Well the project leaps forward, anyway. I have selected the cabinetmaker and the design. They will start building next week and will install before Christmas if all goes well. My contractor says my house will be torn up for about three weeks. If that's all it is, I will consider myself lucky.
I have to pick out countertops next. And floors. I've decided against removing all my carpet. I just thought the options weren't as good as what I have already. Laminates are afforadable but not recommended. Hardwood is recommended, but just too expensive. Now I'm planning to do tile in the kitchen and keep my carpeting everywhere else. My carpet is still very nice and not worth ripping up for something disappointing. Maybe next year I'll consider doing floors.
So, decisions yet to make: floor tile, counter top, backsplash tile, lighting fixtures. And review appliances. May upgrade a bit since I'm saving so much on the floors.
3 comments:
Tile selection! Oh, so much fun. I mean really fun. But it took me months to decide. I began with the cheap retailers like Lowe's and Home Depot. I would take in paint sticks (I painted up a couple shims with my faux paint patterns/colors) I would take to the store to narrow my choices.
Then I would buy one tile of those I thought were in the running and bring them home for an audition. They are now (all those trial tiles that failed) used as trivets or under plants to avoid water spots or broken up for my future "tile and thyme" walkway.
Delivery charges (as much as $150 from Lowes) made me begin to look closer to home. We have a tile and flooring store in Angel Fire. They loaned me tiles for auditions. And since they deal with contractors for whole houses they could also direct me to "remainders" I could have cheaper given my 336 SF room.
I wound up with this delightful thick Italian tile (they excel at tile)which would have been over my budget bought at a budget store.
Congrats on moving forward. Get a counselor so you can live through the next few weeks and spend as much time as you can out of the house looking at tile.
PS: Are you adding more electrical circuits and outlets while you are messing everything up? Really good idea.
I've done the Lowe's / Home Depot route for tile and they have some possibilities. But I've been referred to a tile specialty store and I'm really interested to see what I can find there. I especially want something pretty in the backsplash since the kitchen itself will be fairly plain vanilla.
I may add more outlets although I already have quite a few of those. But lighting is where I'll change a lot. I have lived with a terrible lighting situation for a long time (it'll be in the before pics yet to come).
I think what I'll need, too, is an escape place where I can get away from the mess. We don't start demolition for a few weeks - closer to when the cabinets will be ready.
Getting mentally prepared.
It is not so much outlets as circuits. More and more kitchen appliances that take Juice. When we wire a kitchen these days there are individual circuits for the microwave, the refrigerator and the dishwasher. In addition to those "dedicated" circuits there are two others by code usually splitting the kitchen outlets in half. Lights on a separate circuit so they don't dim when the coffee pot brews.
If your house is older than 10 years you don't have that many circuits.
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