Our garage exterior walls went up yesterday. Finally!!
Dumpster gone and all of the trash and debris in the yard has been cleared to a small pile of rubble left over. We have a huge pile of original lumber saved against the house. I actually paid someone to go through all the lumber and pull nails out because I want to reuse the wood wherever we can. Even though the wood is stronger, bigger (true 2 x 4) and more mature than what you can buy today, the City inspector will not let me use original lumber in any load bearing wall. But, he will let me use it in non load bearing walls. The problem is that the old lumber is true 2 x 4 versus 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 new lumber. It’s very hard to use the old stuff tied in anywhere.
The kitchen pony wall is built and my carpenter is putting in all of the sink plumbing and electrical in the wall. Next will be the powder room plumbing. The reason we need to get this done is that I am going to call for Rough Framing inspection on each floor. The plumbing from powder room and kitchen runs down and ties into the sewer lines in the basement. So, to call for a full rough framing, plumbing and electrical for the garage/basement level, we need to have everything tied in down there.
New water heater was installed and that was a nightmare. The ceiling level in the corner where the water heater is is low and we had to drill into concrete stem walls to put on the required lumber and straps for earthquake protection. Then my carpenter went through every new gas line he installed and did a pressure and soap test. We turned on the gas and the pressure was perfect - no leaks!
Water heater is working now and he went through the hall bathroom (furthest point of hot water line right now) and he took off the fixtures and bled the lines to get all the gunk, flux, solder, dirt… out of the hot water lines. Unfortunately we discovered that there doesn’t seem to be any hot water pressure in the shower fixtures, and the dang shower valve temperature is set too low at the factory (for safety reasons). Cannot tell if it is ‘low flow’ shower fixture issue or whether we have a real issue with water pressure to the shower. Plenty of pressure to the sink, so I think it is a ‘low flow water saving’ issue with the shower head.
I purchased the kitchen cabinets today. I spent a lot of time laying out different styles and colors and combinations. My final decision is Kraftmaid Pearl Gray base cabinets (same as Hoarder House kitchen) with one set of Midnight Blue upper cabinets. The upper cabinets are in the eastern wall area with the long countertop. The upper cabinet doors will be ‘glass ready’ and I am going to insert custom antique metal mesh inserts into the cabinet doors. Still have to find that stuff, but I know where to look
But, I got really lucky… Kraftmaid started a big sale July 15th. So now there are 2 reasons why it was really good that I waited to order the cabinets.
Original cost of cabinetry $18,400
Kitchen guy gave me a huge ‘contractor’ discount that he gives to his high volume customers
THEN… Kraftmaid had 10% off if you order 5 or more cabinets
THEN… Lowe’s had a special that you get $1,200 off if you order between $12,000 and $15,000 of cabinets
Final Answer… $12,080 for the entire kitchen with some really custom stuff like big oven cabinet, pull out spice racks, custom tray dividers in cabinets above oven and on the side of the rerfrigerator, under counter microwave cabinet, double trash recycling center, etc.
I think there are about 20 actual cabinets and a lot of filler, toe kick, crown molding, scribe, plywood box upgrade, paint upgrade, trash inserts, tray divider inserts, pull out trays and interior paint match on the open uppers
I love the mesh on the upper cabinets. It gives it a really custom look and, different from glass, it kind of obscures everything in the cabinets just enough so that you don’t have to keep everything perfect. I’m going to be searching for a really unique type of mesh (that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg). I have searched Van Dyke website, but they want like $400 per piece. What the hey???
I got the mesh idea from a friend in the Wooded Area who just did a big dollar kitchen remodel. She started trying to find the mesh because she has a built in dog kennel in a huge pantry room and she needed something with good air flow. She liked it so much she put it in all the uppers in her pantry (midnight blue cabinets).
I would be hesitant about mesh in my kitchen cabinets because no matter how much air my exhaust sucks out during cooking, the cabinets still develop that residue on the doors that needs to be cleaned periodically. Not much, not often, but still. Is that mesh easy to clean?
I realize that the mesh may not be the easiest to clean. These cabinets will be across the kitchen from stove and have a soffit ceiling above (stuff not floating down from ceiling). In this case I need to go for the Wow factor and ignore future cleaning issues. If buyers do not like them, they can replace the inserts with glass or wood panels.
I actually saw an area with mesh and cut out panels at Home Depot. I may just buy some as samples and play around with metal color and style a bit. But, really cannot do anything until the cabinets arrive (4 weeks) and I can put the metal samples up against the style and coloring of the cabinets
The mesh is interesting, but to me it has too much of a country vibe. However I’d defer to cb and her real estate agent because they have a good pulse on the current market (and I am NOT their target buyer).
I think simple stained or etched glass would be more “wow” to me than mesh. I hate cleaning and mesh is a dust catcher and also can corrode near the ocean.
