Remodeling a Kitchen, Part 2

As promised, this post will describe our efforts to select a contractor for our kitchen project.  We are retired, living a comparatively comfortable life after 49 years of working and saving and raising a family.  We built our present home way back in 1972, when my husband had just been accepted into the electricians union apprenticeship.  We used the Owner Completion Plan, and in doing so, we saved a ton of money and learned a great deal about home construction.  When we started the kitchen project, we really thought we knew what we were getting into.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

Once we had decided we would do this, I developed a floor plan and laid out the appliances and cabinets.  I knew exactly what I wanted and where in the room it would be.  We attended a Home Improvement Show in Orland Park, Illinois that February.  We set up appointments with 3 home remodeling contractors.

On the appointed days, a representative from each company came to our home and measured all the spaces.  When we sat down to discuss my wants and needs, I basically had the air shot out of my balloon.  None of them would make my kitchen how I wanted it.  Because all of them used off-the-shelf cabinets.  If a space had a 27" cabinet requirement, I was told, no, it has to be 24" and we'll put a blind spacer in the void.  Dead air!  Wasted space!  Also, there were accessories I wanted installed, like a mixer lift and a laundry chute.  Nope!  Can't do it.

We then decided to go to the custom cabinetry company that originally built our kitchen cabinets in 1972.  We met and spoke with a salesman there, he came to the house, measured everything and sat down with us to discuss what we wanted and needed.  There wasn't a single thing he said no to.

During the process, we asked him if he knew any remodelers he would recommend for the demolition and refinishing of the room.  We wanted someone experienced and dependable.  He told us he works on such projects and has 28 years experience renovating kitchens and baths.  We got his estimate and proceeded to finalize the project.  After selecting the wood, stain, hardware, and the counters, we paid a portion of the cabinetry cost and waited.  It was going to take approximately 6 weeks to get the cabinets finished and Doug would set up the demolition in about 4 weeks.  He expected it would take 2 weeks to finish the room and prepare it for the cabinet installation.

Next time:  I will tell you all about our actual demolition and renovation project.

Remodeling a Kitchen, Part 1

After the holidays in 2014, my hubs and I had a discussion about our kitchen.  We had purchased a new natural gas, self-cleaning wall oven.  Over the past year it had been found to be seriously deficient in terms of size.  The interior capacity severely curtailed my ability to prepare anything in other than miniature-size baking and roasting utensils.  I was, to say the least, very disappointed.  I couldn't make my usual holiday cookie and treat assortment unless I prepared myself to spend several days or a week at the project.  I couldn't prepare a large roast or ham or turkey.  It was even difficult to bake a cake in a 13 x 9 baking pan because the oven walls were too close to the pan sides to effect even baking.  Only one small roasting or baking pan could fit in it at any one time.  Layer cake?  Forget it!  The web site that sold this oven contained photos of items inside the oven, all the racks filled up with pans and casseroles.  It was very foolish of me to believe any of that was real.  I wasn't able to see an actual wall oven on display because nobody displayed these items in their brick-and-mortar stores.  Capacity in cubic inch space, is stated as 2.9 cu.ft., with interior dimension as 17"W x 16"H x 18.5"D.  I learned the hard way.  Somebody erred in that description. The self-cleaning feature of this oven was its downfall, the walls were well over 2" thick, possibly even 3-4", all around the sides, back, top and floor.

As we discussed our various options, we came to the unfortunate conclusion that I would either give up family meal events entirely, give up holiday baking entirely, or decide on a plan to get a regular range in that small 15' x 8' modified galley kitchen.  (The wall oven that started all this is at the back left in the photo.)

Our kitchen before we began the project, Feb. 21, 2015.

We talked about removing 1 cabinet to make room for a range, we talked about switching around other elements of the kitchen, such as the dishwasher.  We talked about gutting the entire room and starting over new.  Weighing our options, that is exactly what we decided to do.

The blank slate, June 4, 2015.

We built our home in 1972, and over the 43 years we had made do.  We replaced counter tops twice, sink and faucet 3 times, refrigerator 3 times, wall oven 3 times. The original wall oven and the 2nd wall oven were neither one a handicap to my cooking and baking activities.  It had a good capacity for almost anything I wanted to use it for.  When I needed an especially large oven capacity, I brought up the electric roaster from the basement, placed it on the counter and prepared whatever I needed to roast.  I could place several casserole or baking/roasting pans in the wall oven at once.  If I made a proper timing schedule, longer roasting time items went in first and lesser roasting time items went in last to be ready as the meal was being laid out.

In summer, I canned and froze hundreds of containers of garden bounty.  Tomatoes, corn, green beans, apples and applesauce, peaches, pears, cherries, jellies, pickles, the list goes on!   I took this task very seriously, wanting fresh, unadulterated foods for my family.  I think my family enjoyed this bounty in the dead of winter when the produce at the store was tasteless and sky-high in price, and many of the canned goods were similarly tasteless and overcooked.

I attacked this new venture with vigor!  I found several planning sites on the Internet.  Chief among them was www.houzz.com and Lowe's Virtual Room Designer at https://lowes.2020.net/planner/UI/Pages/VPUI.htm?Lang=en-US.

Writing down our room dimensions and the placement of doorways and windows, I began assembling my room digitally.  I scoured Houzz for ideas, elements, tips, advice and photos.  Finally, 2 months later, in February, we were ready to discuss our renovation with professional kitchen re-modelers and custom cabinet companies.  Our first stop was at a home show in the South Suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.  We made appointments with 3 kitchen re-modelers to come to our home to give estimates for our project.

My next post will be about the experience of getting estimates and choosing a contractor.