
There’s not a whole lot to update on the manual labor part of the project. First of all – it’s still way too hot to get a ton of work done outside. And there are so many other things happening over the next couple of weeks – E has a couple of trips, plus packing, and then a move back to MN for sophomore year, F’s starting school, plus birthdays, busy work schedules, appointments, etc. We spent a lot of this weekend just catching up on things and getting what we needed to make it through the next couple of weeks. The storage space is working out great for us – E accessed it for a few camping items last week, and everything’s back in place again. I’ve had pretty good luck selling a lot of items on Facebook Marketplace, so it’s nice to let go of some things that others can enjoy.
We have to mostly empty the basement for a few reasons. We are adding an interior stair to the basement – so there’s a lot of new framing going in to open up a portion of the dining room floor under the upper stairs. And the original pine floors are all coming out – and those are installed directly on the floor joists, not on subfloor. New mechanical equipment is going in, and a new crawlspace under the addition. And finally, we are finishing out the basement, so there are a few walls plus that new stair going in. There will be a rec room at the front of the house, a nice size storage room, our first and only closet in the house that will hold off season items like coats and shoes, and a dedicated mechanical room.
We did have a nice long appointment on Saturday for a few hours at Authorized Appliance. We were the only people there, which was great – and we were able to see a lot of different lines we hadn’t looked at in person before. We had our appliances picked out in 2020 before we stopped the project, but the appliance landscape has changed a lot since then. Lead times are really bad – and there are whole lines of appliances no longer available for order because they are still trying to fulfill orders from a year or two ago. Some products have been discontinued completely – like the dishwasher and ref/freezer we had previously selected. We’re trying to get all the appliances and plumbing fixtures ordered – even if they have a long wait time – so we can start to finalize casework plans. With so much uncertainty – and because we are using some things that aren’t super standard – we don’t want to finalize the orders before we have everything selected.
I have a lunchtime Zoom consultation on the range later this week, and I’m feeling pretty confident that we’re going to land on this ILVE – which is thrilling, but maybe not as exciting as the prospect of actually having a dishwasher in the house again.
M repaired minor things on our dishwasher over the years, but after about 18ish years it was toast. We didn’t want to order a replacement because we (thought we) were about to gut the kitchen, and when you order a whole suite of appliances, there are some significant savings. We knew we could limp along for awhile. Awhile just became years. And years.
The biggest thing I hoped to land on was the refrigerator / freezer. We’re still not quite there. We have some limiting factors based on where it’s going to be located in the kitchen, and even more limiting factors due to our very specific opinions. And there’s a unit that would be perfect if it weren’t the cost of a nice sedan, so that doesn’t help either.
The biggest new addition to our thought process is this Fisher & Paykel Integrated CoolDrawer. It converts to five different chilling modes – depending on your needs at the time.
It can store produce and breads at a pantry temp (so, not chilled like a fridge, but cooler than the countertops which are always full of produce and bread)…
…it can provide overflow fridge space, particularly if we had some entertaining that week…
…or convert to several different levels of freezer. This would have been awesome when I was making a dozen batches of ice cream for a party one summer, or when I spend a couple of weeks baking and freezing plum tortes. In fact, it’s a great flex space for baking steps.
I rarely store lobster on ice, but I like that I could. 🙂
Also converts to a couple of different wine temps for book club night… I just really love the idea of having a flexible space that can work for whatever we’ve got on the horizon that season or that specific week.
Decisions, decisions. It’s not a huge space, and we want it to work for us, and be beautiful and appropriate for our house. I don’t think we ever stop thinking about how we would design a space – it’s a constant thing humming under the surface for both of us. I’m hoping that next weekend we’ll have landed somewhere special and fun.
Next up – getting info together to list our current kitchen cabinets and appliances for sale. And picking that fridge…
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