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.....