As the Tortoise Moves, So Moves the Remodel

Well, they came last Thursday and put up the framework for the new wall inside the garage, and today they put up sheetrock. No doors yet, no door holes cut, as we are waiting for the contractor to get back Thursday. So if I were to post a picture, it would just look like an empty garage. At least I can stop worrying about burglars getting in through the kitchen door to the old garage--it goes to an empty, walled-off room!

Still debating the hood vent, probably going with a Broan Allure, which vents either way and you don't need a stupid kit. Looks pretty good, too, as you can see from this picture. Nice, bright lights, lots of fan power, charcoal filters and the metal mesh filters are dishwasher safe.

Framing is going up

I was out of town yesterday and today, but when I pulled in the guys were working hard. They have put up the frame for the new wall between the new room and the current garage, so it's easier to envision that as a room now. Lots of work still to come: cutting out and framing in the new doorway to the back yard, moving the plumbing from the current laundry over to the new wall, and all of the electrical stuff. Right now, they will have no light in that room when the sheetrock goes up, so they may leave that until later.

As I'm very tired from my whirlwind trip (five hours yesterday, five back today), I'll post some pictures after they finish up tomorrow's work.

Lesson learned: people at Sears do not always check carefully. The range hood we ordered is ducted, not ductless, so we're having to regroup. Plenty of time for that, though.

Concrete is Poured and Now We Wait

We are now officially one week and one day into the construction of our new laundry room and our kitchen remodel. As of yesterday, we have a new concrete pad poured where the new back door will go (on the left). The second and third pictures show the new floor of the laundry room, which is now level with the floor of the house. It has to dry out and cure for about 48 hours (it's VERY humid in Florida, and especially during this heat wave). I've left the garage open during the day to aid the drying process. Yesterday we also finalized the cabinet plans with our cabinet maker, and we believe he is going to do a wonderful job. It's more money than we had originally been told by our contractor, but of course we wanted some extras--sliding trays in all the lower cabinets and in the new pantry. We'll have the refrigerator next to the new pantry, so he's going to give it a built-in look with cabinets above and a wooden panel down the exposed side. We'll have to go get a new hood for over the range, though. While looking at the specs on the one the Sears guy talked us into, we all realized that it is ducted and cannot be modified to be ductless. Our hood vents internally, not externally, so back to Sears we go. Again. (We had changed from a microwave hood to a regular one, now this.) All of the people I've talked to so far agree that having a microwave over a very expensive smooth cooktop is probably a bad idea, so we're going with a nice microwave cart in the corner of the dining room after all. And that's the latest, I assume that on Thursday, things will get cracking again.

Concrete Day!

The workers are here, putting bolts into the old layer of concrete so that the new layer won't be able to shift. The concrete guy is going to be here in about an hour to pour, so things are finally going along, yippee!

We decided to change our kitchen design a bit; instead of a microwave with vent hood above the expensive smooth cooktop (from which I began to envision heavy dishes being dropped and cooktop being demolished), we're going with a stand-alone microwave and a regular vent hood over the cooking area. The regular hood recirculates (which our old microwave hood has done for years), so there's no chimney to stick up and we can still have cabinets above the hood. Now the decision is, do we lose a little cabinet space by having a microwave shelf built in, or do we just go with a nice microwave cart in the corner of the dining room where we currently have our toaster oven? Me, I vote for the latter--more storage space and people using the microwave won't be in the way of people using the kitchen area. Either way, it will be lovely to be able to use the cooktop without moving for someone to get stuff out of the microwave!

Since nothing's happening, here are the photos of my new bathroom, done by the same contractor. The old bathroom was horribly outdated. Now we have these gorgeous lights, a new, larger medicine chest (trifold doors), a new tank topper. Below that is a pic of the new pedestal sink. If you are short on space, I highly recommend this option--it made all the difference for us in feelings of roominess for our tiny bathroom. The shower is so much nicer than the old, cracked fiberglass!

The Waiting Game

Heard from the contractor today. The concrete guy cannot get a load of concrete over here until Monday morning, so nothing will happen until then. Business is still slow for the concrete people, and he has to wait until he has a couple of jobs to mix up a batch, so I expected this delay.
On a happier note, we've decided to get rid of our 22 year old early American style dining room set (the chairs need refinishing, which is nearly as expensive as buying a new set) and have decided upon this Urban Craftsman set. The table is 96 inches long with the leaf in, so it will seat 10 and even 12 people, just right for big family gatherings. The buffet and hutch are HUGE--six inches wider than our current one and quite a bit taller. There will be no storing of baskets and such on top of this big mother--I can't reach the top at all! Lots more storage, too, and the chairs have padded leather seats. Very sensible. We'll donate or sell the old set so we don't have to store it, and have the new one delivered when the remodel is complete. We're such practical impractical people.

Day Two Construction

The workers were here bright and early this morning. In fact, I overslept until 8:15 and they were already hard at it. They have removed the threshold to the door that goes into the house (so I'll have to keep a rolled-up towel there for the duration) and have removed the old back door in preparation for pouring the new concrete floor. Although it's hard to tell from the photo, they've done a lot today. In the foreground is the wooden frame for the cement floor. The threshold was removed from the door to the house, so I've got a lovely towel there to stop the cold air from going out and the hot air from coming in, and the back door is gone--there's a board there now. Our contractor is trying to get the concrete guy to come tomorrow, but it's such a small amount of concrete we may have to wait until he has another, bigger job to do. Been down this road before!

And at the end of Day One

The demolished area is the size of the new laundry room--not huge, but much bigger than some people's mud rooms. The door will be move over to the right, a small double cabinet set (upper and lower) and the old refrigerator will sit on that wall on the right (visible in the lower picture). The washer and dryer will sit where the door is now. The door into the house will become a pocket door. Next step is probably removing the current door and setting up for the new concrete floor that will bring the height of the new room up to the house level, which can be seen at the bottom of the current inside door. Note the pile of popcorn ceiling crap in the right hand corner--took the poor guy about an hour to scrap all of that off.

They're Here! Update

As promised, my contractor and his workman are here and the guy is working away in this sweltering heat (it's supposed to be up near 100 today, and of course the humidity is awful). He's already got the sheet rock down from the walls where the new laundry room is going in, and he's going to strip all the popcorn off the ceiling next. We're having them do the whole ceiling, since we'd had some leaks and stuff a while ago that caused some of the popcorn to fall off anyway. It'll look so much better!

Here is the Before picture of the empty garage.

Granite Countertop!

Today we went to Panama City Stone and picked out our granite counter tops. We chose one that looks pretty dark, but is green rather than black. At least, that's what they keep telling me, looks pretty black to me. I won this one--Joe wanted a lighter color of counter top, but with light wood for the cabinets and the light tiles on the floor and backsplash, I figured that a darker counter top would be more dramatic. He's pleased that it has some green and gold in it, so we're all happy campers so far. Work is supposed to start next week. Not holding my breath.

Finally a Word from Our Contractor

Talked to hubby, seems the contractor called him at work to explain that they would not be able to start until they were completely finished with another job, one in which they already had a roof half off of a house and needed to complete the work. So it looks like the deconstruction will not start until next week. BUT he assured my husband that once started, they would not stop work on our job until it was completed. Stay tuned next week, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Another Day of Waiting

It's after 10 am and no contractor, no workmen. Why am I harboring this sense of dread? You'd think the contractors and workmen would be so desperate for work that they'd be johnny-on-the-spot, but apparently they are not hungry enough yet.

We'll go to pick out the counter top material this week. Granite? Solid surfacing? Decisions, decisions. The excitement just never stops.....

And We're Off to a Roaring Start....Not!

Well, no one showed up today to start work on the new room at the back of the garage. Color me surprised. I've already emailed the contractor, so we'll see who shows up tomorrow, if anyone.

Greetings from the Construction Zone

My kitchen remodeling begins today, and I thought others might be interested in a blow-by-blow description of what happens when the vital center of the home is being deconstructed. As we go along, I'll post pictures of before and afters and in-betweens. At least, that's the plan.

We have a galley kitchen, about eight feet wide and fifteen feet long. There's currently a big, honking closet in one end that houses the washer and dryer and takes up a lot of valuable kitchen space. We have a four-burner electric slide-in stove and a huge french door refrigerator (which sits at the other end of the kitchen and blocks all views of the dining room. The cabinets are cheap particle board and veneer, which is peeling off, and the dang handles are in the middle of the doors--what moron thought that up?

So, what's going to happen: we have a very long single car garage, so the back of that is going to become about a seven foot wide, twenty foot long laundry room, with room for our current refrigerator and cabinets at one end. The kitchen will be gutted, new cabinets that go all the way to the top (current has useless soffits), new tile flooring to replace the wood-look laminate, tile backsplashes (we currently have none), and all new appliances. Electrolux double wall ovens, counter-depth refrigerator, new dishwasher, five burner induction hybrid cooktop, and a microwave hood. Never used Electrolux before, so this will be an adventure.

Feel free to post comments, suggestions, support, and cool ideas for the backsplash!