As with any renovation, there are always challenges.

Our challenge has been – what colour to go with?  Wait, didn’t you pick your cabinet colour?  Yes we did, however the cabinet maker came back and showed us that relative to the sample we had, what we actually would have gotten is much darker than we wanted.  This is mainly due to the wood changing, and what part of the tree is used.

Cherry can range quite a bit from dark to light – and in the stain and you have a whole new variable.  As a result, a darker cabinet.

So back to the drawing board we went, and admittedly such a pain. We had our heart set on the cabinet colour we wanted, and every time we looked at the colour we picked relative to others and not realizing what it was, both Scott and I were drawn back to the original colour.

So we didn’t go with “Copper Tray” on Cherry, but now we’re going with “Giotto Brown” on Maple.  It’s deeper and redder, and the picture above doesn’t quite do it justice.  In person the colour looks great.  It will mean a slightly darker kitchen, but it works.

This also means a delay in the start of the kitchen renovation by two weeks which sucks as the condo has already been in a bit of shambles as we start moving things out of the kitchen and we have another 5 weeks of this.  That said, I know we will get through it.

First step will be tearing out the old cabinets, tearing down the walls and rewiring the electrical.  I’m looking forward to this.

Ultimately, I am looking forward to getting this all completed.  I know Scott is too.

Here are pictures of the kitchen from when we moved in.  We did nothing to it when we first moved in, etc…

Scott and I, I think, are completely fed up with making choices.  For the past few days, it’s been nothing but have to pick our cabinet, counter, granite or quartz, lighting, backsplash, floor tile, do we want to put a light over our dining room table, do we want change the light fixture in the living room, do we really wanna put that light in that spot…. ARGH!  Can we please turn off our brains?

Cabinets
So we made a few decisions… We decided to go with Cherry wood with a Copper Tray stain from Cuisines Laurier from their Lite line.  However, today, it looks like either the sample our contractors had was wrong or something is up because we got an email back saying the stain is much darker than what they had. So we’re looking at going with Roasted Chestnut or something lighter instead.  We cannot have a darker kitchen given we have a galley style kitchen.

We also went with a Shaker style door with crown moulding and lighting valance.

Counter
On the quartz vs. granite discussion – crowdsourcing guidance said quartz, and I have to say I agree.  The granite in the bathroom is gorgeous, but I do worry if we drop something and do damage to the bathroom counter.  We made the decision, today, to go with Caesarstone Charcoal (9140).  It’s really neat quartz, with dimensionality to it.  We saw it at the International Home and Garden show and it was exactly what we were looking for.

Had we gone with granite, we would have gone with Cafe Imperial.

Lights
Lighting-wise, we picked up two kinds of lights – an art deco light we thought would go above the dining room but it may go over the island; and then a 5-light set which was going to be over the breakfast bar, but may go over the dining room.  We shall see.

We did also get a new lighting set for the living room.  We’re not married to the new light as we do like the funky UFO light we have.

Backsplash and Floor tile
We chose to go towards white with a hint of beige/brown, though the floor does go a bit more grey/white.  I think it will look good.  It is quite conservative if you will, which is not really my thing – totally.  I would like some pizzaz but not quite sure how we can really do it.  Either way, the kitchen is going to look great!

Scott and I picked up, or had dropped off, our new stove and fridge.  The first step in the kitchen renovation.  Yup, we’re going at it again with the next renovation… our kitchen.

I think we have the original cabinetry from when this condo was built in late 1978/1979.  Between that and the bathroom, those were the two rooms we didn’t paint or do anything with because we knew they needed to be renovated.

Once again, we’re going to use ATD Contracting from Oakville, who did our bathroom; as well as numerous co-workers – having redone kitchens, and almost redesigning major portions of homes, etc…  We know they do great work.

So what are we doing with the Kitchen?

• New cabinets
• New lighting – Thinking up to 4 pot lights, and possibly lighting under the cabinets
• New painting
• Pulling back the wall by the fridge
• Tearing down the wall and putting in a breakfast nook with cabinetry
• Putting in an undercounter dishwasher
• Over the fridge cabinets
• Over the stove cabinets and a hanging microwave with integrated fan
• Water service to the fridge for the ice maker
• Possibly replacing our electrical panel since we have to do electrical work anyway, let’s do it at the same time.

This is pretty exciting because we’ll gain so much more space with the microwave moved and standalone dishwasher removed, and space to put stuff.

For the cabinetry, we may be going with Cuisines Laurier – a Quebec-based company that does excellent cabinetry.  Specifically, their Laurier Lite cabinets are a mid-range and very good solid cabinet, and Canadian made.

Biggest lesson so far – how relatively cheap granite counter tops are these days relative to other kinds of counters.

And here is the masterpiece:

How did we live with this so long?

Two in fact, but hey, things are looking good as you’ll see down below.

In short the two problems are

• The mirror we ordered, which is the go-to product for our contractor, is too small.
• We are 8 tiles short on completing the shower tiling.

There is a third issue of the vanity which is half- in, meanwhile they’ve not taken care of the extra access hole they created the need for with the plumbing.

There is also a fourth issue of one of the marble dividers being broken by the bedroom so that one or they both (to the hall) are going to be replaced.

So… would I recommend the contractor at this point?   Well, they’re doing what they can to get things fixed.  On their plate they had to scramble to get more tiles for the bathroom, and they’re looking into the mirror issue.

If I were to provide feedback, here is my list – and I’m sure Scott can come up with more:

• Detailed measurements need to be done and confirmed
• Confirm the actual numbers of tiles needed for the floor and wall, and confirm overages just in case
• Make sure you know your product – specifically thinking of the mirror issue
• Confirm what is happening each day the night before and even the day of. Changes always happen, that’s cool, but communicate
• Confirm if you are purchasing the fixtures or if the customer is purchasing them.
• Make sure you acknowledge your customer’s emails and confirm their issues list.

Now that said, these guys are growing, they’re busy and while we’ve had these challenges, from what I have seen, the work is very good, they have good guys behind them. I cannot complain based on what I’ve seen from far.  Here is the good:

• The teardown and putting in the tub was painless.
• The plumbing looked good when It was put in.
• The tiles look great from far.
• The people behind the contractors have been great to work with.
• The guys have been attentive when there have been issues – except for one so, far, but they’ve also been looking after other items which are priority.

So, I’d say they’re getting a B-grade so far.  I think if we had gone with another contractor, we probably could have found better, and I sure know we could have done worse.

So when we get our kitchen done, at this point I don’t see why it won’t be with the guys, and we will be better prepared.  I know that we will get all the fixtures ourselves, ensure they get good measurements, so all they have to do is to get paint, the kitchen cabinets, and tiles and away we go.

This  is what our bathroom looked like pre-reno.

Scott and I have to say, we’ve figured out how to manage the renovation project from far.  Well, firstly it helps very much that Scott is at home.  I have to say iMessage has helped considerably as we can make decisions in realtime and send pictures back and forth.

The past few days have seen some considerable changes, but I should show you what we started with.  Keep in mind that this is the original tiling and tub from when the building was first opened, definitely not the first paint job and the tiles on the floor, vanity and toilet were relatively new:

It wasn’t the best bathroom, and it certainly wasn’t the worst.  It was pretty functional.  You could also see it was someone’s work in progress, much like the kitchen is as well.  Slight upgrades over time, not quite perfect, probably done in a bit of a rush.  After all, when we bought the condo it was a motivated sale.

On Monday we survived the teardown:

The bathroom has definitely been some awful colours over it’s time – deep rose, cyan or mint green, grey and blue.  I’m hoping we can bring something modern in this renovation.

We’ve had a few hurdles to get through.  The first was the surprise of our contractors not having picked up any of the fixtures for the bathroom after they said they would if we provided them with the detail – which we did 10 days before.  I also had some specific requests around the diverter we needed as we’re plumbing in two shower heads – the standard head and a handheld.  We were told we should be able to pick it up at Home Depot – well it turns out we can’t.  I did find it at Plumbing Mart which was my second stop.  Crisis averted, and really that’s the only crisis we’ve had.

Tuesday, we survived the plumbing and bathtub installation:

There is only one thing I don’t really like about the plumbing job and that’s the little knob to the left on the last picture.  To be clear, I like that there is a shutoff valve that allows us to completely shut off the shower, however, I would have expected it to be a soldered valve, not a compression valve.  Just the way I would do my plumbing.

Wednesday, Thursday and part of Friday were drywall. The only hiccup here was that, when the building was built, we gather that not all the walls were up before the drywall went in, so something to do with the corners were missing.  That was fixed pretty easily and you can see the bathroom take shape.

That said, the next mistake the drywaller made was to hide the smaller valve and make the other two accessible after we had discussions with the contractor where we said there now had to be two access panels.  You can see this in the last picture.  “Oh but you can access it by hand” – Yeah, and when it starts leaking because you used a compression valve and have to tear out my wall?  I don’t think so!

Today was the last of the drywall and a look at the electrical.  We are adding two potlights – one to the shower area, one to the main bathroom and we’re also having to move the main light up due to the mirror we ordered.  We also wanted to change the fan in the bathroom as it’s actually a useless central fan that sucks from the bathroom and laundry room.

It was suggested by the building manager that we could change the fan and put in a more high powered one in the bathroom, but the concern is that fan will then suck the air into the laundry room, which we don’t want.  So the guys are going to look at replacing the fan we have with a more higher powered one which I’m all thumbs up about.  Good choice!  Now maybe we can find a nicer grating for the bathroom vent. 🙂

I think the lights are going to look great, and you can see an example of the tile we have chosen and the blue-glass accent tile we chose.  We’re not sure if it’s going to go as high as it is, or if it will be a bit lower at this point.  Scott will discuss with the tiler on Monday.

Probably the last item we were asked about were the marble dividers we have between the bathroom and the hallway door, as well the bedroom door – there are two doors to the bathroom.  The contractor asked, “You are planning to get rid of the marble dividers right?”.  Scott mentioned that it could be replaced with the tile and a metal strip.

Need less to say, my email to the contractor included said:

“I just wanted to be clear and I feel very strongly about this – one of the big selling points to me, about the condo, was actually those marble strips.

Taking out the marble and replacing it with tile and metal strip then, to me that is not an acceptable change to me.  “

After getting pictures of the tile on the floor next to the dividers and the carpet, both Scott and I agree that it doesn’t look too bad.  I’m very glad when they were taking out the tile to the floor that they did not go and were not broken as well.  Needless to say, if they do get broken when the tiles are being placed, the contractor will have to replace them.  Period.  Can you say I feel strongly about this?

The paint colour chosen is “Agreeable Grey”.  I was worried that this will make the bathroom feel colder, pulling out the grey in the tile rather than the earth/tan/brown tones but based on what Scott and our contractor have both said, it should be alright.  I’m putting my trust in their hands.  After looking at it one more time on the computer, I think it will look good.

After Monday, we should have tile on the wall, grouting and then a new bathroom by Wednesday or Thursday!  One week later, I’ll see it for the first time.

Scott and I have started our bathroom renovation today with the tearing down of our shower and bath, removal of the vanity, and floor tiles.  We’re using Attention To Detail Contracting Services.

Tomorrow is plumbing and electrical day.  We’re adding two pot lights and completely changing our shower layout.

We’ve only had one miscommunication on the project so far around who was going to order the actual faucets for the shower and sink.  As a result, we’re a bit nervous about a diverter that we need as we’re installing a shower head and a hand held unit.  We can’t get the diverter unit from Home Depot or Lowes, so the contractor is looking for the diverter we want tomorrow.  If not, it will delay part of the plumbing.

Beyond that, we’re REALLY happy with everything so far.  The teardown crew were VERY professional, they were quick and clean for such a messy job.  Kudos!

Below are the faucet sets we choose – Kohler Cavata, and we’re adding Kohler Flipside shower heads.  The sink faucet was selected to be purposely high so that Scott can wash his hands and arms for his practice more effectively.  I like the modern look.