Kitchen Nightmares: Somerville Edition

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

A couple of days ago, Yale called to let us know that our appliances would be delivered today between noon and 3pm.  This was easily doable since I planned to be home all day anyway.  Then, at about 7am, while Anne and I were still fast asleep, the doorbell rang.  They showed up eight hours early!

The dining room was promptly filled with a refrigerator and several enormous boxes.  The Wolf cooktop, complete with wooden pallet, plus the double oven, dishwasher, blower fan, and hood insert occupied almost as much space as the cabinets had before, essentially keeping us from using the room we had just gotten back when the cabinets moved into place.  Thankfully, it was only for one day this time.  By tonight most of them had moved into the kitchen.

Wolf cooktop, packaged and on a shipping pallet

Double oven in a box

Refrigerator in place in the kitchen

George and his helper George (very confusing) arrived shortly afterward to continue hanging and assembling cabinets.  Most of the upper cabinets are now on the walls, and the fridge space has started to take shape.  We’re now getting a sense of how much space we’ll have in the room now that we’re using both walls.  It’s a lot smaller than it used to be.  Not necessarily in a bad way, but it will take some getting used to.

More upper cabinets alongside fridge enclosure

Vent fan hood with more wall cabinets

One thing we realized is that the fridge and the cabinet above it will make it so that the window isn’t visible from most of the room.  Both are, I think, 24 inches deep and are placed directly to the right of the window, effectively shading the front of the room from any window light.  This will definitely take some getting used to, even with the window in the back door providing natural light to the whole room.

Can't see the window. There will be another cabinet above the fridge as well.

Tonight’s dinner was at Stone Hearth Pizza in Belmont.  Their food is excellent and all locally sourced.  We don’t get there often enough because Belmont Center is a little out of the way for us, and unfortunately they don’t deliver.  We were on our way back from Expo Design Center (fancy Home Depot) in Burlington, where we finally picked up cabinet hardware - simple brushed nickel knobs and drawer pulls that still ran us over three hundred bucks.  Nothing comes cheaply on this project.

Next up, we need to pick out a faucet and a pendant lamp for above the sink.  Both of those are quickly becoming tile-esque chores.

We took a trip down to Yale this afternoon to look at lighting.  It turns out that we should have done this a long time ago.  Some pendants rely on a transformer in the ceiling, which requires a larger electrical box than is standard.  We could have had a larger box installed, but that becomes much harder now that the walls are closed up.  It’s a minor issue that can certainly be worked out, but still, we’d hoped to avoid any more surprises.

Uncategorized cabinets, construction, issues, lighting, oven, refrigerator, stove

We came home today and had light housings in our ceiling.  This was a surprise, since we had never picked out the light fixtures that we wanted.  The plan was always to have basic recessed lighting, but we expected to have some options: different sizes and styles, different energy-saving properties, etc.  Apparently not.  Three basic six-inch lights had been installed down the middle of the room.

Where did these come from?

Our kitchen is a fairly large room.  The old kitchen had track lighting with three lights across the center of the room, and anyone could see that it produced an inadequate amount of light.  However, the electrician working on the new kitchen seems to think that all we need are three lights, albeit slightly better-placed in that they span the length of the room, rather than the width.  The half of the kitchen with the lower ceiling has exactly one fixture.

The placement of the lights was another surprise.  Even if we were happy with the style of light fixture, they were not where I had asked to have them placed.  I asked for six or eight recessed lights arranged in rectangles around the two sections of the ceiling.  This would produce more light from more angles, reducing shadows and putting more light on the countertops instead of the floor in the middle of the room.  Nothing like what’s actually there now.

Aside from the lighting issues, I look around the kitchen at the wiring job done so far and am perplexed at the number and layout of electrical boxes.  There aren’t nearly enough slots in boxes for the number of outlets and controls that I think we need.  By my count, we need switches for overhead lights, the pendant light above the sink, main wall under-cabinet lighting, other wall under-cabinet lighting, the back porch light, and the disposal, plus two controls for the hood fan and lights and the usual kitchen counter outlets every three feet or so.  If you look at the photos in earlier posts and below, there aren’t nearly that many electrical boxes.  There’s supposed to be an electrical inspection on Monday, but I don’t see how that could possibly happen given the amount of work left to do.  Especially since the electrician isn’t planning to be here tomorrow (Friday).

A counter-height outlet and a connection for under-cabinet lights... but how will we control them?

All of this happened today, but what didn’t happen today is just as frustrating.  At George’s request I went next door at 10:00pm last night to ask our neighbors if the electrician could get into their basement this morning to check out the electrical service coming in from the pole outside.  They agreed, but the electrician never showed up.  He still needs to get access to their basement at some point, but he didn’t bother to go when I arranged for it.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  It’s just a particularly frustrating day in that we had some work done but a good amount of it is wrong.  At this point it will probably end up setting us back a few days while we try to get the electrician back to redo today’s work.

One light for this half of the room!

Hopefully some better news tomorrow…

Uncategorized electrical, issues, lighting, open walls