(Part 1 of this series is here. This 2nd instalment of the series was written 2 weeks ago, but I forgot to post it! Shows what a fog I’m in about all of this.)
It’s really all too much. I mean, how do you choose, how do you know what you’re going to be happy living with for the next 10 years?
Sorry, I’m not talking major life event…I’m talking the next chapter of our kitchen renos. We put the thing on hold for a few weeks because of other events, but a couple of weeks ago, Amy came by and brought out some samples. Wood, counter tops, colours, textures, quartz or laminate; too many to choose from!
We also went to a few places on our own to look at floors, back splashes, paint colours. And kitchen appliances; should we buy new ones or are we good with the old ones? OMG. We have no idea what to decide. And then the first estimate came in. OMG again. It is going to cost a small fortune. I guess we kind of knew that, but when you look at the cold, hard numbers, reality slaps you in the face.
Should we go dark on the floors, light on the cupboards, dark on the counter tops? Should we go light on the floors, dark…well, you see what I mean.
One of the things we definitely decided on was to not change too much about the shape of the kitchen…one option we were presented with was to tear down a couple of walls and open one door way into the dining room to almost twice the width. We opted to keep it more or less the way it is, not only saving money, but. Well, yeah, saving money.
Fortunately for us, Amy is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to what choices work best with each other. There is so much we would not have understood, such as how the type of flooring you choose can affect when you put it in, either before or after the cabinets are installed. This texture works with that one, but these two will fight each other. Decide on one thing you really like (ie counter top or flooring) and then build around that. Take inventory of what you have so you can choose which types of special additions you might need for them. For instance, I didn’t know you can have a special, slotted shelf for cookie sheets! Who’d a thunk it?
To the left is the floor plan of the kitchen. It’s pretty straight-forward, but of course it’s an old house, built in 1944, so everything has to be custom built in order to fit. Right now, the stove and fridge are right beside each other, but the stove will be moved to the south wall. You can see the stove where it will eventually go, on the top of the diagram. That means installing a vent too, which will be another expense, on top of the electrical stuff needed to install lights under the cupboards. Right now in the bottom right corner of the diagram there is an old pantry which will be demolished and give us more counter space and cupboard space below. And on each side of, and above the fridge we will have more cupboard space too.
The nook, which is at the bottom of the diagram, will be re-purposed for more counter and cupboard space. And we will have a moveable island, just a small one, that will sit in the nook area when not in use. I like the idea of a little island to pull into the middle of the kitchen when we do our gingerbread cookies!
This photo is more or less the way the kitchen looks now with the sink and windows on the left side. The only thing that is different is that we changed the counter top laminate to a black one.
This next photo is a rendering of what it will look like with the new design, the stove moved to the centre of that wall and the counters deeper and cupboards higher and taller:
We have been back an forth to a few places to try to come up with back splash ideas, flooring ideas and the rest of it, but it is so utterly overwhelming. Aaarrrghhh!
I’m okay now.
IJ