Kitchen Progress

It's been a while since I've blogged - and there are several reasons for that... the most important one is that my daughter and grandson were here visiting for three weeks. We had a great time together.

I spent my time with them instead of my computer.

The week that they left we met with our cabinet maker to finalize our kitchen plans - and he began to build our cabinets. Craig has been working hard to get the kitchen ready - because we are responsible for removing the old cabinets, prepping the walls, and doing all the electrical. First, here's a look back at what Craig did over last fall. First he took out an old door and window and closed up the wall.

This spring he put in our new window, moved the upper cabinet to the right and took the cabinets for the peninsula and turned them to go along the wall. We brought in a little table to simulate a new island.

Last week we moved that upper cabinet with the glass doors into our pantry. Craig finished the sheetrocking and taping around the window.

Then he took out one of the base cabinets and moved it to where the island will be.

He's done the wiring for the microwave and the wall oven as well as new lighting over the sink area and the island. Once the cabinets are in he will install pendant lights in both places. as you can see, we are using our new refrigerator. I love it!

 This week we took down the rest of the upper cabinets as well as the cabinets to the right of the old stove.
That wall needed a lot of work - mud and tape. There were cracks that had formed when we raised the cabin up to add the basement 7 years ago.

Can you see the wire with the orange wire nuts on the wire below? That wire is for under-cabinet lighting. Craig was able to get those wires in on both walls with switches. We're going to have awesome lighting in the kitchen when it's finished.

(Here's the wire for the under-cabinet lighting on the other wall.)

 Craig wants to do a bit more sanding, and then he'll prime and paint the walls. After that we'll be ready for new cabinets!

One other note about the kitchen - we had a hard time making a decision about whether or not to install a dishwasher. We didn't think we really needed one - after all, most of the time it's just the two of us, so there aren't that many dishes to wash. And the view from the new window is so beautiful that we don't mind standing there to do dishes. Besides, we figured that we needed as much storage space as we could get. So when we designed the cabinets, we didn't include a dishwasher.
After all of our kids came up for the weekend, and I spent a lot of time doing dishes, I began to think more seriously about a dishwasher.  Everyone asked if we were going to have a dishwasher. And then Craig said that maybe we should talk about it one more time.

I asked my daughter for advice and she asked two really good questions:
1) Will your quality of life be better if you have a dishwasher?
2) If time is money, won't a dishwasher free up time so that you can do other things?

She also brought up the point that it would keep the kitchen cleaner because the dishes could be loaded into the dishwasher right after a meal and the counter and sink would stay clean.

I actually wasn't thinking about the need for a dishwasher when we had company. But after they left I began thinking about how Craig and I end up leaving dirty dishes in the sink all day long, or even for two days - until there's "enough" to wash. After washing dishes I usually leave them to air dry in the drainer. So the dishes would sit there another day or so.

The day before our daughter left to go back home we stopped at the cabinet maker's shop. He had some final questions - and we told him we'd changed our mind, and wanted to include a dishwasher. I honestly didn't know that I was going to tell him that until we were talking to him. So, we're getting a dishwasher!

We still have a couple more decisions to make - we need to make a final selection for the counter tops, and we need to pick out hardware. Laminate or hard surface? Same top on all surfaces, or do the island differently? Handles or knobs? Once those decisions are made the kitchen can be finished... but we will still need to decide on flooring. So many decisions!!