A Kitchen made out of Wood

Right now the kitchen is in a holding pattern.

There are no workers streaming through the house.
There are no materials strewn about the floor.
There are no trucks parked in my driveway.

Right now everyone is waiting for the granite to be delivered and installed.

The men from the granite place showed up with 1/8 inch boards that they cut up with utility knives to measure out the areas for the new counter tops. This is precise work, if they screw it up it's not like they are going to take 1000 pounds of materials back to the office for a re-do. Not to mention that if they put a hole in the granite it's not like putting a hole into a wall or cabinet that is easily patched. You can't really patch stone.

So they measure and make a template. Then they go away for 2-3 weeks and cut it out with some kind of Kryptonite saw.

This Tuesday the countertops are due to be delivered. This leaves only a few items to go:

- hook up remaining appliances
- tile backsplash
- sand/finish hardwood floor (we are responsible for)
- touchup painting (I am responsible for)
- touchup cabinetry
- hook up range hood

Cabinet Installation

When we last left our fearless homeowners we had cabinet woes. While the woes continue, things are not as horrific as you may believe.

Woe #1:
The original cabinet woe can have the center of the cabinet replaced to make it a slide-out pantry cabinet. This is one crisis that has been averted. Now if the granite place had not been on vacation all this week, someone might have cared.

As is stands, since the granite place is on vacation, we wait anyway. But there are plenty of things to do for our worker guys to get things in place. Currently they have just installed part on the island, and hopefully complete it today. This involved putting the base cabinets in place, adding the doors and hardware, cutting, fitting and installing the bottom panels, and building a place to receive the small refrigerator on the end where there is no cabinet (my only part on this oasis), as well as providing a bit of stability for the granite. This brings us to the next world or woe.

Woe #2:
As you can see from the photo there is no door where there is no cabinet. While I believe this is fine (why would you need a door when there is no cabinet), my wife thought this looks strange and wants a fake door there.

The other part of the island she did not like was the way the bottom kick plate looks. When there is a cabinet, under the cabinet is an area that dips into the cabinet (think of the space under a mushroom). This area is not translated around the whole thing since the void does not exist on the sides of cabinets. The wife thought this was horrible. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, not being a mushroom fan in the first place.

Eventually, she relented. Because, as they said in the Shawshank Redemption, “How often do you look at a man’s shoes”, I believe this applies to cabinet bottoms as well.

Woe #3:
Communication is a wonderful thing. Miss-communication is not. To make a long story even longer…
a. We had a cabinet above the refrigerator area.
b. Wife changes mind about refrigerator.
c. Appliance dealer informs cabinetmaker of the change.
d. Cabinetmaker denies ever getting a change (we have a dated fax saying it was received).
e. Cabinet is too big for the space.
f. Refrigerator doesn’t fit – or does it.

The fridge fits in the space but the cabinet doors do not open because the hinges are too high. It is unclear whether we can raise the doors (contractor’s suggestion), re-make the cabinets (cabinet-maker’s suggestion), make new doors – there is an extra 2 inches behind the doors (my suggestion) or nail them shut (best suggestion).

Cabinet Woes

Last Friday the workmen began putting in the kitchen cabinets. Friday went flawlessly and we expected to have the cabinets in by mid week (Thursday, because of the 4th of July holiday) based on the progress they made on Friday.

Unfortunately as the boxes were unpacked and the cabinets set up there was one cabinet that was wrong. More unfortunate for us is the fact that this cabinet is almost all the way to the corner, which makes setting up the other cabinets next to it a real problem.

Without the cabinets secured we can't get the granite place to take measurements. This delays the construction.

To make matters worse, the cabinet place is closed on Monday, so my wife will be on the phone this morning to give the KitchenScapes guy an ear full and have it expedited so we can continue work.

There is still a number of items to do, and with the appliances coming in soon there is work to be done, but nothing can be finalized until the cabinets are correct.

The cabinet in question is to the right. It is supposed to be a pull out pantry unit, and it is just a plain cabinet.