Fixin’ the Kitchen-Update

It is moving along slow & steady. Bruce, (hereto after known as ST), is very thorough & precise in each phase of the project. Pay off…Anxiety-Free Sleep. Good News Everyone! The internet really does make your life easier! ST has used the internet to answer questions of all sorts. With blogs, chatting, FAQ pages, & instruction sites you can explore all aspects of projects & materials. By reading up on each phase ST has managed to avoid most common mistakes & rectify the mistakes that “snuck” through.

Let there be light...Lights are coming along nicely. Flexible tracks are on the way. 2 Murano glass style pendants previously purchased for Mstr bath but unused will hang from track. To defray costs we'll put more spot lights on the track a little later. More can lights will soon go in directly over the sink & in front of the pantry & frigo. Getting all wiring in place is the immediate goal. This picture shows the new window, too! Smaller, cleaner, energy efficient, & get this...acutally opens! Now thats an improvement!

A/C duct will go into newly directed air vents. These were moved back a couple of feet when ST raised the ceiling. The new duct is insulated flexible type that will be so much better! With these things in place…the actual tearing out of the remaining cabinets can be completed. Then all walls can be finished (remaining drywall, taping, mudding--finally painting!!!). Colors in the room are black wood cabinet bases, white/stainless steel/frosted glass upper cabinets, brushed aluminum handles, lighting, shelving, etc. & counters will be some kind of grey speckled w/black & white granite of some kind (covered in next paragraph). Floors will eventually be a light colored wood. We are thinking the walls in this room should be a kind of aqua that feels like sea glass. What shade that will actually be??? Still Searching!?!. The ceiling will be a very luminescent pale almost white shade of same color. That ceiling color will also go down the hall/laundry area on ceiling & walls alike.

The new cabinets are in the house (still in boxes). ST will shift dishwasher to new bar side of U shape kitchen arrangement. This corrects a couple of mistakes the current DW placement has been causing w/kinked drain pipes. Lastly, some kind of counter will be put onto the new base cabinets.

Biggest surprise: kitchen counter choices. Real Estate Fact: You never want to spend more on your house than the value of the property. Most all homes in our price range have Formica counters. To that end, early on ST chose that route feeling the extra money could definitely be better spent in other areas. Actual quotes are showing Formica to cost only slightly less than Granite! That’s how housing markets start to change expectations in what buyers actually buy. Aggrivated that we didn’t really want to spend more than $1500 to $1700 on counters. Sure Granite is nice, looks great on home sale flyer, too. However it does stain & scratch easily. Alternatives: Corian Family and Silestone Family. Both are impervious to stains and scratches but twice to three times more expensive (budget just wont allow). Just when Formica came out with the coolest designs & edge treatment--POW--they now need to reconsider their pricing! We have to pay more for Granite to worry about it holding up. Having said all that--I am excited to see how pretty it will look and we will take care to seal it.