And on the 20-something-ieth day, he said, let there be light. And it was pretty cool how it turned out.
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- Dining room
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- LED, Pot light, Microwave
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- LED controller
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- Potlights
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- LED strip
Author Archives: mathan
Got wood!
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!
As it goes…
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.
At the end of a hard kitty week
Shadow inspecting the work after the painter left, and Gavin taking a nap.
Week 2 Completed: State of the Kitchen
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. 🙂
Laundry Room Reno Done
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.
And we have paint…
Way to go Faulkner’s!
Guys – if you need a place to buy new appliances, Faulkner’s is the place to go.
Not only did they go to bat for us, they’re replacing our lovely defective Samsung WF405 Washer on Monday.
Seriously, Samsung, you need to sort out your bureaucratic bullshit and hoop jumping to give better customer service.
Nice going Samsung… NOT
So… Scott followed up with Samsung today about getting our dead-on-arrival or maybe rather leaking-on-arrival washer that we’ve really not been able to use for the past two weeks since it arrived.
So we’ve got the approval to replace the washer. Yay!
It’s going to take 2 to 4 weeks to replace said washer.
WTF?!
Even the place where we bought the appliances from says, “WTF?” So off Faulkner’s go to talk to their rep and go to bat for us. Faulkner’s said, “Give us 15 minutes.”
Even more bizarre… Dealing with Elite Appliances
It seems to get even more bizarre with Elite Appliances – Samsung’s contractor for fixing our defective washer.
We’ve not heard anything from them for almost six days and Scott reached out to find out what was happening. Well, they implied that it could take up to 6 weeks to get the replacement part. WTF?
And what they ordered is a replacement door. Not the gasket/diaphragm which one would normally think should be replaced first – and cheaper; they’re replacing the door.
We also got an email:
Hello Scott,
We are sorry about the waiting time.
Please understand for all cosmetic parts especially DOOR REPLACEMENT we must submit request to SAMSUNG before we order the parts, it usually takes 2-3 business days the request was approved on April 8th and we have ordered parts for you right away.
Usually we only contact customer if request been rejected, as in your case, we will contact you after the door inspected by the tech to make sure you have the correct non scratch door for your washer.
We will provide you an update once we receive the parts, per our distributor, ETA Monday April 15th.
Thank you, Elite Customer Care
Cosmetic part? This is not a cosmetic issue, this is a leaking from the door issue!
When Scott talked to Samsung, they said, “So we’re talking about your refrigerator door that’s been leaking”. WTF? And Scott asked the person to read through the case and confirm we’re talking about a washer, not our fridge.
So we’re not sure if Elite has ordered the correct part. I’m not convinced the door is the issue, but the diaphragm. What I do know, is that we are not waiting another two weeks, which would bring us up to a month, to have a working washer.
After talking to the place where we bought the unit from, after telling them who Samsung sent to repair our unit, the comment was, “Yeah, we would never refer our customers to them.”
Even on Yelp, Elite is getting a 1.5 star rating. Is this really how Samsung really wants to be represented in Canada?
Scott pretty much told Samsung that Elite Appliances are idiots, and that we want a replacement immediately. After being escalated, it’s being put forward to the Samsung internal team to determine if it will be completely replaced. We’ll know within 24 to 48 hours.
Elite is getting a big fat 0 from me for service. Seriously, keep away from these guys.
Faulkner, where we got the units from – they were not bad, I’d be hard pressed to blame them unless the way the unit was stored was to blame. They’re completely apologizing for the hassles we’re having.
Samsung – The company has actually been responsive. You can call them and actually get a response from them. They call before and after the technician’s visit to confirm the work was done appropriately, so I think they are genuinely trying which is really cool. Really really cool. They are looking at the case and are figuring out if we can get the replacement unit and just not deal with Elite.
My main request to Samsung in Canada is to dump Elite. I’d be more than happy to recommend Samsung no holds barred, if they get rid of Elite.
Just look at these reviews.