riotbrrd

Waiting...waiting...

My cork was supposed to ship from Canada today. I called them -- they're "waiting on the truck, it should be here any day now."

Countertop templater came by but couldn't do the template. I'll have to reschedule. Turns out that in fact we don't need plywood decking under the Caesarstone top -- good news because I prefer it without the decking. Bad news because I have to make some construction changes and then have them come back for the template, which pushes my completion date out again. Also bad news because (based on what Dario had told me about the necessity of decking) I  paid my contractor an extra $300 to put in this decking.

I sure hope little Schmiegel is planning to stay put till his due date!

Remodel Days 10-12 - Look Ma: it's a kitchen!

It's been an action-packed week, and -- even though I had Monday and Tuesday off from construction -- I am completely exhausted. I feel like I can't make another g--d--m decision to save my life. Here's how the week went:

Wednesday 8 am: The Karman delivery truck arrives, along with Dario (the kitchen dealer), Loren (the Karman rep), Jeff (the delivery driver), and Bob (the Customer Service Manager from Karman who's flown in from Salt Lake City just for the day). Then Gama and Angel show up. We start inspecting cabinets, and find -- thank you god! -- that all the wall cabinets are usable. Not perfect...but usable. Here are Loren, Bob, and Dario:

Wednesday 12:30 pm: I call Duro-Design to check on my cork flooring order. It was supposed to ship last week, and arrive this week. Turns out it hasn't even gone into production yet!  I guess they ran out of my pattern at the factory and had to order  more material from Spain. Estimated ship date is now next Thursday. This pushes my completion date back a week or two (assuming they actually ship next week, and who knows?).

Wednesday 4 pm: Gama and Angel have been installing the new cabinets (uppers and tall pantries). As Gama and I are going over plans for the countertop decking, I realize I have completely screwed the pooch on planning the peninsula cabinets. My 24"-wide base cabinet that backs the peninsula should have been only 21" wide. Hmmm.... We decide to just move the cabinet 2-3/4" closer to the wall, which will blow the nice symmetry I had at the back of the island and put the cabinet about 1/4" from the wall. Aaack. Ah well, still living and learning.

Wednesday 9 pm: My kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen again:

Thursday 8:30 am: Gama and Angel are back, hoping to have everything finished early today.

Thursday 11 am: Gama runs a pressure test on the new gas line, and finds out there might be a leak. He spends a couple of hours crawling around under the house (dirty work!) with a bottle of dish soap, but is unable to find the leak. I'm not sure what to do about this -- if we call PG&E, and there really is a leak, they may just shut off the gas to our house.

Thursday 2 pm: I go to check the countertop decking the guys have been installing, and realize they've forgotten to do the peninsula overhang. Gama's face falls. He doesn't have enough plywood to do the overhang -- it'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Thursday 3 pm: Poor Gama has spent nearly 45 minutes trying to re-light the pilot for the water heater. He's worried about all the test equipment (Christopher's) that's in the way, so he can't quite reach the right spot. I tell him not to sweat, I'll have CH re-light it.

Gama looks extremely tired and frustrated, and realizes he'll have to come back tomorrow. On Monday and Tuesday, Gama had worked on another job -- installing a complete kitchen in just two days. I wonder if my kitchen has been that much more difficult? Is my kitchen as high-maintenance as I am?

Thursday 5 pm: I talk to Dario at Kitchen Galleries about the countertop. (Yes, I finally made a decision -- it's Caesarstone Peppercorn.)  His Caesarstone installer is extremely busy, and the lead times he had originally told me (2 days to schedule a template, 8 days to installation) have lengthened considerably. And my completion date moves back again...

Friday 2 pm: The guys have been back today, finishing up little details, installing the countertop overhang with steel supports, putting in the vent hood, and cutting a hole in the countertop decking for the sink. Things look pretty good, although still rough.

Lessons learned this week:

1. I should have asked them to pressure test the gas before they installed the new line. That way when we found the leak, we'd at least know where to start looking.

2. I really should have picked and ordered my flooring earlier!

3. Lead times promised by vendors should be taken with a big grain of salt. My sink took 2-3 weeks longer than promised. My flooring is currently running 3 weeks behind schedule. My countertop will probably take 1-2 weeks longer expected. (On the other hand, my cabinets were right on schedule -- if you don't count the replacement cycle).

Countertop shopping -- Aaarrrrgh!

My brain has almost reached its decision-making limit. Just.....one.......more.......decision..........to...........go. (Major decision, that is)

Here's the plan thus far:

• Baking center: White Carrara marble
• Stove wall: Stainless steel or ?
• Main countertops: Quartz (Caesarstone or Eurostone), Granite, or 12x12 porcelain tiles

So, I hit the granite yards yesterday and today. Here's where I went:

Marble Creations -- a good selection of slabs, and the Croatian guy Niko who runs the place seems to take his craft very seriously. Their Silver Sea Green has a lot of black spots in it, which I don't like. Installed prices: $3,500 for the Caledonia, $4,300 for the Silver Sea Green. Their Carrara had big black veining.

Venice -- also lots of slabs, but I didn't get a read on their service. I think their Silver Sea Green had less black in it, if I remember correctly.

Plamar -- a slightly more limited selection, good service in the showroom. They do the work for my old Home Depot, so I know they're pretty good. Their SS Green was fairly quiet, which I liked. And they had a shipment of Carrara marble which was almost completely white. Also took home a sample of Bianco Something or Other.

All Natural Stone -- Great selection of tile, but I didn't see anything I liked in granite. No SS Green or Caledonia. They seem to have more of the "wilder" stone slabs.

Daltile -- probably the largest selection of slabs that I've seen, and good service in the showroom. They don't install. Their SS Green also had lots of black. Also looked at Caledonia, Tunas Green, and something else which I can't remember now. Their Carrara had soft grey veining in it.

Next steps: get Christopher into the kitchen to look at our various samples against the cabinets and in coordination with each other. Then we pick a material, and I have to do more detailed shopping. Sigh...

Remodel Day 9 - Gama tries to pass for a white guy

Remodel Day 8 - Base cabinets are in!

All the base cabinets, except for the pantry run, are in. Here's what the kitchen looks like today:

How cute is my baking center? It's a lower-height cabinet made of two different cabinets stacked on top of each other. I like the way the panels on either side sort of bracket it from the rest of the cabinet run.

Also in today, the Verona oven. I think it looks great -- phew!

To the right of the oven is the refrigerator cabinet. It's soooo deep -- I'm sort of regretting not going for a counter-depth fridge.

And here are the guys responsible for all this fabulousness (L to R: Gama, Angel, Carlos):

Remodel Day 7 - Minor hiccups

Cabinet installation proceeded a little slowly today. Creating the baking center out of two kind of weird cabinets, and then getting the peninsula installed right seemed to really slow things down. Also, modifying the base cabinet to accept the Verona oven went very slowly, with lots of cursing. By the end of the day, the two main cabinet runs were basically done, minus the back of the peninsula.

Some hiccups:

My plan to put the required outlet in the kitchen side of the peninsula didn't work out, because there wasn't enough vertical space with a 2x4 at the top of the pony wall. Rather than put in on the side of the peninsula, where it would stick out like a sore thumb, we decided to put it in back under the overhang. It will be basically useless there, but at least it'll look OK.

While installing the last cabinet on the stove wall, the guys discovered that my wall bows out at the bottom pretty significantly -- at least 1/2." Since they didn't discover this earlier, they would have had to uninstall two cabinets and move them out from the wall. Instead, we decided to just let that last cabinet stick out a little farther, and cover the gap at the wall with scribe. Since the cabinet is on the other side of the range, hopefully the 1/2" difference in depth won't be at all noticeable.

Also, we came upon a few mysteries with my Verona oven. It's from Italy, so the manual is pretty much useless, as was the dealer I bought the thing from. Hopefully they'll be solved tomorrow when I call the distributor directly.

The impossibility of bras

Being pregnant makes it basically impossible to find a comfortable bra. Right now I'm wearing the softest, underwire-free, stretchiest-fabric maternity bra that I could find. And it's driving me crazy. There's just no room between my boobs and my belly for anything to sit comfortably.

Remodel Day 6 - Playing with power tools, and a big "D'oh!"

Playing with power tools
Last night and this morning I made my first cabinet modification. I added a vertical tray divider to this 12"-wide base cabinet, which will go right next to the range. I used a piece of Mills Pride cabinetry from Home Depot in order to get maple melamine that would match the cabinet interior. This simple modification took me hours to complete. My carpentry skills are super-rusty, and I was being extremely careful. Also, I had to create the top horizontal piece in addition to the vertical divider.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the result. And feeling a wee bit macho for a pregnant woman.

D'oh!
The big drama of the day was Gamma discovering a screw-up in my cabinetry layout. (Bad designer! Bad! Bad!)I'd placed things so that the hot water shutoff would land outside the sink cabinet. Not really a workable arrangement. They could have moved the plumbing, but I decided instead to just switch two drawer bases, which solved the problem. As it turned out, the plumbing fit is pretty darn tight.  The downside is that I'll have 3 less inches to the left of the sink, but...WTF? It was a tradeoff of $200-300 for the 3 inches.  I keep repeating my mantra, "I'm not going to live here forever. This is not my ultimate dream kitchen."

By the end of the day, my empty room was starting to look more like a kitchen.

Lesson learned today: Don't trust your kitchen designer, especially if it's yourself. Or, to put it another way, double-check your plumbing locations.

Remodel Day 5 - More electrical

Boy, did Gamma look tired at the end of the day today. I guess my electrical work is more complicated than usual.

Remodel Day 4 - Electrical continues

Not much excitement today, just lots of electrical work. Gamma says electric will be finished tomorrow (Tuesday), then they'll close up and patch the drywall and start on the cabinet installation.

Here's the City Inspector conducting the electrical inspection: