Kitchen Re-Do: Construction Done. Now Comes the Hard Part

Our kitchen has been re-floored, re-tiled, re-countered, re-plumbed, re-wired, re-painted and re-built.

The construction phase of the kitchen re-do is over!

This is just some of the kitchen stuff I must now trash or treasure

Now comes the hard part. I have to put everything back. Kitchen stuff is strewn across two rooms of our house. Glasses, plates, pots, pans, enough cleaning supplies to make the Trump Tower sparkle, utensils, coffee cups…the list goes on and on.

Before returning all this stuff I am going to sort through it and discard unneeded items following the advice of the latest cleaning guru, Marie Kondo. She says to only keep things that “spark joy.” There go the cleaning supplies. The wine glasses definitely stay.

I will post a final picture once everything is back in the kitchen and decorative touches have been added. Believe me, it might be a while.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the wonderful contractors who made it all possible.

John Norton, owner of CT Carpet One, job foreman Julio, and Ron celebrate completing the new tile floor

The young men from Clean Sweep were invaluable during the tear now phase and preparing the kitchen for new improvements.

John , supervisor from Countertop Solutions, makes sure all measurements are accurate before ordering final counter tops and tile.

the tile guys from Countertop Solutions apply the tile backsplash to the kitchen

The plumbers from Charles Town Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning worked long and hard to get the plumbing reconfigured for the new sink.

The true hero of the kitchen re-do: my husband Ron who primed and re-painted the entire kitchen, replaced door knobs and hinges, installed ceiling fan and new light fixtures, and worked side by side with every contractor.

Kitchen Re-Do: Who needs a laser when I have a yardstick?

My husband assigned me the task of measuring a piece of wall covering for inside a kitchen closet. He gave me the dimensions and provided the most up to date measuring devices we have here at Federal

I can get down on the floor but can i get up???

Hill Farm: a yardstick from a hardware store that went out of business in 1979, a retractable tape measure and a pencil.

The picture shows me hunkered down on the floor performing my assignment. I learned two things from this experience:

Number 1: at my age, getting down on the floor is easier than getting up. As I measured and drew the lines using my trusty yardstick, my knees locked. In order to get up, I had to roll to my side and pull myself up using a nearby chair as ballast.

Number 2: I need to get to the gym if my ass is REALLY as big as it appears in the photo.

The construction crew uses a more modern technique to measure and draw a level line. They use a

Using a laser to mark an even line.

laser beam. This technique offers the advantage of allowing you to stand upright.

It was not a laser but a tape measure in the skilled hands of our countertop expert John from Countertop Solutions who detected a design mis-calculation. A 3/4 inch difference between two surfaces made it impossible for the stone countertop to lay even. Thirty years ago a layer of plywood evened the two surfaces but for some engineering reason I truly do not understand (I was a liberal arts major), this same solution would not work given the new countertop material. As John intoned, “There is no give in stone.”

Ron, John and Austin from Clean Cut Construction whipped out their tape measures and old-fashioned levels to devise a solution. They decided to cut down the higher side of the surface, carefully working around electrical outlets, the central vac apparatus and a phone jack. Disaster averted.

Lesson learned from this episode? When it comes to kitchen remodeling, success can be measured in inches.

The new countertops successfully overcome design challenges.

Kitchen Re-Do: The new tile is on the floor and my husband is in the sink

The biggest upgrade in our kitchen re-do is replacing the floor.

Our current floor covering (the brick pattern) dates back to 1983 and the turquoise speckled covering was installed by Ron’s parents in the 1950’s. The subflooring goes back even further. Our house was built in the 1860’s by

Layers of flooring from years past

George Eichelberger who happened to be the foreman in the trial of John Brown.

The kitchen was built separately from the house as was the style in that era. Separation afforded the main house some protection in case of a kitchen fire. Ron’s family enclosed the gap between the kitchen and main house when Ron was a boy.

As you know by now, kitchen décor is not my thing so I relied on my friend/designer Leanne Cobb to pick the flooring that matched my two design criteria: warm color, easy to clean. I also did not want anything in the Country Kitchen motif. I did that for 30 years and I wanted something more modern.

The crew from C.T. Walls & Floors, led by Julio, spent hours and hours over three days to install the tile. The tile can be seen in the picture below.

Ron, intent on repainting the kitchen, did not let a crew of three working in the kitchen,

cutting, fitting tile and moving kitchen appliances to interfere with his task. He avoided the floor installation by standing in the cabinet base for the sink as he paints.

Ron continues painting, despite a crew of three laying tile around him

Our kitchen re-do is about halfway finished. My days of washing dishes in the tub are almost over.