Kitchen Nightmares: Somerville Edition

In the waning days of this project, I have to admit that it’s harder to get excited about blogging every night, or even every other night.  There are just so many little details that progress isn’t that dramatic day-to-day.  I look forward to finally posting some before and after comparisons once we’re completely finished.  For now, just a few updates.

The dry bar’s getting all trimmed after being wired for electricity the other day.

Dry bar trim making it look more like a built-in

Soon there will doors and lighting, and then paint, and then shelving.  Removing the old trim as well as part of the chair rail and baseboards has exposed some really ancient plaster.  Nasty stuff.

The last electrical work in the kitchen was finished.  A couple more under-cabinet fixtures, plus dishwasher and oven hookup.  The blower fan is in place but still not hooked up to the vent.

Anne and I went over to the office building where our company is moving this weekend.  It looks nice, but it also looks like there’s still a ton to do before we can move in and start working.  I feel the same way about the kitchen.  Both projects should be done by the end of the week, but it’s hard to see how that will happen.  Oh well, that’s for the professionals to figure out.

Tonight we ate at The Independent in Union Square.  It’s one place that’s never crowded, to the point that we sometimes wonder how they stay in business.  But the food is great, and the beer list is extensive.  At least you know you can always get a table.

Uncategorized dry bar, electrical, lighting, trim

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?

Uncategorized 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.

Uncategorized cabinets, electrical, lighting, plumbing, refrigerator, sink

In the most visible progress since the framing was mostly finished, our kitchen now has working lights!  We came home today and six 4″ recessed light fixtures had been installed and wired to the wall switch.  This is very exciting, as it’s the first time since demolition day that we’ve been able to see in there at night after work without a flashlight.  Makes it start to feel more like a part of our house again rather than just a construction site.

All of the photos in this post were taken without flash - all lit by the new lights.  Here’s how the room looks:

Looking into the kitchen from the hallway

Three lights in the upper ceiling

The upper ceiling above has only three lights because the fourth corner will have a pendant lamp hanging down over the sink.  The electrical box is there now, but the lamp won’t be installed until near the end of the project.  We have to pick it out and buy it first…

Three lights in the lower ceiling (one without a bulb)

Because of the angled corner between the kitchen and dining room, the lights were arranged in a triangle in the lower ceiling.

It’s hard to tell how the lighting will look once the walls are up.  With the dark exposed wood it feels a little dim, but white walls and a white ceiling will reflect a lot more of that light into the room.  I am a little concerned, now that the lighting is installed, that the back of the room is a bit dim.  I’m planning to talk to George tomorrow morning about whether we should move one of the lights in the upper ceiling back toward the rear wall to help fill in some of that light.  Hopefully that’s not a big deal.  Should just be a matter of moving the fixture from one set of ceiling straps to the next.

Maybe a little dark in the back. The light in the right corner may need to move one block backward.

Also today, the electrician finished up almost everything needed for the electrical inspection.  The outlet and wall switch wiring was finalized, the 240-volt line for the ovens was run, and the line for the outdoor outlet (which we found out the other day is required by code) was run through the outer wall.  Everything’s looking pretty good inside the walls and ceiling.

In other news, George scheduled the appliance delivery for January 2.  So when we get back from New Year’s, we’ll almost have a refrigerator again.  Countertop planning also moved forward, with a new, cheaper quote from another company.  It’s rare that anything on this project gets less expensive, so it’s welcome news when it does happen.

Lastly, tomorrow morning we may actually get to place our tile order.  After the whole tile choice saga, and more recently the review by the tile installer to figure out how much extra tile we need to order to be safe, it feels like this process has been going on forever.  If all goes well, everything will be set by noon tomorrow.

Tonight’s dinner came from one of our favorite Somerville establishments, Cafe Rossini.  We order from them all the time.  They have great sandwiches and pizza, and they’re just around the corner so delivery comes fast.  I think sometimes they walk it over, probably thinking all the way that we could have just walked over and picked it up ourselves.  Yes, we could, but we don’t.

Uncategorized electrical, lighting, open walls

Anne and I decided to write this blog to chronicle the ups and downs of our two-month kitchen project.  We’d heard so many stories, both positive and negative, about other home improvement projects, and we figured that our own project would have a pretty interesting story by the time we were done as well.

We’re now two weeks in and there’s been a lot of progress.  It’s exciting to come home each day and look at what’s been done, even if it’s just new plumbing or electrical wiring.  That excitement offsets the inconvenience of not having a kitchen.  Not all days have the same excitement, however.  Sometimes nothing happens, because of weather or subcontractor schedules or something else out of our control.

Yesterday, we came home and were not happy with the work that had been done.  It was the first time this has happened.  I immediately called George and talked through the issues, and he agreed to go over everything with the electrician to make sure it all gets done the way we want it in the end.  These were not catastrophic issues, just a bump in the road.

It’s easy to read last night’s post and assume that we’re not happy with the people working on the project.  That’s not the case at all.  I wasn’t happy with some assumptions that were made and the process which led to work that will have to be re-done.  We are happy with the project overall and the amount and quality of work done to this point.

I just wanted to clarify some of the sentiments of my last post and mention that the electrical issues are being sorted out.  Rain wiped out the vent installation that was scheduled to happen today, so there’s nothing else to report.  Much more to be done next week.

Uncategorized commentary, electrical