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Awaiting the cabinets

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I'm taking care of the rest.

If you'd like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I posted recently about more demolition and some of the progress with the walls going back up and plumbing/electrical. Now for some final sketches Greentea created for me and some decisions I've made.


I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my cabinets - and today is the big day! This is about 2 weeks later than initially scheduled, but when you they are coming from the other side of the world, you need to factor in the possibility of issues arising on their way over. The delay in my cabinets was due to the Olympics, as they were held up at a port due to extra security. Totally understandable. Then Greentea contacted me to let me know that my cabinets were arriving a bit earlier than anticipated and if they could be delivered on the 6th of this month. I panicked initially. I knew the construction in my kitchen would not be completed by the 6th and because my house is so small, I would have nowhere to store the cabinets in the meantime. I asked them if it were possible for them to be delivered on the 14th instead, which would give my contractor and myself enough time to complete the space enough to be able to put the cabinets in place. (Turns out I am barely able to make this happen). The guys at Greentea were more than happy to hang on to the cabinets until I was ready to receive them. Unexpected things can happen but they are able to work with their customers to solve issues like the timing of shipments and such. I am so grateful they were accomodating because my house would be in complete chaos otherwise. This has been such an awesome experience dealing with Greentea and I've got to give them props for this. They couldn't be nicer and I'm going to be very proud to have what I know will be a stunning kitchen.

Ok, enough of the warm and fuzzies. Mike, who's a whiz at sketching up kitchens, sent me some final sketches of my kitchen and I was SO excited to see what the finished product will look like. It's one thing to have an idea in your head but to see it with all the finishing touches is amazing. I love technology! Greentea's ability to do sketches is a fabulous feature that is incredibly helpful for their clients, especially those who are new to renovations and designing a kitchen (like me). So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to what will be my new kitchen!







There are a couple items in the sketches that show some of my final choices to things I was unsure about. One being the dining table. Greentea had initially suggested their narrow Maru dining table:


It's gorgeous wood (reclaimed woods from century-old Korean farmhouses), narrow (which I am having a hard time finding ANY narrow dining tables) and wood match the cabinets beautifully, but because I like to mix up styles, I decided to go with something a little different. But I can't find anything. So my boyfriend did some googling and he thinks we can build a pretty decent table. My contractor is getting a friend of his to cut and plane some planks of wood for us to use. It'll be about 7 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. I'm not sure what to do about the legs but maybe just some simple straight posts would do the trick. Then I want to paint it either white or grey. Things have been so crazy that we haven't started this project yet. Unfortunately I only have 2 hands. Here is an idea of what it will look like:

Nate BerkusZege

I have also decided on a backsplash. Several people suggested using the same material as the countertop and I've decided that I really like the simplicity of this and will keep me from losing my mind trying to chose tiles or something else. It will be about 3 or 4 inches high and run the full length of the base cabinets. When I went to the shop where I got my quartz to ask about this, I was told it wouldn't be a problem, and it would cost about $250 installed. YAY! Sounds good to me! Here are some examples:

DominoDFAO
Lastly, I posted the other day about some purchases I made at the Third World Bazaar here in Ottawa. I think these will be a great start to accessorize the space (my living room as well).

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Update on kitchen progress

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I'm taking care of the rest.

If you'd like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I posted recently about more demolition and work begun by my contractor. Now for a bit more demolition (seems to never end) and some of the progress with the walls going back up and plumbing/electrical.


Work continues to progress in my kitchen. I am SO looking forward to finally having a kitchen again and being able to cook. I have never eaten so much pizza in my life and as much as I love pizza, I am tiring of it fast. But things are moving along, and as you would expect in a house of this age, unexpected work kept popping up (along with things I realized at the last minute needed to be fixed - and luckily my contractor is a patient guy). It seems the ceiling needed to be removed to allow the electrician to wire it for my potlights and pendants. The problem was it wasn't just drywall that needed to come down but more wood panelling, which is why it had to come down - he couldn't install the potlights in the panelling. And there was 100 years worth of dust and cobwebs that came down with it. It was TERRIBLE - such a huge mess, and the guys were covered in it when they were done. There was black dust all over the house. (In the left side of the photo below you can see alot of cobwebs - I think I took this after I vacuumed most of the beams).



The contractor discovered what we're thinking is horse hair in the ceiling (just a few chunks), which maybe 100 years ago was used for insulation??


And as a result of taking down the ceiling, the pile of garbage on my driveway grew to new heights.


The electrician was here in the evenings to get all the wiring for the lighting and outlets done, and I can't wait to see how that turns out once all the fixtures are in place. This house severely lacks decent lighting, and now I've got potlights all over, pendants and wall sconces to lighten things up.

This is the wiring done before the ceiling was re-drywalled.


This is the box to house one of my Tolomeo wall lights.


Here is the ceiling completed with the potlights wired up.


The plumber was figuring out where to put the pipes from the bathroom on the other side of the kitchen when we realized that because the corner where the 2 sets of base cabinets meet will be an empty space, he could put the pipes coming up in that space.


The walls are now all drywalled and need to be finished up.




My window has arrived and will be installed shortly. Today the hardwood is being installed and I've got to rush and paint the floors today/tonight in order for them to be good and dry by Friday when my cabinets arrive (and appliances on Saturday). More on the floors in an upcoming post.

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