Kitchen Nightmares: Somerville Edition

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.

Uncategorized 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.

Uncategorized 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.

Uncategorized cabinets, countertop, issues

Tonight we got our first look at Anne’s new Wolf cooktop.  It’s pretty impressive-looking:

Hungry like the Wolf

Obviously it’s not completely installed or even unwrapped, but it’s getting close.  The big accent posts are in place in the front there as well.

Also today, the guys from Matrix Stone came to make the countertop template.  That means we should have it installed Monday or Tuesday of next week, assuming everything goes as planned between now and then.  That’s a nice change from February 16.

In the loose ends department, the faucet and pendant lamp we ordered over the weekend both arrived today, in plenty of time for finish plumbing and electrical work.

As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve got a little side project in the dining room.  There’s always been a closet space in that room, with no real purpose or use.  We hung a glass rack in there when we first moved in and used it to store some of our wine glasses.  Later, our wine fridge moved loosely into the space.  We always wanted it finished off, but we weren’t sure how.  Finally, with this project, we decided that we needed to come up with a plan and have the work done along with the kitchen.

Here’s what it looks like now:

Dining room closet space. The blue tape is markup for the electrician when he installs outlets and lighting.

We always thought it should be turned into one of those nice built-ins that are in a lot of New England homes, where people store their nice glassware or china, if they have nice glassware or china.  Anne and I wanted to use it for a sort of dry bar, where we could put glasses and other equipment for making cocktails.  The wine fridge would be more formally integrated, like an under-counter installation in a kitchen.

George drew up a plan which places a glass-door cabinet on top and boxes in the whole space, including the wine fridge.  It will have a small soapstone countertop to match the kitchen, but otherwise it will be painted to match the trim in the dining room.  The upper cabinet will have glass shelves and lighting at the top.  I think it will end up looking pretty nice.  It all should be installed in the next week or so.  I’ll post pictures when it happens.

Uncategorized countertop, dry bar, stove

The past two days have been a total roller-coaster.  First we find out that we might not have a countertop until late February.  Then one of George’s contacts comes through with a good slab that can be installed next week.  Lessons were learned, disasters were averted, and ultimately we stay on schedule - I think.

Last week we checked in with Vermont Soapstone, which we’d always thought would be our vendor of choice for our soapstone countertop.  The sample we got from them months ago was great.  We got their quote and were happy with it, so we figured we’d go with them.  Unlike most stone vendors, they bring an entire slab of stone to your house and fabricate on-site - pretty hardcore.

Then we asked when they could be here.  February 16 - about 4 weeks after we’d hoped to have completely wrapped up this project.  It seems that we’d lost touch with them around the holidays.  We assumed that we could get them here to install a countertop on schedule, but in fact we lost all awareness of their lead time.  Suddenly we were left without a stone vendor who could deliver on our timeline.

Enter Matrix Stone, a referral from George.  They got us a quote yesterday and said that they could complete the entire template and fabrication process by this coming Monday or Tuesday.  Their shop is near our office, in Everett, MA, and they work with suppliers in Braintree and Westwood.

Anne and I both ended up losing most of an afternoon of work while we went south to check out slabs of stone.  The first one we saw was not promising: lots of quartz veining, and lots of spots which mottled the nice smooth soapstone texture we were looking for.  The second stop was much better.  We saw slabs from two lots of stone, with varying degrees of veining.  One of the options was particularly nice and we decided to go with it.  Problem solved.

Matrix will come to template tomorrow and will install the finished countertop on Monday or Tuesday, all for a very reasonable price.  We hope that our estimation of quality is accurate; the stone certainly looked nice in the warehouse this afternoon, but we are hardly stone experts.  This situation all worked out well, but we would have liked to have had more options, including Vermont Soapstone and other companies, like Green Mountain Soapstone and the supplier recommended by our designer at Kitchen Interiors.  Waiting until this late in the process really limited us, and while I think we will end up with a good result, it would definitely make us feel better if we had more options.

In the meantime, the rest of the refrigerator enclosure was built:

Refrigerator in its enclosure

The dishwasher was moved into place:

Dishwasher in place

And the enormous double oven was unwrapped:

Double oven before mounting in its cabinet

For some perspective, here’s the whole kitchen as it looks from the hallway:

The whole room so far

Tomorrow we hope to have some more details on the little side project that’s tagging along with the kitchen, a small dry-bar/built-in that will occupy the closet space that’s held our wine refrigerator in the dining room for a long time.  We decided to finish that off during the kitchen project because we’d already have the electrical and carpentry talents of various contractors at our disposal.  More info on that when we have it.

Anne and I grabbed dinner tonight at West Side Lounge on Mass Ave. in Cambridge.  Such a good place that we almost never go to.  Their cocktails are excellent, and the food is very good.  Anne had a burger and I had roast chicken - simple stuff that was very well done.  I had what they called a “Crimson Manhattan,” made up of rye whiskey, yellow chartreuse, orange bitters, and a splash of pomegranate juice.  Very tasty.

Uncategorized cabinets, construction, countertop, dishwasher, oven, refrigerator