We made it to Central Pennsylvania — or, at least, I think it’s Central Pennsylvania. Maybe it’s a little East Central Pennsylvania. In any event, we hugged the Susquehanna River all the way up through Harrisburg and then about 45 minutes north to tiny little Mount Pleasant Mills, our destination to pick up the most glorious walnut wood. Well worth the trip. We couldn’t miss the opportunity to stop at an old timey Italian bakery in Harrisburg to pick up goodies before heading back from our day-long odyssey to find the perfect wood for our open shelving. Would definitely recommend this mill who sold us the wood, planed and cut it all to size for less than half of the $1,200 we received estimates for in DC.
In other news, our hard-working contractor was here this morning to make sure we had a working oven for the Christmas weekend. They arrived in sleet and snow and finished the oven electrical and even put the range hood up! The hood still needs to be leveled, but because we aren’t having pendant lights, we thought this architectural feature would serve as both a rangehood and a futuristic pendant. Unironically from a company called Futuro Futuro. This is the “Balance” model — who doesn’t need more of that in your life?!
Had a lot of questions about the “bright blue” cabinet color. Nope, that color is just the outer protective plastic that we are leaving on until the messy stuff is over (grouting, painting, etc.) Rest assured, the cabinets will be classic white.
The Samsung Duo Flex oven also feels futuristic and could probably manage everything from cooking a meal to washing dishes and ironing clothes with all of its features.
We still have to paint, which happens on Monday, we have to trim everything, and then we can start tiling next week. Then we can finally remove the ugly blue cabinet coverings and attach the gorgeous cabinet hardware, which certainly beats green painters tape handles. A long way to go, but we have an oven!
When it finally starts, it goes fast! Not all cheering, because as soon as they come and measure for the counters on Thursday, we have one week to paint the entire ceiling. I don’t know why we agreed to do that. I hate painting ceilings. My hair hates painting ceilings.
Then the counters come in one week before the Christmas holiday and then the contractor returns to connect all the appliances and our plumbing.
Then we do the tile and we do the open shelving. And build out the pantry wall and cabinets. And caulk, so much caulk. And wall painting. And all of the trim work and baseboards. And over sink lighting.
Our punch list is long and growing. But we’ll have running water, so that’s something to look forward to…in 10 days.
Today we received our first glimpse of what the space will look like IRL. It has been SO hard to imagine it based on a taped floor diagram or a computer screen.
Will the passageways be wide enough? Most are 52″ so the answer to that is a resounding YES!
Will the small galley between sink and island actually work? It will, though more snug than we would have liked (at 48″).
Will there be enough room for people to walk behind those seated at the island or will they have to do the scootch? Right now, we think we have 41″ but that is because we are determined to have a luxurious 15″ overhang on the island. So, somewhere between a scootch and walk unless we reduce the island overhang to 13″ or 14″.
Standing around scratching our heads while trying to imagine bright green painter’s tape coming to life in the form of a giant “L” shaped island got old, so today’s progress came in the nick of time. This isn’t our first construction rodeo, so we are confident our marriage can stand the test of a(nother) kitchen renovation, but the 14th tape-laying exercise at midnight last night seemed to be spitting in the face of fate.
Thankfully, while we were obsessing over tape, other things were happening — lighting went up, floors went down. A mini-meltdown on Friday bubbled up when the crew opened up the hardwood boxes (that were the exact same make/model/color) as our old, but for some reason were distinctly different which meant feathering them in was going to be a challenge.
The next not-so-mini meltdown came two hours later when they realized they weren’t going to have enough to finish the floors. The wood had been back-ordered for months before reno started, so the news hit like a bowling ball to the stomach.
Instead of our Friday martini, we ended up spending the afternoon calling every lumber store on the east coast. We unbelievably found two lone boxes that I would have fought my grandmother for.
We also found the most awesome/gorgeous/comfy stools on FB Marketplace from a guy who was unexpectedly moving after having just renovated his kitchen. Brand-new, still in boxes, and at a third of the cost of what I had just been about to pay a company! Now that they are here, I’m having second thoughts about the color, so they may end up back on Marketplace for someone else to googly-eye over them. Womp, womp.
Here are some progress shots. It is SO real now! Our contractor, Eddy, angel that he is, built the entire wall for us, and didn’t bolt it down so that we could move it around to find just the right spacing on all sides. He practically made us sign away our first born unless we swore an oath not to change anything else. Then he went to town bolting the thing in place before we could change our minds. He may not be as enamored of us as we of him as our final landing spot required him to rewire several bits…
Tomorrow comes drywall and cabinet installation. We are finally cooking with oil now
Christine Anne Scott 