Kitchen Remodel II, day 0

Today I finished clearing out my kitchen getting ready for tomorrow’s demolition. Thankfully I actually had a few days to get it done this time, unlike last time when the contractor only let me know the demolition was going to happen at 5 PM the day before.

Because I had time to prepare it meant I could also actually do it in a semi-organized way. Which is good, because I have way less space for “staging” stuff in this house than I did in my last place.

Here’s a bunch of photos of how things are right now. First, the kitchen in its current state:

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The light fixture has already been upgraded to LEDs (by the previous owner) and the range hood has a really cool vintage charm to it, so those are staying.

This kitchen is okay but there’s a lot of stuff I dislike about it. For example, the leftmost upper cabinet was poorly-installed, with no spacing with the wall, so the handle has been gouging out the drywall’s surface (which will need to be repaired):

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Also, there’s a crappy spice cabinet on the wall next to the stove. I already took off the doors to see what it’ll look like as open shelves, and as a reminder to the contractor:

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And obviously I took down the ghost phone just to keep things simple (since in this house it has a hardwired installation and I didn’t want the contractor to have to do some extra work if he decided it needed to come down).

As part of this renovation I’m also getting the laundry room updated. Right now it looks like this:

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The main thing is it’s going to get new flooring (same as the kitchen), and new upper cabinets, as well as a nicer, cleaner-looking installation for the back wall.

A lot of my stuff is also currently in the living room, sequestered in the back:

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But also a huge chunk of my kitchen stuff is currently in these sideboard cabinets, which is where I was storing a lot of stuff already:

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I had wanted to also update these cabinets but the sizes just didn’t work out. So we’re just going to try to modify the doors to make them close more easily and call it a day.

I’d already updated my fridge and stove; the stove was pretty much exactly what I wanted, while the fridge is a major compromise based on the attributes available in a refrigerator. It’s way too big, but smaller refrigerators wouldn’t actually be able to open the doors since side-by-sides just don’t come in the size I need.

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I’ll also be happy to finally have the stove properly fit in the island. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to make stoves with slide-in “wings” anymore; the previous stove (which I suspect is from the 90s, as were the old refrigerator and dishwasher) had some ghastly metal fittings that went over the gap which weren’t particularly easy to keep clean either. I might still have to figure out some sort of gap covering solution, though.

Annoyingly enough, Home Depot keeps on pushing back the delivery date of my flooring, and right now they’re expecting it to arrive on Monday. I’m not sure if the contractor is going to be installing the cabinets on top of the flooring, or if the flooring will be cut around its kickplate. Either way I’m concerned that I might not have it in time.

I also still need to decide on a new dishwasher. It’s impressive that this old one is still working:

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As far as I know this model was only made in the early 90s, so it’s around 30 years old. Still works, but it’s getting pretty clunky and concerning, and also newer dishwashers have a lot of things going for them. Also I’m amazed this old one hasn’t leaked at all yet, given that the door doesn’t quite close all the way anymore. It’s definitely the oldest appliance still in the house, and one of the oldest things on the property aside from the house itself; I think that only the exhaust vent is older (although it’s hard to tell, as I can’t find a manufacturing date on it or a serial number that anyone knows how to decode).

In my last place I got a Bosch 300 Series dishwasher (18") which I was pretty happy with but my current top contender is the LG LDFN4542W, which has all the features of the Bosch 300 series (and then some) but also costs about half as much.

Anyway, the visual plan is to go with white shaker-style cabinets with medium-to-dark-gray quartz countertops, with greenish-blue glass subway tile for the backsplash. I’m hoping it’ll all look great, and that the obligatory Massive Setback will be fairly minor this time (because holy crap am I tired of something going majorly wrong).

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