Someday My Favorite: kitchen reno

Sorry, I know that it has been a couple days since continuing the kitchen reno posts, but here is the last one! Cabinets are in and appliances are all set, so now all that is needed are the finishing touches. Before I do that, I need to show you the birdies that were watching us work on the kitchen. They continued to grow and were falling over the top of each other in that little nest. Well, eventually one morning, shortly after I left for work, Heather got a picture of the last one before it flew out of the nest.

Much bigger birdies.

Last one shortly before it flew out.

Now on to the kitchen... The night before the granite counter tops came in I put in all the knobs and pulls. At first, we were thinking a brushed nickel style like our faucet, but we decided upon more of an antiqued brass finished style. We found what we were looking for at Lowes and went with a simple round knob for the upper cabinets and handles for the lower cabinet doors and drawer pulls. I started putting the knobs on in the afternoon and finished them pretty quickly, but with random distractions, dinner, and other tasks around the house, I found myself finishing the last few drawer pulls as the sun was setting. Here are some before and after pictures.

Well, that was successful! The workers arrived with the granite about 8:30AM the next morning. I watched as they installed, but unfortunately didn't think to grab the camera to show their step-by-step progress. By around 11:00AM it was all in and two of the workers left to get a head start on the next job, while the third stayed behind to finish the final touches (caulking, filling and matching the two seams, and drilling holes for the faucet). About another hour later, everything was all set to go. Now I just had the paneling for the back of the peninsula, faucet, set the stove in place, and lots of cleaning left. Doesn't sound like a big task, but when needing to leave by 5:00PM and not being able to work on it until around 2:00PM the next day, it made for some tiring hours of trying to get everything done before Sunday, shower day. My dad stopped by to give me a hand since we had to take a couple cabinets down in order for them to put the granite it. Cabinets were no problem. On to the wainscot paneling...

So the wainscot paneling for the peninsula was supposed to be a simple task, which in the long run actually was, but it just took some extra time. Let me explain... Goal: Run the panels through my table saw to cut the angles and lengths. Problem: Table saw doesn't have a fence that can extend far enough off in order to guide the panel. Solution: Make all the measurements, load 3 panels up and take them to dad's table saw. We made our cuts and hauled them back and started to install them. The first two went in nicely with a perfect match at the 45 degree corner. Problem #2: The third that brings it to the 90 degree corner was a bit too long. Problem #3: With extra travel time it is now getting late and we don't have time to run it to get cut again. Dad graciously takes panel with him to cut it down to size.

After being out to pick up registration Friday night, and actually participate in the Galena duathlon on Saturday, we get home around 1:30PM and need to get to work. Dad stops by and we put the final two panels on and they fit great! Heather begins cleaning while I finish up the corner trim pieces and put the matching toe kicks on the bottom of the cabinets. All that is left is that faucet, but needed to get cleaning the house before having to leave.

Finished peninsula with wainscoting panel.

We arrive home around 11:00PM that night with a clean house, clean kitchen, and now a full fridge ready for guests the next day. The final obstacle before completing mission: kitchen reno, is the faucet. We actually bought the faucet at Lowes a few weeks prior, but now it gets to be our ending point of celebration. The farm sink base makes for some tight spaces to crawl in, but after a little bit of work, it's complete!!!