Kitchen Renovation: Week 7 brings counters

They opened up the sheetrock partition today so they could start working on the various trim work for the room. If you remember, the original opening to the kitchen used to be much larger, but we shrunk the opening down a bit to accommodate more cabinets along the wall and to create an actual doorway.

I'm really liking the Caesarstone London Grey counters Marbella Kitchen and Bath installed today. I really love the look of marble, but I didn't want the hassle of maintaining natural stone since we're not the neatest bears and we like to eat colorful foods so we went with engineered quartz that looks a little marble-esque. The installation took about an hour and the kitchen felt like a clown car with about 8 of us hovering in and around the room and large slabs of counters being maneuvered around piles of equipment and appliances. 

I'm excited about the giant sink!

We opted to extend the counters to the wall in this corner to utilize the dead space. It doesn't look like much now, but I'm hoping to store our countertop appliances in this little nook so they're accessible, but out of the way. I'm calling it our appliance carport. 

Next up is figuring out wall paint color.

I want to go see those people who...

plasticann: Maybe we should take a trip in June for a few days.
plasticmom: Yeah, that might be fun!
plasticann: We could take the train to NYC. We could fly to New Orleans. We could even fly direct to Charleston.
plasticmom: [pensively] You know where I want to go? I want to go see those people who don't use electricity.
plasticann: [incredulously] Ummm, you mean the Amish?
plasticmom: YES! The Amish. I think it so interesting how people live without electricity.
plasticann: So, you don't want to go to NYC, you want to go see the Amish.
plasticmom: NYC is just like Tokyo or any other big city. Those people without electricity, now that's interesting. I want to see how they live.

plasticmom is oddly obsessed with visiting Amish Country aka "those people who don't use electricity." She mentioned her desire to visit the Amish last year which I chalked up to her being random. I keep trying to sway her toward the bright lights of the big city hoping that she forgot about the Amish, but her memory is iron clad and her resolve to visit the Amish is steadfast. Heck, she's probably right that Lancaster County is going to be way more interesting, but I might persuade her to visit Lancaster County by way of Philly so at least we squeeze in a visit to the Liberty Bell.

Kitchen Renovation: Weeks 5 and 6

Weeks five and six rolled right on by and there's been lots of visual progress.

• Cabinets are built
• Counters have been measured and will be installed this week
• The layout is coming together

I think we're still about three weeks out from completion which is right about on schedule. We are definitely looking forward to moving into a functioning kitchen. Hopefully the photos will be more interesting and pretty in about two weeks.

Kitchen Renovation: Weeks 3, 4 and oh we're getting AC

A lot has been accomplished in weeks three and four, but the visual progress has been less noticeable. 

• All the plumbing, gas, water and electric has been rerouted
• The ducting and the external blower for our new cooking exhaust fan was installed. By installing the blower outside the house, we're hoping the exhaust fan will be significantly quieter
• A bunch of plumbing was completed including replacing our baseboard heat with a toe kick heater
• Recessed lighting installed along with electrical for our two new pendant lights
• Appliances delivered
• New insulation installed after we passed the rough inspection and the walls were closed up with two layers of sheet rock for extra sound proofing
• They've started assembling the IKEA cabinets

Walls stuffed with new fire and sound insulation

External blower with ten inch ducting for the exhaust fan. This was a lot bigger than I expected, but at least it's in the back of the house

Start of IKEA cabinet assembly and installation

Along the way, we decided to start an air conditioning project that'll take about a week to complete. It gets so hot and humid in Boston, it's legitimately uncomfortable in the summers. Adam has always wanted air conditioning and I've always vetoed it in the past because I assumed central air would be super invasive to install. Since I don't get as hot, I've always tell Adam to "just suck it up" and "suffer a little." Adam pointed it out that my refusal to consider air conditioning would be the equivalent to Adam refusing to turn up the heat when I'm super cold in the winter. I wouldn't stand for Adam telling me to "suck it up" when it's cold so point [loudly] taken.

We're excited to finally have air conditioning. Other than the one year where we lived in a newer apartment with AC, I've never had AC in the 18 years I've lived in New England. It'll be more comfortable for us and for our visitors. Hopefully our families from California will want to visit during the summer and won't suffer from heat induced insomnia.

Equipment waiting to be installed

The HVAC guys proposed a solution that's hardly invasive and will only take about a week so we took the plunge and started this project this morning. We'll have two zones of air conditioning. One in the basement to cool the first floor and another one in the attic to cool the second and third floors. This morning, they cut this big hole in the attic for the return air grill. They also need this hole to haul up the actual air conditioning unit up into the attic since our existing attic access is so small, I'm surprised that the guys can even shimmy through it.

Giant hole, HVAC guy peering down. He tells me that the attic is in good shape and there is no evidence of critters up there

I learned that our ceilings have two layers just like my floors. The original lathe and plaster ceiling is the interior layer. At some point, they attached the newer sheetrock ceiling to the plaster ceiling with pieces of wood

Piece of ceiling they removed, check out the two layers