OLD pics

Before I get some "glam shots" up of the new kitchen and bath (we're still touching up paint!), I thought I'd unearth some pics we took before we bought the house! Here's the ORIGINAL kitchen/bath look. Why did we not just turn and run you ask? It's all about the house's vibe.

Appliances In!

Sorry for the lag in posts. We had a couple days of no work, while the contractor/carpenter tried to figure out where the missing bracket for the microwave was- guess what- it was ON THE MICROWAVE which Erik and I discovered when we took the whole thing out of the box. Seriously.
So all appliances are in, and we are effectively done. We still need to do some painting. When all is complete I will post "glamour shots."
Oh- this is a picture of the first meal I made with the stove back in its place.

We have a stove!!!

All is right with the world- I can cook dinner tonight!!! WOHOOO!! We called in the cavalry (in the form of another plumbing service we've used in the past) and a couple hundred dollars and an hour or so later, we are cookin' with gas!! Yippeee!!!

Corian and cabinets finished

We had a pretty productive day yesterday. The Corian guy came back and put in the shelf on the halfwall, which looks great. The two additional cabinets we ordered came in, so we have another wall cabinet and another base cabinet. The layout looks much more finished/polished/deliberate now. The electrician's assistant was also here and fixed the dishwasher plug so it was out of the way and the Corian person drilled the appropriate holes for the clips to hold the dishwasher in place.
The stove hasn't been fixed yet- the plumber did track down the part, but apparently he's really busy at the moment and not sure when he'll get back here... ugh... we're so close, but without the stove it doesn't seem like much of a kitchen.

Hardware

We got most of the new hardware on the cabinets today. Turns out the drawers in the ktichen are slightly thicker than the doors, so we need longer screws for the drawers- it's never easy! The bathroom hardware apparently came with slightly longer screws, so that went fine. The tub is fully caulked and mudded and the rest of the bathroom is patched, so we just need to do touch up painting in there, plus hooking up the exhaust fan to the ducting and the bathroom is done!

Plumbing excitement

We have goods news and bad news: the good news is we have a toilet, bathroom sinks, tutb and shower fixtures, and a dishwasher... yeay!!! The bad news is, the dishwasher isn't 100% installed because the electrician happened to put the outlet right in a spot where the plug gets stuck on a piece of the dishwasher so it can't slide back all the way, so the outlet needs to be moved, but the dishwasher is currently functioning. The other bad news is that we don't have our stove hooked up. The plumber found a leak in the fixture between the pipe and where it connects to the stove. The plumber doesn't use the same type of pipe and fixture, so he couldn't fix it right away. His distributer doesn't have that type either. We are currently in the process of tracking down this part. Who knew there were so many options in gas piping?
On carpentry news- we have closet doors (although they still need a little adjusting), and some trim work was done yesterday too. Today we have our usual guy back and he's just running down the laundry list of finishing work.

Lights, switches and plugs, oh my!

Our electricians were here this morning (we love them for coming on a Sunday). We got our over the sink recessed light put in, all the trim for the recessed lights on, the undercabinet lights installed, the wall sconces in the bathroom installed, the fan/light in the bathroom put in, and a whole bunch of plugs and switches. The kitchen has more plugs and switches than a NASA control room!

It's really exciting. They will have to come back with more cover plates (seriously, we have a ton, they were not prepared), and to put in the baseboard heater in the bathroom which the contractor hasn't bought yet.

Oh, and they also replaced the last plug and switch from the original construction- man, that just shouldn't have had electricity hooked up to it- I took a picture of them because they were so gross.



Tomorrow the plumber is back to hook up our NEW dishwasher and the stove and toilet. Wohooooo!!!

NOT everything, BUT a kitchen sink

We got our sink installed today by the plumber and I love it! The new style of pull-out handles, instead of the separate hose squirter is awesome, and we have the little built in soap dispenser (although that was tough to fill with an empty sink cabinet, not sure if I'll be able to do it when there is stuff under there). I've never been so happy to do dishes as I was this afternoon.

The plumber wasn't aware our bathroom was ready for him as well, so he will be back on Monday and bringing our toilet, wohoo! As he was going to put in the dishwasher, he pulled off the front bottom panel and realized that there was a leak happening, through evidence of old soap residue and water stains. The leak was probably going into the concrete (as it wasn't previously on anything other than the concrete slab) and therefore soaking into that so we didn't notice any puddles. Also, the feet on it are rusted in place and not adjustable. These two revelations add up to a new dishwasher! We're going shopping tomorrow.
I love my new sink though! The new style of pull-out handles, instead of the separate hose squirter is awesome, and we have the little built in soap dispenser (although that was tough to fill with an empty sink cabinet, not sure if I'll be able to do it when there is stuff under there). I've never been so happy to do dishes as I was this afternoon.

Countertops are in! (well, mostly)

The Corian guys were here this morning. Yeay! The shelf piece (that goes on the half wall) wasn't templated quite right and it turns out that shelf isn't 100% level. Instead of fixing the shelf, they are just going to make it so you won't notice with the Corian. Right now, if you put the piece flat on top of the shelf, you would notice a little 1/4 inch piece of drywall between the backsplash piece and the shelf on one side. The other side matches perfectly with the shelf sitting right on top of the backsplash. Typical. They are just going to cut the shelf with a little notch to hide that extra 1/4 inch. You won't notice it at all once it's done, and in fact, no one has noticed that issue to date, except when they actually put the backsplash up and saw the deviation. The new shelf will be installed Monday or Tuesday. Luckily, it doesn't affect the plumber or electrician doing their jobs. The plumber will be in tomorrow to hook up the sinks, install the toilet and the shower fixtures. The electrician is coming Sunday morning to give us plugs and switches. Sadly, until he's here we can't use the dishwasher, disposal, or stove yet (even if the plumber hooks them up).

Willow's Perspective

When the weather gets warmer (or even if we have the heat too high in the Winter), Willow's favorite spots used to be our bathtub and brick floor in the kitchen. Poor Willow- we've gotten rid of both! He's found sanctuary in the shower stall- not as roomy as the tub, but still nice and cool. He better get used to it, because if his claws scratch the new jet tub, he better hope Erik is around to save him from my wrath. He does seem to enjoy the cool ceramic floor (now that it's done and we don't yell at him every time he's in there!), almost as much as the brick. He would have been devastated if we had put radiant heat in that floor! Dogs are so picky ;)

One more week...

...until we have our countertop! I was hoping they could get it here sooner, but at least we have a day. Tomorrow the closets are supposed to be done, so we can put our clothes away over the weekend. It will be nice not to have them piled on a spare bed anymore. I don't know what else will be done next week before the countertop comes. The plumber can't finish till that is here. The electrician may come before then to finish all the switches and things- he's not dependant on the counter. We are finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Tile Completed!

I have to hand it to the tile guys- they worked late two days and got the job done! We are so pleased. Today they grouted the kitchen, replaced the wrong-colored tiles on the bathroom floor, grouted the bathroom floor, finished tiling the tub surround and then grouted it. Everything looks great. I love the grout colors we picked out- especially the silver grey in the tub surround. Even the tile guys commented that that was one of the best pairings in color they've seen. They agreed right away about replacing the floor tiles, and although it added another couple hours of work on their end, they were not too grumpy about it. I got a close up of the floor tile ini the kitchen to try to show the grout color, plus a close up of where the tub surround meets the wall, with a little white in between (where there is still mudding to be done, hence no paint) to try to show the bathroom colors. The biggest thing left now is waiting for our counter tops to be manufactured. Then we need the plumber and electrician back in to finish things up!

Floors!

The tile guys came yesterday afternoon and stayed until after 7:00pm to get the floors in, and most of the tub-surround. Turns out we needed a little more of the tub tile, which Erik went out for last night. We love the kitchen tile. It was inconvenient last night, though, when we weren't allowed to walk on it while the mortar set, so we had to walk out the back door, around the house and into the front door to put Keagan to bed. The bathroom is really starting to come together, but unfortunately, this morning we noticed a few of the floor tiles don't match the others. Either Lowe's sent a box of a different kind, or the "lot" of tile was not all matching. This is pain because the mortar has now set overnight. The tile guys are coming back today to finish the tub surround, and we'll have to inform them that they have to knock out and replace a few of the floor tiles as well. Sigh. If we had noticed this as they were going down, and mixed them up within the others, it would look fine, but currently they are all in one big chunk together on the floor, which makes it really noticeable. Grrrr....

Bathroom accessories

The bathroom got a bit of a face-lift today with our medicine cabinets and towel accessories going in. The carpenter also finished the backerboard for the tub surround and the drywall above. The Corian people came to template the countertop too, which makes us very happy!

Upper cabinets and vanity

We had the upper kitchen cabinets put in today, as well as the bathroom vanity. The vanity is actually the same cabinet style and color as the kitchen. This wasn't the original plan, but our chosen vanity style was going to take another 3 weeks to get and we weren't patient enough ;)
All the doors and drawers are out right now so they don't get damaged during the rest of construction. I think we are going to add one more cabinet on the right hand side of the kitchen (over the dishwasher) as well. We had one on the original scematic and then it got dropped somewhere in the process, and looking at it now, it looks a little unfinished to end with a corner piece.
The counter top people are coming tomorrow morning to template for the Corian. Wohoo! We're finally getting somewhere!

Cabinets!

Yes, the rumors are true- we actually DID get our cabinets today. Wohoo!! The base cabinets have been put in place and shimmed up to level. One problem so far- one of the light switches was placed too low and will have to be moved up by the electrician. Other than that, things are looking pretty good!

Marble

Here are the marble thresholds we got today. They are next to a couple of the floor tiles. Hard to see the colors, really, but I tried.

No tile today

We had an interesting morning here. It involved our carpenter trying to start the tiling project with another of our contractor's carpenter's, who is the "tile guy" in the company. Unfortunately, "tile guy" decided to get into a long conversation about how starting a tile job without the cabinets in place isn't the ideal way to do it and that we didn't have the marble thresholds on site yet for two of the doorways. The original plan was to wait till the cabinets were in to tile, but because the cabinets were delayed, our contractor was trying to not lose any time by beginning the tile while we waited for them. We realize thte tile guy had some good points, but what this all amounted to was our contractor getting mad at him for not coming in and just doing what he was told, and he sent the tile guy home. Our carpenter was sent to another job that had to be done today, and was not to thrilled that he was here on Saturday to prep the floor that was now not being tiled (he is not trained in tile yet). Our contractor came over this afternoon and apologized. The cabinets are slated to be delivered on Wednesday, but he knows they are sitting in the show room in Nashua right now, so he may actually drive up there and get them himself so we can start tomorrow AM. Wouldn't that be nice! I did go to a local floor place today and buy the marble thresholds so they would be here when we start tiling again, so we should be ready to roll for our next try at tile.

Happy Birthday Carpenter!

It's Saturday AND my carpenter's birthday, but he was here at 8:00am scraping my kitchen floor to get it ready for tiling on Monday. That's dedication. I bought him a chocolate cake, which we didn't eat together, because, well, it was 8:00am, but he brought it home to enjoy with his family. Unfortunately, part of the process involved a chemical on the floor that smells vaguely like sewage. (Hmm... maybe he wasn't so happy to be here on Saturday afterall...) The smell diminishes as it dries so we have all the windows open and fans going and it's getting better. I'll put up with just about anything to get this done at this point.

Painting

In a last minute decision I nixed the Butter Pecan for the kitchen and went with Malt instead. I was afraid Butter Pecan had too much pink/purple undertone. It's really hard to capture these colors in a still photo, so we tried some with flash and some without. I affectionately call the kitchen color "Barbie Doll Flesh". The bathroom is just a very light grey, that will hopefully make the white fixures pop. It's hard to tell what it looks like at all in the picture, except when compared to the white primer, so I tried to capture that. I was going for a sort of "upscale hotel" look. We'll see if it all comes together once everything is in place.
While we have been painting, the carpenter has been putting up all the new trim and the backer board for the tub. These should be simple jobs, but of course we ran into some issues on how to do the new post in the kitchen because the front has 1/2 inch of drywall below it, whereas the back has 1 inch of old plaster... so equal sizes of wood surrounding it wasn't going to work- but I think we've figured out what to do- I'll post pics when it's done. The backer board also had issues when the carpenter realized the studs were warped just enough (from old water damage we think) to make the board bow just enough to mess up tile that is placed on it (stupid fickle tile!). He's going to fix the studs tomorrow.
Cabinets are arriving "early next week" (so much for us getting them in this week by doing the painting ourselves) and we're starting to floor tile job first so as not to have any unproductive days. Can't wait to see what the new floor looks likes!