Kitchen Nightmares: Somerville Edition

Even if sometimes it still feels like we’re in the same situation as we were a month ago, when the kitchen didn’t even have walls, the project really has come a long way.  There’s a functioning refrigerator, complete with cold filtered water and ice maker; a working sink, running water, and garbage disposal; and this morning we fired up the Wolf for the first time.  No actual cooking happened, but the thing works.

Fire!

So technically, we could store food, cook it, eat a meal, and wash the dishes.  The problem is that neither of us is really interested in moving into a 90% complete kitchen.  There are still cabinet adjustments to be made.  Shelves for the cabinets are still sitting in the dining room.  The dishwasher probably works but isn’t securely mounted under the counter.  We can’t leave anything on the counters, because inevitably a contractor or two will need to push it out of the way.  Plus there’s the issue of dust.  A good amount of it still gets kicked up during the work day, even though most of the sawing is done outside.  It’s just not worth the hassle of trying to use the kitchen as-is, even if home-cooked meals sound really good right now.

The ovens moved into place the other day:

Double oven in its cabinet

As far as I know, we still don’t have adequate electrical service to the house to run these.  Still nice that they aren’t blocking the path from the living room to the kitchen any more.

Some of the under-cabinet lighting is installed:

Fluorescent fixtures under cabinets

A few more small fixtures need to go in, and we definitely need to get warmer tubes.  This is way too white, especially with the stark-white walls (which of course will go away).

George was here today (Saturday!) trying to catch up on door and window trim along with baseboards, light rail, the dry bar, and other details.  I think he’s as anxious to finish the project as we are.  We are really close, and it looks awesome.  Dare I hope that next weekend we’ll be moving our stuff back in?

electrical, lighting, oven, stove, trim

In the past couple of days our home has zipped through the 19th and into the 20th century with the re-addition of running water and refrigeration.  The kitchen sink works, as does the fridge including water filter and ice maker, which means that plumbing is done.

Insert angelic chorus here

Today it was the electrician’s turn to finish some things off.  Recessed lights got new collars (cats were jealous) and some of the outlets and switches were installed, but most interestingly, the pendant lamp was hung over the sink.  Finally some light in the corner!

Bright spot in the corner

More stuff happened with the cabinets too.  A lot more of the crown molding is in, as you can see on the far-right cabinet in the photo above.  For a better view, here’s a close-up of the upper cabinets above the laptop station (along with the finished-off recessed light):

Finished crown molding and light fixture

Tomorrow more cabinetry work will be done, including hopefully some of the finish work on the dry bar.  Thursday and Friday should be the last days for the electrician, after which all of the appliances should work.  I am pretty excited to have a dishwasher again.

Tonight I really wanted Chinese food, which is just a terrible idea if you have to eat out every night.  We should be focused on healthy options because most take-out is decidedly unhealthy.  But we’re not.  I got General Gau’s Chicken.  When this is all over we’ll have a brand-new kitchen but eat nothing by salads for a month.

cabinets, electrical, lighting, plumbing, refrigerator, sink

It’s already Sunday and I haven’t posted anything about Thursday and Friday’s progress.  Whoops… On Thursday, the last pieces of soapstone were delivered and installed, and the first coat of mineral oil was applied to help them oxidize consistently.  As a result, they look much darker than before.

Darkened segment of countertop

Darkened top of laptop station

On Friday, the faucet was installed, one of the first really final finishing touches to be done.  It’s stainless steel, like all of the appliances and most of the other decorative accents.

Decorative faucet and matching sprayer

Also on Friday, the insert and part of the blower fan were installed in the vent hood.  It’s not too interesting to look at, so I won’t post any pictures.  It’s yet another appliance to be installed though.  This week it’ll be hooked up to the vent duct, which will also be cut and capped off outside.

A lot of work was done last week on the crown molding around the top of the room.  I’ll post pictures of that when more of it is done, there’s not too much to look at right now.  Most of the finishing boards around the bottom, underneath the lower cabinets, are done as well.

The last thing to report on is the dry bar: the frame that was sitting in the middle of the dining room in my last post has moved into the space and had its countertop installed.

Dry bar frame and countertop

Next steps will include removal of the existing trim, installation of new trim to cover the frame, electrical work to support the wine fridge, lighting, and an internal electrical outlet, and addition of glass doors.  The goal is to use very low-wattage LED lighting in the dry bar; we would have used it more throughout the kitchen, but complications and misunderstandings about what it requires made it impossible.  Specifically, you can’t get LEDs which run on line voltage.  Instead, you need to install large transformers to lower the voltage between the main electrical wiring and the LED fixtures.  The transformers need to be planned for before wiring.  Since we didn’t know that up front, we couldn’t plan ahead.

Work continues tomorrow despite the holiday.  Plumbing work will be completed and finish electrical work will begin.  All of the new wiring will get routed to the panel downstairs, outlets and switches will be installed, and the pendant lamp will be hung.  It’s conceivable that we would have a functional kitchen by the end of the week, but there’s still a lot to do and I’m not getting my hopes up.  Still, we are very close.  It’s hard not to be really impatient.

cabinets, countertop, dry bar, lighting, plumbing

Earlier today we arrived home from an incredibly fun but exhausting company trip to the Red Jacket Mountain View Resort in North Conway, NH.  Four days and (late) nights of eating, drinking, skiing, card games, an indoor water park, and Rock Band, all conveniently labeled “work.”  We hoped there would be soapstone for us to see when we got back, and we were not disappointed.  The sink and main countertop pieces are in place, with just a few details left to finish them off.

Corner countertop and sink

Laptop station countertop

Tomorrow the stone people will return to finish drilling faucet holes for the sink, applying the first coat of mineral oil, and installing one last piece of stone behind the cooktop.  After the oil is added, the stone will look much darker than the medium gray color it is now.

Also while we were away, the “light rails” were installed below the upper cabinets.  These are wooden details which go along the bottom edge of the cabinets, both to finish them off and to help hide the under-cabinet lights.

Light rail

I’ll post more pictures tomorrow after the stone has been oiled.

cabinets, countertop

Friday’s exciting addition was all of the cabinet and drawer hardware.  We got simple brushed nickel knobs for the cabinets and cup handles for the drawers.  I think they look great.

Cabinet and drawer hardware

Same thing on the pantry

However, we did have one setback.  The big wooden enclosure for the vent fan has two doors on the front for access to the blower, but they are not cabinet doors and we didn’t want to have knobs installed on them.  That got lost in communication, so now we have them.

Knobs on non-cabinets

The unfortunate thing about this mistake is that it’s permanent - we can’t just take the knobs off, because there will be holes right in the front of one of the focal points of the room.  I already contacted Kitchen Interiors and we’re going to have the two panels re-made by Plain & Fancy.  Who knows how long that will take, but at least we can fix it.

Also Friday, I went over to the Matrix Stone workshop to go over layout of the template on the slab and decide on edge details for the countertop.  They’re cutting it this weekend and will install it early next week.  That is very exciting!  After the countertop and sink are in, we’re a little bit of plumbing and electrical work away from a functional kitchen.

cabinets, countertop, issues