Congratulations @BunsenBurner! It sounds like a lot of work but it may turn out to be a lot of fun - especially as things start coming together. You need to start your own flickr group and let us watch.
Thanks, all. Right now, I am overwhelmed, to say the least. We are trying to prioritize the projects in the new digs and also do some work on the current ones. 
Mr. thinks we need to do a huge home makeover complete with painting the entire house. Except the bonus room, our walls are all Rainier White (SW color) - the new owners will be given a clean canvas to paint, so to speak. So I am sticking to my guns (and the realtor says no to paint). Compared to what I have seen, our current house is in great shape as it is.
Now all we need is to find a house for CB!!!
BB…we need a BB renovation thread!!
CB,I just noticed that Homeclick advertises free returns with a pre-paid label and no restocking fees. Just an FYI. Eons ago, a coworker remodeled the entire house buying things from them. I am going to order a couple of things to test how they stack up against Amazon and Wayfair.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve never heard of Homeclick. I’ll check it out.
Speaking of returns…I am still the proud owner of that large round ceiling fixture that was put up in the living room. I never got around to returning it in the chaos and its buried somewhere in my garage. Besides…we had cut the wire to length when we installed.
Guess what’s going in somewhere in the next house!!
I did check the Homeclick web site in the faucet section. What I found is that those faucets are not known brands, just like some of those on the Amazon or other web sites. The problem I found that if you have a problem with those faucets, you have a real problem to find replacement parts, they look fine on the paper, but not necessarily practical.
My cousin designs a series of fancy, award wining, bathroom faucets that is sold to the high cost condos in Manhattan(each unit costs 1000s), but I cannot even think of using hers to put in my house. The support is the problem.
@artloversplus - I had not heard of Homeclick but I also looked at the bathroom fixtures and I saw a wide range of brands with plenty of the same brands Home Depot carries. Delta, Koehler, Grohe, Hansgrohe and a whole lot more. My bathroom fixtures are Newport Brass brand and I also saw them listed. I know when I need replacement parts for the Newport Brass fixtures they are more costly and need to be purchased at the plumbing supply house but that isn’t really difficult.
Back at the project…
It has taken a full week for my carpenter to dial in all the details of the kitchen and get the appliances installed. IKEA cabinets come with a steel bar that you mount leveled on the wall and the cabinets attach to them. This adds about 1/2" to the cabinets sticking out so you have to put on a lot of side panels to hide all this.
We also had a problem because I was away from the project for 2 days and somehow he missed that there was a special block provided to go behind the microwave. This block pushes the microwave out so that the doors are past the cabinets on each side. He starts calling me up on the phone telling me the kitchen is designed all wrong and the microwave door won’t open. He spent hours McGyvering (a new word in the construction dictionary!) a block of wood behind the microwave. I come back in Wednesday morning and get really mad because we cannot have raw wood above a gas flame stove… for heaven’s sake. Then I walk over to the giant pile of IKEA puzzle pieces in boxes and there’s a special metal covered mount thing for the back of the microwave. He didn’t even bother to look at the meticulous list of parts for each cabinet that I had taped to the front for him to use. He is famous for not opening up installation instructions. What is it with these guys??? I just told him he had to re-install the microwave on his own time. After hours spent working on it, it only took him 20 minutes to pull out microwave and put in the correct piece and remount.
Then the double oven became a problem because it would not push back in. I pulled out the IKEA instructions and it clearly says you have to cut out the back panel of the cabinet to push the oven in. OK… start cutting out the back panel. That still didn’t give us enough depth so the electrician had to open up drywall and recess the 220 wire conduit and I had to make an emergency run to Home Depot to get a special recessed metal box to go into the wall for the wiring. Our biggest issue is we bought a 27" wide double oven because it was on sale as a floor model but IKEA only sells 30" wide tall oven cabinets. This involved a lot of trimming on the sides and, unfortunately, you can see some cut edges and they don’t look perfect. I’m hoping that it all blends in overall.
Then there is the crown molding on top of cabinets, cornice molding on bottom of cabinets, toe kick, scribe, tons of trim details.
My promise to the owners is that they will be back into their kitchen this weekend. We are scrambling to get everything installed and cleaned up.
Remaining to do from the original Scope of Work:
Baseboard
Window and Door Casing
Bathroom mirror
Front door threshold
I’ve talked her into doing a tile baseboard in the bathroom because MDF baseboard next to a kid’s bathtub is not a good idea:)
Added to Scope of Work and remaining to complete
Barn Door hardware /install
Laundry room build
Deck build
So, they can move into their kitchen and start using it but they will still have to endure workers at their house for a couple more weeks.
Another issue is that I don’t think they have any furniture except a dining table (without chairs because I will not allow the chairs to come back into the house… they are hideous). Not sure how they are going to enjoy their new home
I loaded some pictures of kitchen lighting installed, appliances getting installed and general kitchen stuff
The owner and I worked hard to find lighting within her low budget. These are the key light fixtures we chose:
Seeded glass kitchen pendants with LED Edison bulbs installed - $30/each (see pictures)
This is the dining fixture she found which is perfect for her style and a great price
https://www.wayfair.com/Bungalow-Rose-Jaliyah-1-Light-Drum-Pendant-BNGL7770.html
This is the exterior front porch light which is perfect for them because they keep their light on all night and this fixture has a Dusk to Dawn setting
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-Lumsden-Outdoor-Black-LED-Motion-Sensor-Wall-Mount-Lantern-NTSW30030LBL-MS/203830178
CB, love the kitchen lights!! Best use of $30 I’ve seen in a while.
Speaking of non-standard oven sizes, our old oven was 27" and the cabinet is designed for 30". The carpenter who put it all together made a “face plate” - a large wooden frame that went around the entire double oven. It looked nice. When we replaced the oven, Mr. B took it off (he too had to add a box on the back to accomodate the euro 220 plugs). Curently, we have a 30" convection monster and a 27" steamer combioven - the maker makes metal trim to make the steamer look like it is 30".
Finally got the kitchen dialed in but there is an issue with the 27" oven into the 30" cabinet. Even though my carpenter tried really hard to make nice cuts, there is a color difference between the ’ filler’ pieces sold by IKEA for this style of cabinet and the white melamine covered cabinet ‘boxes’. We may have to buy a large panel door and meticulously cut a frame around the oven, like @BunsenBurner mentioned.
All we have remaining inside the house at this point is:
Hang doors with new hinges and door knobs
Baseboards and casing around windows and doors (not a small task!)
Hang the barn door
Install the fireplace mantle
Cabinet handles on the white IKEA cabinets
Front door lock set and threshold
Smoke alarms
Bathroom toilet paper holder and towel rods
Hang dining room lamp (this has to be last so we don’t break it swinging baseboard around or something)
I’m hoping we will get that all done this week and then be out of their house. We still have to build a laundry room and big deck, but we can do that without making a mess inside their house
Meanwhile I had to pull the guys off that job and we are spending the day at the last project installing gutters, scraping drywall mud off the garage walls and painting lots of coats of Drylok on the inside of the garage walls. That should be the remainder of items I promised
I just looked at the latest photos. What an incredible job you’ve done for these lucky clients. I hope they appreciate the magic you have worked on a limited budget with a speedy timetable. The house looks just lovely! Another bravo, cb!
CB, wish you could come to Maryland! You have the magic touch! Love the pendant lights. I’d grin like an idiot if they were in my kitchen, knowing they were $30 each.
I should have an accounting by the end of the week. I think we will be 2 weeks over schedule but under budget.
We’ll…it’s all good…but how about Flip 7? Any hot prospects??
CB - everything looks awesome. This couple was really lucky to have your expertise.
cb, you’re going to come out under budget? You are amazing.
I cannot find anything for Flip #7. May have to expand to other neighborhoods.
Under budget if you don’t count the laundry room or big covered deck which were not in the original scope but have been added on.