DIY Home Renovations Week 9 - Here Kitchen, Kitchen, Kitchen

Guess what happened this week for our DIY home renovations?

The flooring is finished on the main floor! Also, I HAVE KITCHEN CABINETS!!!!!! There are not enough exclamation points to express how happy I am to have the kitchen installed even if I do have to adjust my original plan to accommodate the load bearing bulkhead. The installers from Castle Kitchens- who I ordered my cabinets from were absolutely fantastic and modified the floor to ceiling pantry on site so it fits in now, all I have left to do is order a new door for it and decide what I want to do with the empty space in the corner where one of the upper cabinets was supposed to go. I can’t decide if I should order two different cupboards to fill the space or leave it and put in open concept shelving. I’m hoping to make a decision about it next week. If I want to order more cabinets then it will be an 8 week wait so I’d prefer to place the order sooner rather than later. I’ll call next week and schedule the appliance delivery; cabinet handles have been ordered and should be in next week so I need to choose a countertop company and place an order and then the kitchen will be complete!

On the note of the kitchen, I have to make a decision about the pantry I purchased on marketplace, I really want it upstairs but messes with the flow of the main floor in terms of sightlines and wall space available for storage etc. Did I mention that I also added a new project to the to do list? After moving the island around a few times, we damaged the bottom of the island which I was bummed about, I also wasn’t a fan of the detailing on it in the first place. I was staring at it and a lightbulb went off in my head, and I asked myself “why don’t you just change the design? You already built an accent wall, take the same materials and build a different pattern on the island that will hide the damage”. So that’s my new plan. As if we didn’t have enough to do already, right? Ha!

Other much smaller victories, but victories nonetheless, include the master bedroom door and the girls closet doors being hung up. The rest of my door handle hardware arrived so I can actually use the doors but naturally the simple project of putting hardware on has created a new project, we have to cut the trim to make room for the door close hardware (probably the worst explanation, I’m sorry). Now that some of these smaller finishes are going on the house is really starting to come together and I’m loving it! I’m definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the main floor.

There are still several small but time-consuming projects that must be completed before the upstairs is totally done, like

• Finishing installing trim

• Caulking and painting the trim

• Putting a second coat on the accent wall and island

• Fixing a few spots on the walls where new holes have been created from the electrician

• Switching out the discoloured light switches and outlets

• Setting up closet storage

• Installing the rest of the light fixtures

• Building a custom barn door for my walk-in closet

• Building a hood range cover for the kitchen

• Install light switch covers and other decorative finishes

This feels like huge progress!

The basement is a whole other can of worms. I try not to go down there because it makes it seem like we haven’t done anything even though I know we’ve been working really hard to get the basement done as well. While the kitchen cabinets were being installed, I retreated to the basement, close enough to answer questions but far enough away to get work done without constantly going, “oh my goodness it looks amazing, I’m so excited to see it all finished, you guys are doing a great job!”. I relocated all of the supplies that were in the family room and managed to vacuum a third of the room before having to go home and watch the girls again.

Hopefully we’ll be starting to floor the basement next week, at least in the family room. It will be nice to get more of the flooring boxes out of the way and it will finally make it seem like we’ve made progress in the basement. I’m also hopeful the electrician and plumber will be back next week to finish all that they need to do so we can drywall the back half of the basement and then it will feel like we’re in the home stretch!