The Kitchen Project Progress

We started renovating and adding on to our kitchen a long time ago.  Three years ago actually (I think).

We’ve gone through so many different design plans and modifications and changes to the plans and changes to the modifications and thinking we’d just scrap the whole project only to return to it after a couple of days of “this kitchen just doesn’t work for us”.

I think we’re finally on the final stretch.  Which is probably funny when you see how incomplete everything is.  Here’s where we are:

• We have a new dishwasher and it’s in place, hooked up and running!  That thing is so quiet compared to our old one.  Sometimes I can’t even tell it’s running.
• The sink is here, though it isn’t in place yet.  And we have the faucet.  And a really big hole in the cabinet where the sink is going to be.  I’m actually looking forward to standing there, looking out the window, washing dishes.
• The new stove has been ordered.  That was a tough one.  The standard 30″ range was just too small for the size pots and pans I use to prepare our meals.  There are 7 of us here every day.  And when we have guests or our adult children come home, I need to cook for more.  Standard 30″ stoves just don’t work when you’re cooking for 10-15 people.  So we knew we wanted a 36″ range (I would have loved a 48″, but we simply don’t have the room for it, and the costs are way too high).  I had originally asked my husband to build the kitchen so I could fit two standard ranges.  Two 30″ stoves would give me 8 burners and 2 ovens, plus I could do it for significantly less than the cost of a 36″ range.  But, again, space was our enemy.  If we put in two stoves we would use up much of our counter space.  And counter space is pretty important.  So after months of searching I finally found a stove that will work for us without costing as much as a car.  I’ll try and post more about it later.
• Husband is building the cabinet boxes.  He tells me that’s the easy part, but now that they’re going into place we can really see how the new kitchen will function.  We’ve made a couple of small changes, but we’re pretty excited about how our new space will flow.
• We (almost) have our countertops selected.  I say almost, because when we look at the sample, we love it.  When we look at the pros and cons of the material, we love it.  When we look at one of the other options we’ve considered, we don’t love it as much.  It might just come down to which one is less expensive, so we’re going to ask for a quote on two different countertop materials and go with whichever one fits our budget best.

We still have to wait for the new range to arrive to build the final cabinet, then we can have the counter top template done.  After that it will be another 2 weeks or so for the counters to be delivered and installed.  I still have to decide on the backsplash and Husband will start on the face frames and doors for the cabinets.  Once the stove is here, I’ll be losing more of my (extremely limited) counter to make room for it (the counter on the right of the existing sink will be cut away to make room for the new range), but hopefully it will only be for a few weeks.  The existing sink will be cut out at the very last minute – like the day they install the new counters, I hope.  Because it would just be crazy for us to live without a sink for an extended period of time.

Also, I’d like to point out the current path to the dishwasher.  If you look in the photos, you will see a 10 1/2″ cut away to the left of the sink.  That’s the path.  That’s how I get to the dishwasher for loading and unloading.  Squeezing through a 10 1/2″ wide pathway is a great motivator to eat healthy and stay away from bad for me treats.

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