busybee fluffy rambles

For the refrigerator trim stuff, the designer has a different memory of our conversations than I did. I mean, that’s obvious because if we had the same memory we’d have been on the same page over what I wanted there. (I am absolutely positive I would not have agreed to what he ended up getting built, FWIW.) Anyway we’re discussing what to do to fix that for the next phase; he really wants to build another cabinet but I just want, like, a couple of fixed shelves and a door panel. He’s being quite insistent on specifying something and have the contractor do it but all I want him to do is cut a dang door panel to the size I asked for. I don’t know how to get through to him, except by being absolutely stubborn.

He also insists that the height of the current trim panel is “the height I asked for” when it absolutely isn’t. It’s cut to be way higher than the old cabinet was, when the refrigerator I’d originally specified was shorter than my old fridge, and I am positive I told him something about that wasn’t adding up.

He did make a good point about the not-quite-square walls making a full-width door panel be a problem and so I should keep some of the trim on the right, which is fair. But like. I really do not need a multiple-hundred-dollar designed cabinet. I just need two shelves. They could be made from MDF that I get at Lowe’s and cut on Spud’s table saw and then paint to match the other cabinet interiors or something. It doesn’t have to be such a production, except for the door panel which I want to match the rest of the kitchen. (And I’m totally fine with just having them be open shelves until a custom door panel can be made!)

And I definitely did not ask for the “built-in” look. It looks ugly, and it’s not even sized right for the fridge I got, and even if it were, it would have been an impediment to ever changing the fridge out ever again (if this one breaks) and it also, you know, removes a lot of my vital storage space. He also never warned me about any size difference when I told him I went with a different fridge after all.

So, that’s one thing I’ve been pretty grumpy about.

Regarding the under-cabinet lighting he thought it was going to be the tape style but then since some of the cabinets were a custom width they had to go with the puck style instead. Which makes future replacements way more expensive, but hopefully I don’t have to worry about that for a while. (Or when things do fail it might make more sense to just, like, install lighting tape instead.) I like the look of the pucks better than the tape-in-channel anyway, and I think it does a better job of lighting the counters, which is the whole reason I wanted it to begin with.

He also said that the Bluetooth/dimmer-enabled system costs “hundreds of dollars,” but he didn’t look at the apparent wholesale-priced unit I linked him to. I don’t really care all that much about that functionality and if I do decide to add it in later I can always spend the $40.

Anyway. It turned out that they did accidentally short me one drawer handle (I’m guessing there was confusion about how many handles were supposed to go on the corner units), and the in-wall cabinet was supposed to get a push-latch thing rather than a handle (as the designer was concerned about a handle becoming a snag point for people walking by). I think either approach is fine; I would have liked te look of a handle but the concern about snagging is totally valid.

So, none of the photos here have anything to do with any of the above. But they are meant to highlight the following points:

• I need to repaint
• The old color is kind of dated and bleh
• The back wall of the kitchen would be a nightmare to repaint fully (because it is big and would also require repainting my dining room which I absolutely do not want to do)

So, I’m thinking what I want to do is repaint the kitchen in antique white/eggshell/etc., and have a dividing line between the kitchen and the dining room which runs along, say, the upper cabinets and continues down to the bar counter. I’d still need to do a little bit of touching-up around the bar counter on the dining room side, though, which means still having to get a slight color match for a tiny amount of that paint. But it’s also hidden in the shadows by my bookshelf and it could probably be a thing that nobody even notices until I’ve moved out and that’s something for the next owners to deal with.

Another possibility is to tile the back wall but oh god that’s not a level of expense and permanence I want to deal with right now.

Anyway. I’m also thinking about how I want to route the power cable to my range hood. Right now my favorite idea is to run it up along one of the front pipes and then attach it with zip ties or metal strapping or hose clamps or something. The contractor thinks I should spray-paint the cord silver to make it look “more industrial” but I think that’d be ugly. Maybe wrapping it in flex conduit would be okay (which the contractor thinks would look “industrial”) but I am fine with the power cord being visible – I just want it to look deliberate.

Hose clamp (affiliated link) is my favorite idea for that so that’s probably what I’ll go with. Unless Spud has a better idea?

Anyway. Wall patching will be sometime next week, then my appliances are scheduled to arrive on the 31st (Friday!), and my countertops will be ready and installed sometime next week as well (probably, haven’t been given a timeframe yet). Final installation/finishing/etc. will hopefully happen the day after countertops or appliance delivery (whichever comes later), so if all goes well I’ll have my new kitchen in working, complete order in the first week of February! Modulo the shelves, anyway. Which I am pretty sure I’ll take care of on my own. But we’ll see how amenable the designer will be to that.