October 18, 2011

The insulation was blown in and almost immediately the room felt warmer and quieter. I wish I could do this to the bedrooms. I can't but good to remember for future projects. The blowing in was very quick although Ed prepared for it for hours. It did smell, not awful but a definite chemical smell. The windows stayed open for the rest of the day until we went to sleep, and the next day, and by the third day, the smell was gone.

So, now this ceiling corner where the wasps' nest was gets a special picture. This is the last picture with the exposed beams. Yahoo!

Sink and faucet order

Delta Linden Single Handle PullOut Kitchen Faucet 4153-SS-DST Stainless

Kohler Verse Self-Rimming Stainless Steel 22": 33" Kitchen Sink K-3373-4-NA

Sink ordering and resource

http://bestkitchensink.org/ -- very good resource for finding out about stainless steel sinks

http://www.faucetdirect.com -- good online source for sink and faucet

http://www.nationalbuildersupply.com -- another online supply house

http://www.galaxytoolsupply.com/ -- one more

After day 5

The kitchen is clean down to the studs. Every nail and screw is pulled out of wood and some of the walls have been reinforced and re-supported. The electrician put in a lot of new wiring. Lots of what I had was pretty old and it seems that the mice has chewed threw wire covering almost to bare wire. Now it is all new and ready for another inspector.

Door leading to the dining room.
Door leading to the back hall.
Cam lights and a new fan mounting.
The corner where the wasps' nest was.

After day 3

About of third of this insulation was a mouse nesting grounds. More evidence of mice was found in the insulation in the basement. Uck! And I am happy to be rid of it. It was old and no longer smelled.
Here is the old wasp's nest that was in one corner of the room. Empty now, but impressive.

After day 1

The kitchen without cabinets and appliances. I didn't take pictures of the painting that was done during the summer renovation. The lighter green is going back on the new walls.

Kitchen before renovation.

I no longer remember the revision number on my kitchen design. When I first started reading this forum, I wondered about people posting design after design. I never thought I would do more than two or three. Well, I tweaked it so many times, I lost count. But I am getting closer. Close enough that I want to order cabinets within the next month. So does my contractor. If I was sure of everything, I would be more excited. This is nail bitting time! Any general comments on the design are very welcomed. (Pictures of the kitchen as it is can be found here: http://acrosstherubricon.blogspot.com/2010/02/kitchen-as-it-is.html) Layout: Three of the four walls of the room: The stove wall. I wanted all the appliances that could be off the countertop to be sort of built in. The 15 inch box will house the microwave. Design: I am thrilled to finally arrive at this version with the shelves along part of one wall and turning the corner. What are anyone’s experiences with this much shelving? Any negatives? I figure that this is a very cheap part of my design and I could always put in cabinets later. The windows are not going to change and I’ve designed cabinets/shelve units over and over and know my options.) I was thinking of painting the shelves the Creekside Green, the wall they are on is Soft Fern. I am insecure on the long, china cabinet-like cabinet on the other end of the sink wall. Any thoughts? I need some sort of appliance garage (I hate that term) and that is the 18” cabinet underneath. Anyone have pictures of something like this. Color, Color, Color: I still teeter between white or wood! When will it stop??! The floors are newly refinished oak, blond with nice wood graining. Three walls are Benjamin Moore’s Soft Fern; the fourth wall is Creekside Green. The molding and trim on the whole first floor is Martha Stewart’s Glass of Milk. My question is whether I should try to match the Milk color for the cabinets or go with a clear maple. The style will be a shaker door with slab drawers. Soft Fern: wall color for three walls in kitchen. Creekside Green: color of accent wall in kitchen. Right now, this is the back door wall but it could be the sink wall since plaster walls will be coming down and sheet rock going up before cabinets go in. Shelving could be painted this color. Glass of Milk: wood work on first floor, including kitchen is painted this color. I am not sure whether the cabinets should be the off white of Glass of Milk or a clear maple. Today, I am leaning towards the maple. This is the formica for the countertops. Lighting: I have been dreaming of great lighting in a kitchen for a long time. The lighting I have now is awful -- a central light in the middle of the room attached to the ceiling fan and a very small light over the sink. The shadows and glare compete for dominance. Ok, I can see what I am doing, but really I want good light. I also dreamed about under cabinet lighting but as I’ve switched to a wall of shelves, I don’t know if that is an option. I need some suggestions for overall lighting, task lighting, and something pretty for mood. This is the school house pendant light that I'l like to use in front of the windows. Missing Element: One of things I wanted to have in the new kitchen was a place that my daughter could eat her breakfast. No matter how organized I try to be, in the mornings before school, she is eating in the dining room and I am rushing around the kitchen getting her lunch ready. There is no room in the kitchen as it is now designed for a table and I don’t see any way to rearrange cabinets and appliances to fit one in without sacrificing a lot of storage space which I also cannot do without. I was wondering whether a hinged table right behind the door to the back hall would be possible. The dining room has a simple chair rail, so a similar rail in the kitchen on one wall would not be out of place. I was thinking (very vaguely at this point) that a small table behind the door and two collapsable stools hung on the part of the wall near the frig. Whadda’ ya’ think? Any ideas about this or about any other place that an eating space might be carved out? And I’d love to see any pictures of a hinged table that is snuck into a space. Finally, these are two inspiration photos: I do like the white cabinets and the green walls and shelves, but I am not sure whether to commit to white cabinets. Help! And this was the original picture I cut out of a paint book and hung by my stove three years ago. I still like the feeling of the colors and textures.

Fiddling with design

I have shown the house plan to two kitchen designers and one sorely disappointed me and the other did a very adequate design with very little individual flare. And so, a few days ago, I took matters into my own hands and traced and "designed." I ran the sketches by my architect today to check for obvious mistakes. She didn't see any but she will put my design on her computer to see if the measurements check out. I think it is pretty close to what I want even though it has taken me a long time to come to this decision.

I didn't get these plans until February 23. These are the first plans that the kitchen design at Pro build sent me. It too him a long time to get the plans to me and they are amazingly underwhelming. He did not use any of my ideas and frankly, this is the kitchen that I do not want. I am going to send him the list and see what he comes up with. Or, I guess it is time to find another designer.

A list of things not included in Jeff's original drawing.

1. pull out garbage and re-cycle bin

2. shelves on wall 1 to the left of stove

3. use as many drawers for lower cabinets as possible

4. open shelves for microwave and toaster oven with drawers underneath

5. metal exhaust hood over stove

6. temporary shelving around old standard sized fridge (space for french door fridge)

7. one or two double hung 3 over 1 windows over sink that are counter height

8. "slot" in lower cabinets for a step stool

9. a cook book shelf

I would also like to maximize counter space.

The double pantry looks too monolithic and at the same time fussy with four doors. Could there be two wider single- door pantries with a small coffee station in the middle.

Apart from my rather off dream (which I am not sure how it got on this blog) I have been quiet about renovations.

Finally, I am looking at cabinets and working with a kitchen designer. I hope to post a first design next week or so but I wanted to remember and record my first (and pretty easy) choices.

The was built in 1929, has lots of arches (Almost 1500 sq ft through out the house on two floors), and all the woodwork is painted white. The whole first floor is painted a grey/green which I will probably repeat (I wanted a deeper color than what is one my walls now, but that will come later). It is easy on the eyes and very calming for me. The floors are wood and will be stained a dark brown and refinished when the kitchen is redone. I decided to go with white (Pearl is the color) cabinets and chose Omega Cabinets, their semi-custom Dynasty line, with Marion inset doors and slab drawers.

Basic door

Pearl is my color choice

Here are pearl cabinets with a dark floor and dark green counter top which generally gives the feeling of what I am going after. The soapstone would be black with green veins.

Corian color that I like. I am looking only at light Corian shades because I hear the dark is hard to keep clean. Of course, if I can go with soap stone, it will be dark.

I plan to use a lot of bottom draws and wonder a bit about the look of slab drawers. I wanted to use soap stone but also looked a corian as an alternative.

I wanted to write about this dream as soon as Julia left for school. I read Tracy's comment from yesterday first and then felt a chill. There is much more in this life than we understand.

First, the dream.

I was in an apartment with David and Cheshire. Not one we ever lived in. Julia may have been there too although she was not active in the dream. It was a small apartment -- there is actually a dream apartment that I sometimes dream about, this was not the one, but it bore some resemblances. (And now, I am remembering that I've had a lot of place dreams lately. I don't retain them in the morning, but hotel rooms, apartments, lofts, houses. I can remember many of them this minute. Place?).

In the dream, David was breaking up with me. He would not tell me why and Cheshire blamed me. I was pretty convinced that I was totally at fault, that I was a wicked and inadequate person. I had many of these dreams as a child and when I was very young I would ask my mother if I could come into bed with her. She was never in favor of that request.

Anyway, I was considering packing up but then I realized that everything in this small apartment was David's and I wondered what had happened to my stuff. It was a relative short dream and I woke up quickly with that awful unloved and uncared for feeling. When David was alive I would ask him to hold me and we would sleep like that for the rest of the night. When I woke up from this dream, I remembered that as somehow took great comfort from the idea. When the alarm went off, I woke up still with the feeling that David would have held me and made my heard feel whole again.

And so, Tracy, in a strange round about way, the dream did exactly as you wished. And this morning, I have a bit of peace.