Thursday, November 28, 2013

Our Kitchen Mission Statement

We got this idea of creating a Kitchen Mission Statement from Gardenweb.com.

Here's ours, written on May 23, 2012 (you read that right: 2012, not 2013):

We want out kitchen to:
(1) be a place of joyful congregation, cooking and casual eating for our family of four (dog included)
(2) be efficient, organized, easy to find things when prepping meal 2-3x/day for 6 days per week
(3) be light, clean, bright, charming, happy, wonderful place to be in, every time we walk in
(4) have sufficient and clever storage ideas for food (including dog food, rice, fruits, wine), cooking equipments, cookbooks
(5) spacious and function well-enough that two people can prepare meals together without constantly asking each other to move
(6) have hidden recycle/trash/compost
(7) have upgraded/updated electrical and plumbing
(8) have appliances that work well for us and are well-made (can last for at least 20 years!)
(9) be easy to maintain and clean, with space


 We want it to look like it belongs to our house, upscale vintage.  It is simple and clean with beautiful touches.

 We want to feel at ease, light-hearted, peaceful when we walk into it, eager to prepare delicious and nutritious meals to nourish ourselves and friends/families. We want to feel proud of our kitchen and the decisions we made to create it.

 We work with talented people who are delightfully easy and joyful to work with in renovating the kitchen. We are patient with each other and everyone in the family during the renovation process. All issues that come up are easily resolved. We have a great time in renovating the kitchen and absolutely love the end result!

Completed Kitchen

Our new kitchen was completed by the end of June 2012 and I haven't blogged anything about it. It's Thanksgiving Day today and I have decided that *now* is a great time to update this blog. I must be crazy. But, perhaps, I am feeling very thankful today as we started preparing our first Thanksgiving dishes together in our new, beautiful, and highly functional kitchen. We are very blessed, indeed!

By the beginning of July, our kitchen is fully functional with a working sink, stove, fridge, dishwasher and microwave. By today, Thanksgiving Day, I have very little memory of the pain, hard work, and stresses we went through renovating this kitchen. I have even less memory of the old kitchen. It could be the case of renovator's amnesia.

Our new kitchen looks great and works great! It is where we spent most of our time together as a family of three, cooking and eating. It is easy to find things and store things away in it, which makes prepping before and cleaning after cooking a cinch and a joy. Best of all, it is a pleasure to work in this gleaming yet cozy kitchen whether cooking a meal, baking a pie, or just making a cup of tea!

We wrote our Kitchen Mission Statement in May 2012 as a way to clarify and ground our vision in creating the new kitchen. I believe our new kitchen indeed fulfilled the Kitchen Mission Statement! I am very proud of ourselves in making our kitchen vision come true.

Our new kitchen renovation has been one of the best investments of time, money, and energy (including elbow grease). We certainly learned a lot about construction, kitchen appliances, power tools, paint colors, ourselves and each other!

I say, "I love our kitchen!" pretty much every day. D. loves it, too!

So, without further ado...

The obligatory before photos:

sink wall

stove wall

And, ta da...

new sink wall

new stove wall
closer-up of stove wall

newly painted china cabinet with new quartz countertop


new fridge wall

I almost forgot to include this:

Pantry with IKEA pull out drawers!

What a transformation!

Here are the details:

Appliance garage (we measured it to fit our Kitchen Aid standing mixer, blender and toaster)


Sink details: grill on sink, soap dispenser, gooseneck faucet, air switch and air gap


Oh, we love those runnels!


 Oil/Vinegar pull out rack

 Spice drawer


The coolest toe-kick shut-off valve (D. made this!)


Undersink pull-out trash, compost and recycle system

IKEA pull-out drawer
as an undersink trash pull-out



More gorey details:
Cabinetry: InnerMost (from Home Depot) - La Porte (their shaker style) in Divinity Classic finish. The KD is a superstar (we love Sherry)! She was so patient with me as I kept changing the layout for the millionth times. The InnerMost rep is also amazing! We are very happy customers!
Pulls: Asbury in polished chrome (from Restoration Hardware-RH)
Knobs: 1 1/4" glass knobs with polished nickel base (from RH as well)
Countertop: Calacatta Oro 2cm marble slab (it took forever to find one that we love, but we finally did!) and prefab white quartz for the china cab (don't know the name of it... We saw the remnant piece on our way out from the fabricator's warehouse.)
Backsplash: 1"x6" white Daltile subway tiles (from Home Depot)
Sink: 28" wide Julien 025 806 J18 (to fit our 33" sink base) plus grid
Faucet: Grohe Concetto Dual Spray Pull Down 32665 in Polished Chrome
Soap dispenser: Blanco Alta Soap / Lotion Dispenser 440046 in Polished Chrome
Garbage disposal: Whirlpool GC 5000 3/4 hp (from IKEA)
Air gap: Blanco 44036 in Polished Chrome
Air switch: Enviropure ENVAS1CH in Polished Chrome
Stove: 30" GE monogram gas stove ZGP30NRSS
Hood: 36"W, 1000cfm KOBE CH0036SQB-1 (seems to work well enough with our GE monogram stove)
Duct cover: 12" H and 36" W, KOBE CH0036DC12 308 to match the hood
Refrigerator: 36" counter-depth french door Kitchen Aid KFCP22EXMP
DW: Miele G5575SCSF
Microwave: 0.8 cu ft Panasonic NN-SD372S perfect for our family of three! (From target.com)
Flooring: site finished Santos Mahogany (2 coats of Traffic Satin, and 1 coat Traffic semi gloss which darkened the *eek!* pinkish floor to a beautiful reddish brown we now love.)
Lighting: canned LED lights on dimmer for ceiling, and puck LED light for under cabinet lighting, IKEA's Inreda LED lights, and Restoration Hardware school-house light with oil rubbed bronze finish for the nook
Wall color: a custom color, somewhere between Benjamin Moore's Wickham Gray and Grey Cashmere, in satin finish.
Ceiling color: Benjamin Moore Mountain Peak White, in satin finish
Trim color: Benjamin Moore's match of Home Depot Behr Pot Of Cream in Semi Gloss finish.

The big Question: How long did it take us to renovate a kitchen?

The not so simple Answer: Well, let's see. We started working with our amazing CKD, Carlene Anderson, in September of 2011, and received our final drawings in December 2011. We wrote our Kitchen Mission Statement in May 2012. It took us almost 9 months, maybe even longer, to design our Inner Most kitchen cabinetry working with the super patient Sherry Lyons from Home Depot (countless iterations until finally one day the cabinetry design just clicked for me). The kitchen renovation itself started in full swing around the last week of September 2012. The new kitchen was completed by the end of June 2013.

While it took us about 9 months to physically birth our new kitchen, it took us almost two years going from a seed of an idea to its completion.

We couldn't have arrived here, at the completion of a successful renovation project, without the assistance of our friends, family and wonderful craftsmen. We are grateful for all of of you who has encouraged and inspired us with ideas, skills, patience, craftsmenship, friendship, enthusiasm and good humor! Thank you so much!

Lastly, I am very grateful for D. and M. for their unwavering support, love and faith throughout the whole process. You are most awesome!





Friday, May 10, 2013

Cleaning Up Loose Ends


We have been busy since our *almost* final inspection a few weeks ago.

Finishing baseboard

It took us days to get the baseboard on. But, the result was worth it. Baseboards sure finish a room beautifully.

We had quite an adventure using an electric planer for the first time to scribe the board to the floor. Of course, we were planing at night when it was hard to see what we were doing! Why did we keep doing that to ourselves? Next time, we'll just caulk the gap between the boards and the floor. Actually, we ended up doing a bit of that as we accidentally planed the board too much at one section. Sh%%t!

Then, there's this business of making the the corner looks, uh, good when the walls are not plumb and floor is not level. 

But, I think we did a good job, especially D.

Before baseboard
after baseboard
Nice work, D!

Knobs and pulls, oh my!

Apparently, the doors and drawers need to be adjusted FIRST before the hardware go on them. Good to know this before we drill holes in our cabinetry!

Adjusting drawers is a PITA. Ask D. He knows this because he was the one who did it :)
I had no idea how tricky it was to make the drawers all line up  horizontally and vertically, to each other and to the neighboring cabinets next to them. It was like an interlocking puzzle.

Before we put any hardware on, we put blue-tape on the doors and drawers to see where they will finally go:



See how the second drawer is off kilter from the top and bottom drawers?




Surprisingly, we didn't take too long a time (relatively speaking) deciding the hardware. We chose the Renovation Hardware Asbury pulls and their crystal knobs:


Choosing a new dishwasher

We are bummed because the GE monogram dishwasher which I love is steaming up the underside of our countertop!

So, we went shopping for a new dishwasher. That took a while.

The appliance store we bought our stove, fridge and dishwasher from is really a wonderful company to work with. Not only we got the best price from them, they also are willing to take the GE Monogram dishwasher back as it wasn't working out for us.

We finally chose the Miele G5775SFSC. It is supposedly built like a tank and will last about 20 years. We will be close to our 70's by the time it konks out.

D. put together the various dishwasher "finalists" in our space using Adobe Fireworks. He's such a genius!

(Excuse the plastic wrapping on the cabinets next to the sink base... The countertop above the lazy susan door had to be shaved off as it was 1/16" too thick and the door chaffed on the countertop edge.)


Our current GE Monogram dishwasher
Miele G5505SC
Miele 5775SFSC
Jenn Air JDB8700
 
Painting the bay window

So far, this has been an epic job, and I am not done yet!


Unfinished wood on window
(pardon the mess on the countertop! D. was attempting to adjust drawers and install hardware that day.)

Hm, a bit too white, huh?
Should I have kept the window with the natural wood look instead?







Final Inspection: Passed!

We passed our final inspection on Wednesday, May 8th. According to the City, our kitchen is officially D-O-N-E! Yippe-ya-yay!!!

The thing that held us up from passing the final inspection last week was a missing CO detector in the downstairs room.

That was easy to correct: go to Home Depot, get CO+Smoke detector combo, install and voila!





 D. called it "a thing of beauty...Is a joy forever, until you press the 'test' button and the alarm perforates you eardrum. But there it is, freshly installed on our ceiling in accordance with regulations, six months ahead of schedule."

Yup.



Tuesday, April 30, 2013

First Meal!

We had a "soft-opening" for our new kitchen on April 12th. With the backsplash fully cured, and the sink, fridge and stove functional, it's high time we use the kitchen, right?

This is our first meal cooked in the new kitchen.

The menu: blackened salmon with seared tomatoes and sauteed veggies. Yum!!!



Final Inspections - Granted! (Mostly...)

We had our final inspections done by the City yesterday. Other than we didn't have a CO detector in the guest room downstairs (true, that room is not related to the kitchen renovation but an inspector has to do his/her job well!) we passed all our mechanical, plumbing and electrical inspections. YAY!
After we install the CO detector, technically we will pass the building inspection and then the City will declare our kitchen renovation complete.

Apparently, the City doesn't care if we haven't completed the cosmetics yet such as the moulding, baseboard, light rails, as well as pulls and knobs on the cabinets. What a relief!  We thought we have to get all of that done prior to the final inspection.

Our electrical permit is expiring May 1st (tomorrow!) So, we made the electrical permit deadline by the hair of our chinny chin chin!

Since the cosmetics are not under any permit deadline, we can take our own sweet time to complete all of that, and to paint the door/window trims! I hope it will go quickly.

Here are the photos of our kitchen, sans thermoply on the floor.

Stove side (yumm... croissants!)
The "L" part of the kitchen
(the sink base is missing a door! :)


The other "L" part of the kitchen
The fridge wall
China cabinet, spiffed up! (Its doors are missing as they are being painted, but I think it looks good as is!)

Looking at the other side of the kitchen
The extras:
 Oil/Vinegar/Soy Sauce pull out unit
(using a Rev-A-Shelf add-on)

 The gas-shutoff toe-kick (the two photos above) is truly,
 borrowing JD's term, a "Southern Engineering" solution!

 The pantry, almost filled up.
To my Indonesian cousins - a drawer for Supermi is a must!


The floor, despite my earlier laments, has turned into a beautiful warm brown (thanks to Bona Traffic Semi Gloss finish!) The color of the floor complements the white of the cabinet, countertop and backsplash very well! 

We really appreciate all of you for your words of encouragement. You have helped us reach the finish line when things dragged on a wee bit too long.

We HEART our new kitchen!







Friday, April 12, 2013

Wow-Week!

Wow, our kitchen has changed really really fast in the last week after going really really slow for so long. It has gone through an unbelievable transformation in one week time!

Last Friday, 4/5/13, our Calacatta marble countertop was finally installed:
The "L" part of the countertop between the stove and sink sides
The sink side
The appliance garage gets its own countertop
Check out these runnels! I love them!
The china cabinet gets a quartz countertop
On Saturday 4/6/13, our floor was finished with one last coat of semi-gloss Bona Traffic, and for some reasons, that made the floor looks less pink/red than it did before. What a wonderful surprise!


On Tuesday, 4/9/13, our new fridge and dishwasher were delivered:

 

On the same Tuesday the above appliances were delivered, the backsplash installation began and it is almost completed by today 4/11/13:
Stove side got subway tiles!
Neat, huh?
I am glad we keep the backsplash simple and
not have any "racing stripe" as we originally planned.

Today, Thursday 4/11/13, our finish plumbing was completed! We have a working faucet, garbage disposal (with airswitch), soap dispenser, air gap and a dishwasher.
A working sink, yay!
It has been about four months since we wash dishes in a kitchen sink, let alone have a working dishwasher and a fridge in the kitchen. Out of habit, we went to the bathroom sink to wash things and then remembered that we could just use our kitchen sink!
Love our sink setup! The faucet handle is placed in the front instead of the side so that drippy hands just drip water into the sink instead of the countertop -- an idea thanks to a gardenweb contributor.

What a neat plumbing under the sink base!
Love our Kitchen Aid fridge
It has been over six (looong) months since we first demo-ed our old kitchen. It is kinda amazing to think that we are almost at the finish line. What a journey it has been! Sometimes we can't even believe that we have come so far (with help from many talented people and encouragement from you folks, of course.)

We still have some finish carpentry to do in the kitchen. Oh, like installing the cabinet pulls and knobs, crown mouldings, baseboards, light rails, and painting the china cabinet doors/drawers. And, yes, we still need to finish M's closet and her bookcase, and... and... and...

But, those are for later :)

For now, we welcome and celebrate our new kitchen!