Kitchen Renovation

NOTE: Click on any image to get a larger one for better detail.

After several years of living with "somebody else's kitchen" Jane and I decided to give this one a major workover. It is one of the things that has always bugged us about this house and one of the things we resolved to fix "someday". Well "someday came" about two months ago when the silicone seal around the sink failed and the Formica counter swelled from a water leak. The counter top was going to have to be changed and the problem with an older kitchen is if you change anything "ya gotta change everything". So we finally took the leap into those expensive "major home renovation" waters by heading for Lowes. The original owners "spared ALL expense" when they did the kitchen, using good appliances but with no attention to detail....everything was serviceable but the entire effect was "1970's cheap" even though the house was built in the late 1990's. As we are going to sell this place after I retire in three years and move to someplace "warm" we didn't want to spend the money to change the cabinets but everything else was "fair game".




Jane kept busy cleaning things up, as I worked, to keep the dust out of the rest of the house. We covered the furniture with drop cloths, and the doorways to the dining room and main hall with plastic sheeting, but it didn't stop the fine stuff from migrating.







Here is what it looked like before most of the work was done.....after I ripped out the counter top by slicing it into large pieces with a Skilsaw and then striped the Formica backsplash off the wall behind the range.










We elected to have the work "best done by professionals".....DONE BY PROFESSIONALS. So the granite counter top and the plumbing reworks were done by appropriate contractors. I have done plumbing but I try not to do it anymore, particularly on older existing plumbing. Something always breaks, doesn't fit, or leaks and if a professional does it they are liable to fix it....they also have all of the necessary tools and the parts are in their truck. In my "adventures in plumbing" I always make at least three trips to Lowes or Home Depot for even the simplest jobs. The granite counter tops were a no-brainer, particularly after Jane saw them do the work.....I came home to watch the final finishing work but she watched them bring the pieces in and level them. The counter top was 52 square feet and one single piece (of three) weighed over "seven hundred pounds" and it was hand carried and installed by five "very large" young Hispanic men....all of whom I am sure are destined to have back problems by age 40. The other two pieces were easier to bring in but fitting them and making the joint with the large piece was a work of art. They also installed the stainless steel undercounter double sink.....and the entire countertop job took them about 4 hours. They were followed by the plumber for the dishwasher and double sink, and the appliance installer for the refrigerator; leaving me the tasks of installing the trash compactor, gas range, microwave/hood, mosaic tile backsplash and the undercounter LED lighting.


The next weekend Jane and I vowed to finish the work and managed to get most of it done. The old gas range had a simple hood, with a carbon air filter. The new hood was integrated with a "huge" microwave oven and this involved installing a new electrical outlet in the cabinet above the microwave, then installing "hangers" on the wall. Once that was done Jane and I lifted the monster into place and bolted it to the base of the cabinet.


The next weekend was dedicated to doing the tile backsplash. It is two inch square natural river rock with a dove gray grout. This involved changing all of the "white" outlets to new decorator outlets with snap-on covers in a silver gray finish. I didn't realize how many double outlets had to be changed until I got started....there are five of them and when it came time to cut the tile it involved custom cutting six tiles for each of the outlets. Needless to say, the tiling job ran over into the week and I was working "after work" to get it all done so we could reclaim our kitchen.


The undercounter lighting was an adventure in itself. There was nothing available that was small enough, and subtle enough for this counter arrangement. I ended up purchasing some small LED arrays and custom wiring them into the undercounter edges, with the wiring running up through small conduits inside the cabinets, terminating at the new outlet I installed to power the microwave.

As the final touch we changed all of the cabinet and drawer pulls from bright brass to brushed nickel......the brass just didn't "cut it" with all of the new stainless steel appliances.


The final result is below. It was finished in time for us to get familiar with it before our family appeared for a week over Christmas. The new appliances made cooking that big Christmas dinner much easier and the new kitchen both looks good and is easier to maintain than the old one was.


This is an overview of the entire kitchen. Behind me are windows looking out to the front of the house. The granite bar overhangs more than 12 inches, so I made supports to assure the granite will not crack and drop on someone sitting on the stools. A lot of people do not support overhanging granite but after reading a lot on-line I was convinced that it is unsafe if you do not support an overhang of greater than 12 inches.






The tile backsplash turned out to be one of the best features of the new kitchen and was well worth the effort.





















The undercounter lighting is particularly useful along the back wall, and the new undercounter stainless sinks make counter cleanup much easier. We went with a faucet that is also an integrated sprayer that pulls away on a stainless hose. Jane really likes the single handle for the faucet and the soap dispenser built in to the counter top. It makes for an uncluttered look with easy maintenance.