, she found she has to be careful about staining the counter...wine, hot pans, grease.  Darker busy colors hide a plethora of problems. We agreed on Baltic Brown. It has browns, blacks and some terra-brownish coloration. It is dark but not too dark. Busy but not too busy. The color would

compliment the warm tone of the maple cabinets, bronze fixtures and be a nice contrast to the lighter floors. Because granite is a natural product it can vary tremendously from one slab to the next. Granite colors of same name can appear very different.... greener, redder, darker. Again..it is best if you can pick out your exact slab so there are no surprises. WOW! A lot has occurred since I started this entry 3 plus hours ago! CABINET INSTALLATION HAS BEGUN! Calvin,the granite guy (704-985-2546), came to measure for his cuts and took the sink and faucet to cut holes for installation.The unexpected issues arise as a result of our inexperience. PROBLEM: We should have had the plumber cut and cap the sink pipes. SOLUTION: We borrow and acetylene torch from the neighbor, the cabinet guy cuts the pipe, Jim calls the plumber and gets advice on a DIY temporary fix. Jim runs to Lowes, caps the pipes and we are fixed until our plumber arrives next week.  PROBLEM: When the demo was done our old tile backslash needed to be cut out of the wall leaving gaping holes. The demo guy...was Kevin the tile guy..he is not a drywall guy. So he patched the holes with drywall but left it undone. It was not smooth enough to paint. Brian, the cabinet guy needed to know what we were going to do there..so he would know how to proceed with the trim and cabinets that were adjacent to those "messy" areas. This is something we had not thought about and hadn't budgeted for. We made a quick trip to Lowes to see what was available. There are different materials available for back splashes some cheap, some expensive, nothing we liked. In the end Super Jim offered to do another tile backsplash :). He is not promising when. To be continued.....

Neat Solutions for Kitchen Remodel- #5

Kevin, the tile guy, made it back here Monday morning. He and Keith worked feverishly all day installing the tile. Tuesday morning they were back to do the grout. Floor done~! It looks gorgeous! We really love the lightness of the color, the largeness of the tiles. It looks much like the more expensive and less durable, travertine marble. Good news... There is just enough tile left over to do th powder room floor :) The cabinet delivery has been postponed until tomorrow. Something about ...snow..power outage...behind a day...
 guess it's to be expected. We took advantage of this down day to get the appliance repair guys in. Appliances can be up to 30% of
your remodel budget. Over the past 5 years here we have replaced the fridge, ice maker (we have a separate "party" ice maker) trash compactor and dish washer. So no need to replace them  now. Our home was already equipped with a  Viking Professional Range. It is a 20 year old Viking Range now.

Doing some quick internet research, we learned that a new 2 oven, 6 burner, griddle Viking with hood would cost  about $10,000 - $12,000! This is one expense we would personally never incur.  We like to cook and love good food..but really! So we decided to invest a little money to make sure our golden appliance would last much much longer.... a Viking make-over. Once again..the internet is your best friend when it comes to research. We found what needs to be done to maintain a Viking and found several Viking specialists in the area. We settled on Mr. Appliance. It is a national franchise. They offered a total maintenance package: Check operation of all parts, check temperature of range,clean igniters, clean outside and inside of range for $250. They are working on it right now so tomorrow I will show a before and after picture and see if it was worth it.