Our House, Part 2: Kitchen Remodel

 One of the first things we tackled when we moved into our house was the kitchen. The old kitchen was the standard contractor issue white tile, white grout, and white appliances. The sink, cooktop and oven were pretty well worn out GE units, while the dishwasher was a newer Bosch model. The dishwasher was noticeably quieter than most dishwashers.

The vent hood was also the standard basic contractor-issue white, and the cabinets were in decent shape. The finish has yellowed due to sunlight, and the finish was worn off the top edges of many of the lower drawers.

 The microwave and double oven worked well, but were showing signs of age and had many stains that we could not get out. We therefore decided to redo the entire kitchen. We hired a contractor named Ray to put in the tile and granite, and also hired cabinet refinishers. About two weeks before we were to leave for Hawaii, we had told Ray to finish the kitchen tile demo before we left as we had scheduled the cabinet refinishers to come in the week we were gone. He kept delaying the kitch demo date, and ended up not showing up the day before we left. Therefore, four of us (my wife, my son, my wife's son and myself) ended up working until about 2 AM with hammers and picks ripping out tile, chicken wire and float and tossing it out the kitchen window. Ray was fired shortly thereafter.

 The kitchen cabinets came out beautifully (we also had the wood floors refinished by a different contractor), and the tile and granite work is superb. The 'after' pictures are before the vent hood and microwave were installed, but the rest of the appliances are in. We went with a new Bosch dishwasher (it makes no noise at all unless it is purging old water!), and a Franke sink and faucet. They are all awesome.

 The granite we selected is called Blue Night and has small flecks of blue that glows when the light hits it just right. Very beautiful. You can catch just a glimpse of the new 6 burner gas Viking cooktop to the far left. At this point, the microwave had not been installed yet.

 We also went with a Bosch double-oven (electric) and it works like a champ. This is our first oven with digital controls, and we are still learning some of the nuances with these types of controls. For one thing, it appears that the oven put itself in pause mode when my wife opened the door for a peek. We did not discover this for another hour, unfortunately.

My wife had the idea to round the ends of the island: a simple idea that added a tremendous about of interest to the design. We are very happy with it, and John Hayes Tile & Stone did a fantastic job of making just the right curve. Perfection!
And there you have it, a quick tour of our kitchen. My job this coming weekend will be to put knobs on all the cabinets. Our last kitchen had knobless cabinets, and this eventually led to wear marks on all the wood. As much as we prefer the knobless look, we have bought 50 knobs (yes, there are 50 in this kitchen!) and hope to avoid the worn finish look this time around.

And no worries, folks. The old appliances were not put into the landfill. Every one found a new home in a new kitchen - I used Craigslist to find them each a new station in life.