Membral Monday

membral ~ of, like or pertaining to the limbs rather than the trunk

I have a functioning kitchen! Huzzah!!!

Monday the installers from Stoneworx arrived with the hefty slabs of stone that became our new counters. It was a glorious moment . . . until we were told we couldn’t use them for 48 hours to give the epoxy a chance to dry. It was almost worse than having no counters.

The plumber was supposed to come either Tuesday or Wednesday. He didn’t show up Tuesday, but the contractor came to install our microwave. Then he had to uninstall it again. It fit in the space all right, but because it’s set back so much further than the alcove surrounding the fridge, we couldn’t open the door more than halfway.

Fortunately, there was a spacer panel between the corner cupboard and the cupboard above the microwave, that came down about a foot and a half. The contractor cut the part off that hung below the cupboard and fixed it to the other side of the space, then reinstalled the microwave. Everything worked out fine.

It was another couple of days before the plumber came, but at least he came early in the morning. And because this is the renovation from hell, there were a couple of problems. First of all, the dishwasher had been moved several feet from where it had been, and the hoses were too short. He was able to fix that, but during the test run discovered one of the seals was leaking, which he wasn’t able to fix. So . . . the dishwasher is hooked up, but we can’t use it until the seal is fixed.

Then we come to the sink itself. When the old sink was removed, the drainage pipe was just capped off. The problem is, the new sinks are way deeper than the old ones, so the drains are much lower. You can’t just cut the drainage pipe off, so he had to drill a hole through the bottom of the cabinet under the sink and the ceiling in the basement so the drain could run straight down.

Then we discovered that the covers for the drains in the sink didn’t match. One was for a sink with a garbage disposal, which we can’t have in our community because there’s a bylaw against them. So, to make sure they matched, the plumber use plain old chrome covers and we can get the proper ones whenever.

So . . . we have to get new drain covers, the seal on the dishwasher needs to be fixed, and we’re still waiting for the trim for above the cupboards. But for all intents and purposes, the kitchen is done.

Now comes the fun part (not!), reloading the cupboards.

Methomania Monday

methomania ~ morbid craving for alcohol

There’s no joy in reno-ville today.

It’s amazing how something that started out so promising went down the crapper so quickly. Where do I start?

I got a call last week from the company that makes our cabinets. We aren’t getting the missing cabinet, the trim, or the replacement doors until the week of, brace yourself, January 15. They said something about not wanting to pay the contractor to come in twice, despite the fact it was their error that the cabinet was missing from the original shipment.

And by the way, the proper doors for the cabinets will cost us an extra $450.

We were getting impatient about the counter guy coming to measure for our counters and finally called the company only to be told they were waiting for a deposit before he was sent out. This was the first we heard about it – this is something the designer at Home Depot should have told us about. So the hubby rushed out to make the deposit and the guy is coming some time today.

So in preparation, the hubby pulled out the sink we’d bought last year when we started talking about renovating the kitchen (the son-in-law got us a really good deal on it). Uh oh. There’s a problem. It’s an apron sink, which means it hangs over the edge of the counter, and our counter isn’t built for that.

Off to Home Depot we went yesterday to find a new sink but of course they didn’t have any copper coloured ones in stock so we had to special order it. The good news is that it’ll be here this week. The bad news is, the counter guy may not take our word for the measurement and decide to delay things until the new sink is here, which means the counters won’t be here until the new year.

Meanwhile . . . the hubby noticed that if you took out the spaces between the sets of lower cabinets where the sink goes, it would pull the side cabinets forward and we wouldn’t need to change the doors. So we called the contractor to see if this was possible and he said maybe, but he wouldn’t advise it, but we could get an electrician in to do something with the wiring for the stove so we could push it back further and then we could open the cabinet without changing the door. At least we get the satisfaction of calling the cabinet people and telling them to cancel the extra doors.

So in the meantime, I’ve continued filling what cupboards I could. The hubby suggested I use one of the two wide cutlery drawers as a tea drawer, but I found I needed a little more space than that:

Okay, to be fair there's a can of coffee and some hot chocolate in there as well, but most of it is tea. :-)

And my favourite (and the most expensive) cupboard is the pantry:

And there was one upside to the cessation of work in the kitchen, the hubby was finally able to start laying the floor in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. This shows the comparison between the old floor and the new:

And this one shows the living room with the new flooring. We almost hate to cover it up with the throw rug:

Now everybody cross their fingers that the counter guy has good news for us regarding the delivery date for the counters. Otherwise I won’t have a kitchen again until the new year.