Cabinets & Floors

Sorry for the lapse. We gave the web staff the last couple of days off.

OK! The floors went in Wednesday. There was some serious discussion of using them as ark material, but we decided on floors. If that makes no sense, scroll down to the previous post.

It's a nice red oak and will get the first coat of stain on Monday. It looks like it went in without any drama.

The cabinets went in on Thursday.

Well, the cabinet bodies went in on Thursday. The doors & drawers were sent to timeout and will rejoin the class next week. Again, scroll down to prior posts if you can't keep up. There's no "previously on..." nonsense here. We challenge our followers! Hmmm, maybe we should call it "The Kitchen Rubicon"... but I digress...

The counter top guy came and measured today for the granite which is scheduled to go in next Friday. The electrician came a few minutes after sunrise to start his finish-out. We're still missing a couple of the under cabinet fixtures, the can light trim and Carla's chandelier (don't ask), but the barrel has light and the cans work. It's starting to look like a real room!

I also called the GE appliance hot line and asked nicely if they could split our delivery since everything is ready except for the fridge. Asking nicely didn't help. Agreeing to pay the $51 fee for a second scheduled delivery did. Next Thursday we should have a garage full of GE stuff ready to be put in Friday.

I ended the day by installing the speakers and wiring the volume control. You know, the important things!

Well, that's the update, and I really don't expect a lot to happen over the weekend, but I could be wrong.

Not much else happening other than my Mom went missing in Switzerland for about 24 hours, but hasn't that happened to us all?

Have a safe and happy weekend!

Why did we do this?

Sunday evening and there is no primer or paint up.  The mud and texture took longer than anyone was expecting and the walls won't be ready until Monday morning.  Monday is going to be a long day.  But that's just the update, not the 'good' story.

Here's the good story:

Carla went to look at the cabinets late Friday afternoon while I was at work.  I talked to her at 5:30pm and she was happy with cabinets, but couldn't get over the size of them and the general amount of 'stuff' that was supposed to go into the kitchen.  She liked the color and commented on the smell of the paint shop.  That was it, so yippee!, the cabinets are good to go!

I got home at 11pm or so and hooked her camera up to the computer so I could take a good look at the pictures she'd taken of the cabinets.  I start looking at them, trying to piece them together in my head as to what goes where, when I notice the doors.  The doors and drawers are nothing like I'd pictured in my minds eye.  All of a sudden, I'm looking at a mountain of partially stained maple cabinetry and wondering what happened.  I've been told by a couple of people that I got 'stressed' about this time.  I have no recollection.

Here's a quick rundown of what happened:
When deciding on cabinet style, we chose a flat panel with a really dark stain.  We discussed this with the John the contractor and came to an understanding.  We then found a picture online of what we had in mind and sent him a link to it.  Without going into detail, let me just warn you that you should send PICTURES of something like this, not LINKS.  The link was broken and went to a different set of cabinets.

So, instead of something like this:

We were looking at this:

Now, the bottom one isn't stained yet, but it's a raised panel door with a bevel on the edge.  (This is the piece that will go above the desktop, by the way.) It's a really nice cabinet that looks really well made, but isn't what I was expecting.  Carla was OK with it until I had my little meltdown.  All I could think about was the hardware she'd picked out wouldn't really work with that door style and the expensive maple doors we got for the garage and closet wouldn't match.  We had some more decisions to make if these were going to be our cabinets.

After talking to John the next morning, I decided to drive out to Weatherford and take a look at them myself.  John agreed that they weren't what he was expecting either, and we decided to have them make new doors and drawers.

So....

What we learned this weekend:
Even if you think everybody is on the same page and thinking the same thing, ask for pictures, drawings, etchings, hieroglyphics... something during the process before you're looking at half a maple forest that's been meticulously shaped into something you don't like.

I'm guessing Carla will chime in with her version of events when she gets a minute.