Phase One – Kitchen Cabinet Installation, Countertop Templating, Kitchen Finish Details
Ah, February – such a short month, but a busy one! We got so much accomplished.
Finished installing the kitchen cabinets.
I frequently say this is a small kitchen – and it certainly is pretty compact compared to a lot of higher end kitchens these days. But in contrast to the layout we had before, the kitchen actually feels enormous to me now. It’s the expansiveness and added features that make it a bit of an overachiever in a pretty compact footprint. And after using a temporary kitchen and a powder room sink for over two years now, anything larger than an RV kitchen is going to feel spectacular.
I pulled some old photos of the former kitchen. We had 15″ of counter space on either side of the range, a generous sink, and then 42″ of counter over the dishwasher and drawer stack next to the fridge. Once our dishwasher was no longer easily repaired (and we had a reno on the horizon) we just let it be, and hand washed our dishes. I took these photos to show how most of our limited counterspace was devoted to dish drying.
Across from those cabinets, we had planned to flank that kitchen window with tall cabinets for pantry items and some counterspace for small appliances, and we were going to install low storage cabinets for small appliance storage under the window with a window seat on top. (We stored our very heavy mixer and food processor on top of the 8′ high cabinets which required M to climb on top of the counter to lift them down whenever I wanted to use them.) You can see the common issue with the windows in these old houses – the sills are below countertop height which makes it tricky to layout an efficient kitchen. We couldn’t afford all of the cabinets in our 2000 kitchen plan, and so we never really completed the whole concept on the east wall of the kitchen. The width of the room was awkward as well – too narrow for an island, but too wide to make using counterspace on the opposing walls comfortable at all. This room NEEDED to have an ‘L’ shaped kitchen – it was just waiting for some new windows, a clever solution for the fridge, and adjacent storage space that would let us focus all of the kitchen energy into creating the longest, deepest countertops with an additional long and deep floating shelf for even more horizontal space. I’m so excited to have a kitchen and pantry where I can reach everything!
When we requested a proposal for the cabinet fabrication we asked for a price for installation as well. If we were working with a GC on this project, then our general contractor would likely install the cabinets themselves, or hire carpenters to do so. Our cabinet maker doesn’t typically install them, so when they need to provide a price for installation, it’s provided at a premium. We only have nine boxes on this project – and all of them are base cabinets – so we felt pretty confident that we could handle this installation ourselves and be really happy with the finished product and the price. It took two weekends to complete the work, and by the end of the first day of this month we were largely finished.
Range Wall. The key location on the west wall of the kitchen is the position of the range. This is centered on the bump out in the room, so we started there, and worked outward, stopping at the dishwasher space.
Large Sink Wall. The key location on the south wall of the kitchen is the position of the large sink cabinets. The sink itself doesn’t center on the large windows, but the faucet does. We laid out the sink cabinet locations, and then needed to get the plumbing access holes cut.
Modified cabinets for sink installation. This was the hardest part of the installation, and it resulted in a pretty severe lumbar strain for me. (0/10, do not recommend.)
M spent a good deal of time carefully laying out the location of the copper supply lines, PVC waste pipes, and electrical rough-in for the disposals at both sinks. For both sinks, his layouts were perfect. The trick was then lifting the (very) heavy cabinets up and over the pipes from the floor, aligned with the pipes from the wall, while also pulling the extra wiring through a small hole in the back. The large sink cabinet was actually the easiest – it was open at the top, and we had plenty of room to stand on either side of it and lift it up and over. The hardest part was holding it mid-level while someone pulled the wire through.
We had F help us with the small sink cabinet where the access was limited by being in the corner AND under all of the steel brackets sticking out from the wall. I had to stand in front of the cabinet, M crouched under the steel on the side of the cabinet, and I had to make room between my legs to allow F to verbally guide us and also pull the wire through. Holding something very heavy in a partially bent over position with arms extended was the opposite of good lifting practice. I was sore that evening, but okay the next day until I was changing clothes for an evening yoga class. That’s when I felt a severe twinge, and the pain was intense. 4-6 weeks of rest – it’s torturing me. I’m trying to be very careful and diligent right now because I need to be back in shape for removing more of the old flooring in the house soon.
Prepped for first stone templating (countertops). Also started finishing details of the cabinet installation (side filler panels and toe kicks).
M mocked up the height of the range and legs in cardboard so we could see how much of the sides of the cabinets would be visible. He decided to return the toe kicks on the sides back to the wall. In retrospect, we should have ordered those cabinets to have finished edges to the floor. We sent photos and asked the countertop fabricators where they wanted more blocking. They asked us to infill the corner, and infilled some areas in the sink cabinets for even more support. We also cut out the area for the small sink.
One of the supply air vents in the room comes up through the floor and turns to blow air out through the toe kick. Our cabinet maker will use their CNC machine to cut any grille pattern we want into the panel. I thought it might be fun to do a clever pattern that is sort of hidden, but kind of a fun quirky thing to discover. I tried using part of the mosaic pattern which is derived from the carved forms on our front facade, but I couldn’t get anywhere close to the ratio of open vs closed for the vent to work. So I went to a simpler vertical slot and added star(s). We felt like those looked a little patriotic in the end. I have a new idea, which is simple but cool, and it’s being mocked up now. I’ll show more of that in March. In the interim, M fabricated the duct extension for this supply, and then completed the cabinet installation.
Countertop templating! A 4.5 hour session.
Our stone fabricators were on site for the first templating session. This one was the most extensive and involved process of carefully documenting all of the current conditions in the space, including the steel brackets in the wall, and reviewing all of the details of the final design. We had to pull the sinks and faucets out of storage, review the opening templates, discuss custom stone milling details like at the stainless steel cover plates in the backsplashes, decide on overhang depths and backsplash details at the range and hood. We even talked through access issues; we might rent and install a temporary ramp at the rear entry for the counters and fridge deliveries.
After templating was completed, M started working on the tweaks to the cabinets requested by the countertop installers while we waited for their shop drawings. Eight days later those were ready, and we spent that weekend reviewing them in detail. They include a photograph of each of the four slabs with the pieces overlayed on them. And then they show all of the pieces as they sit in the kitchen, with the photographs of the stone so that we can see the patterns as they will be on the actual pieces.
I field measure spaces and review shop drawings all the time in my job, and I was very impressed with their thoroughness in the field and the accuracy of the shop drawings. The only areas that we had questions on were related to the sink and faucet spacing from front to back. I decided to draw new sections through both of these cabinets with the actual dimensions of all blocking and the faucets just to make sure that we had thought of everything. I sent these with the returned shop drawings, and they returned the revised drawings the following day. Now we’re waiting for scheduling and hoping to get a temporary ramp installed in the next few days.
While we wait for the countertop installation, we continue on towards kitchen completion. M installed more herringbone flooring into the refrigerator enclosure and through the opening to the pantry, and then mocked up the trim in those locations and put an order together for the millwork place in our neighborhood. We’re going to hold on installing the pantry flooring until all of the heavy stuff gets delivered and installed in March, but we’ve got plenty of wainscoting and trim work to complete, priming to do, and as soon as we have our appliances installed in the kitchen we can clear out the temp kitchen and start taking up the old flooring in the dining room and stair hall upstairs. We have a planned 10-day stretch off in March, so we should make some good progress. I’ll be back at the end of the month to share what we’ve done.
I might try and share a before an after at the end of each post. Here’s a good demo photo of M and the girls vs. current photo of the kitchen. See you in March!
