Happy B'day Eleri / More progress / Starting to smell a kitchen soon

Oven tower with most of the doors and panels installed
Starting to come together

Showing the front of the island cabinet doors under new countertop
Another picture of the same
A view from the fireplace towards the cooktop and frig area
Cooktop is in place but not hooked up to gas or electric
Switches for disposal and lights under front of countertop as well as 3 convenience outlets

Countertops on and pushing forward

Busy week again. Granite has arrived and was installed. Measuring twice / cutting once the standard operating procedure.

Again, international workers, did not speak English, spoke Mandrin (sp?) based on what the young lady said that was driving then here and picking them up. (Of course neither did Sandy's nail technician that did her pedicure tonight)

Cutting the sink after the granite was installed and leveled and seamed

Working to seam the two pieces that formed the island

Kitchen with all kinds of things drying with stain and varnish on them

Cabinets going up and in

The following pictures show all the cabinets that have been delivered installed.

Cabinets on either side of the fireplace still need to be built.
Nice shot showing the back half of the kitchen including the wine rack

This pic illustrates the amount of space between the island and back wall of cabinets. The idea here was to have enough room for 3 or 4 people to work comfortably when having holidays or large gatherings at the house.


The Brants installing the cabinets they made.

Thanksgiving the stretch goal......

The screen doors for the window wall came in and we installed them. They come in handy now as we are staining and varnishing.
Staining is done on what we have had delivered. There are 15 more drawers to come as well as 50 or so cabinet doors. Also still need several cabinets.
Good shot showing the front of the island. Drawer fronts are on top as well as on top of the other cabinets. Base cabinets along back wall will be installed tomorrow. Countertops will be measured on Friday afternoon. Sandy and I went to the warehouse yesterday and got some ideas of what granite is available and we are looking forward to getting those in.
This blurry photo is Sandy and Donna fishing on the pond this past weekend. They caught and released 20 or more.

Cabinets start being installed

Base cabinets were preliminarily 'dry fit' today to make sure they would fit the space. Grills were installed in the toe kicks for the HVAC systems return air.

This 'kinda' shows the rear wall / island and oven tower cabinets


Jeff and his dad (the Brandt's) mounting the frig and pantry cabinets

The rear wall with frig temporarily placed

Kickin butt and kickin back on vacation the last two weeks

The project is starting to show some progress. We were blessed with a long weekend at the beach (THANKS JIM AND BONNIE FOR THE USE OF YOUR GR8 PLACE) with all of the children and grandchildren (Leslie, Jeff with Koty and Tyler from Monroe, NC; Megan with Eleri from Albuquerque, NM (sorry you had to work Sam you missed a gr8 time) as well as Lauren and Eli with Vinny and Jaxon from Columbia, SC (soon to be from Boulder, CO.)) We will put some pics on the next post

We are shooting for Thanksgiving to be all done with the upstairs. Yes, I said the upstairs. As projects tend to grow and take on a larger scope so has this one. Starting as just a new kitchen has now expanded into a new half bath, moving the laundry, new doors throughout upstairs, new hardwood flooring, new on-demand water heater, new trim throughout upstairs, new paint in most of the upsatirs, etc, etc, etc.

Don't get me wrong, we can do it. I am married to the best woman in the world and she loves to assist, it makes the project go so much faster when everyone is on the same page. I am so lucky and priveledged

Drywall has been taped, primed and ceiling/walls painted. 1/4 of the cabinets came on Saturday 7/26 (yesterday). What you see is the oven cabinet that will house the double oven with microwave/convection oven abobe making it a three built-in oven cabinet.
Drawer units, refrigerator unit (upside down) and 9' corner pantry cabinet.
This shows the spice/seasoning rack that will be on each side of the cooktop housing all of the spices, vinegars, ect. We are playing with stain on the sides of the cabinets to determine what color they will be.
This is the base of the built in china cabinet that will sit on the left of the fireplace.
Looking hard you can see the six 4" can lights that are on the outside ceiling, there are six more on the other side of the ceiling and three pendent lights that will gp over the island.

This shows some of the cabinets that are on the side of the triple oven cainet. This cabinet goes around the chimney of the downstairs fireplace.

Drywalling and bringing it closer

The following pics show the guys taping. The rockers showed up on Friday and put up the majority of drywall in the new kitchen, laundry and 1/2 bath. Saturday they taped the seams and today, Sunday, they are putting on the bed coat.

Notice how the peak appears to be in the center of the fireplace, this was accomplished by lowering the ceiling on the left side of the following picture.

Cabinets are going where there is no drywall here. Power for the 3 ovens and speaker wires for the digital am/fm and surround sound will run between the wood on the brick