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?

Uncategorized electrical, lighting, oven, stove, trim

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

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

Yesterday was the TripAdvisor/Smarter Travel Media holiday party so I didn’t have a chance to post.  The best thing about yesterday was that the electrical and building inspections were crossed off the long list of visits required by the City of Somerville.  That cleared the way for installation of insulation today and - hooray! - walls early next week.

The room looks very pink now:

Pink insulation in the outside wall

The insulation in the roof had to be replaced because the previous stuff didn’t meet building code for cathedral ceilings.  Apparently what we needed was “R30″ insulation.  That means nothing to me, but it’s there now.

R30 insulation in the upper ceiling

All of this happened just in time for the first big snowstorm of the season.  It’s been pretty cold in the house lately, with the kitchen completely un-insulated.  Now we should be warm and toasty like we were before.

Another new touch that was added today is a directional piece on the light fixture at the back of the room.  Now the light points straight down, rather than into the room at the angle of the ceiling.  It’s much brighter and (I think) means that we don’t have to move the light farther back in the ceiling.  Here’s a closeup:

Pointed downward, not inward

Less glamorous but still exciting is that the gas line for the cooktop was installed yesterday.  There’s a short back story on it: apparently the gas line that we had running to the old stove was too small to provide enough gas to the new cooktop.  The plumber had to run a larger line off our furnace in the basement to fuel the five 15,000 BTU burners and one 9,000 BTU burner that are part of the one we’re having installed.  I don’t know how much a BTU is, but that sounds like a lot of them.

Endless BTUs

Lastly, I couldn’t resist posting this picture of nasty red goop that’s sealing the base of each basement penetration along the wall:

Red goop

I’m assuming this is to keep cold air from the basement from flowing up into the kitchen walls.  This in particular is around one of the drain vent pipes.  Yuck!

The next thing to do is to put the walls up and plaster them.  No more open walls!

Got take out from Cambridge Common for dinner tonight.  I was there for a couple of beers after work.  They have a southern fried chicken dish with biscuits and mashed potatoes that is really excellent, even after a short drive through the snow.  Still very little momentum for cooking at home, though Anne’s been eating microwaveable macaroni and cheese this past week.  That and coffee are just about it.

Uncategorized construction, inspections, insulation, lighting, open walls, plumbing, stove

It’s the night before they’re coming to remove the old kitchen, and we’re packing everything up in boxes and moving it to the basement.  Despite our need for more storage, we actually have a ton of stuff in the kitchen.  It’s amazing how much you can cram into cabinets.

Plus, we need to figure out what to keep upstairs so that we can eat food we order, clean dishes, store leftovers, make coffee, etc.  The cats are here supervising and making sure we don’t stow away any of their food or catnip.  It’s daunting to think how much we use the kitchen and what it will be like not to have one for two months.

It’s also just strange to see the room empty:

Empty room #1

Empty room #2

Empty room #3

Uncategorized before, cabinets, countertop, dishwasher, oven, refrigerator, sink, stove