So, this year, after a LOOONG amount of deliberation, and design, we finally went into execution. The main concept around the kitchen was not simply to replace the countertops and cabinets, but to actually change the layout. We wanted to tear down the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and make it more open, with a breakfast bar instead of a wall. There were actually several other potential designs, and some of them were cool, but they were way too intensive, time consuming, and expensive.
It took some time to figure out exactly what I wanted, and I created quite a few designs. Fortunately, I have already renovated one kitchen before, which was great practice for this larger job. So, first, I outlined the original layout:
Then I created a couple of different ideas. This one leaves the wall, and puts the breakfast bar on the other side, and removes the island. This would have created a wide open work area, and may have been very nice still.
This next one removes the wall, and creates a massive island with built in breakfast bar. I think it would have lacked in wall cabinets though. If the house was 3 feet deeper, this would have been doable.
And this is the one we ended with, which is to knock down the wall, and make it a breakfast bar, while extending the pantry area.
Of course, this is just the start. Then, we took this to Home Depot (yes, I know the big box stores suck right? But, they actually have good prices if you are doing all the work yourself and can get contractor pricing.) At Home Depot, we began the long process of picking out which cabinets we wanted, what colors we wanted, what finishes, etc. We ended up with Maple cabinets from KraftMaid, with a mocha glaze (or something like that). We also extended the island 12 additional inches, and the peninsula 8 more inches from the drawing above. HD has real CAD tools, and they were able to give us a great feeling for what everything would look like before we ever purchased. We switched out cabinets 2 or 3 times before finally settling on what we wanted.
Okay, on to the work. If you are very impatient, you can just skip to the BEFORE and AFTER side by side section. However, I think you'll enjoy the journey if you take the time to go through and see how we got there.
BEFORE
So, first, I want to show you the before.
So, it's a lot to look at on one page... I know. But, hopefully, you can view the above and get an idea of what the kitchen looked like before.
Below is my best recollection of how it went down. I know some things may be slightly out of order, but I tried my best to recreate the timeline.
DEMOLITION
Saturday
So, Friday afternoon, I began to empty the kitchen. Just emptying all the cabinets takes a while. It's like moving. You have to box everything up and store it somewhere for a while. That took almost all of Friday, but after doing that, I started taking down the existing cabinets (Saturday mostly). I began with the easiest, and closest to the garage... the desk wall.
Followed by the removal of the stove wall cabinets
And then my wonderful, beloved sink.
That was most of Saturday. Chrissie's parents were in town, so I didn't get to spend a whole day, and I had to do Chase's soccer at 9am, but this was probably 8 hours of work to remove all the cabinets, plus some of the flooring, including cutting off the gas and water temporarily. Oh, and I managed to sell the old range/oven and dishwasher on ebay. The microwave was actually broken, and barely functional, so I just threw it away.
Sunday
Sunday was fun day, time to destruct day. :) We had a great big wall that needed to go away. We knew it was not a structural wall, because it ran the same direction as the floor joists. Also, by make a small hole in the floor, we saw that it wasn't even sitting on top of a joist, it was between two joists. Definitely not structural. So, it's time to take it down.
Here, you can see the ventilation for the microwave that was there. It looks like it runs the length, but it actually just runs down. We'll use some of this for the ventilation for the downdraft later on.
And in the last pictures, you can see some of the wires left dangling that were buried in the wall.
Next we had to complete the removal, by removing the pantry. But, there was also electrical in the pantry wall. specifically, I had to worry about the thermostat. To document current wiring, I used the camera to take a picture, so that I could rewire it later on correctly. I actually did this for a number of wiring stages, but this one illustrates it best.
Once that was photo'd, it was time to start taking down the pantry.
Demolition took all of Sunday, with both me and my dad working all day. We started at 8am, and worked til after 5pm.
Monday
Once, that was done, I needed to get rid of some of the crap in my driveway I was accumulating. So, I rented a truck and took it to the dump. Then, I needed to get into the basement, and pull the wiring from the center peninsula to the side, so that I could run it along the other wall. This was accomplished by cutting a hole in the basement ceiling, and reaching up, and pulling the cable down, running it along the support joists, and then back up the main center support in the middle of the house. That took about 6 hours all by itself.
Tuesday
The next day, we decided to tape off the rest of the house to keep the dust from continuing to spread. You can also see that the pantry is completely removed in this picture.
I actually spent quite a bit of time dealing with work that day, but we did manage to also remove the rest of the wall, which was two 2 x 4's nailed heavily into the ceiling. A big pain in the ass actually. We made a good mess of the drywall getting them out. I can't remember exactly how much I accomplished, but one thing was to finish the height of the breakfast bar appropriately. This was a bit of research and discussion. We ended up cutting it so that it would end up with a 42 1/2 inch breakfast bar. That is about standard, as the classic height for a breakfast bar is 40-44 inches. However, i wish I had gone taller. Apparently, a lot of breakfast bars are going to 48 and even 50 inches now, as higher bar stools become more stylish. Oh well.
Wednesday
In this below picture, you can see the thermostat fixtures that were re-routed from the center wall we removed. Not a great picture, but if you click on the larger image, and zoom, you'll see them behind the ladder.Now that we've got a big gaping hole in the ceiling we've got to fix it. so, I spent quite a bit of Wednesday doing drywall. Here's some fun drywall shots.
After the first coat, i was reasonably done for the day. I put a second coat on around 1am in the morning (12 hours later), to cover up some of the holes I couldn't get earlier.
Thursday
Thursday we did a bunch of stuff that actually looks like real progress. We put in the double oven cabinet, the window cabinet, and the wine rack that covers the air intake.
You can see in one of the shots below that rather than have the big old ugly air intake behind the rack, my dad painted it to match the finish on the cabinets so it would be less noticeable. Very cool!
My dad also did a bunch of drywall work between placing cabinets, which I don't have pictures of. But, drywall takes lots of time and patience, and I am very grateful to have had him there to help me with a job that doesn't feel like progress, but is so necessary to finishing.
Friday
We finished up that wall with the base cabinets. The cabinets have glass fronts, as well as 3 inch spacers (we later replaced them with spacers that actually matched the wood finish correctly). The glass fronts are designed to let you put something decorative in them, like colored rice, macaroni, beans, sand, shells, corn, or just pictures you like. You'll see what I mean later.
To make sure the frigerator doesn't stick out to much, I removed the drywall behind the fridge (saving 3/4" of an inch), plus moved the outlet further back into the wall. This actually let's move push the fridge back about 3 or 4 inches farther than previously because of how the cord would stick out. It doesn't seem like much, but 3 inches is actually a lot. You can see how tight the fridge is to the wall in the above shot.
We put up a few cabinets around the refrigerator, and you can see the fridge sticks out. If it was out 4 more inches, it would really not look good, and obstruct the passage to the next room. This is a pretty cool cabinet. It is a pantry that slides out, giving you access to everything very easily. very cool.
And, of course, more drywall work. It's a never ending process and once again, my dad heroically tackled it for it me.
Saturday
Saturday was a lazy day, in terms of work. I did go and buy a bunch of light fixtures, the sink, the faucet, and some hardware that I needed for the job. It was actually nice, not waking up and having to get to work on this project right away. I've definitely taken my time. I almost wish I had been more rushed. But, knowing that the granite template wasn't until wednesday, I didn't feel the need to kill myself. The downside of that is that I let it drag out a bit, and every day I had to do _something_ on this project. We did put up the pull out on the other side of the frigerator, and also put up the cabinets that will end up being above the breakfast bar. Also, we did more drywall, and more electrical to prepare for the lights above the breakfast bar.
Sunday
The pantry. This is a huge piece of furniture. I'd guess over 300 pounds. It doesn't line up perfectly with the other cabinets, but, it's close enough. You may not be able to tell in this picture, but the pantry is very well organized, allowing you easy access to multiple rows of "stuff". :)
I also worked into the evening, after yet more drywall and electical work, to get the sink cabinet back in (a big deal since you have to cut off the main water supply and cut holes to make it fit, and then reassemble some plumbing), along with the new dishwasher.
Monday
The next morning, we finished that wall:
We also did a bunch of work on getting the other cabinets aligned and stabilized the breakfast bar wall a bit more. There's not a picture here, but there is a hidden cabinet in the end of the peninsula if you look really closely for it. See if you can find it when you come over.
Tuesday
Finished with the base cabinets with installation of the island pieces!!! :)
My dad spent time patching the nasty hole I'd made in the basement, and then we moved onto the task of the wall ovens. The cut out for the ovens didn't fit (not a surprise... in fact, this was expected).
You can go back up and look at the opening for the oven, then look at this picture. You'll see that the opening from the manufacturer is a single opening that I had to modify to be two openings for the two ovens. Basically, we had to cut out more of the lower section, making it wider at the same time, then relocate a cut piece to above the first oven, then cut out the required space for the upper oven.
Wednesday
It's Halloween, and I'm not keen on doing much work. so, I woke up at 5am, and started cutting. I had to get the advantium oven in (more template cutting on the oven cabinet using the skill saw:
As well as cut the fascia piece for the back of the island:
And then the granite template folks showed up. It may seem like I cut it close on timing, but not really. If somebody had told me I had to have the island done by Monday morning, I would have. But, when you give somebody time, they take it, and I did. Anyways, they had a pretty cool laser setup that maps your kitchen. Here they are using it to check for level, as well as just to get dimensions. It's got a computer that records everything, and then creates a map of your kitchen. They also do a manual measurement, just for a sanity check. :)
And then I spent the rest of the day getting ready for Halloween! I'll have other pictures of that on another page.
Saturday
So, while we waited the two weeks to actually get the granite in, there's still things to do, such as finishing the lighting. I couldn't do anymore work during the week (I do have a real job), so everything else would have to be done on the weekends from here on out. Here, you can see that I took out the rack over the island, and installed a row of three recessed lights, as well as three drop lights over the area where the breakfast bar will be.
And then I removed the single light over where the sink was, and installed three lights there, as well as a light directly over where the cooktop will be.
And, to support the granite on such a thin wall, I needed to add support. Most people add corbels to support the weight of the granite, but I didn't want people to have to worry about hitting their knees on anything when they sat at the bar, so I added a thick sheet of 10 gauge steel and screwed it down... a lot. And, you can't just go to a home depot to find sheet metal that thick. I had to go to a sheet metal fabricator to get a sheet that thick. I called about 10 places before finding one that carried it. I had the fabricator cut and recess the holes for me. They use a laser to cut the holes instead of a drill. Very cool.
And, there's always little things to do. Here's Catey helping me put knobs and pulls on the cabinet doors.
Two weeks later
At last! The day of the granite! Here's a picture of the granite slabs being positioned. You can see the blue tape, marking the area that they'll cut out for the cook top.
And here's a picture of them using suction cups, to pull two pieces of granite together, while they use a propane torch to help the epoxy cure faster.
After
And finally, pictures of the completed job.
And, here's just some shots of some of the features, such as the slide out cabinet pantry units, the hidden spice rack, 36" pantry, and the downdraft in it's up position.
BEFORE and AFTER... side by side
Now, to truly see the contrast, here's side by side shots of the before and afterInstead of a desk area, gathering clutter (plus wasting space by not having full base cabinets) we've got double ovens, with the top oven being the Advantium, which is a microwave / speed cooker / convection oven / broiler, and the bottom oven being a very large convection oven.
Plus, with real base cabinets we gained more storage.
One thing to note in the next few shots is that the island is 18 inches longer. Not yet completed yet is that we'll be moving the chandelier in the background to the other room, and putting the piano on the backwall behind the breakfast bar. Plus, we'll probably replace the chandelier in the foregrand with something more contemporary as well.
You might have thought that we'd lose a lot of storage when we got rid of the cabinets on the wall. But, in reality, we gained space because there's more storage on the exterior wall, and storage under the cooktop now. Plus, the base cabinets are 6 inches wider as well.
The pantry was woefully small before. Now, we've got a ton of storage, with the pull out pantries on either side of the fridge, plus a 36 inch storage pantry on the end. If you didn't see the picture of the pantry features when they're opened above, you should scroll back up to see them again.
And, of course, the room is much more open now. Before, when we had guests over, we'd all stand around the island, and I would actually sit on the countertops while we chatted. Now, people can relax at the bar and chat, while I cook in the kitchen. It's so much more comfortable. I still have to remove that chandelier though.
And, of course, there's always something more. I have to crown molding everywhere, get the place painted, get hardwood on the floor next to the peninsula, and change out the chandeliers. Hopefully, those will get done in the next month or so.
I got the final touches completed, and I'm just now updating the site with those fina pics. Two of the kitchen, and one of the family room and crown molding and new fan and paint.
-dave