It's done

The gas range w/ convection oven and warming drawer and the range hood (the item that started this whole project in the first place.)



Kitchen sink with the oh, so quiet dishwasher.















The refrigerator with the cabinet reserved for wine glasses. (Glass shelving coming this weekend).


Finally, a place for the cookbooks. This was my idea.

Several weeks ago, I bid farewell to an old friend. Today, O want to introduce you to a new one.
The new kitchen is complete. Judy painted the walls last weekend. I’ve cooked several meals in it, and despite my early trepidation, I have come to embrace it.
Before the project started in early February, I dreaded the ordeal. I didn’t want to be without a kitchen. I didn’t want the mess. I really didn’t want the change. The old kitchen suited me just fine.
My main problem was that I couldn’t “see” the design. I feared we were putting a mini McMansion-style kitchen into a very small space. I could only imagine a wall of wood cupboards closing in on me. Once it was constructed, I saw that my worries were a waste of time.
We decided on KitchenAid appliances. Viking or Wolf would have been great, but real budget busters. We upgraded the oven to gas with a convection oven and warming drawer. Now that it’s all up and running, I’ll share a few things I learned about remodeling a kitchen.
• Use a reputable design firm. Let a pro redesign the kitchen. They have the computer tools to show what the kitchen will look like (honest, this works for most customers). They’ve also done this many times before. They can tell you if an idea will work or not.
• Be prepared to make a ton of decisions. Many of them will be on the fly. We had a general idea where we wanted the ceiling lights but gave no thought to switches. The decision to take out the ugly phone jack just popped in my head, much to my wife’s surprise.
• The sink and faucet will be surprisingly expensive.
• If offered a cupboard door sample, take it. We didn’t, and for three weeks before the job began, I thought the cabinets we chose were too dark. If I had had the sample, it would have reassured me that the color was right.
• Be diligent and persistent when putting in gas. Don’t procrastinate about calling and setting up appointments. This was the most frustrating part of the whole job. One company said it would be out for an estimate and never showed up. The company we went with did the job, but I had to make several phone calls and spend all day waiting for my 9:30 a.m. appointment to show up.
• With that scenario in mind, be sure you have a flexible work schedule or are willing to burn some vacation time. There will be times that you’ll want to be home.
• Unless you are blowing out walls, expect to throw out a bunch of stuff from the old kitchen. We lost space because we put the garbage can where a cabinet was, and a space where we kept a lot of glasses is now a fancy cabinet reserved for wine glasses. But we haven’t used a lot of those drinking glasses or oodles of coffee cups in years. The triage was more than overdue.
• Save the old refrigerator. This may be one of the favorite parts of the whole remodelling. I now have a fridge in the garage. I no longer have to go in the house to grab a beer when working in the yard.
• Also keep some of the old cabinets. Make a deal with the guy installing the new stuff, and he’ll put up the old ones in the garage or laundry room.
• Most importantly — know your role. Judy’s the decorator. I’m the cook. She knows what she’s doing.

There's always something

Note from Dan: You may have noticed there haven't been any pictures lately. The home computer is on the fritz. Hopefully we'll be up and running again after the weekend.

When the gas was installed, part of the gas guys' job was to change out the natural gas nozzles to lp gas. I was very excited to see the gas burners light. At least I was glad to see three out of four of them light. The main burner didn't work properly. KitchenAid calls it a Tri-Tier burner. It simmers but also can be turned on high to provide the most heat of the four burners. Of course, this is the one that did not work.

The gas guys couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I was left on my own to find someone who could figure it out. Well, the people we bought the appliances from couldn't have been better. They contacted KitchenAid and send out a guy to handle the job at no charge to us.

He arrived on time and I felt I'd have 4 burners in no time. That was until he said he had never seen my stove before. He'd have to call KitchenAid. Maybe I am a rube, but this kind of thing amazes me — the stove guy calls a KitchenAid technical assistance guy (using a super secret number not available to ordinary folk) and over the phone the KitchenAid guy walks the stove guy through the repair. It was no biggie. The Tri-Teir burner has two nozzles and they were switched.

So on Thursday, I made my first real meal (Tuesday's pasta doesn't count — that was just boiling water). I decided to go with an old favorite so that the recipe wouldn't be a problem. I roasted a chicken and served whipped potatoes and sauteed asparagus. The meal came out great.

Thankfully I didn't need to read four pages of instructions to turn on the oven. Just "Bake" punch the numbers 4-0-0 (for 400 degrees) and "Start." Oh, the oven has all sorts of features I haven't sat down to figure out yet. (I have a month of manuals to read after this project). But as I said at the beginning, my reading will have to wait until next week. I've got a sick computer to make well this weekend.

It's a good thing I hung around

I've found out one thing about a home remodeling project. Make sure you have plenty of vacation time handy or a very flexible work schedule. I'm lucky to have a bit of both. I've been writing from home or working at night more than I expected.
Monday, knowing the gas was going to be hooked up, I took a vacation day so I would know where all of the shut off valves were. I suspected that the gas crew would be there in the morning and I could play at least 9 holes in the afternoon. No such luck. But it turns out by 2 p.m. I couldn't have swung a club if my life depended upon it.
Around 9 a.m., a lone carpenter came to install the range hood. We had a decorative range hood built. It's black and really makes the room pop. But it is a heavy sucker. I wondered how the single carpenter was going to get that on the wall. I found out I was going to help him. Hey, no problem. I was there anyways.
It took us a couple of tries to get it centered and flush with the ceiling. While I was holding the hood I thought to myself how glad I was that I'd been working out regularly for the last year. It was heavy but I didn't feel any strain. That was until about 2 minutes after it was on the wall. A ripping pain hit me in the middle of my back. It was so sharp that it hurt to cough (lucky me, I'm in the coughing stage of my current cold). I spent the rest of the day pressing my back into my chair and trying to suppress the urge to cough.
After the hood was installed the gas guy finally came. By then, I was a tad more comfortable but the back still spiked with pain if I moved too quickly or in a certain way.
I didn't know this, but gas ovens come fitted for natural gas, they have to be refitted with different valves for LP gas. The gas guy was working on this part of the job when he asked me if I had a 7 millimeter wrench. I've got plenty of kitchen tools but I'm a little short in the wrench department (although my back was wrenched pretty good by then). The gas guy said the needed wrench was on the other truck. (What kind of company doesn't have a complete set of wrenches on every service truck?) I asked a neighbor if he had one, no luck.
This news left the gas guy scratching his head. It left me knowing what I'd have to do if I wanted my stove installed. I gingerly got in my car to make a run to the hardware store to buy a 7 millimeter wrench. My aching back told me I may be getting too old to easily slip my 6-foot-2 frame into my little Honda Del Sol for very much longer.
Driving home from the store all I could wonder is this: Where would these guys be if the customer hadn't taken the day off? Maybe the gas guy could have helped the carpenter? Maybe the carpenter had a 7 millimeter wrench?
Although my neighbor didn't have a wrench, he had something more important — some pain pills to relax my back. By the next morning my back had pretty much returned to normal. I had a hood, the stove was installed (more on that next time) and I was the proud owner of a 7 millimeter wrench.

I can't hear a thing

I'm making little headway in cleaning up the house and putting somethings in the kitchen. I don't want to pile a lot of stuff in drawers if the workers need to do some stuff I don't know about. However, I did do the first load of dishes.

I loaded the dishwasher, hit the buttons (Normal/Hot Dry/On) and closed the door. I waited. Nothing seemed to happen. I shook my head in disgust. Why wasn't it working? Just as I was about to open the door I heard the faintest "click." Still I heard nothing. It was only when I put my ear close to the door did I hear water swishing around. They told me this dishwasher was going to be quiet. But I couldn't believe this thing.

Our old dishwasher - original equipment in our 15 year old house - was a monster. It roared. It clanked. I usually washed dishes by hand just to avoid having to hear it. The new machine is too cool. Also, I have never seen the glasses this clean.

We decided to go with Kitchen Aid appliances. When a Viking or Wolf oven proved too expensive for the budget, we searched for a manufacturer that made entire kitchen sets. (This is my quirk. For example, I insist on having a matched set of golf clubs. I believe the reason I can't hit my my 3-wood is because it is a Calloway rather than a Titleist like the rest of my clubs.) KitchenAid got high scores from the material we read. They also made a four-burner gas/convection oven with the warming drawer I wanted.

People asked me why I went with a four-burner rather than a six-burner oven. Two reasons. First — it would have been too large. We would have lost cabinet space to make room for it. Secondly, this is a home kitchen. I'm not opening a restaurant here. It's just Judy and I. Rarely have I ever had all four burners going at once. If I got into a pinch, there is always the gas grill just outside on the patio. That's also why we didn't get a second oven — we already have one. The gas grill can be used as an oven in a pinch and it's side burner offers me a fifth burner if I needed one.

Speaking of the oven, that should be ready to use tomorrow. Fingers are crossed.

I've got some work to do

I'm a slob by nature.
I've always been able to co-exist with clutter. One day I'll take a picture of my cage, I mean stall, I mean cubicle at work and show you what I mean. I'll work with papers, faxes, cookbooks and product samples all around me until one piece of paper becomes one too many and I'll clean the pen, I mean cubicle.
That's the state of the house now. As we enter the last days of the project, the clutter is getting to be too much.
But now that we have a dishwasher, I have taken the dirty coffee cups and wine glasses from the guest bath and stowed them in the new dishwasher. I can't wait to get a full load to listen to how quiet it is supposed to run.
The stuff from the old pantry and cupboards is scattered all over the living room. Judy will kill me when she sees that I photographed the mess. But, she's spending the weekend in Vegas with her sister, so I'm buying a few days for her to get over it. (I told her winning enough at the Blackjack table to pay for the kitchen wouldn't be a bad idea.) While I've got the house to myself, I plan on attacking some of the clutter.
It won't be any major stuff. Even though I use the kitchen the most, I want her to be on hand to help decide where stuff goes. Nothing drives me more crazy than not being able to find something in our house. I'm also waiting because I really think Judy will enjoy this "couple's project."
But I will place the pots in the cupboards and maybe get the pantry re-stocked. Although I may hold off as they have one more door to put on the pantry where the food goes.
As for the project progress — today the back splash tile should be installed and hopefully the floor tile will be fixed. We have a few tiles that need to be replaced.
Monday the gas guy hooks up the stove. Tuesday the range hood should be completed.
By then we should be pretty much finished, I think. (Hope. Wish. Pray.)
It's obvious that we are seeing the end as Judy and I are contemplating what will be on the menu for that first special "Make It For Me" dinner to celebrate the new kitchen. Got any suggestions?