The doors with frosted glass arrived today.  Also here is a view of the over the peninsula light.

Seeing all of this come together, it’s looking even better than I thought it would.  I will say it is taking a bit of a toll on Scott and I.  We’re both tired of the condo being in shambles and we just want the place back to normal as soon as possible.  Unfortunately that looks like it will be another week or two.  The outstanding items we have are:

• Countertop installation – delayed after having to pick three different colours.  The one we picked is commonly available.  It’s not as dark as we wanted, but it will work well.
• Backsplash installation – delayed because of the counter.
• Plumbing – Dishwasher, fridge – delayed due to the counter.
• Replacement of the Magic Corner – The unit ordered was too big for the cabinet.  A new door and an adjustment to the cabinet will need to be made.
• Replacement of one of the peninsula doors – The varnish is peeling off it, being replaced under warranty.

Not too much, but that counter top is key.  It will probably be in by next Thursday.  Possibly sooner if things really go well.

And on the 20-something-ieth day, he said, let there be light.  And it was pretty cool how it turned out.

The templating for the counter top was pretty cool.  The dot pattern is used to take pictures with a digital camera, which is then fed into a CAD program to define the contours of the counter.

Two more weeks!

The kitchen renovation is delayed… and through no fault of our contractor.

There’s part of me that wants to laugh, and part of me that’s just shaking my head.  So, early on we had problems with the cabinet colours.  The colour we wanted, in combination with the wood we wanted came out much darker than what we actually wanted so back to the drawing board on the cabinets.  We got through that.

Aparently, we ordered, and got, the last two pieces of Caesarstone 9140 Charcoal to be made in Canada.  It was PERFECT.  Until this week when, on the day our cabinets were going in, our contractor got a call.  Caesarstone smashed one of the two pieces we needed to make our counter top.  WTF?  Our contractors were more angry than we were.  Yes, we were pretty disappointed as it was *the* colour we wanted.

So after getting the templating done, we were told that we actually needed two pieces of the Caesarstone and we couldn’t do it with just one.  DOH!

So back to the drawing board.  We already had another Caesarstone picked – 6140 Smokey Ash.  But checking the other vendors that Stone Edge, our fabricator has access to – we also looked at Silestone and Hanstone which had quartz more similar to the Caesarstone 9140.

We ended up picking up Ebony Pearl from Silestone.

*shakes head*

Yup, we’re delayed, through no fault of our contractor’s.

Shadow inspecting the work after the painter left, and Gavin taking a nap.

A sign of good drywall and painting

This was probably the slowest week of the renovation as I said,  It’s all about drywall and painting – which are important and vital, and messy as all get.  Afterall, this is what people will see so it needs to be done right.

Firstly, it’s amazing how seamless a wall looks when it’s been drywalled correctly.  In the picture on the right, you would not know that the wall was extended to the right by about 2 inches – you can’t see it, and that the paint job is partially the old paint job from 6 years ago and one from today.  Seamless.

The paint colour for the living room is Behr Promenade Green – using Sherwin Williams paint, matched to a sample that was taken from the wall we tore down.  The kitchen is Sherwin Williams Bees Wax.

The kitchen is starting to take shape and as of Tuesday next week, we’ll have cabinets in!

Next week it’s

• Second coat of paint on the walls
• Cabinet installation
• Crown moulding installation
• Electrical and lighting installation (we hope)
• Counter top templating

Week after

• Counter top installation (we hope)
• Plumbing
• Completion

We are well on track with this project.  The only thing that would delay the project is the counter top or if the cabinets were wrong in some way.  It would be nice to have this all done by my birthday. 🙂

Our starting and end point

The second reno we started, and first to finish is done – the laundry room.

I still can’t believe we went from this awful peel and stick tile to real tile and real paint.

Yes, that awful… olive green colour that was common in the 1970s no longer exists in our laundry room.  It does, however, exist in our storage locker.  And that’s okay.  I don’t see a need to renovate that.

You can see how awful the space was with the new with the new washer and dryer – which still needed to be stacked.

Once stacked, we can put the freezer back in, put up some nice shelving and we’re back in business.

That won’t happen until Monday when our washer is replaced with, hopefully, a non defective unit.

So why do the laundry room?  Well, it needed to be done – we needed at a minimum, a tiled floor. The state of the peel and stick was just awful.  The walls needed a fresh paint job – I don’t think they had ever been painted since the unit was built.  In short, it needed some TLC.

In the cloud of laundry!

The colour choice?  Sherwin Williams Resonant Blue.  That’s a personal decision.  If one of these days we sell the condo and move, whoever moves in can paint the laundry room whatever colour they want and I think they’ll like the tile we put in.  That said, I want to be able to spend time enjoying the space as we have designed it.

We’re ecstatic about the job ATD Contracting Services did on the space, and the progress they’ve made on the kitchen.