We went with the Korel tiles from Costco. Measured the area and ordered them online. We couldn’t decide on our glass tiles, plus the granite is busy enough. If you see one section shiny and another not shiny its just light reflecting from that section. All the tiles are not facing the exact same direction and it gives off that half matte half shiny look, but when you stand in front of it its all shiny. I think the flash of the camera makes it worse actually.

Barstools added. We got a great deal on 4 barstools in the style we wanted from The counter also has under cabinet lighting using the Dioder’s from Ikea which are LED lights. They are also used in our under cabinet lighting.

Here they are. Dioders.

The faucet is a Hansgrohe single handle pull out and the sink is Elkay.

We took off our old window treatments and haven’t replaced them yet. Loving all the light that comes in every morning though. You can also see the high bar section on the right in this picture. I really don’t know what to call it - “high bar.” Its where our garbage can and recycling bin are as well as our “home center.”

That red table near the window, also purchased from Ikea, was going to be set behind the couch and used a computer workstation where the display would be projected onto the tv. However, there isn’t really enough room there, plus when sitting on the barstools your legs won’t fit underneath, so we moved it over to the window and we actually think its a better spot for it. One of the things before the kitchen remodel was that we had to replace those high hat lights frequently. However the two above this picture (which you can’t see) are on a dimmer switch and we have rarely had to change those bulbs. So we put a dimmer switch on the main kitchen lights to save energy/bulb replacement costs.

The kitchen and this family room have been Feng Shui’d.

TV stand and shelf from Ikea also. We went Ikea nuts. New TV, HD receiver, Wii, and plant.

So anyway, I have already made my menu for next week. It doesn’t matter what day we have what. I will shop on Sunday or Monday and go with whatever we feel like on that day or how much time I have to prep. I am just determined to cook and eat yummy home cooked meals.

Here we go:

Parmesan chicken cutlets, mixed greens salad

Fish (not sure what kind yet - basically whatever looks good at the market); avocado, tomato and cucumber salad

Spaghetti and (turkey) meatballs, steamed broccoli, garlic bread

Shrimp w/ mango and cilantro salsa

Chicken taco salad with cilantro ranch dressing

You also get to view a hint of the backsplash we used more pics to come later.

Here are a couple of shots of the stair rail being lit up in the dark. These pictures that were taken in the dark were taken after the rail was not wired neatly. The one above is the final product.

You can also leave this on all night without worry of it costing that much money. LED’s are the most efficient bulbs and can last in the neighborhood of 20-50 years before having to replace the bulb.

Oh yeh sink is in too. We were really close to going with the brand that our granite guy sells, Suneli, however, Suneli doesn’t make a large single bowl which is what we wanted. So at the last minute I ran over to Home Depot and bought this large single bowl Elkay and Hansgrohe faucet.

Undercabinet Lighting reflecting off the granite.

Left side: Mostly cans of stuff, your oils and vinegars, sauces unopened, tea, spices, cooking related dry goods type stuff such as pasta, and a standard shelf for the ziplock bags, foil, saran wrap, etc. The spice drawer stealthily closes under this shelf.

Left side some drawers open to see how it looks. Note full extension a perk that the top cabinet companies consistently mention, but it seems this is pretty standard nowadays everywhere.

Right side: Cereal (we love cereal), snacks (we might love snacks more), vitamins/meds, food that Jax can grab himself on the bottom drawer.

Random stuff is stored on the top cavernous box.

Tip: Use Wax Paper to move heavy cabinetry or other objects over wood or laminate floors to prevent scratching of floors.

Diapers work well too :).

In this before picture look at the top of the cabinets. We decided in the remodel get rid of that gap where we always filled with “kitchy” stuff. We didn’t want to do that anymore because we would just fill the space with whatever we could find and never liked it nor had attachment to. Every company we worked with whether it was Omega Cabinetry, Thomasville Cabinetry, or IKEA they all had a solution. IKEA is not custom cabinetry, but they do have 39″ wall cabinets and they were a perfect solution. We also gained a little bit of room if you measure countertop to bottom of cabinet with the new setup.

As I already posted that we scraped the popcorn off the ceiling and made it smooth. The reason for this was because we were moving the cabinets to the ceiling and the eye would be drawn upwards. Another reason would be the trim above the new cabinets would show alot of gaps or light holes because of the uneven surface. The third reason is that it just looks better and if you’re spending the money, spend a little bit more to get all the details covered. Its just a detail, but its a big one.

The new cabinets probably have 3″ from the ceiling as opposed to about 14″ with the old cabinets. The ceiling is almost never level, so this where the trim comes into play. Some people don’t even do the upper trim. We just felt it was another detail worth doing. The piece costs around $20 bucks.

This is our installer Marius putting in the uppers.

Here your eye is drawn to the ceiling. Can’t have the popcorn there.

Cabinets flat packed.

The whole kitchen pushed over into the other room.

Some before and afters of the wall knockdown:

After knockout.

The new pantry is split between the two tall cabinets that surround the refrigerator. I’ve already mentioned a few times, the paint is 0 VOC paint from Freshaire. You can get it at Home Depot. No smell at all.

We opted for delivery service so we didn’t break our backs. Plus with C pregnant, it was going to be my back that was breaking. Let the pros handle it for a little more than a hundred bucks. The total weight came out to around 1700 pounds. Yeh no thanks.

We had alot more boxes than this.

Uppers with microwave.

The rest of the uppers and lowers are in.

Looking out to the living room.

We originally had a SBD30 (sink cabinet 30″ for the non-ikeans), but the measurements were off. We went back to the store and got a BD36. Not a sink base cabinet, but a lower 36″ cabinet. We wanted a full door look without the false fronts sink cabinets come with. Nothing is installed yet here. We are doing a door/drawer pullout on the left door, and a hinged door on the right.

Where the old pantry was, we put in a higher bar than our countertop height. We used 39″ wall cabinets on the floor. To break up the space and give dynamic levels. Then we stepped up that bar about 8 inches and put short top around. You’ll see in the final pics.

Added 8 outlets to the “bar” area. Good for charging cell phones, a phone, and if we feel like putting a small appliance there we can.

So we’re going for the built in fridge look on the fridge side, but when the cabinets were ganged, they were installed too low. Actually I didn’t account for the door hinges on the refrigerator when I measured. I would later have to take out these big cabinets and raise the support rail myself. The 36×24 over the fridge was a PITA to deal with.

In this picture you can see the box frame position is lower than the fridge door hinges. So imagine if the doors were put on, they would not be able to open and close. The solution is to raise the support rail where the two tall 88″ cabinets on either side of the refrigerator hook onto as well as the cavernous 36×24 cabinet. Then place 1″ mdf squares under the Capita legs of the 88″ tall cabinets. This will give enough clearance to have smooth door operation.

Now done the right way.

Our cabinets arrived a day later than expected so on the first day our installers were only able to demo the kitchen. They had originally planned to demo, paint over the newly smooth-finished ceilings and start putting together the cabinetry. After the demo was complete, we painted the cutout wall with Freshaire Natural Wilderness, which looks like a khaki gray color. This is a 0 VOC paint. No obnoxious smell and not harmful to breath in either.

Here are some pics of the cabinet demolition:

We interviewed with 4 different companies that specialize in popcorn removal and we found Renew Ceilings on Angies List for the South Florida area. They rated high and were extremely good at what they did. We hired Renew Ceilings to do our drywall cutout of our pantry as well as the popcorn scrape. They brought in a crew of at least 7-8 people and got it all done - the whole job inside one day. Everyone we talked to said it would take a few days and some said we can’t stay in the house overnight. These guys are professionals and they left the place clean. It would have been a tremendous undertaking for almost anyone else we interviewed to get the job done in the same amount of time.

C’s parent’s just used this company the week before we did to scrape their ceilings and C’s mom told us that the primer was the reason she had a headache for 3 days. Well we’re eco friendly. So I haul butt down to Home Depot and pick up 4 jugs/gallons of this Freshaire Drywall primer. This paint and primer is sold only at Home Depot and has no VOC’s which means no headaches.

It costs a little more, but the amount is negligible when weighing in the discomfort and potential health issues from exposure to VOC’s from traditional primers and paints.

Ok so I was trapped upstairs during the process, but I took a shot through the plastic. They plastic up the area that is being scraped - walls, floors, you name it. In this case it was the area of the kitchen, living room, dining room, laundry room, and downstairs bathroom. We couldn’t only scrape the kitchen because now with the wall knockdown it transitions into the other two rooms. The whole enchilada would need to be scraped.

This picture shows the wall not fully taken down yet, just the hole cutout. The electrical had to be rerouted here and the doorbell was moved. Its that black thing in the foreground near the ceiling.

Here is why you want to remove the air vents before popcorn scraping. Actually the company we hired should have taken these down. It was two screws…

Closeup of popcorn scrape, primed, but not painted yet:

Here are some shots after they cleaned up the popcorn from all over the place and the drywall was well, drying.

Monday: chicken taco salad with cilantro ranch dressing

Tuesday: spaghetti and turkey meatballs, salad, garlic bread

Wednesday: shrimp with mango cilantro dressing, salad, corn

Thursday: pizza and greek salad

Friday: chicken curry with chickpeas and tomatoes, rice, zucchini

What’s cooking at your house this week?