It’s been a while I know, and in the meantime real life has been so agonizingly real that the problems of three (or more) little kitchen appliances don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
But it’s getting on for evening, and in our house the sun has definitely passed over the yardarm, so perhaps a little renovation schadenfreude might suit y’all just fine.
So here’s the current look:
Those of you familiar with the renovation rhythm will recognize this phase. We’re really in the end game. The cabinets are in and … wait for it … almost all the trim has been fitted. The appliances (all but one) have been placed — not hooked up, mostly — but placed. The painters are doing their thing, the electrician is scheduled and … you get the drill.
And yet, inevitably, what I blithely label an ending is not a matter of the number of actual days the different crafts have to do to complete the project. It is, of course, the number of weeks it will take to get the guys in for the day here and the day there to do all the bits and pieces.
We’ve already been hammered by that. The key, as everyone who’s done this kind of thing knows deep in the bone, is that first stumble off the neat center line of the project. Or, to put it into the SNAFU military frame familiar to many here, every renovation reaffirms the eternal truth: no plan survives first contact with the enemy. This particular enemy is, of course, the effrontery of wood and stone and flooring and all the other bits that don’t miraculously assemble themselves.
As late as November 5th or so, everyone involved thought we had a reasonable shot at a working kitchen by Thanksgiving. Now, today, we got a sink plumbed, with the dispose-all to be hooked up Friday — maybe. As for the rest…
It’ll come. It all will happen. We’ll likely have ovens on Friday. The stove will take longer, as we have a little code problem that will take a bit of carpentry to fix (don’t ask). And….
Never mind. Everyone who’s entered renovation hell knows this story, and it’s never an interesting one, no matter how often it gets retold. This job will likely be actually done, no one coming back, everything in and working, by sometime in January. Could be February — wouldn’t surprise me. It’s a minimum of a 50% schedule fail on a four month job. Par for the course.
When it’s all finished, we’ll be able as a family to do what we truly love: cook and cook and cook and cook for friends and friends and friends and friends. If in the meantime y’all get a bit of vicarious pleasure at knowing that the eternal verities of construction remain true…so much the better.
Last — and I mean last: we’ve been pretty good this going-on-for-half-a-year at cooking interesting, enjoyable meals on a hot plate, an electric frying pan, and a gas grill. But we’ve been beaten down. Tonight was supposed to be spatchcocked chicken roasted on the grill, but it’s pissing down with a steady, penetrating drizzle and it’s cold and it’s late, and f**k it sideways. We give up: pizza is on its way.
And I’m not ashamed.
So there.
And really last (no I’m not joking) — the obligatory soundtrack to a post about attending on the arrival of Godot’s scullion:
SiubhanDuinne
This is why I rent.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
The worst construction trauma was helping my parents install crown molding on the ceiling of the front room of their house. At one point I wanted to just sit down and cry from all of the problems we were having.
It looks good now, but if that crown molding could talk, it would have a tale of tears and blood as part of its heritage.
Howard Beale IV
Obligatory 24-day old live kittehs
Iowa Old Lady
The front porch of our first house was made of stones and was coming apart. The guy we hired to fix it tore it all down and went away for two years, leaving stones all over our front yard. No one else would touch it because the stones had to be fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. A lawyer friends claimed any jury of homeowners in the world would vote for the death penalty.
Finally, we got a guy to do it, though we had to wait while he went to China first on some sort of peace mission.
CrustyDem
In my last kitchen remodel (which I hope to hell was my LAST kitchen remodel), where you’re at now was at least 2 months from a functional kitchen. Contractors slowed to a snails pace. I finally fired them and finished myself.. Fuckers did beautiful work on cabinets, drywall, painting, etc – couldn’t figure out appliances and trim worth a damn. Very odd…
Suzanne
In my experience administrating construction and renovation projects, I have found that it’s not the inevitable problems that are disappointing, but the unrealistic expectations. Contractors do a shitty job, IME, with expectations management. They typically do their schedules based on having no problems come up. But there are always, always problems. Especially in the NE, with homes of that vintage, especially around the holidays, especially when needing to coordinate multiple trades. If owners just accepted from the get-go that it will take longer than they want, they would be happier, but the GCs don’t want to disappoint. I always talk to my clients about that upfront. I figure they’d rather hear bad news sooner rather than later.
raven
And here we are, 18 months after breaking ground, and the unmarked sewer, on our addition. The re-routed sewer has been surveyed, designed, bid upon, contracted and the city dude tells me all they need is two easements signed by a neighbor who should benefit by getting the sewer out from under his house. The word is they will start excavation after the 1st of the year and it should take about a month. Our contractor emailed the building permit people and they said our original would be good until June. SO we hope the work on the addition will start in late February. Waiting indeed.
John Weiss
Tom, I feel your pain. I mean, really!
We’re working on our little bit of Paradise as well: new bamboo floors, new kitchen cabinets, lovely granite countertops, new stove, reefer. Looks lovely! It only took four months for that. Then, new bathroom, lovely! Replaced the shitty manufactured home trim and doors, That only took a couple of months Another bathroom in the offing, some closet doors a skylight and an eyebrow over the front porch yet to go. Maybe June next year?
That’s nuttin’. I bought a house in Dallas many years ago; it was built in 1905. A ‘craftsman bungalow’. I spent most of the time I wasn’t working gently remodeling it. Thirty some-odd years at it, maybe three of them without a kitchen. Thanks whomever that this time around the house is much smaller and we can afford to hire help.
Like I said, I feel your pain.
raven
@Suzanne: Our contractor has congratulated us on our patience and perseverance a number of times over the past year-and-a-half.
JCJ
I hope the pizza was good!
raven
@efgoldman: Same as with the doctor that said I might never walk again after I shattered my left leg into 18 fragments. And the orthopod that said my broken back might render me paralyzed.
raven
@efgoldman: Not really, the frost line is 12 inches and they have to go 18 feet deep with the new sewer line.
raven
satby
I remodeled a kitchen in my Chicago house, which took almost exactly the 6 months they said it would. Completely gutted and redone, with 4 kids and a roommate to cook on a grill and Nuwave oven for. What they don’t admit when you’re ready to sign the paperwork is how much of that 6 months would be spent with no one showing up to do anything for days. Then they’d be there 2 days and disappear again for a week. But they finished just about exactly when they said they would.
And I’m still paying the HELOC off.
raven
@satby: How’s the idea that my contractor doesn’t do written contracts! He’s done renovations and new home building for a number of our friends so we feel ok about it.
Tom Levenson
@efgoldman: Yes. And your point is? (weeps into his cups).
divF
Went through this 13+ years ago, and have now reached the point where there are multiple small-to-medium maintenance problems all happening at once. Leaky faucet, gasket on refrigerator needs replacing, dishwasher repair or replace (can’t tell which), and refinish the cabinetwork just below the sink because of the water damage from my over-exuberant pot-walloping.
I still love it. At the time, I told myself that that this was going to be way better than a sports car, and I was right. So hang in there, you’re almost over the finish line.
opiejeanne
I hear you, Tom. We were in the same boat last year just before Thanksgiving. And now, the electric wall oven we added specifically for baking has been out of service since early October, not even a year old, and we are waiting on a part that has been promised since the 22nd. Of October. It was then supposed to be in town the day after Thanksgiving. Now they say they are expediting it, which means they will drop it in the mail on Friday (we called them on Monday of this week).
I am so damned mad right now I’m about to buy another oven and write a really nasty letter to Whirlpool about their customer support for their KitchenAid appliances. It’s not like this is an old product, something that has become obsolete; they still make this exact same model.
I will keep quiet until the part is installed, and then some people are going to have some really hot letters from me…. unless that part doesn’t arrive at the repair company’s shop next week.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I’m tired of all of the cat fights. No, literally, two of our three cats are fighting and have to be kept separated right now. I’m hanging out in the bedroom with the perpetrator right now.
Good news is, there’s nothing much that’s physically wrong with Keaton, except for being constipated. But we have to find a place to put a litter box where Charlotte can’t block access to both boxes at once.
Davebo
Been there, done that but it is worth it!
For me what was most frustrating is the thousands of decisions you have to make that you never thought of when you decided a new kitchen would be nice to have.
Most embarrassing was me laying into my contractor when a double light switch had one that went down to turn on while the one in the same fixture had to be up for it’s light to come one. He listened to me whine about it patiently then calmly explained about how I’d asked him to add a second switch for the same circuit in the laundry room.
Still, the best 60k I ever spent. If you are going to dump money into remodeling the kitchen is the place to do it!
Tom Levenson
@Davebo: @divF: @John Weiss: Thanks to you folks and all here sending good vibes. It’s truly such a first world problem, and we do know that we’ll forget the annoyances very quickly. It’s just that, as I’ve always said, anyone who announces they can’t complain isn’t trying hard enough.
@JCJ: it was. Bertucci’s, doctored with some home-sautéed onions and peppers.
divF
@Tom Levenson:
That’s the good thing about BJ: here, you can complain.
Shana
I’ve commented a couple of times when you’ve posted about your remodel, but here’s our update: Broke ground January 7th for an addition to our kitchen with weatherized storage room below the addition. Cold prevented progress on cement block storage room and the contractor never got up to speed once the weather warmed (we’re in Northern Virginia). Went to mediation with the contractor in early May. Worked out a payment for progress schedule. They never reached a point where we owed them any more money. Fired them in mid-September. Hired a replacement contractor who powered through the rest of the project. We’re virtually done (some outside painting and a couple of details need to be finished).
Through the wonders of the internet we’ve found four other families who were similarly screwed by the original contractor. We’ve all been defrauded to some extent (paying deposits on material that was never ordered, $12,000 for windows and doors in our case, to cite just one example). Fortunately we’ve found a detective at the police dept. who’s taking the fraud charges seriously so there may be charges filed. The original contractor seems to have filed for bankruptcy and reorganized under the wife’s license. The next year should be fun.
BTW, the kitchen looks like it will be fantastic when all is done. Pictures please.
Violet
@raven: If you hadn’t shown up in the thread, I was going to say you had to win some kind of award for difficulties encountered and patience and determination in the face of significant challenges. Your story has been really convoluted.
BruceFromOhio
@Shana:
This. And glad that you have a kitchen.
satby
@raven: oy! You’re a brave man.
Tree With Water
I love the look and style of those cabinets. Good eye, good call..
BGinCHI
I remember that heady day in 1998 when you started that job.
Good times.
NotMax
Hmm. The cabinets with the glass fronts look attractive but having them abut the ceiling rather than have their tops even with the top lintels of the windows appears unbalanced, at least when seen in the picture.
Also curious if that is a towel rack on the left cabinet (hard to tell, could be a mug rack). If so, towels/dishcloths hanging down over the outlets is gonna be a minor but constant inconvenience.
wenchacha
We were hurrying to fithe baby nish the kitchen floor before the baby was born. We had put down a floor, but it wasn’t sufficient as a subfloor, and suddenly, we needed that work done before we could install the cheap, but attractive wood parquet flooring. The job required an epoxy that really gave off the fumes. The city was breathing down our necks to do the glueing, I was pregnant and incensed, and afraid of the fumes.
In the end, we stayed a few nights at the in-laws, floor got done, and the baby arrived with no obvious symptoms of epoxy poisoning. All’s well that ends well.
A Japanese friend was gushing over the expansive kitchen we have in our 50s era ranch home. She said the typical Japanese kitchens aren’t much more than galley-size. I feel kind of silly for seeing my kitchen as inadequate, now. It’s not a room for entertaining more than 6 people at most, and that’s a stretch.
Still, I like hearing about your new space. It sounds like a great place for visiting with friends. I hope it finishes without too many more hiccups.
JustRuss
I remodeled our kitchen a few years ago, using assemble-yourself cabinets from Ikea. If you think waiting for a contractor is bad, try installing a half dozen cabinets then realizing something isn’t quite right and you need to start over. Good times. Still have a few trim pieces that need to get installed.
I must say your cabinets look lovely.
Montarvillois
Had my 50-year old 10 x 10 kitchen renovated this year by a good contractor I had used before, but because he is good and honest he has bigger jobs going on and I was far from top priority. Anyway 6 months from start to finish. The final product is lovely but never want to go through a kitchen reno again. Cabinets are KraftMaid and the installation which took only a matter of hours was arranged by Home Depot.
beergoggles
And this is why it’s just easier to teach yourself how to do all this.
I’ve done 3 kitchen renovations (and many other home improvement projects) that have not lasted longer than a month after the materials arrived. The only thing that required professionals was the stone countertops and undermount sink install (and I had to go in after that and do the disposal hookup and install sink supports so the undermount sink brackets and seal wouldn’t break later on due to heavy things being placed in the sink).
Now that sharkbite connectors and pex are code approved for home use it makes things like plumbing even easier for the DIYer.
beergoggles
@JustRuss: Ikea cabinets must be the easiest to take down since they mount on rails, so you can individually adjust them or just unscrew them from the rail and remove them. The only way I’ve seen to screw up that install is if you mounted the rail off level or crooked..