Butler's Pantry- almost there!

Here are some pre-Thanksgiving shots of the Butler's Pantry.  We painted the yellow, and were waiting for the floors to be finished before adding in the cabinetry.   It was as SUPER tight fit getting them in there... but they did it!

The window trim still needed to be installed.

I quickly got to decorating it- the fun part!  I put canning jars & collectible tins & bottles up on the very top.  I was worried that there wouldn't be enough room up there for displaying stuff, when we needed to lower the ceiling for the stove hood to vent outside, but there's plenty!

We're missing some top trim.
Not sure what (if anything) we're going to do about that!

I went ahead and decorated the top shelf!

I finally get to put out the canister set that I had bought at a NYC flea market about 10 years ago!  The center of the painted flowers are yellow- almost like it was planned!

Left side of cabinet counter

Right side of cabinet counter

I'm still fussing with the upper cabinets... figuring which patters & stuff to put in there.  I'm sure that's something that's going to change every season.

Here's a last shot that my sister-in-law took on Thanksgiving Day.  The window trim was installed the day before- which meant I had to re-clean to get the dust up, but I was very excited that it was finished for our guests to see!

I love the little tiffany-style lamp in there.  My mother-in-law bought it for me as a gift.  It has fruit on it, so seems perfect for this spot.  At night, I love having it on all by itself- just the right amount of light for a warm glow that leaks into the kitchen & dining room!

Kitchen Cabinets Almost Complete!

A few days after the kitchen countertops went in, the cabinet guy came back to complete the section over the stove.

I love the little mantle shelf above the stove... can't wait to put platters & decorating things up there!
The three doors in the center open, but the hood is located behind them, so that's not actually storage space.  But the four narrow doors on the side DO have a bunch of storage- they are really deep, so hold tons of stuff!

The stove actually just BARELY squeezed in there!  The installation guy came and couldn't believe it was such a tight fit- but they got it in there! Whew!

Next the granite guy is coming back to put the little backsplash pieces in place in the squares on the sides.  We still haven't picked out the backsplash for the wall behind the stove. We want a stone look, but haven't found the right one yet.

The cabinet guy will be back... the two drawers to the left of the stove had minor dings.  I don't think I would have even noticed, but the cabinet guy noticed during installation and ordered new drawer fronts.  Once they come in he'll be back to replace those and to finish putting the knobs on the rest of them.

PS- This was all in early November (can't believe how far behind I am on writing up these posts!  But there's been very little progress since then, so it's giving me a chance to catch up!)   The good news is that the gas got connected to the stove the Monday before Thanksgiving- so we were able to cook the turkey- hooray!

Fridge Cabinet Dilemma

As mentioned, the wrong cabinet was ordered for above the fridge.  It was too deep... the floor plan showed the little alcove for the fridge, but didn't show that there was a framed out box above it.  Now we had to come up with a remedy, since we knew we definitely didn't want it sticking out so far (the whole reason behind recessing the wall!)

You can see it sticking out on the
left side of the photo

Our options were...
1-pay over $500 for a new cabinet.  We couldn't return the wrong one because it had already been installed (one reason you should be at home when the cabinets are being installed... but unfortunately, neither of us could take off from work that day).  They said they could put it on rush order and we could get it in about a week.
2-remove the sheetrock & framing above the fridge and use the "wrong" cabinet, just sliding it back to where it was measured for.  I was a little worried that there was a big beam or something behind there, which may have lead to the decision to frame it out that way, but luckily I had photos on the blog I could check!  There wasn't a photo of the exact section we were wondering about, but this post had photos of the coat closet that is on the opposite side of the wall.  It looked clear of huge beams.
3- not have a cabinet over the fridge at all.  This would require not even exploring option 2, or else we'd need to re-sheetrock.

We took the plunge and went with option 2.  Mike was able to do this himself.  After knocking through a hole underneath, he confirmed that there weren't any big beams.  Then he carefully sliced & took away the sheetrock.  He needed to put some framing in, so that the cabinet guys would have something to anchor the cabinet to.  They would then rip the long sides lengthwise, so they were the right size.

Of course, we discussed all of this with the head cabinet guy before doing anything.  He was on board with this, and I'm happy to report that it all worked out really well!  We now have a nice deep cabinet above there (that was one of my concerns with ordering a new, more shallow one!)

Flooring & Cabinet Installation Day 2

Now the kitchen feels like it's starting to come together!

When we ended up short on the flooring, Mike started searching online.  We tried a salvaging place  that was about an hour from our house, but they wanted a lot of money per square foot and it would take over a week to get it to us.  Mike found a bunch of boards being sold online and it was just 2 towns away, so he rented a truck and ran over to get them.

You can tell the difference now, but the contractor & floor guy said once they are sanded and stained you won't be able to tell.

We had been prepared to switch the flooring in the butler's pantry to the same tile that we used at the back door entryway, but we ended up with enough wood to continue the wood flooring in there too!

I forgot to mention before, but we had to transfer the 80+ boxes of cabinets from the barn into the old kitchen... it took us a good 4 hours!  It definitely put the kitchen out of use (we just had a narrow pathway to the fridge!)

From next to the window of the old kitchen

From the Dining Room doorway

The cabinet installation guys were great.  They got right to work and all went smoothly.

View from the new dining room doorway

View from the back door

We are still dealing with the fridge cabinetry on the left side of that photo.  The rest of the cabinetry on the far wall can't go in until after the countertops get installed.

I love the big farmhouse sink!

This is the nook between the dining room and butler's pantry

The countertop templates were done the next day.  You can see the square sample of black granite on the cabinet to the left.  I'll have a countertop post soon!

Cabinet Installation Started!

After the flooring debacle, the contractor did arrive early to meet with the cabinet installation guys- who where having no part of the plywood fix (Mike & I were relieved that they weren't pleased with the "fix" either, and the contractor would have to get the flooring done immediately).

Cabinet installation was scheduled to take place on Tuesday & Wednesday, and then they come back after the countertops are installed to do the cabinetry that sits on top for around the stove.

The new plan they worked out was that the cabinet guys would be putting in the cabinetry where the floor WAS complete.  Then our contractor would get the floor done himself that afternoon.

Here's what it looked like at the end of the day on Tuesday...

Nook between the dining room (to left) and
butlers pantry (to right)

Bank of cabinets next to the fridge

More aggravation... The cabinet around the fridge was the wrong size.  They stick out too far, and defeat the whole purpose of the recessed fridge.  The floor plans showed the recessed area, however we didn't notice the top was framed out to match the rest of the walls.  We either had to buy a new cabinet with 12 inch depth, adjust this cabinet (saw off the back?), or adjust the wall behind the cabinet.  Since the cabinet was already assembled, we were not able to exchange/return it (grrr... this is the trouble with both of us working while the renovation is going on!)

As the contractor was racing to get the floor done, he wasn't as careful about the placement of the boards... and ran out.  Luckily, he had just enough to get done the area needed for the cabinetry to finish being installed the next morning.

Cabinets delivered!

The cabinets have arrived! 

There are a total of 84 boxes!

They will only deliver the boxes to one location- fortunately we have an empty barn to put them in, since the kitchen isn't ready for them yet! I don't know what we would have done otherwise.

I took a sneak peek into one box... and I am loving the gray!

We also have this big HEAVY box in the barn... our 650 lb tub!

We're still a ways off from these to coming inside, but at least the workers won't be waiting on us when they are ready for them!  

We still have some more tile that we need to pick up, and also ordering the kitchen sink.  I hope to get that done this week.

Cabinets Ordered!

We waited until they were running the Memorial Day sale, then ordered our kitchen cabinets!  Although it didn't make for the most exciting way to spend our holiday weekend, it saved literally thousands, just by waiting until that weekend!

Here's the print outs of the plans... the windows aren't the right proportions, and the walls aren't going to be green, so disregard that stuff! 

View from the seating area, and just to the right of the back door.

The main thing we wanted was for the hood & stove area to look like a hearth.  The hood has a ledge that I can put platters & decorate .  We also loved having the small upper cabinets for storage in our last house's kitchen.  They were so useful, so we knew we wanted to do that again.

In the far back corner, we put additional cabinets.  We were thinking we'd use the antique butler's pantry cabinetry here, but since that will fit in a U shape, in the area behind the stove wall, we had to pick something else for this nook.

More funkiness with the computer program for the photos below, but it gives you an idea...

View from the refrigerator

That empty area on the right will have our table (corner banquette?)... we still have to find & purchase that.

View from the kitchen sink

To the left of the fridge will be the door to the basement.  To the right of the cabinets is the doorway into the dining room & butler's pantry.

It normally takes 4-5 weeks for the cabinets to be made, but we won't be ready for them so we put a delay on the delivery.  They are going to give us a call in another two weeks to see how it's moving along.

We still have to pick out the countertops. We have a good idea of what we want, but don't need to order that for a while yet.  (I'm hoping we can wait to see if there's a good Independence Day sale!)

Staging the Butler's Pantry

Still no progress on the roof... but in the meantime...

We had to decide how we were going to use the Butler's Pantry cabinets that we had purchased three years ago.  Here's a photo of a section of it from when we purchased it...

It was designed to be a "U" shape, but our original thought was to straighten them out to a straight line of cabinets along the wall (in the back of the photo below).  

Now that the walls are framed out, we could measure and come up with a plan...

They are a touch too tall to flip them over & stand up in the garage, so we had to take them out onto the driveway.  As you can see, we put them into the intended U shape to measure.

The doors & shelves were taken off to protect them when we moved them, so they're safely tucked away in the upstairs of the garage.  (Matching them back up will be a challenge, although we did label them, so that should help!)

They are 66 inches across, and when we measured that's going to be pretty much the exact width of our space, once the sheetrock is in!  Our space is going to be a little bit deeper, so we'll have to have to come up with a way to finish off the ends of the cabinets, since they'll be exposed.

We are so glad that we bought it and held onto it for the last three years!  When ordering our new kitchen cabinets (yes, that's done, & I will share the plans soon!) we figured out that it saved us thousands by getting this rather than ordering something new to fit the space!

I can't wait to load this up with stuff- I think it's one of the things that I'm most excited about!

Here's a view of the back of the cabinets, just for the record!