remodel Archives

Oh Oh! After the cabinet guys left I discovered that shelves in the new cabinets (not the refaced ones) were unstable. My observation … they are too narrow but I am not a cabinet maker.

Even so they need to be stabilized so they don’t fall down all the time. I called the 800 customer care line and explained my problem. They said they would let the project manager know and have him call me. That was yesterday morning.

7 am my phone rang. The counter folks were early! They were out front and ready to start the installation. I told them give me 5 minutes to get dressed and I’ll let you in. By 9 am the big pieces were in. It took another 2 hours for the back splashes, holes for the facet etc on the sink and the caulk. I don’t know how anyone else will feel about the counters but I absolutely love them!

Such an improvement over the old white counters. The greens in the pattern match the soft green of the cabinets perfectly too. You never know if that tiny sample will really look as good in real life as it did in your imagination.

Everything has to set and dry so the plumber won’t be out until Monday. 🙁

About 9:30 the phone rang again. It was the project manager. I explained the problem with the shelves to him and he said he’d send the cabinet guys back…if not today he’d send them Saturday. I told him I could wait til Monday because I needed to go shopping Saturday for new shelf liners and a few other things to organize the cabinets. I want to start putting stuff away.

I scheduled the tile install with him for Wednesday and Friday. I guess they do all the tile first then come back the next day to caulk. Since Thursday is Thanksgiving we’re going to do Wednesday and Friday. The kitchen will be functional to cook even if its not 100% done.

This is dragging out longer than they told me but it’s partly my fault. I couldn’t go Monday – Friday because of work commitments on Thursday. That made the job spill over to Monday.

The tile people could have come Monday but I want to add another outlet near the stove so my electrician needs to get here to put in the box for the outlet before they tile. I need to give him time to come in first. I am scheduled to work in the Foxboro office on Tuesday so can’t have anyone here then so Wednesday was the only logical choice. But we are making progress!

Hello again everyone. Work is beginning to slow down for the agents. It hasn’t for me yet because we still have a lot of closings in the pipeline. Once those are done my lull will begin.

In the meantime I had the representative from Home Depot out to look at my kitchen and give me options. I’d considered several local firms but they were really expensive. Then I saw a home that had been done by Home Depot. I couldn’t believe it. It was beautiful. I think of Home Depot as DIY but they have a whole crew for remodels and like my company, they are paid on customer satisfaction.

At first I was going to do a remodel and knock down a wall, pull out all the cabinets and so on but there was a hitch. The electrical panel in my unit wasn’t up to code. To do a remodel would mean redoing the electric in the unit. Very expensive on top of the remodel cost plus we’d have to pull permits for all the work.Work that requires permits can be tricky if you want to sell. I’ve run across that more than once when getting the documents together for a closing.

So option 2. Leave the wall, and do a “Reface”. It’s not much less than a remodel but it doesn’t require permits. I liked that idea better than adding an extra $10 K to the project so I picked out new doors, hardware, back splash, tile, counters and wrote a very big check. Still I can see what it will look like in my minds eye. It will be so different and I’ll be able to open the drawers without them cracking and breaking in my hands!

About a week after the salesman was out I got a call from the estimator. The salesman had measured but this guy was out to confirm the measurements and my choices of color, tile etc. Good thing because the wrong tile was on the order. We caught that and made the correction. This guy was very meticulous.

I’ve got one more appointment before they can start. The counter top people have to come out and make templates. They will be here on Friday. I requested that day off so I can get everything off the counters and round up the cats while they work and measure.

Once the work starts it is expected to take 1 week. They start on Monday and finish on Friday. I can’t wait!